Tell Me No Lies

44: epilogue

- eight years later -

- V E N U S -

I smile as Griffin lifts up River, who has a shiny silver star in his hands. He places the star on top of the tree.

"Now, River, Ryder, come here." I say, sitting them both in my lap. "If the star gets knocked off one more time, neither of you are going to put it back up again, understand?" I have to refrain from smiling.

They both nod, grinning just like Griffin does.

"Okay, Uncle Jason and Aunt Allie are coming over later and-" I glance down at Oliver, who is acting dead near my feet.

"Oli, what are you doing, honey." I lifted him up by his arms, sitting him next to River. And that just creates a wave of children, who are now in Griffin and I's lap.

There's Ryder and River, the twins, the troublemakers, who can't seem to focus on one task for more than five minutes. Then Oliver, he's six. He looks a lot like me, according to Griffin and Jason. Then coming in at five years old, Terrance. We thought we weren't going to have any girls, so we went ahead and used Terra's name.

Our girls are both three. The twins, Clementine, and Indigo. They are daddies girls, let me tell you. Indigo looks a lot like me. And Clementine is a spitting image of Griffin, anyone could tell you that. They aren't identical, but fraternal. Thank god.

We didn't mean to have Cleo and Indi. We wanted to just try for a girl, but were surprised with twins, again. The boys call Clementine, Cleo, because they can't pronounce her name. They felt bad for not giving Indigo a nickname, so they came up with Indi.

"Is Christmas tomorrow?" Oliver jumps onto Griffin's lap, but he catches him before the blow. I made him get a vasectomy. I didn't force him, he offered and I said sure. He said he would because of the pregnancy scare a few weeks ago, yes, another one. But it was negative and we both agreed on no more kids.

He got one three days ago.

The kids have been all over him. Jumping on him, and just being all up on him. I had to kick them out of the bedroom yesterday. They were pretty mad.

"Yes, Oli. Christmas is tomorrow." Griffin nods, wrapping his arm around my waist.

"Yes!" He starts dancing around the room.

I smile, looking up at Griffin. He kisses my lips, and I hear Ryder whisper to River.

"Let's go play, guys." Ryder grins at us, grabbing Cleo and Indi's hands. The twin boys are like the ring leaders of the family. Everyone listens to them.

"It's supposed to snow later." I say, wrapping my arms around Griffin's neck.

"Really?" He smiles, his hands settling on my waist.

"Mhm." I exhale as he sucks on a spot on my neck. "God, the kids have never seen snow, have they?"

"I don't think so." He winces.

"Did I hurt you? Sorry." I pull back from him.

"No, you didn't." He sighs, "When will... this-" He motions to himself. "-stop hurting?"

I shrug. "A day or two. Why?"

"It's just- I want to have sex with you, but it hurts to get hard." He mumbles.

It takes all of my strength not to laugh. But it seems I don't have any strength.

"It's not funny." He groans, smiling.

"I know, babe. It's not." I'm still laughing when the doorbell rings.

"Venus. Shh." He covers my mouth. My tongue meets his hand and he gags.