Epilogue
The following Christmas Eve…
Kenji stood at the edge of the event hall, searching the three-hundred faces that would soon be getting served a warm, healthy holiday meal they might not have had that afternoon.
Qylar and Cryss stood sentinel on either side of him.
They watched the massive group of volunteers, a mixture of Nefyrians and humans, delivering water and tea to each place setting.
Next would come the roast turkey dinner, with all the sides along with pie.
It was killing Kenji not to jump in and help. He was a hands-on kind of person, but Cryss and Qylar were trying to teach him to be a big picture guy. This was just one stage of what he wanted to do to help the city, and he couldn’t work every single event.
For their first attempt, they’d partnered with a local service organization that had been doing amazing things to ensure their community had enough to eat.
The foundation Qylar, Cryss, and Kenji had created had challenged that organization to take their smaller events and scale them up.
Instead of feeding fifty people, let’s feed hundreds.
They weren’t just the bankroll behind it, either.
They knew the organization would need support to make it happen.
They’d found the where—a space that had once been an 8,000 square foot art gallery—and renovated it to add a commercial kitchen and communal tables to feed as many people as possible.
The dining area could feed from two hundred fifty to five hundred, depending on the set-up.
With the newly formed Nefyrian-Earth Volunteer Corp, they were also providing dozens upon dozens of volunteers to help ensure there was enough help.
Most were older teens and younger twenty-somethings who were curious about Earth culture and wanted to spend more time on the planet.
Apparently, things like K-Pop, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift were no longer just sensations on Earth.
Nefyrian young people were becoming obsessed with all things Earth and willing to put in their volunteer hours they could accumulate and later use to access trips to concerts, events, tours, and shows.
Their foundation was also helping with marketing, administrative, and outside contributions.
That left the service organization free to scale up how many meals they were providing—and hopefully, they would be able to have those kinds of events on a continuous basis, not just on holidays.
That Christmas Eve was their first, and they had two dinners—one at twelve and another at three.
They would feed six hundred folks that day and another six hundred the next.
The service organization did the actual food prep and service, so would leave them free to work on other projects throughout the city.
It had taken much more than they’d realized to get to where they were.
They were watching a year of work finally reach the people who needed it.
Now that they’d gotten the ball rolling, hopefully, they would be streamlining the process.
As the meals started coming out, Kenji was thrilled to see dinners flying out and making it to tables quickly. They had little time between events, so keeping to a tight schedule was important. By the time everyone had been served, it was apparent that the event had been quite the success.
“I think we can get out of here and head back to Aspen,” Cryss said. “They know what they’re doing.”
“I’m very impressed with Dinah,” Kenji said. “I was a bit worried about the young volunteers struggling a bit in these roles, but Dinah has a real knack for getting them prepared and ensuring they’re doing what’s needed. That’s going to be vital moving forward.”
“Indeed,” Qylar said. He turned to Kenji. “Are you finally comfortable now?”
Kenji smiled. “Yes. I’m finally comfortable now.”
Qylar sighed with relief.
“I know it’s been a hard year,” Kenji said. “And I’ve been frustrated with how slow the process has been, but now that it’s come together, we can recreate this same structure over and over and over again throughout the year and really help a lot of people.”
“And as more time passes and they get more comfortable, we can step back and allow SANFR to take more control in leading some of these processes and look at other ways to help the citizens of this city,” Cryss said.
“Six hundred people, guys.” Kenji smiled. “We’re ensuring six hundred people who might not have had food in their stomachs don’t go to bed hungry tonight. Does that not feel amazing?”
“It really does,” Qylar said. “And it also feels amazing to have followed through with my promise to you.”
“We really need to get back to Aspen,” Cryss said, checking his watch. “If I don’t get back soon, Alex might try to mess with everything I prepped for tonight’s feast, and we cannot have that.”
After checking in with the SANFR team, they headed back to their townhouses and transported onto Cryss’s waiting ship.
They were soon cruising back to their family and their babies’ first Christmas.
Kenji couldn’t wait for their reaction, though at only seven-months-old, most of what they’d done was stare at the lights in awe.
That was okay. Soon enough they’d be big kids and better understand.
For now, they had two sweet infants who were their world.
As soon as they got inside, he found Norah and Tomlin having belly time while Zaadi was teaching them to crawl. Tomlin took one look at Kenji and the big, fat, wet tears started. Kenji scooped up his papa’s boy and wiped those sweet baby tears away.
“Did you miss papa, Tom-Tom?” Kenji asked before raining kisses all over his adorable face.
“Uncle Kenji!” Zaadi said. “You’re interrupting our lesson. They need to learn to crawl.”
“Says who?” Kenji asked. The minute they got mobile, that was the beginning of the end in his book. That’s when they’d start getting into everything—and he had two of them to worry about getting into messes.
He sat down on the carpet, a foot away from Norah, and suddenly saw movement.
“She’s doing it, Uncle Kenji! Look!”
“Qylar!” Kenji called, never taking his eyes off their daughter.
Kenji enticed Norah a little closer, her big, beautiful grin reminding him of Qylar more and more by the day.
Finally, Norah crawled a bit closer before putting her hands on Kenji’s knee and lifting herself up onto her knees.
She cooed at Kenji a moment before he scooped her up, too, and kissed those gorgeous cheeks, all while listening to her giggle.
He searched behind him and saw Qylar filming his daughter’s first crawl with his phone. Qylar’s gaze drifted to Kenji’s, adoration in his eyes. Kenji sighed within. He had the most gorgeous husband in the world in his opinion. No—the universe. There was no one who could make him melt like Qylar.
Qylar shoved his phone in his pocket and crawled onto the floor with the kids.
Norah was totally a daddy’s girl, and there was nothing Qylar could do wrong in her eyes.
Tomlin was his fussy boy who always wanted Kenji’s attention.
The older they got, their personalities were really beginning to shine.
“So when are you going to have more babies?” Zaadi asked Kenji.
“I think we’re good for now,” Kenji said, chuckling.
Having twins had been a challenge for first time parents.
Soon enough they’d have one-year-olds and the jump into the terrible twos.
Kenji wasn’t ready to add to their number just yet.
If ever. The four of them were kind of perfect the way they were in his mind.
That could change down the road, who knew, but he was good.
As it got later, more family and friends arrived for the holiday feast. Soon enough, the house was near packed.
All of Alex’s parents were there as well as his human brother Ethan and Ethan’s girlfriend Keeley—as well as his siblings who’d been raised on Nefyria.
King Krythar arrived and immediately stole one of the twins, using his grandfather by default card as he’d started doing since they’d been born.
Since neither Kenji nor Qylar had a father in their lives, Krythar didn’t have any competition for Poppop status, and he was quite pleased he had two more children to spoil.
Kenji was scared they might end up with a mountain of gifts from the king, too—but if they did, he’d work with Alex to donate most of them to kids in need. Let Krythar spend his money however he saw fit, as long as it eventually went to where it was needed.
Xandor had just turned one earlier in the month and he sat in Grandmother Helen’s arms, utterly in love with his middle namesake, Ray. Who could blame him? Ray was the sweetest man and seemed the only true logical and rational parent Alex had.
Some of the faces there that night were new ones for Kenji, but there were others more familiar—and while he’d feared he’d feel an outsider, he didn’t at all.
For the first time in his life, he was among family, both blood and chosen, and that was everything to him.
He turned to find Qylar staring at him, that same adoration there—but there was a little heat, too.
Later that night, after everyone had gone to bed and the big house was quiet, Kenji lay in Qylar’s arms while their babies slept in a crib on the other side of the room.
“Your thoughts are loud on this peaceful night,” Kenji murmured.
“Just thinking,” Qylar said.
“About?”
“Something Zaadi asked about.”
“What’s that?”
Qylar searched his face in the moonlight coming into the room. “When are we going to have more kids?”
“No time soon,” Kenji replied.
“Oh, I know we need the twins to be a little older than they are now, but I think it was more the question of if. Will we have more children or are we done?”
“I feel very much in the done category,” Kenji said. “I can’t say that won’t change when they get a little older, but right now… I’m happy with the family we have.”
“Me, too,” Qylar said. “But then there’s this other little part of me that wants a bigger family. You know, like five plus kids.”
“Then you can get pregnant,” Kenji said.
Qylar chuckled. “You think I’m a pain in the ass now, just imagine if I was preggo.”
Kenji thought about more children and then thought about all the kids out there without a home. “If we wanted more kids, I’d really want to consider adoption. Not because the pregnancy part, but I was raised in foster care. I know how many kids need good, safe homes we could provide.”
“It might be tough to find an agency on Earth who’d give us a kid considering we have fake identification and created histories. I’d hate for something like applying for adoption to be the thing that brought us down and forced us off the planet.”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Kenji said. “So we couldn’t adopt at all, hmm?” That hurt his heart considering there were so many kids in need. “What about Nefyria? Do they have adoption? I know they have wards, which are similar.”
“They do, but it’s highly privatized and there aren’t many children at all because of the spawning grounds.”
“Right,” Kenji said, sighing. “The spawning grounds. I forgot… so we really couldn’t adopt at all?”
“We could do some digging, but our only option might be one of those seedy adoption agencies overseas and those can be problematic.” Qylar smiled. “If and when the time came to dig, of course.”
“Yeah,” Kenji said.
“Until we decide differently, I’m happy with our two,” Qylar said. “Though I would love to have some midnight tentacle fun with my husband tonight.”
“I’m game. As long as we’re quiet,” Kenji said.
“You’re not fun,” Qylar said, grinning at him as he got closer and pressed his lips to Kenji’s.
The languid kisses they shared grew hotter by the minute, until they were quietly taking off their clothes under the covers and feasting on one another’s bodies.
Qylar soon drove deep, doing his best to please Kenji while not waking the children.
When they reached release together, they kissed, swallowing their mutual moans until their bodies calmed.
As they cuddled closer, sated, Kenji’s mind wouldn’t let him sleep.
“Qylar? Are you awake?”
“Mmhmmm,” Qylar mumbled sleepily.
“I might want more kids someday.”
Qylar’s eyes popped open. “What?”
“I might. Down the road. I’m not closing the option completely.”
Qylar growled low in his throat and then smiled. “I might, too. Down the road sounds good.”
“I wouldn’t want them to be too far apart.”
Qylar sat up a little in the bed. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m not ready now. Maybe talk about it again six months or a year away and see how we feel?”
Qylar grinned. “Okay.”
Kenji searched his mate’s face. “I love you.”
“And I love you. More every day.” Qylar’s gaze shifted to the nightstand. “It just flipped to midnight. Merry Christmas.”
Kenji cuddled closer. “Merry Christmas, my love.”