Page 96 of Taming Georgia

“Big boy,” Asher interrupts.

“You’re right. Do the birthday girl and big boy want some tacos?”

Ray-Ray excitedly claps her hands. She’s obsessed with tacos. She’s definitely my girl.

We eat, have cake, and open presents, all the while smiling and laughing with our family. One thing’s for sure; my kids are never going to know what it’s like to not feel loved. I don’t know two kids who are more loved than they are, and it will be just the same for the third. Family are the people we choose, and we’ve chosen well.

“I don’t think so,” Wyatt grumbles toward Ethel, and I hold my belly while I laugh.

Both kids just opened their presents from Nana, which happen to be a four-foot-long plush cat for each of them.

“Raising them right.” Ethel shoots Wyatt a wink.

Meanwhile, Ray-Ray climbs atop the stuffed animal and wraps her little arms around its neck, chanting, “Kiki! Kiki!”

“Did Nana get you a kitty cat? Aw, do you love it?” I can’t stop smiling at the cuteness before me.

“I swear, E, if there are more presents with obnoxious cat shirts”—he shakes his head—“I don’t even know.”

“Well, you’ll just have to wait and find out. Won’t you?” Ethel smirks.

“I don’t know, babe. I think our kids are taking after their Nana with their love of cats,” I tease him.

“No. We are dog people. The Gates family are dog people.” He enunciates each word a little slower than usual as he narrows his eyes toward Ethel in mock annoyance.

“They can be both, dogs and cats,” I say.

“Of course people can like both, but one always edges the other out. No one is equally as much a dog person as they are a cat person. One is always preferred, and we prefer dogs.”

“Kiki!” Ray-Ray is now jumping on the back of her sizeable plush cat.

Nana bends down closer to Ray-Ray. “My baby girl is a cat person, isn’t she? Do you love the kitty cats?”

“Kiki!” Ray-Ray says again.

Ethel claps her hands together in front of her as she stands. “Well, I believe my work here is done,” she says, causing us all to laugh at Wyatt’s expense.

The party for my babies is absolutely perfect. I find myself in awe on more than one occasion with just how happy I am. When the family is gone and it’s only the six of us, our two fur babies included, I look to Wyatt and he to me, and we just smile.

Asher and Ray fall asleep the second their heads hit their pillows, both worn out from such an incredible day.

Wyatt draws me a bath, and as I step in, my aching feet feel relief.

“Ah, this is heaven,” I tell Wyatt as he gets in behind me.

I lean my back against his chest, and he runs his soapy hands up and down my arms.

We chat about the day as he lovingly washes my body. My husband is the greatest man I’ve ever known. He’s a giver. He would do anything for anyone, both human and dog alike. He loves the kids and me so profoundly that when I think about it, it makes my chest ache.

Who would’ve thought that, years ago, when I first stepped into the office at the rescue to meet the boss and saw his dark blues glaring back at me that we would’ve ended up here? It’s crazy how life works out sometimes.

I’m so different than the girl I was when I met Wyatt in Biology class. Wyatt’s right when he says that we came together precisely when we were meant to. The seventeen-year-old version of myself wasn’t strong enough to fall in love then. I didn’t know who I really was, so I couldn’t have given my heart and soul to another.

Truthfully, I didn’t fully find myself until I returned to Wyatt after my three-day escape to Mexico.

When I was young, I’d thought that true love and fairy tales were a lie, but I was wrong. Fairy tales are real. I live in one every single day. A real-life fairy tale is the support that my husband whispers in my ear before an important doctor’s appointment when I’m nervous. True love is when he massages my feet before bed because they’re swollen from pregnancy even though he has had a long day and is exhausted. A prince is one who gets up to change the baby in the middle of the night and rocks her back to sleep, so I can stay in bed. A knight in shining armor is someone who comes home early from work to clean the house while I’m visiting my sister so that I don’t have to when I get back. A hero is someone who holds me when I’m sad, tells me that I’m beautiful, and loves me with everything he has.

Wyatt is my one and only. Maybe not everyone finds their true love, but I’m so grateful that I found mine.

Someday, when my daughter asks whether true love exists, I’ll let her know that it does. I’ll tell her that she needs to find herself, love herself, and be true to herself, and when she’s done all of those things, her Prince Charming will come—not because she needs him, but because she wants him.

If anyone had to search the world until he could find me to return my shoe, it was Wyatt. If anyone’s love for me was so incredibly powerful that he woke me from the darkest sleep with one kiss, it was Wyatt’s lips that saved me.

If life were a fairy tale in a storybook, Wyatt would be my Prince Charming. There’s no question. He was made to love me, and I to love him.

Yet I have it so much better than all of the princesses combined because my version of happily ever after is real, and I get to live it each and every day.