Page 63 of Ruin Me Sweetly

His tiny gurgling sounds brought my attention back down to my son, water dripping softly off his chin as he blew a small, wobbly bubble.

I told Lewis all about when I met his mother, and how he’d been deployed—the PG version, of course.

I wasn’t a monster.

Epilogue

Isabella

Ten Days Before Christmas

“It’s never going to fit,” I said, as he dragged the Christmas tree in.

The branches scraped against the doorway, bending back only to spring free again once it finally made it into the living room intact.

“I always make it fit, don’t I?”

I glanced down at our son, who was watching the whole fiasco unfold with great interest. I shifted on the couch so he could see his father better. Lewis wore a brown teddy-bear-print romper, a matching cream top beneath it.

He was cuteness personified. I couldn’t wait to show him off to Amber and Zach. I heard the tree scrape against something and looked up to find that Luke had, indeed, made it fit—into an L-shape stretched across the ceiling.

He looked so pleased with himself. I was probably part of the problem. I didn’t call him out on his bullshit nearly enough. Luke’s delusions were part of his charm, after all. Nine months of marriage to him had been quite the eye-opener.

The man was besotted with us.

I sighed.

I’d become an enabler.

“How does it look, baby?”

How could I possibly deny the excitement in his voice?

“It looks perfect, sweetheart,” I said, and just like that, his whole face lit up.

“Lewis, Daddy is going to make sure you have the best Christmas of your life.”

He was barely three months old.

Luke was living his absolute best life as a first-time parent.

Lewis gurgled, looking up at me.

I think he already knew his daddy was a crackpot.

❧ ❧ ❧

“Who is this one for?” Luke asked, raising the remote-control racing car.

“Zach.”

His face fell.

“That’s nice,” he said, grudgingly, rolling out an appropriate length of wrapping paper before slicing it free with the scissors.

Luke’s was already wrapped, tucked away in one of the spare bedrooms.

The two of them had petty squabbles over everything from Scrabble to Connect Four wars. Luke had an online gaming account now too, and I only ever caught one side of their baiting, though it was hilarious enough that Amber happily filled me in on the other.