Natalie removes her hands long enough to blurt out, "Lisa's pregnant."
Emma squeals too, and then she's hugging Lisa again, tighter this time, and the kitchen fills with questions and laughter.
Bodhi claps me on the shoulder, hard, and shakes his head, never understanding the fuss but enjoying it anyway, if it makes his mate or his family happy.
Lisa catches my eye across the chaos and grins nervously, not used to all the hugs and kisses from the girls, but she's laughing too, and everything about it just feels so right.
When Lisa starts to tire, Emma touches her arm and nods toward the hallway. "We've got a spare room made up. You two are welcome to stay. Or you can take a nap if you need to."
Lisa declines and looks at me with a shy smile. "Thanks, but we need to get going.”
Much less reluctant to share our good news, I proudly announce, “I've got some unpacking to do."
Bodhi frowns. "Unpacking?"
I wrap my arm around her shoulder and pull Lisa to me, needing to touch her. "At Lisa's place. I’m giving up my rental."
Lisa's hand finds mine, and she entwines her fingers, squeezing tightly. "Our place."
My bear doesn't make a sound. She’s not only accepting me into her den, her bed and her life, but she’s offering it to me freely, without hesitation. It’s more than I could ever have dreamed of.
“Let’s go home,” she whispers, and I bend down and kiss her, savouring the moment, ready to go and start our new life together.
EPILOGUE
LISA
There is a buggy in the hall when I open the front door.
I stop just inside, keys still in my hand, and stare at it. Navy. Four wheels, with off road tyres for taking it on walks in the woods. The car seat is clicked into the chassis like he's been practising getting it on and off.
We picked it out together on my laptop at the kitchen table a few days ago, but seeing it standing there in my house is something else entirely. I drop the keys in the dish on the side table and set the photograph of my grandmother down beside them. Slowly, I reach out and push it, then curl my fingers around the handle and twist it from side to side.
I smile. The reviews were right. It does feel smooth.
But I thought there was a six-week waiting list to have one delivered?
The house is quiet apart from a gentle swish swish noise in the distance. Staring once more at the buggy, scarcely able to believe this is going to be my life soon, I take my coat off slowly and follow the quiet through the kitchen and down the hall to the spare room.
The door is half open and I catch a glimpse of socked feet and rumpled dust sheets. Inside, Beau is on the floor with his back to me, a panel of pale wood across his knees and an instruction sheet weighed down by a coffee cup at his elbow. The walls are a colour I last saw in a sample card pinned to the fridge after a lazy weekend stroll around the local hardware store.
I lean against the doorframe and watch him work. There are flecks of paint in his hair and a streak across the back of his neck where he must have wiped his hand at some point and forgotten.
He knows I’m here, will have heard me pulling into the driveway, scented me the second I stepped into the house, but he doesn’t interrupt my ogling session and stays fixated on his task.
And ogle I do.
The way his strong shoulders move under his shirt. The careful way he turns the panel in his tanned hands to line it up. The set of his square, stubbled jaw when something doesn't fit on the first try. How his thick thighs bunch when he stretches forward to pick up the next piece of the crib he’s piecing together.
"Hey."
Suddenly, I have a lump in my throat. I’d love to blame the hormones but it’s not that. This man has clearly spent the morning painting a room for our cub and putting a bed together by hand, after hunting down the buggy I wanted from who knows where.
All while I emptied my desk in front of an office full of people who wanted to know why I would ever choose him over my career, not understanding that I genuinely cannot work out how I got this lucky.
He looks up with a crooked smile, like he knows I’ve been admiring him while he works.
"Hey."