21. Everett
21
Everett
P eter came back in after just a few minutes, trailing a parade of children. I wasn’t sure if it was cute, or a little scary.
These were children—or not children—of indeterminate age, who lived in the woods, never growing older. They’d been taken from families who loved them, who might still be missing them, and the most adult part of me wanted to lock them in the house and insist on calling the authorities until we could get them sent home.
The girl I’d thought was Peter’s sister gave me an adult, knowing look, though, and I knew it wouldn’t work. She couldn’t be held in by a door lock.
Also, she didn’t have human parents out there waiting for her to come home. Some tiny, trembling part of my brain looked at her and sent me an alert. Like she was a mountain lion or a crocodile, and if I made the wrong move, she’d snap me in half as easily as she accepted a glass of milk from Peter.
“This is a real nice house,” the other girl, Mary said as she sat at the kitchen table, sipping at her milk.
I smiled and inclined my head to her. “Thank you.” There was no reason to point out the peeling linoleum and stained ceiling that needed at the very least painting. I glanced up at it, remembering when the stain had happened. Something about a leaky pipe in the upstairs bathroom. The leak had long since been fixed, but the messy yellow stain it made had remained. Heck, we’d painted over it, and it had come back. Too bad I couldn’t just run my hand over it and make it as good as new, like Peter with the picture of Bandit.
Magic. I shook my head and turned back to where Peter was handing out slices of honey cake. The littlest one, a kid Peter called Jessie, was leaning over and looking at the window on the oven, clearly invested in the idea of the cookies. “You promise there’s no raisins? My daddy used to buy raisin ones. They were gross.”
Daddy. That was interesting. Looking back at our childhood, I had realized that Peter had never spoken of his parents. Like they hadn’t existed. Being a child myself, I had just brushed it off and not worried about what that might mean.
Now I was older, better able to consider subtleties.
“Your mom didn’t give you chocolate instead?” I asked.
Jessie turned, head cocked one way, then the other. “What’s a mom?”
Oh, so much for that. I supposed they didn’t remember all that much.
But then, they leaned in conspiratorially. “My other daddy would give me ones with chocolate chips, and tell me not to tell, because he’d get in trouble. But all kids deserve chocolate instead of raisins.”
That sounded like something they were quoting, and that...oh that was very interesting. There probably weren’t a lot of ways to tell how long these kids had been in the woods, but two daddies? That meant something. That meant that Jessie was a recent addition. There was only so long having two daddies had been possible in this country.
Those daddies might still be alive.
Once again, I had to swallow down the urge to snatch the kid up and run to the authorities.
This time, though, the situation had gotten Peter’s attention. “Other daddy? You had...two dads?”
Jessie nodded, watching like a hawk as I pulled the cookies out of the oven and slowly used a spatula to move them, one by one, over to the cooling rack. “I’m afraid we didn’t have chocolate chips,” I told them. “Wonder if your dad still makes them.”
Everyone in the kitchen stopped moving, and Jessie looked at me like I’d spoken in a foreign language, but then nodded thoughtfully. “Me too.” Then they turned to Peter and nodded. “Two daddies. They were married, like you and Everett.”
Peter blinked at them, looking from Jessie to me and back. Maybe waiting for me to deny it. I thought it was best to let him take the lead, since they were his friends, and he was the one who knew how this all worked.
“Maybe I’ll get married someday,” Jessie speculated, pushing up on their toes to watch the cookies. Like maybe they’d disappear if they weren’t watched continuously.
I picked one up and handed it to them. “Careful, it’s still hot.”
They grinned at me, so beautiful with their blond hair and clear blue eyes that the one missing front tooth only made them look like a freaking perfect Norman Rockwell painting of a five-year-old. I’d never thought about having kids, but something about Jessie made me consider it.
Not that I’d take them. They had parents. Two daddies, who probably still missed them terribly. “You can come by anytime, and I’ll make cookies,” I told them. I couldn’t snatch them out of the woods and away from the fae, or any of the children, but I could try to make a life outside the woods seem like it was a good choice.
They grinned at me, blowing on the cookie. “Thanks, Mr. Everett!”
When they went to sit at the table with their cookie and milk, the other boy was glaring at me like I’d pissed in his breakfast. “We don’t want to get old like you.”
“Will,” Aurora said, warning in her voice.
“Will?” I asked, interested. “Ezra’s best friend, Will? He asked about you today. He owns the grocery store now with his wife.”
They all stared at me for a moment, and I watched the emotions cross Will’s face. Doubt, then shock, and horror, and finally, heartbreak. An understanding that he’d lost something, and it was still out there. The point of this whole thing was the opposite of that, after all. They played with their friends forever. Never losing anything.
But Will had lost something. And worse, he’d forgotten it. The heartbreak turned quickly to frustration and anger, and he turned away from me. “I don’t care about Ezra. He picked stupid Marsha over me. We’re not friends anymore.”
I took it in stride. “Okay. I can let him know if you want. Or you could tell him yourself. He and Marsha are going to come this summer, for a barbecue.”
I didn’t press any further than that, and he didn’t answer, but there was calculation in his eyes. Interest. I only hoped he wouldn’t react badly to the fact that Ezra was pushing a hundred years old.
“What’s a barbecue?” Mary finally asked, after swallowing the last of her cake.
And that was how we ended up sitting through Peter’s vivid description of what I’d told him about a barbecue. I wasn’t sure how, coming from him, it sounded a thousand times more appetizing than anything I’d ever done. Maybe he was the one who should be in advertising, instead of me.
With how little luck I’d been having finding a freelance job, I’d been considering walking away from the racket altogether. Maybe I just wasn’t cut out to do the job. Or any job. I’d wanted to be an artist for a living, but the last few years in advertising had shown me that wasn’t ever going to fill my artistic drive. I always ended up sketching and painting on my time off anyway, and that was a thousand times more fulfilling than making art to sell stuff. Not that making ads sucked, it just wasn’t the kind of art that made me excited.
Peter showed the last of the kids out of the house, and I had to hold myself in place. Aurora gave me one last look back, and a tiny smile that seemed almost approving. Approving of what? That I’d pushed down my morals and not tried to snatch the kids up and protect them, when I knew I couldn’t?
She had let Peter go when he’d decided to. I had to believe that she’d do the same with the others. That if I convinced them to come home, she wouldn’t interfere.
It was just a little overwhelming, trying to decide where to start. Especially when I was already trying to find a way to both retain and fix grandma’s house without a freaking job, and help Peter, and sort out?—
“Hey,” he said, tapping me on the nose, dragging my attention back to him. “Everything okay? You seem a little...sad.”
I looked up at him, and it was perfect. In that moment, I knew I could tell him everything, and he would be with me to deal with the fallout. “I’m a little worried about making enough money to keep the house up,” I explained. “There’s a lot that needs fixed, and I’m not handy. Apparently no one in Cider Landing is. And if I don’t find a new job, I won’t be able to hire anyone anyway, and I just...I want to take care of you.”
Peter’s smile was small, but genuine. “Everett. I’m pretty sure we’re going to take care of each other. Best friends, remember? Partners.” He cocked his head, gaze drifting off into the middle distance for a moment. “Daddies. That means married, right? Could we—I know not right this minute, but—” He broke off, cheeks flushed, and looked away. “Sorry, I know you’re worried I’m still a kid. You don’t have to?—”
That couldn’t be allowed to stand. I swooped in and pressed my lips to his for a second, before pulling back. “Partners,” I told him. “I mean, Jessie’s daddies might be married. Men can get married and adopt kids nowadays, if they want to. And maybe it’s a little premature to go talking about kids, but you’re my partner in all this stuff, Peter. I don’t think you’re a kid.”
He bit his lip, looking into my eyes, maybe searching for the sincerity behind my words. So I leaned forward and kissed him again.
This time, he pushed into the kiss. Not that cute chaste way kids do. No, he pressed against me, eyes closed and arms wrapping around my neck as he tentatively nudged his tongue against the seam of my lips. Suddenly, I felt like a kid. A teenager getting kissed for the first time. I opened for him, and he pressed in, claiming my mouth, forceful and demanding, and somehow not the slightest bit awkward or sloppy. He’d skipped right over teenage fumbling and straight to unholy hotness.
When he pulled back, his cheeks were flushed pink, and he grinned at me. He looked me over, and I imagined I had to look much like he did. Flushed, lips swollen, hair mussed. Debauched. There was something sly and satisfied in his smile at that.
“Perfect,” he said, finally.
Fuck me, I was completely in love with this man.