loop every so often when he’d spoken to our opponent.
I knew he’d had a meeting with the man yesterday, and I suddenly thought I knew what was in the envelope April wanted to show me. Excitement whacked me like a truck to the chest. If it was what I thought it was, we’d finally be able to put all the worry about the custody suit behind us.
April’s eyes reflected my excitement when we stopped underneath a tree outside. The sky was blue, the lawn outside the building finally green again.
Despite the sounds of the city all around us, I could hear birds in the tree and Adi and Hunter laughing inside. It was one of those moments that would put us at a crossroads again. I knew I’d remember it for the rest of my life. The only question was whether the memory would be good or bad.
She slid the envelope out of her purse and handed it over. “It’s from Howard. Craig has signed over all of his parental rights to Adi.”
Unable to speak from the intensity of the relief I felt, I could only look at her. Thank God.
“We won, Chris,” she said, taking my hands. She dropped her head back and smiled as she breathed in deeply. “We really fucking won. I can’t believe it, but not one second of Adi’s time has to be spent with Craig. Howard got us everything we asked for and more.”
“I can believe we won.” I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close. “You’re the best mother anyone could ask for, baby. We were always going to win.”
Lifting her against my stomach, I spun her around and grinned as I looked up into her eyes. They were pinned to mine, happier and brighter than I’d ever seen them.
“I love you,” I said before setting her down.
“Love you too.” She kissed the tip of my nose, a relieved sigh coming out of her. “I don’t even know what we’re supposed to do right now. It feels so surreal that it’s over.”
“It’s over,” I promised, moving my one hand discreetly to my back pocket to make sure my wallet was still in there. “I have a few suggestions about what we could do right now too.”
She laughed and batted her eyelashes flirtatiously, lowering her voice when her laughter subsided. “We can’t do that right now. Adi’s here.”
“I like the way you think, but I wasn’t talking about that.” I reached into my wallet and closed my fingers around the metal inside. “That’s for later, when hopefully we’ll have more than one thing to celebrate.”
Tilting her head at me, she narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “More than one thing to celebrate? What are you talking about? What else are we celebrating?”
I lowered myself down on one knee and opened my palm, presenting her with what I held inside it. It was crazy to ask her this when we hadn’t really discussed it seriously before, but I’d had enough of waiting.
Worrying about them at night kept me awake. Wanting them in my apartment when I woke up created such a sense of disappointment every morning when they weren’t there that I’d had the key cut a week ago.
“Will you move in with me?”
Epilogue
APRIL
My life had never been a fairy tale. I never expected it to turn out like one, either. But for the last eight months, I felt like that was exactly what it was. The most perfect fairy tale that I never even would have dared dream about.
As I stood in the doorway of the practice, the signs now up, the equipment unpacked, and our first full day of patients starting in the morning, I couldn’t quite believe that this really was my life.
Starting tomorrow, I would be the receptionist and administrative manager for The Helping Hands. Tonight was our grand opening, and I stood with Chris’s hand in mine as we welcomed our guests.
Hunter was nowhere to be found, but I’d seen him sneaking off with one of the cocktail waitresses a little while ago. Despite his insistence that he would never settle down, I didn’t really believe him. Even if that was what he believed, Cyrus and I were living proof that even those who were the most cynical about love could inadvertently step right into it on any given day.
Chris and I had moved in together eight months ago, and I’d never looked back. Adi and I had a long talk the night he’d asked me, and after making