Join the Club - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,78

in dirt, sweat, and grime.

But it was worth it, watching Asa walk across the stage.

He stopped in the middle of the aisle and grinned widely at me.

Asa hadn’t decided to follow in my footsteps.

He’d decided to follow in his grandad’s, going into the Navy with the hopes of one day becoming a K-9 handler kind of like his mom.

With one last smile, he took his seat, and I started to make my way to my family.

I was climbing the bleachers when my eight-year-old son, Thomas, hit me.

Thomas grinned and climbed his way up my pants, then latched onto my neck.

I carried him the rest of the way up the bleachers and took Thomas’s place next to Delanie’s side.

She offered me a tear-stained kiss and leaned her head against my shoulder.

“That was sweet,” my wife said. “Right?”

My wife.

Still, to this day, it felt surreal to call her mine.

I loved the hell out of her, and it made my heart shine like a goddamn beacon when I thought of her.

Even after all these years, she was still my everything.

“Daddy, what’s a seven-letter-word for totally devoted to someone?” my youngest, Devon, asked.

Devon was seven, going on twenty-four, and acted so much like Asa that it was kind of terrifying.

Having one genius in the family was okay. Having two was downright terrifying.

When the two of them got together, I saw dollar signs. Not because of what they would one day accomplish, but of the schooling and education that I’d have to pay for.

Making sure that they could have everything so that they could succeed in life, to be all that they could be, was expensive.

“Whipped,” my oldest, Taylor, said.

Taylor was exactly like Booth and me. Brash and a brawler. Everything that we hoped our children never would be because we were wild hellions.

Taylor was us, though, reincarnated. And had the school record to prove it.

“That’s not seriously it,” Booth said as he looked at the paper that Devon had in his hand.

Booth and his children were shoved between my mom and dad.

Bell, Priscilla, Heath, Daniella, and their significant others were there, too.

Cousins and their families.

Our whole entire family.

We took up eight fuckin’ rows.

“…With that, I would like to introduce you to this year’s Kilgore Bulldog graduating class!” someone called.

I looked forward in time to see the entire student body throw their hats in the air.

All except for Asa who tucked his underneath his arm and started walking our way.

“He’s too cool for school,” Taylor joked.

I grinned at her.

He was.

Hours later, when I was finally getting my shower that I so desperately needed, I watched through the glass shower doors as my wife moved about in the closet.

Today marked the first day of June.

The day that she moved her calendar over.

“When are you going to stop that?” I called out.

Delanie grinned.

“You’ll always be my Mr. July, you know,” she teased as she moved my photo—the one that I’d posed for in the calendar all those years ago—to cover the photo of the newest month.

Every year she bought the SWAT calendar.

And every single month, she put my picture over the top of that month’s.

It was something that she’d done for such a long time that I didn’t even give it much thought anymore.

But, when I’d gotten home from bootcamp and discovered my photo hanging in her closet with Mr. August cut out and me covering him, I’d laughed.

At this point, I would like to say that nothing surprised me anymore, but I’d be lying.

Every single day she managed to surprise me.

And every single day, I loved her for it.

“Did you hear the news?” Delanie asked as she stripped out of her t-shirt.

My eyes took in her body.

Her sexy, beautiful body that had given me more children.

The body that didn’t have as tight of skin anymore, but still managed to bring me to my knees with just a touch.

“What news?” I asked as I opened the shower stall door for her.

We’d moved into our new house years ago, but the shower stall was new.

Delanie had begged for a door on her walk-in shower because she claimed she got cold when I was gone and not there to shower with her.

So I’d surprised her with it right before I’d left this time.

She hurried inside and plastered her body to mine, my dick instantly getting hard at the press of her body.

“Ellie had her baby,” she said. “And she and her man are finally getting married.”

Ellie had gone to jail.

For years.

In fact, I thought she’d be there a whole