Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
Christmas Day dawned cold and clear and very, very sweet because he and Laird woke up together in bed.
With the triplets.
The cats were staring at them, tails up in the air, purrs sounding like a motor that was running in a well-oiled manner. Laird cracked an eye open to stare at him. “They’re in bed with us, aren’t they?”
Devon grinned and patted Laird’s chest with one hand. “They are. They like you now. Something about you decorating for Christmas.”
Laird just snorted. “I’m sure. Maybe it’s the kilt. Did it for you.”
“I liked you before the kilt. I just like you even more now.”
They didn’t have any big plans for the day. He was on call this morning, and Raven was on call this afternoon, but they didn’t have any omegas in danger of giving birth. Not even Chase.
Should anyone call and say they were in labor, he would send them to the hospital, because no one was ready.
They were supposed to head over to Laird’s family’s for the afternoon; they’d been invited to brunch over at Raven’s granny’s, but right now it was just the two of them, and it was possibly the only quiet they were going to get all day.
“Are you looking forward to your holiday?” He was.
He knew at Granny’s house there were going to be tons of goodies and all the children.
And he was very much looking forward to knowing Laird’s family’s customs, their traditions.
He’d always been incredibly jealous of people with big, boisterous, happy families, and he was having a baby with someone who had one.
“Our holiday, baby. And I am. You looking forward to everyone touching your belly and telling you what kind of baby you’re going to have?”
Devon snorted. He thought total strangers touching him all the time bothered Laird way more than it did him, though it could be awkward.
“At least they’ll be people we know,” he teased.
“Yes. And I can tell them hands off.”
“No touching, huh?” He winked at Laird. “Does that mean that I’m yours?”
“It does.” Laird rolled up on his elbow and stared down at him. “It really does. Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course, you can always ask me a question.” Devon loved all the little peeks into how Laird’s mind worked.
“You know how I feel about you, right?” Laird traced a line from his forehead down to the tip of his nose and over his lips down to his chin. It left little tingles behind, that touch.
“Is that the question?” Devon teased, tilting his head to kiss Laird’s fingertip. “I think I do. I think—I hope you love me as much as I love you.”
“I love you more than life itself, and I want to marry you, Dev.” Laird swallowed hard. “I want to make everything legal and aboveboard and forever. I want you to know I mean it, even if sometimes I suck at showing it. I want to be your husband.”
His breath whooshed right out of his lungs, and Devon stared at Laird, lips parted. Tears gathered in his eyes, and he shook his head, unable to believe what he was hearing.
Laird’s bright blue eyes filled with a panicked expression. “Is that a no? Oh my God, baby—”
“No! No, that’s a yes!” He threw himself at Laird, knowing his big alpha would catch him. “Yes, I’ll marry you!”
“Oh thank God!” Laird relaxed, laughing his expression now one of intense relief. “You had me all scared, you were shaking your head and you put your hand over your mouth.”
“I just couldn’t believe you were actually asking me. I think it completely took me by surprise, but, of course I want to marry you.” He hugged Laird tight and then kissed that mouth because there was nothing else to do.
“Mmmm.” Laird picked him up by his butt, so they were on a closer level to each other, then he kissed him until he couldn’t see straight. “Do we get to tell our families today, or are we going to keep it to ourselves until the new year?”
“Oh, we should tell them today, your people, Raven and his granny.” Devon chuckled softly. “I’ll call and tell my folks first, since they were the last to find out about the baby.”
“Perfect. Then that’s what we’ll do. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t want to just sit on it for a few and revel in it, you know?”
“A couple of months ago, I probably would’ve because I’m so not used to having local people to tell things except Raven, but I want our families to know.” He grinned up at Laird, his heart so filled with joy.
“Do you think your family will be happy?” Laird asked, then Devon nodded.
“I think they’ll be over the moon.” Mom and Dad were divorced, and they both had new families.
Although that was sort of a misnomer because neither of their second marriages were new.
And neither were his stepsiblings and half-siblings.
He was just the one remaining eldest child of a marriage that had dissolved.
His true family was here in more ways than one.
“So do you want a big wedding? Do you want to just get married? Do you want something intimate?”
Devon pondered that. “I don’t know. I don’t think I want a big wedding. Regardless, when we get married, you have to wear a kilt.”
Laird’s laugh rang through the bedroom. “Yes, that I understood. Are you going to wear one too?”
“You don’t think I’d look stupid? I’m not stacked like you are. I’m skinny.”
“They made skinny Scots.”
“No, not the kind that I want to see wearing a kilt anyway. And besides, I don’t need to see my legs. I want to see yours. It’s my wedding.”
“Point taken, baby.” Laird kissed him. “I love that you love my kilt.”
He grinned. “We should probably get ready to go somewhere. Where is it we’re going first?” God, being pregnant made his memory go. He had just had the order of events in his mind.
“Baby, it’s still early. We can have breakfast. Shower. Play with cats.” Laird tugged the covers up to keep them warm.
“Oh, I love that.” He adored spending time in bed with Laird. “Maybe we could watch a couple of Christmas cartoons?”
“Oh, are you a Charlie Brown guy or a Grinch?”
“The Year Without Santa Claus. Heat Miser and Cold Miser all the way.”
“Oh, my God. I thought I was the only person our age who knew that one.”
“No. My folks are big Christmas cartoon people. Both sets of families. So we watched a lot of them depending on whose house I was at.”
“Was it weird or cool to have two Christmases?”
“Well, it wasn’t odd to me because they’d been divorced for a while, but you know, I mean, you see it on TV, the idea of this, you know, insular family situation and it’s what you’re supposed to have.
And so when you don’t have it as a kid, you feel unusual.
But really, it was just, I spent half the day with Mom.
I spent half the day with Dad. And since I was the only child from that marriage, and they had kids from their new marriages, I was part-time. ”
Laird winced a little bit. “I swear to you, our child will never be part-time. Ever.”
He kissed the corner of Laird’s mouth. “Well, I bet there are points when they’re a teenager that we’re going to wish that they were just part-time.”
“Oh, God. No doubt.” Laird snorted. “Especially if the kid is like me. I was as shit.”
“Yeah?” Devon stroked Laird’s chest, his hands needing something to do. “Were you really that awful?”
“As a teenager? Yes. Though that’s actually why I became an EMT.”
He glanced up at Laird, seeing the weight of memories on his face. “What happened?”
“My best friend…” Laird sighed. “We were at a bonfire, and he was drunk. He got in his truck to drive home, and we all got to see him run it right into a tree as he tore off.”
“Oh my God.” He rose up on his elbow, staring. “Did he—”
Laird’s mouth twisted. “He bled out. I tried to help, but yeah. And this is a very depressing subject for the day, huh?”
“But I’m glad you told me.” Laird needed to share this stuff more, get the poison out. He was used to being very much an island. “These are the things that a couple can share together to ease the pain, right?”
“I guess, yeah. One way or the other, my folks have forgiven me.”
“Of course they have. I mean…you didn’t do it. You weren’t driving the car.” Not that that mattered, he guessed. Guilt was guilt.
“No, but I didn’t stop him, did I? I didn’t make him give me his keys.”
“Could you have?” He remembered being a teenager, feeling invincible on one hand and utterly incapable of confronting his friends in a real, meaningful way on the other. “I mean, honestly. Could you have made him stop?”
Laird chewed his lower lip. “I’m not sure, honey. I want to think I could have, I guess. But I know I was never all that convincing about it. We were stupid kids.”
Devon nodded. “Exactly. You can’t look at the past through the lens of now in terms of what you could have done then. You can use it to make sure nothing like that happens again.” He put a hand on his belly. “Or to talk to our kids about making good choices.”
Laird’s eyes widened. “God. Our kids. That makes me a little wild. Makes my heart race.”
“In a good way, I hope.” He winked because he got it, because it was kind of in a good way and kind of in an oh my God that’s scary sort of way. He totally understood.
“I definitely think it’s in a good way.” Laird rubbed their noses together. “Also, in an I’m not sure I’m mature enough to be an actual father sort of way.”
“Oh, I don’t know. You save people’s lives. We can probably raise a baby.” Of course, he’d brought how many babies into this world, and he still wasn’t one hundred percent sure he had the slightest idea how to raise a child to a month old, much less adulthood.
“I guess we muddle through, huh?” Laird turned on the TV and hunted down the cartoon he wanted.
“I don’t think that we have a choice, love.” He leaned in and told himself to relax. It was time to Christmas.
Laird stood there at his parents’ door, frozen for just half a second.
He was about to go in and tell them that he was getting married to Devon, who he wasn’t sure they even liked.