FIVE YEARS LATER

Tommy

I finally understand the words to that Aerosmith song.

After years of my dad doing his terrible impression of Steven Tyler to my mom while we drove through the mountains, I get it.

Don't want to close my eyes

I don't want to fall asleep

'cause I'd miss you baby

and I don't want to miss a thing.

Those words fill my heart as I watch my daughter sleeping blissfully in her bed.

She's sleeping away, dreaming about everything magical because that's all she's ever known. And as I stare at my beautiful daughter, I can't help but count the similarities that she has to my wife— her mother, Kimberly.

Brielle's flawless porcelain skin, and pink, round cheeks, drive me crazy. When she gives me a toothy grin, where she scrunches her perfectly upturned nose, I melt. The little curl of light brown hair that she has shines like gold when the sun hits it just right. She has me wrapped around her tiny little finger and she only just turned one. I often sneak into her nursery just to watch her sleep. To see those little smiles she gives when she's dreaming. It's like a moment of magic that we share in private.

I hope no one breaks her heart. I hope no one is dumb enough to hurt her like I hurt her mother. Because I don't think I'll be able to contain myself.

I'd march to that little shits house and bring hell just like Jason had done to me. The memory of him yelling at me in the hotel lobby while everyone watched still haunts me to this day. He'd shoved me against the wall, spitting every profanity under the sun at me while I took it all. I didn't like hearing it, but I knew that I had to.

My only regret with that was that I wish it had happened sooner. I wish I would have opened up to him on that very first day and told him what was going on. Maybe it would have saved more hearts. What I did to both Kimberly and Giselle was wrong.

Then I think back to Giselle and how she slapped at my chest when I told her the truth and she begged me to tell her I was lying. I wasn't. She cursed me out in Spanish, and although I didn't understand a word, I knew I was probably exactly what she said. So she hates me, her family hates me, and I'm sure her brother will have a few words for me in the afterlife. But I couldn't deny my heart any longer.

In the end, it was Trini that brought peace to the situation. At the time I wasn't sure if Kimberly mentioned any of it to her before she left Greece, but Trini was the most understanding of the position I had found myself in. She hugged me, told me to not lose focus on what I wanted, and to fight to the death because Kimberly is as hard-headed as I am.

It worked out. Kimberly and I hurt those around us, but I can't live in the past. We had to both learn to forgive ourselves for the pain that we caused and move forward together.

When I came back from my last deployment nine months later, Kimberly and I picked up right where we had left off ten years prior. Except this time, I kept my word. She ended up relocating to Reefside while I was gone, and although I had never thought of living anywhere but Angel Grove, I had to follow my heart. Her. The day that I came back, I went to Jason and Trini's house, grabbed the small box of things that I had stored there, and made the drive with Kimberly back to Reefside. We moved in together that day and haven't spent a night apart since.

Sure we drive each other insane on some days, but the love never wavers. When the time came for me to propose to her, I did it right.

There was no pressure to make it extravagant, no public declaration of our love, and no journey to take her on where the possibilities of something going wrong would rise. It was simple and exactly like us. Just one day while we were in the middle of making dinner.

I got down on one knee, told her how much she meant to me and how badly I wanted that future with her. When I was finished, we were both in tears, holding each other as tightly as possible while our dinner burned in the background. Our house smelled like ash for a year.

"You have to stop staring," Kimberly whispers, wrapping her arms around my waist from behind. "She's safe. It's only nap time. She'll be up in an hour terrorizing all of her cousins."

I let out a small smile and give myself permission to pry my eyes away from Brielle and focus my attention on my wife. "You're right. I just…" words fail me, "look at her!"

Kimberly giggles softly and then plants a kiss on my shoulder. "She's perfect, isn't she?"

My chest expands with pride, as if somehow I had a say at all in how perfect she turned out, "The most."

I still remember Kimberly and I impatiently waiting to read the results on that pregnancy test. We had been trying for six months with no success. She had been so nervous to check the results, so I picked up the test and read the results with tears burning behind my eyes. It was positive. Nine months after that, we had Brielle and there hasn't been a dull day since.

With one final look, I turn around and wrap an arm around Kimberly's waist and escort her out. As we make the steps out of our room, I see our friends laughing on the deck of the catamaran with their growing families. We're back in Greece to celebrate Jason's thirty-fifth birthday.

And for a brief moment, I get a flashback to the first time we were here five years ago. How different things were between all of us and how we knew nothing of all of the good that was to come. Jason had been wanting to come back to Greece every year since his thirtieth birthday, but something always came up. He had his wedding during his thirty-first. The birth of his and Trini's son, Julian, for his thirty-second. Kimberly and I got married around his thirty-third, not to mention Rocky and Aisha welcoming their son, Luca. For his thirty-fourth, Trini gave birth to their daughter, Amelia. And of course, Kimberly followed just a few weeks after that with Brielle. We were all growing and expanding. Zack even decided to start dating seriously, instead of his usual one-night-stands.

Life had never been better.

"The little terrorizer finally down?" Jason asked, a smirk on his lips as he takes a sip of his drink.

He's talking about my bad-ass one-year-old. Brielle has the liveliest personality, totally outgoing and carefree, just like her mother.

"Let's see how long the nap lasts," I shake my head. "And Amelia?" I ask when I note that my daughter's best friend is missing.

"Trini is trying to get her to take a nap," he sips his beer. Then his three-year-old son Julian makes a run down the deck and Jason runs after him in an attempt to keep him from jumping overboard. The little one squeals with laughter while Jason drags him back to the chair, "I'm telling you, man. Enjoy just having one right now. I'm going to run out of arms if Trini and I have another one."

"And when she's two," Rocky whistles, before taking a swig of his bottle, "They're wild."

Aisha laughs, "Don't let him scare you, Tommy. Luca and Julian just took after their fathers."

I chuckle. He does have his hands full but the thought of Kimberly and me expanding our family excites me. We had talked about this before and we decided on waiting until Brielle is a little bit older before we have more children, but that's not to say we wouldn't welcome a child sooner.

I scan the deck and find Kimberly sunbathing on a net. The time difference has hit her harder than me. She's been spending a lot of time sleeping on the trip, finding a short nap any chance that she gets. Instantly, I get a flashback to five years ago. She had been laying down alone, more gorgeous than I had ever seen, but our relationship strained. The guild had been eating me up inside at how unbelievably attracted to her I had been. She was and still continues to be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

As I get closer to her, I catch sight of her with one arm behind her head and the other extended in front of her, her thumb twisting the wedding ring on her finger. And such an intimate moment makes me smile because I've caught myself doing that too. Early in the morning, when I'm sipping my coffee and reading the newspaper on the porch, I also catch sight of the ring that she placed on my finger… and for a moment, I can't believe it. I feel like I've been transported to another dimension or I'm living in the best dream and I never want to wake up.

"Room for one more?" I ask.

She looks up at me and gives me that gorgeous smile that I love. "Of course."

She makes some room for me by scotching to the side a little bit and I take the empty spot beside her, the net swaying just a little when I settle.

We lay in silence for a minute, the water below us misting our skin. This is the vacation we should have always had.

"What has you so quiet?" I kiss her shoulder and she smiles against me.

"Just the last time we were here." She grows quiet for a moment. "I'd hoped we be here. How we are now… The life that we share."

I know exactly what she's thinking because I had been thinking it too. The entire time I had been sitting beside her, years ago when I was fooling myself into believing that we truly could be friends, I had been wishing that I could be dropped into a universe where we had gotten it right from the start. All I wanted to do was wrap my arms around her and kiss her. I wanted to be brave and if by some miracle she would be brave too, she'd kiss me back.

"I know," I bring her fingers to my lips and place a kiss on the tips. "But we're here now and that's all that matters."

"What were you envisioning for us?" She asks me.

I don't even have to think about it. "What we have now but more."

"More?" She laughs, "What do you mean?"

I think about it a little to get my wording right. "I don't know, like, more. More of us. More of our family. Definitely a bigger house."

We had purchased a home on the outskirts of Reefside right after we had gotten married with every intention of renovating it. We have done most rooms, and it worked fine once we had Brielle, but now that she started walking, we realized just how quickly we're outgrowing it. Our lot is large enough where we can expand, but I'm tired of remodeling. We both have well-paying jobs, I think it's time that we move on to bigger and better things.

"That's what you were picturing?" She smiles.

"Well, not exactly. Okay, obviously I pictured us together— married."

She nods.

"And what else?"

"We were world travelers. We had seen everything there was to see. I never left and majored in something insane, like… paleontology or something."

She throws her head back and laughs. I do too.

"Hey, don't knock my vision." I tease.

Her laugh diminishes and she prompts me to continue.

"Anyway, you would have used your degree and opened up… a flower shop."

"Hmmm," She says as if thinking about it. "That doesn't sound too bad."

I smile.

"Is that all?"

"We'd have six kids by now."

Kimberly's eyes widen and then she laughs, "Six?"

"And counting."

I know that sounds insane, but I've always envisioned that big family. For a while I thought that it wasn't in the cards for me. I didn't think that I had it in me to find someone that wanted that future as well. Then I met Giselle and I knew she wanted the same things, but the hard truth was that the longer I spent with her, the more I realized that the only person I wanted that future with was Kimberly. Now I can't stop picturing bikes sprawled out on the lawn, shoes trailing around the house, fingerprints on the walls, and art projects proudly displayed on the refrigerator. I want all of that with Kimberly. Kids jumping on the bed at six in the morning to wake us up, staying up late wrapping Christmas presents so they have a magical morning, all the milestones. I'll take a loud day over a quiet one.

She grows quiet for a moment and then she turns towards me, "What if that future isn't that far off?"

My head bobs back just a little. I'm not entirely sure if I heard her correctly. "What do you mean?"

"The counting part," her eyes meet mine.

Before I even register what she said, I'm sitting up. She does too. The counting part? Does that mean…?

I raise a brow, my eyes dropping to her stomach and then back to hers. "Are you…"

I can't even get the words out. In the next moment, she's nodding, tears building in the corner of her eyes.

"You're pregnant?"

"Yes," her hand covers her mouth, hiding her gorgeous smile.

I chuckle, my world spinning. "What?"

"I'm sorry," she shakes her head. "I know this isn't what we planned. I wanted to tell you sooner but I was just so nervous."

"Don't be sorry," I kiss her, feeling my heart growing to make room for another soul to love, "Don't ever be sorry about this."

My arms wrap around her small frame and I bury my head in her neck. "Thank you," I whisper. "Thank you for making me a dad all over again."

She nods against me, "Ellie is going to be a big sister."

I release her enough to see her face and I gently wipe the tears away with the pad of my thumb. "How long have you known?"

"I took it the night before we left, so a few days."

A few days? How did I not see the signs? She's been sleeping because she's been slowly growing us another child.

"We definitely need that bigger house now," I inhale deeply, grinning on release.

"You don't think this is too soon?"

I shake my head immediately, "I've waited for this life with you for so many years, Kim. I don't want to wait another minute."

"Seemed like forever, didn't it?"

Her fingers intertwine with mine, our foreheads pressing. I breathe her in, everything that she has given me. "Forever is just the beginning."

The end


Author note: Here is a little epilogue from me. I wanted to give you a little something from Tommy's POV. Hope you all enjoyed. I can't say thank you enough for reading my stories. I've had so much fun getting to write again after some time off. Thank you so much for following me on this journey of this story that I wanted to write. Thank you for reviewing and being as excited to read a new chapter as I am to write it. I read all of your kind reviews and PMs. I am often surprised by how far my stories have reached. There are people from all over the world and it is just an amazing honor. Thank you!