𝘼𝙁𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙒𝙀 𝘾𝙍𝘼𝙎𝙃𝙀𝘿 ↣ 𝙊𝙉𝙀 𝘿𝙄𝙍𝙀𝘾𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉

34. PERFECT NOW

[TWO MONTHS LATER]

Keenan and Karter's adoption went through.

Louis and I found out though a phone call when the kids were at school. It was Sarah Cooper, and she was calling to let us know that the judge had just sent her the final paperwork.

The paperwork meant that the adoption went through.

After the call ended, Louis and I jumped up from our spot and pulled each other into a hug. He lifted me up and spun around, laughing excitedly.

"They're our kids!" he shouted. His voice echoed through the empty house.

"Oh my god!" I yelled, just as excited as him.

"The fucking-" Louis cut himself off when he tripped. Both of us fell onto the ground. I landed with a hard thud on my back, and Louis just barely caught himself from crushing me.

"Ow," I wheezed. Louis looked down at me, shocked, for a second. The pause didn't last long, because soon we were laughing all over again.

"I'm so sorry," he managed between fits of laughter. He laid next to me on the floor. I looked over at him, too enamored with joy to feel any kind of pain.

"It went through!" I yelled, pumping one fist into the air.

"Should we call the kids?" Louis asked, rolling over on his side to face me. "Call 'em out of school, maybe go out for lunch to celebrate?"

"Or we could throw a surprise party," I said, rolling to face him. "Invite the boys and their families over? The kids love them, you know."

"That's true," Louis said. He stared at me for a minute, seemingly lost in thought. "We adopted them, love." I smiled even harder. My cheeks hurt from the strain and my eyes squinted shut because they had to.

"We adopted them," I repeated. I loved the way the words sounded.

It sounded right.

Louis sat up first, and pulled me up behind him. We moved to the couch instead of the floor.

After a long conversation, we decided we would wait for the kids to come home after school, break the news, and let them decide where they wanted to go from there.

We didn't know it at the time, but that plan got absolutely scrapped.

-

Half an hour after school got out, the kids still weren't home. It was a ten minute drive. Louis and I figured they dropped a friend off, or stopped at one of the boys' places.

You know, a good reason for them to be late that wasn't worst case scenario.

Keenan called me at 3:56.

"Hey," I said.

"I don't know what happened," she said. I made out sirens in the background.

"What?" I asked.

"He was driving and then, I donno, I donno what happened," she mumbled into the phone. I stood up from my spot and ran to the other room to get Louis. I put the phone on speaker with one hand and gripped his shoulder with the other.