Chapter 20 #2
“Hi,” she says quietly to me as the others make conversation. “I know it hasn’t been long, but I missed you.”
A smile spreads across my face as I give her a hug. “I know how you feel. Did you have a good time with Xavier? Did he look after you?” I ask, my voice low so her grandpas don’t hear it, but they seem to be too distracted by Cas and Xavier to notice.
“Oh my God, he sure did,” she gushes, her eyes twinkling. Seeing her so relaxed after her emotional breakdown earlier in the day has put me at ease.
“Did you get a hold of Susie?” Caspian asks, interrupting our private little chat with an unrepentant grin on his face.
I drag her over to the sofa and position her so she’s sitting next to Caspian and then sit down on her other side.
We each take hold of one of her hands, and Eric beams at the three of us.
Xavier takes a seat on the other side of Caspian and drapes his arm over the back of the couch, playing with Lila’s hair.
“Oh, I am so happy. Look at our growing family,” he exclaims, and John grunts at him.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. Link isn’t bonded to Lila yet. Thankfully they are doing it the sensible way and getting to know each other first. None of this fated mate crap,” he grumbles, and Lila’s mouth drops open at his outburst. If looks could kill, John would be incinerated.
“Now, John, don’t be like that. Ignore him, he’s missing our wife terribly at the moment. While seeing you all starting something new is wondrous, it also highlights what we are missing,” William explains, and Lila gasps, pulling her hands out of ours and jumping up to hug her grandpas.
“Of course you must be, and here I am being insensitive by flaunting my three mates in your face.”
“Three?” Eric quickly latches onto her statement, and all three of them turn to look at Xavier. “Do you have something to tell us?”
Xavier doesn’t wilt under the glares of the three men, and instead calmly explains about searching Lila’s mind and finding his hidden memory that his parents removed and implanted.
You could have knocked the brothers over with a feather when they heard about their son and his wife appealing to Xavier’s parents for help.
That reaction couldn’t be faked, so they definitely knew nothing about it, and my heart hurts for them.
“And Lila’s powers and her memories will be returned to her when we get to Westalin?” John sounds hopeful, and when Xavier confirms it, I see tears well in his eyes. “Well, thank fuck for that. I’ve been so worried about her always being in danger.”
“Care to explain a little more about that?” I press, hoping that he may be more forthcoming than William.
“No,” William responds, snapping his gaze to me before John can, and I can tell by his tone there will be no arguing. “As much as I want to say screw Earth and let’s go straight to Westalin, we can’t. We have that deportee being delivered later in the week, and we can’t leave without him.
“And Susie is coming now. I need to see her if I’m not going to be able to see her for months,” Lila chimes in almost desperately. The relaxation I saw on her face moments earlier has dimmed, and she’s nibbling on her lip, waiting for her grandpas to comment.
“Of course you can see your friend. You can tell her whatever you need to, and as long as Xavier agrees to the plan, he can either take away her memories of the conversation or make it so she can’t talk about it to anyone but you,” Eric reassures her with a soft smile.
“But as a compromise, how about you give her the option of which choice she would like? That way you won’t feel guilty about taking away her choice. ”
I notice Lila’s spine stiffen slightly. It’s similar to something she mentioned earlier about having no choice in who her mates are except me. “Yes, that is a great idea. Thank you for recommending the alternative.” Lila breathes a small sigh of relief. I guess the decision was eating her up.
“First things first. Tomorrow, you need to see the rest of the show. I can’t believe you’ve been with us for over two weeks and haven’t seen the whole thing yet,” William mutters.
“In my defense, a week of that was spent in space, and it’s your fault for running me ragged that first week,” Lila argues and sticks out her tongue.
“Okay, how about we get some dinner and sit down for a nice meal?” Eric suggests, standing up and brushing off his pants.
“I don’t know about everyone else, but I want to hear more about Lila’s life when she was growing up.
We’ve been so busy with all of the circus stuff, we haven’t really had a chance to learn about that. ”
“I’m not sure what you want to know. It wasn’t very exciting,” she tells him, and he waves a hand.
“I want to know about your first boyfriend and hobbies and activities and all that stuff we would have known had you been in our lives.”
She giggles, and I raise an eyebrow.
“What’s so funny?” I ask her.
“I was just thinking about who or what my first boyfriend would have been if I had actually grown up in the circus. I bet it would have been very different than the one I had.”
“It would have been me,” Xavier growls. “If my parents had not interfered, there would have been no way I would have let you see any other boys.”
She giggles harder. “Funnily enough, your Earth glamour kind of looks like my first boyfriend did. All punk rock and angst. So I guess you’re not far off the mark.”
He growls again as the rest of us chuckle and settle in for an evening of family time.