Epilogue
Casey
It had been far too long since I’d seen my mate’s brothers. When Brock called to ask what we were going to be doing for the kids’ birthday, I told him I’d get back home and talk to Nolan. We knew it was coming up, but with me being pregnant, the doing-something-about-it part of things hadn’t quite happened yet.
“Your brother is curious about the upcoming birthday.” They were turning four, and it was a pretty big deal. At least, in my eyes it was.
Of course, I thought one was a big deal, being the first and all. And two was a big deal because they were walking and talking and could enjoy it for the first time. Three was huge as well because it was the first one they actively looked forward to. And four? It was the first time they asked for a specific theme…obviously making it a huge birthday as well.
There was going to come a time when I conceded that all birthdays were huge deals. Today was not that day. Today, the fourth one was the big one, and we needed to do something spectacular for it.
“What are you thinking? Should we go see them? Make a family trip of it?” We’d talked about doing that last year and decided last second to stay here, instead.
But, this year, I was pregnant again and wasn’t in the mood to travel to the store, much less to them. This pregnancy was different than the last. I could feel every kick, every stretch. There was no egg. Instead, I was having a baby the way I thought I would always have my babies, which was somehow now the unusual way , in my head.
I wasn’t sure what to make of it because I loved this connection I felt this time around. Knowing when they were awake or asleep was wild and fabulous. But I also loved the safety that came with having them ensconced in a shell cave.
“A party here it is.” Nolan called Raphael and Brock to make all of the arrangements, and I called my family.
After the kids were born, we’d ended up building a larger cabin for us. And by we, I meant that my brother and my parents and Jonah came for a few weeks and built it with us, from a kit. I hadn’t known those existed before we bought one, and it was perfect for what we wanted. Now our property was a houseguest wonderland. We had our original cabin for guests, along with our tents, if anyone wanted them.
It was going to be chaotic, and I couldn’t wait. And we didn’t have to wait long, the day arriving in a blink.
“Daddy?” Coralee came in. “What time are they coming?”
“I don’t know. They said this afternoon.” They were traveling from all different directions, and I didn’t want to give our daughter a time only to disappoint them when I miscalculated.
“But no cake until tomorrow, right?” And that was why the little stinker was so vested in their schedule.
She and her siblings were obsessed with cupcakes, more specifically the decorations on them. They had taken turns nagging me about them for three days.
“That’s right, honey. No cake until tomorrow, on your actual birthday. Today is just cousin day, and we’ll have a huge dinner together outside.”
“And grandparents and our uncles, right?”
“Yes, all of those people.” I pushed her hair behind her ear. She had decided she wanted bangs then hated them. We were currently in the grow-out stage of getting them again.
“What if it rains?”
She was my questioner. She had questions about everything—especially how things worked. She was probably going to end up some world-class engineer or scientist at the rate she was going.
“If it rains, we’ll eat inside. Now, go get your siblings and play. Your father and I have a few things to do around the house.”
“Yes, Daddy.” She ran and grabbed the other kids from their bedrooms.
One of the many wonderful things about living here was that they could go outside and play without the fear of running into the road to fetch a ball. I could see them playing from the wall of windows we’d included in this cabin. The design allowed me to do housework or make breakfast or whatever was needed while they safely played in my view.
I usually spent a ton of time with them outside. They loved running with my beagle, who I could control with ease ever since I laid my clutch. Dr. Wolf assumed it had something to do with hormones. I didn’t care about the why. I loved having control for the first time in my life.
But today, they would have to wait for me. I had to finish putting all of the icing and decorations on the birthday cupcakes.
It was not my skill set. The YouTube videos made it look easy enough. And maybe it was if you were born a master baker or something. But I wasn’t, and they were looking lopsided at best.
“Need any help?” Nolan came up behind me, watching over my shoulder.
“Yes.” There was no way I was going to turn help down.
“What do you need me to grab?” Poor dragon assumed he was getting me something from the other room and was going to learn quickly that I meant something much more involved.
I turned around and handed him the piping bag.
“You don’t need to grab anything. Just finish these.” I kissed his cheek. “You’re the best. I owe you.”
“Wait… I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Yeah, I don’t either. They’ll be fine.” The kids would eat them no matter what. I would too. I might not be good at the decorating, but my cake was delicious.
“You say that, but my brother owns a traveling food truck.” The implication being that he would judge us. I’d known him for a handful of years, and he 100 percent was not the type to judge people because they didn’t know how to decorate a cupcake.
“Which means, he understands how hard they are to do.”
Reluctantly, he began piping the frosting as I followed behind, adding the rest of the decorations, which were a variety of sprinkles and a white chocolate disc with the number five on it. One thing I learned this year was that sprinkles were more important than the cake or ice cream or the cookies. Pretty much, sprinkles ruled in our house. And we went through an over-the-top amount of them. I used to worry about it, but given they were great eaters who loved a good veggie, I let it go.
It was safe to say our kids were spoiled.
We had the cupcakes done only minutes before Raphael arrived with his mate and kids. They came in with far too many presents for our children. We’d told them they didn’t need everything, but Brock didn’t listen. He never did. It was probably time to give up trying to change the man already.
“The kids don’t need anything,” Nolan said, as if we hadn’t already told them a thousand times. He hadn’t reached the let-it-go phase of things yet.
“No, they probably don’t. You’re good dads and, if they did, you’d take care of it. But we wanted to, and we did. So, here they are.” There was no arguing with that.
We hugged our niblings and they ran out to play with their cousins.
“Need anything around here?” Brock held up his hands. “Both of these work really well.”
“No, we’re good. We’re gonna be joining the kids outside.”
The kids were playing a game of red light, green light but had weird rules for it, and instead of using traffic light colors, were using all of the colors in the rainbow. I didn’t pretend to understand the rules, but they all seemed to—and were having a blast.
Jonah, my parents, and Jonah’s mate and newborn arrived next. They had rented a large conversion van and said that one or more of them might sleep in there. That was ridiculous, given my parents were hardly spring chickens and Jonah was still nursing.
Instead of gifts for the kids, they came in with not one but three covered dishes.
“You’re my favorite.”
They smiled at my words.
“And, for the record, you can come any day of the week. Or, you know, every day of the work week, if you’re so inclined.”
Jonah rolled his eyes and laughed.
Raphael and his family joined us less than an hour later. We were all here…my family.
We spent the afternoon playing outside and then ate the wonderful dinner my family provided before settling in for the evening.
“I like having our families here.” I snuggled into my mate.
“I do, too. We need to make this a thing.” He ran his hand down my arm and intertwined his fingers with mine.
“I love the sound of that. But also, it’s exhausting having this many kids around.” Being pregnant had me even tireder than normal.
“And would you have it any other way?” my mate asked.
“Absolutely not.”
“Now, get some sleep, love. We have a lot of sprinkles to eat tomorrow—I mean, cupcakes.” He grazed my shoulder with his teeth. If he kept that up, we weren’t going to be sleeping anytime soon.
“You sound like the kids.”
“Where do you think they get it from?” he teased. “I love you, Casey.
“Love you too, Nolan. Thank you for saving me that day.”
“No, thank you for saving me, Casey. Thank you for saving me.”