“It’s okay, these things happen.” He lifts Halle off the ground, and part of me wishes I could have done the same so she didn’t have to walk. Maybe next year when I’m six.

  I follow them up the stairs, but I’m not sure if she wants me there, so I hang out in the hallway until I hear a scream, then, “WILD!”

  “I told you it would burn, sweetheart. It’s antiseptic. We don’t want it to get infected!” her dad tells her, and when I walk into the bathroom, I see her seated on the edge of the sink, her eyes squeezed shut. “Wild, where are you!” she squeals.

  “I-I’m right here,” I tell her, and I hate how upset she sounds.

  She opens her eyes and puts out her hand for me to hold. I take it, giving it a tiny squeeze, and when I look up at her, she’s giving me a teary-eyed smile before turning back to her dad. “Wild said I was brave.”

  “You certainly were. My brave big girl,” he tells her, and I nod in agreement as he puts two Band-Aids on each knee. “But maybe no bikes for the rest of the day.” He pulls her off the sink and sets her gently on her feet.

  “You did a good job,” he tells me as he ruffles my hair. “I can tell she trusts you. You’re a good big brother, Sebastian.”

  “The best!” Halle says, then hugs me tight. I smile because I think this is the first time anyone has ever said I was the best at anything.

  I open the door to the hotel room to see Halle sitting on the bed with her laptop in front of her. She gives me a questioning look before I climb onto the bed and rest my head in her lap. “Did you go see your mom?”

  “No,” I say. Things with my mom were still a work in progress. We did plan to see her while we were home, but it was going to be brief, just long enough to announce our engagement. I could tell she was trying, but she was still struggling with her feelings about it all. “I went to see your dad. I felt like he should hear the big news from me.”

  “I see.” Her hands stroke my hair, and I reach up to grab her left one before putting it in front of my face to see the engagement ring I’d given her last weekend. It’s only been a week, and I’m already anxious about putting the second one there, indicating we were officially married. “I think he would have taken it better than Sara did.”

  I snort before turning onto my back to look up at her. “After which time she caught us having sex?”

  She rolls her eyes and taps my nose with her finger. “I meant now, obviously. No, I don’t think my dad would have loved that when we were teenagers.” She sighs and leans back against the headboard. “Twenty-one years tomorrow. How is it possible that we’re that old?”

  “No idea.” I chuckle darkly, thinking about how we are only in our mid-twenties yet have this tragic and formative experience from twenty-one years ago.

  I can tell something’s on her mind and has been for the last few days. I figured it was about the upcoming anniversary, but now I’m wondering if there’s more to it. “You okay, baby? You’ve been… quiet the past few days? Is it just about being here? Or seeing my mom? If you really don’t want to, I can go by myself.”

  “No. Well… I guess kind of, and the thought of seeing Mike too,” she says, referring to my mom’s now husband. While he talked Dylan into dropping those charges last year, he still seems to have his opinions on Halle and me and tends to stay away whenever we’re in town.

  Fair, I guess.

  I hated how disjointed my family felt, but all that mattered to me was Saint and the family I was trying to build with her.

  On a more positive note, my board voted unanimously to keep me as CEO, noting that, while our relationship was unconventional, it came across as a beautiful love story rather than a scene from Pornhub.

  I’m paraphrasing.

  Not only do most people from my office support our relationship—I say most because I do know that a few people side-eye me, but they keep their opinions to themselves—but they adore Halle and love that she lives in Seattle now. They can always count on her to put me in a better mood after I’ve met her for “lunch.”

  I sit up and move her to sit in my lap now. “She has been trying, and she wants to see us. But if you don’t want to go, I understand. I’ll be quick, and then we can have the rest of the day tomorrow to do whatever you want.” Even though on October eighth, there’s usually only one thing we’ve been known to do for the past twenty years. But now that we are together and are doing that sometimes twice a day, I wonder if we’ll come up with a new way to spend tomorrow.

  “No… I do… I just…” She bites her bottom lip. “I remember you saying that you wanted her to make a decision on how she felt about us before we… had a baby…” She grabs my hand and laces our fingers together before she looks up at me.

  Realization dawns on me, and my eyes immediately fly to her stomach like I’m expecting her to be showing already. “Are you…? Are we…?”

  She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip and nods as tears flood her eyes. “I took a test while you were gone. Five, actually,” she whispers. “I’ve had an inkling all week, but I just kept thinking my period was going to show up.”

  “Oh my God.” I put my hands on her face. “How are you feeling? Are you happy? I know we talked about waiting and…” I let out a breath. “Holy shit.”

  “Yes, I’m so happy! We’re going to have a baby! I’ve thought about what this moment would be like so many times, and in every scenario, you’re the man I’m talking to, even before I lost my virginity.” She giggles. “I have everything I could ever want,” she whispers. “And I’m feeling okay. A little nausea, but it’s manageable, for now.”

  I pull her into my arms and hold her tightly like I have no plans to ever let her go. “Wow, if you thought I was protective of you now. You with a baby?” I press a kiss to her neck. “You’ll be lucky if you don’t have security in place by the time we get home.”

  “Security? Oh my God,” she groans. “Sebastian, the only time I ever feel unsafe is around people related to us or people we know,” she replies with an eye roll.

  I’m only half listening to her complaint as I’m already thinking about how to make our new house even safer. “We can talk about it, but it’s going to take a lot of convincing not to increase our safety measures,” I explain as I place my hand under her stomach. “Especially now that it’s more than just us. But we can talk about that later. Can you tell me what you want to do about tomorrow? Does this mean you don’t want to go? We don’t have to tell my mom.”

  “I’m not saying no, but if she starts being… judgmental, I’d like to leave.”

  “Of course.”

  “And maybe…” She shrugs. “We could tell her? It seems like the only time she’s really changed her tune has been at the mention of grandchildren. Who knows, maybe it will be what she needs to finally accept us.”

  “We don’t have to. I told her she needed to support us before we had a baby. So if you’re not ready to tell her, we don’t have to.”

  The next day, we are sitting outside Sara’s house, and I can tell Sebastian is more nervous than I am. He’s been fussing over me since I told him the news last night, and I already know I’m in for a long nine months if it’s only day two, and he’s already trying to carry me around on a velvet pillow. Maybe I’m not so nervous because I found out I’m going to be a mom, and now I can relate to Sara in a way I couldn’t before. While I can’t picture myself going about things the same way, I can see that maybe some of her intentions were good and just the executions were off. Perhaps she really was trying to protect us from ourselves, which is what parents are for, right?

  I suppose I can give her a pass for how she reacted at times during our teen years. I can admit we probably did put her through it at times. But everything this past year, when we were full-grown adults, should have been handled way differently.

  We start toward the front, and before we are even halfway up the walkway, the door opens, and Sara stands in the doorway, waving at us. “There you are!” As soon as we make it up the porch, Sara has her arms wrapped around me as she guides me into the house. I haven’t talked to Sara much since her engagement party, but Sebastian has here and there, and he mentioned that she’s been putting more effort into being supportive.

  I guess the silence from us was getting to her, and she realized we were serious about not being in her life if she couldn’t understand that we were going to be together.

  Or at very least, she has to keep her comments to herself.

  Wild follows us and shuts the door as we head into the living room. Sara moved in with Mike, so this is a different house than the one I grew up in, but I can still see glimpses of my childhood. Similar furniture and some of the art she had on the walls. She was always big on taking pictures, and I spy a photograph wall in the corner with seven pictures, one of which I recognize as a photo of Sara, Wild, and me in Disney World when we were kids.

  A small smile floats across my lips at the happy memory and how much fun the three of us had there.

  “Where’s Mike?” he asks as Sara and I sit on the couch, and he takes a seat on the adjacent loveseat.

  “He’s playing golf today. I told him to make himself busy. I know he makes you uncomfortable.” Her lips form a straight line. “I’m sorry that we both have.”

  “Well, we don’t plan to stay long. We just wanted to come by to tell you that…” He pauses, and a smile pulls at his lips that I pray Sara reciprocates. “Halle and I are getting married.” I pull my hand out of my jacket pocket and hold it up, revealing the four-carat emerald-cut diamond that sits on my finger.

  Every time I look at it, I’m blown away by how gorgeous it is. He did really fucking good, and we only went to look at rings once.

  “Oh my God.” Sara reaches for my hand and takes it in hers, rubbing her thumb over the stone. “This is just beautiful. Congratulations.” She nods, and I notice her eyes glistening. “When is the date? Have you decided yet?”

  “Well, we just got engaged last weekend. We haven’t really had a chance to get into planning yet,” he explains.

  “Well, whenever you decide, let me know. I would love to be there.” She twists her mouth and puts her hand on top of mine. “I know I’ve made some mistakes, and I haven’t understood or supported you both in the past, and I’m sorry. I know you don’t trust me fully yet, but I would like to be in your life.”

  I’m not naive enough to think that her words will fix everything, but I do appreciate her apology. “Well, that’s good to hear. I think… your grandchild would like that too.”

  Her face lights up, and her eyes go wide with excitement, then she’s on her feet with her hands over her mouth. “Are you pregnant?” I’m reminded of the saying that children don’t fix things, but grandchildren fix everything as I take in Sara’s reaction. “I can’t believe it!” She pulls me to stand and then in for a hug, squeezing me tightly before moving to Sebastian and hugging him as well. “I’m going to be a grandma?” She puts a hand over her mouth. “Wait until I tell Elana!”

  “Okay, well, hold on, Mom. Don’t tell anyone yet,” Sebastian interjects.

  Remembering that Elana was one of the few people who always supported us, I offer a small smile. “You can tell Elana. But not the whole world yet,” I add. Otherwise, it’ll be Sara’s Facebook status by tonight.

  She zips her lips and sits back down next to me. “I can’t believe there’s going to be a baby!” She claps her hands and puts them under her chin. “Your dad would be so proud of you.”

  “I wish he were here,” I tell her. “I probably haven’t said this enough, but… I do appreciate what you did for me… when he died. I know I didn’t make it easy on you all the time, but… I hope you don’t regret it.”

  “Never,” she says as she strokes my cheek gently.

  Ten months later

  I wasn’t someone who always pictured their wedding day. I didn’t scour the internet or have a secret Pinterest folder. I never gave any thought to flowers or the cake or even what dress I’d wear. The only thing I ever thought about in reference to my wedding day was the groom.

  Sebastian Wilder.

  I dreamed of standing in front of him, vowing to love each other forever, more times than I could count, and today that dream is coming true.

  It is small.

  Very small.

  Okay, we eloped.

  But we did invite Sara, who is currently standing behind me holding our son, Sebastian Desmond Wilder.

  It was all we needed.

  We are planning to have a reception next month, but today, all I wanted was the man in front of me and the little one babbling behind me. One who has very recently taken over my heart and one who’s been there my entire life.

  It was fast, probably no more than ten minutes, which is a complete contrast to the last twenty-two years we’ve spent falling in love. It’s crazy that we could make something official that quickly, when it took years to build.

  That we spent years fighting for.

  He slides my wedding band onto my finger, vowing to love, honor, and cherish me for the rest of our days, but not before showing me the inscription on the band.

  Till the end of time, Saint. The words read.

  Considering he tattooed my whole first initial on his ring finger, anything I inscribed on his ring probably falls short, but that didn’t stop me from getting the words Keep me, Wild etched into the metal.

  He smiles when he reads it before handing it to me to slide on his ring finger, then he mouths, “Forever,” before pressing his lips to mine.

  The End.

  In the mood for another forbidden, taboo romance like Halle and Sebastian’s?

  Check out Always Been You, an adopted siblings romance!

  I am in love with my older brother.

  And before you get all weird, I’ll say that, yes, he’s my older brother but not biologically. The same blood running through my veins is not the same running through his. The blood in my veins is from a sixteen-year-old girl in Mississippi who messed around with a much older man she had no business with and had herself shipped off to a convent until she gave birth to me which I learned much later in life.

  She overdosed not too long after that.

  I wince at the harsh reality of that. But my repressed mommy issues and my potential daddy ones—given that I don’t even know a name—are not the point of this story. The point is the Calloway family adopted me when I was two years old, meaning I spent approximately two years in foster care.

  Aren’t babies supposed to get adopted instantly? What was wrong with me that I wasn’t picked right away?

  Well for one, I had colic and trouble eating and sleeping and doing anything cute that would make a couple think “that’s who we want to add to our family.”

  Secondly, I wasn’t blonde-haired and blue-eyed. Or brown-haired. Well, okay, my hair was dark brown, I guess, but so was my skin, and in Mississippi, there weren’t too many people out there looking to adopt a baby that looked like me.

  But the Calloway family traveled all the way from Connecticut to meet me, and as my mom says, she fell in love with me instantly.

  For the record, by then my colic was gone.

  They had two children already and were struggling to conceive a third which is where I come into the picture. James was their oldest, thirteen, and moody as hell. Then there was Monica; she was ten, and quite frankly, God’s gift to my parents—besides me, of course. She was outgoing and charming but well behaved with stellar grades and on the fast track to Ivy Leagues. The good kid to James’ bad one as she liked to say.

  James wasn’t bad per se, he was just going through that classic teenager stage where he hated everyone and everything except getting into trouble with his friends. But I’ll rephrase that, he hated everyone but me.

  In the beginning, they told me how he’d be the first to my crib when I cried. He’d pick me up and bounce me around the room and try to get me back to sleep. Sometimes it worked and he’d sit next to my bed for the rest of the night in case I woke up again.

  He helped feed me and allegedly was a pretty decent babysitter. I mean I’m eighteen now and still alive, so it’s safe to say he didn’t do a terrible job.

  As I got older, I followed him around like a shadow, and he never minded it. Of course, there were nights he wanted to go out with his friends and I threw a whole ass tantrum over not being able to go with him. But he always promised to make it up to me the next day.

  He always delivered.

  When I was six years old, he went to his prom and I was devastated that I didn’t get to put on a pretty dress like his girlfriend, Luna, who I hated because I wanted to be the only girl in his life. But the next day, he told me to put on my prettiest dress and he set up a makeshift prom in our living room. With a cake and punch and everything. I was even crowned Prom Queen.

  I was seven when he left for college and I cried myself to sleep every night for three months. Even though he called and texted and emailed, it wasn’t enough. I missed him so deeply. I missed him in a way that I assume was similar to missing a parent. Looking back, I wonder if him leaving stirred up feelings of being left by my birth parents.

  Remember, I am a black girl with a white family; I knew I was adopted early on.

  James never moved back in after college, except for that first summer. I was eleven then and it didn’t seem like he had the same amount of time as before. He was always working and didn’t have time for me and my Barbies like he did before. I even tried to sit next to him while he did work and write in my journal to seem more grown up. He would just chuckle before getting on the phone barking about numbers.

  So now you can see how being around James all my life has created a bit of a complex, right?

  I was fourteen when my older brother also became my first crush. He came home from New York for the weekend with way more facial hair, biceps and tattoos, and for the first time, I saw him as a man. He scooped me up in his arms like he always did and squeezed me and feeling all of those muscles and hard abs pressed against me made me feel like I was going to faint.