Freezing

by Tarrah Anders

  There’s a lot of people talking downstairs, so I throw my coloring book aside and run down there to see everyone.

  I see Brad first and he smiles. He wiggles his finger for me to go over to him. When I do, he bends down and whispers in my ear. After he tells me the secret, I lean back and smile while bouncing my head up and down.

  I look around the room and see his brothers with their pretty girls and then Uncle Reed. He’s talking to the lady with the funny hair and freckles who lives across the street. She’s pretty too.

  I keep looking around until I see my mommy. I run around the people standing near her and hug her. Her round belly hits me in the forehead. That thing is getting huge and it seems to grow more every day. She walks funny because of it. I tell her she walks like a penguin and she laughs at me when I say that.

  “Hey, Jare. What’s up buddy?” she asks, brushing my shaggy hair from my eyes.

  “Brad says that I need to get you and bring you over to him,” I report with a smile.

  “Oh, really now?” Mommy looks from me to where Brad is standing and then she takes my hand and we start going through the crowd.

  The room gets quiet like magic and I can see Brad going down to the floor. He must have a loose shoelace. I hate it when that happens. He’s really good at tying them though, so he’ll have it tied before we get to him.

  Mommy stops and her hand covers her mouth. She starts to cry.

  What the heck? Why is she sad?

  “Mika, I know we’re doing all this backwards. But I love you. I love every bit of you, the inside and the outside. I love your unfiltered words and your whispers at night. I love your son and our son growing in your stomach. I was hoping that you would do me the honor of becoming my wife? It’s okay with Jared here, so I was hoping that it would be okay with you too?”

  Man, he’s good at speeches!

  Mommy’s hand is shaking, and she’s crying lots of tears, like I do when I fall off my bike. But she’s laughing too. She tells Brad to get up and she hugs him. She’s bouncing her head up and down like I did, so that’s cool.

  I wonder where the cake is.

  Another Epilogue

  Brad

  The morning is barely peeking through the large window in our bedroom, but it doesn’t bother me since I’m already awake. I am always awake before the sun comes up because my infant son doesn’t understand that people need sleep in order to do things. Nope, he’s crying like crazy in his bedroom and my alarm isn’t set to go off for another hour.

  My morning routine consists of taking a piss, brushing my teeth, and then tending to my family. I wouldn’t change a thing about how my life has drastically changed over the last five years. Sure, I did time in jail for a huge mistake I made that almost made me lose everyone I cared about in life. But that time, those obstacles, those lessons, made me the man I am today. I didn’t lose my family permanently; in fact, I want to think that we’re just as close as we were before I royally fucked up. Or it could be that we’re in our mid-thirties and life is short. Not only did I reconcile with my brothers, but I also gained a wife and children, not to mention my brother-in-law and parents-in-law.

  Mika agreed to marry me when I proposed to her on her birthday a few months before Isaacc was born. Now, almost four months later, we’re finally getting a little more sleep than before and we’re finally making plans.

  Her side of the bed is cold, which isn’t unexpected. The moment she hears any noise coming from Isaac’s room, she darts in there like the Flash. It’s quite impressive. I drag my ass out of bed and down the hall to stand outside the nursery door like I do every morning. I observe her humming in the rocking chair trying to calm Isaac down with a smile on her face. Her free hand is rubbing Isaac’s feet and soon he soothes himself enough.

  “Hey, mama.” I smile as I walk all the way into the room, then lean against the crib to watch her.

  “Hey, you. He wake you?”

  “Nah, I was already halfway awake. Breakfast?”

  “Sure. Can you check on Jare? I think he’s still having problems figuring out how the showers here work. I mean, it’s almost like a launch pad.” She laughs quietly to not disturb the baby.

  Right after I proposed to Mika, she and Jared moved into my house. It has so much more space that it made sense to move into my place before Isaac was born. Reed has remodeled their parents’ house and made it into one big house again, and got roommates to fill the two extra bedrooms.

  Every morning for weeks, I showed Jared how to use the shower. The control panel for the shower is more like a video game, so by the time I would get to the bathroom, he would have all the sprayers on. This morning, I rap my knuckles on the door and let myself in.

  “You good, buddy?” I ask, poking my head in and then entering the room. He’s standing there, glaring at the shower controls.

  “I think we need to change things in here. I like those knob things. I don’t know how to work this thing and I know that you and Mommy are real busy with Isaac.”

  “Neither of us are ever too busy for you. But you know what I did, that will make all this easier every day?” I sit down on the closed toilet and lean toward him.

  “What?” he asks excitedly.

  “I made you your own program. All you need to do is press two buttons and it will turn on your sprayer to the perfect temperature.” I smile.

  “No way! You can do that?”

  “Already did. Come on, I’ll show you. So now, all you need to do is press the number one and then the star.” We stand by the control panel just outside the shower door and I crouch down to be at his level.

  “That’s so cool! It’s because I’m the big brother, huh?” He puffs out his chest and does his superhero poses.

  “Nah, man. It’s because you’re my number one star.” I ruffle his hair and stand.

  I’ve got it made. I have a great job, a warm home, and a family that I didn’t know I wanted or needed. Sure, I fucked up in the past, but I’ve worked on making my amends and now feel that my entire family is stronger because of it. My brothers treat me like a real brother. My relationship with Jacob feels stronger than it did years ago, sans the womanizing and constant drinking. We have the comradery again, and I can’t believe I was able to get it back. We’ve hit a few bumps, but we made a pact to focus on the future and not dwell on the past. They’ve seen that I’ve changed and I think that has helped.

  Now, there are no more bars holding me back from my potential. I was freezing in every way you could imagine before I met Mika and now I’m permanently thawed.

  My life and my heart.

  It may have taken a lot of shit to get to where I am today, a lot of stupid and bad choices to get to the positive, but I did it.

  I got a second chance, at business, life, love and, most of all, family.

  I wouldn’t change my story if my life depended on it.

  THE END

  Readers,

  Dear Readers

  Thank you so much for your support. If you enjoyed this book, please sign up for my newsletters so you can be in the know when a new book comes out, or if you just want to hear me ramble about nonsense.

  My newsletter has sneak peeks of upcoming books, giveaways, and fun stuff.

  Please check out my website at: WWW.TARRAHANDERS.COM

  I hope that in some shape or form you felt connected to my characters. I strive to have my stories be as relatable as possible, and not too outrageous. The sole purpose for me to bring my friends these stories is to feel like that too can be you.

  That being said, I write to make you happy. I wouldn’t be able to do so without your feedback. Whether you leave a review on Goodreads & Amazon (Please do, that would be spectacular!) or if you feel like shooting me a message at: tarrah.anders@gmail.com, I would love to hear from you.

  All my best with Smooches and Huggles,

  TARRAH

  Acknowledgments

  First and foremost, thank YOU to the readers, the bloggers,
THE people. I write to entertain you for however long you deem to let my words into your mind. Thank you for picking up this little ditty bit and giving me a chance. That being said, the Melted Series is finished. I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed getting into bed with the Maddox Family. Thank you for rooting for them all, the cocky CEO, the mis-defined brother and the bad guy.

  I want to give a giant thank you to my husband. Since he’s stopped teasing me for writing dirty things, he remains my number one guy, above all my book boyfriends. He basically created the cover for FREEZING. I told him my ideas and together we sat in front of the computer and created it. We did a few different versions, but ended with the final product, and proud of it.

  More thanks go to my ride or die chicks, my sistas from other mistas, my loving friends and confidents of Indies Ink. Thank you for letting me in and for accepting my antics, being a sounding board and for entertaining my perverted mind.

  To Tarrah’s Teases, my street team: Thank you for pimping me out on social media, for reading and reviewing and your overall support.

  To the ladies of the D-Print Police, my reader group. Thank you for your continued support.

  To my beta Tamera. Thank you for the gushing, the critique and the overall awesomeness that you guys are!

  To Laura, of Red Pen Princess & Indies Ink. Your amazing editing skills are top notch. Thank you for editing, reading and loving me. For being harsh, yet loving. For loving my characters and loving my wild ways. I’m a huge fan of yours.

  To my PA’s Amanda & Angela. You two crazy ladies, while most of the time it’s almost as I’m talking to one person, I’m so grateful for your expertise, organization and thoughts.

  To Facebook, for continuing to give me the shake of the fist and put me in Facebook jail for posting some pretty hot photos, if it wasn’t for my first stint in timeout, I wouldn’t have finished this bad boy.

  And lastly, thank you to all the other romance authors within the Indie Community. I enjoy your work and am continuously impressed with how loving and supportive everyone is.

  Also by Tarrah Anders

  THE ZONE SERIES

  The Friends Zone

  The Crash Zone

  The Office Zone

  THE MELTED SERIES

  Frozen Over

  FROZE

  Freezing

  Novellas

  New Year, New You

  STRIPPED

  Coming Soon:

  Rounding Third: A Baseball Anthology (Contributing Author)

  Hahahaha Just kidding! You need to subscribe to my newsletter for the coming soons!

  www.tarrahanders.com to subscribe

  About the Author

  I’ve been writing since I was in middle school and throughout college. While it was a passion, I kept it under wraps and never vocalized or followed through with my desire to be a writer, until I read a horrible book and thought: ‘I could do better than that!’ I kept my writing romance from my husband for nearly two years, but finally told him because… royalties and taxes. When he immediately tried to skip forward to any steamy scenes, then referred to the moment as in Lethal Weapon 4.

  I am originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, but living in beautiful San Diego with my own little family while working during the day as a social worker working with the homeless. I am hardcore San Francisco Giants fan and anything dealing with cupcakes and Zombies.

  My writing style is that I try to keep on earth. I try my best to not be too unrealistic with my characters, what they do and how they live. I want my books to be relatable and not to create too many eye rolls, when a character starts calling his love interest baby after knowing her for 5 minutes.

  I’ve written and self-published 8 books. They’re all dual point of view aside from one. Thematically, the novels are friends to lovers, second chances and office romances mixed with a whole lot of fun in the middle.

  I am currently working on a few pieces for some anthologies and maybe some other stories.

  Social Media: Come find me

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  Email: tarrah.anders@gmail.com

  Website: www.tarrahanders.com