Ten #2
Afterward, we took the kids out for lunch and then to a playground close to Dylan’s house.
It was nice, all of us sitting and talking.
I had not seen Evan in a couple of months, and it was good to catch up.
Gordon and Jessica seemed to be hitting it off—they were both in education—so I was sort of pleased with myself. I liked my friends being friends.
I told Dylan about Aaron and Duncan because I knew she could keep a secret.
“You are the love god,” Dylan teased me.
“Yep, I still got it.”
Later, I asked Evan about Loudon—his partner, his husband, the man he’d always said he would never find and whom he had been married to for the past six years.
They had been made for each other. Evan was sort of a high-strung worrier, and Loudon was calm and grounded.
I had seen them in action many a time, and sometimes, Evan’s obsessive personality was a good thing—it kept the ball from getting dropped.
Other times, Loudon reminded him that stopping to breathe and refocus was the thing to do.
It was nice to see that their boys, Bryce and Seth, had facets of both.
Like Sam and me, Evan and Loudon had adopted—Bryce from Spain and Seth from South Africa.
As Dylan went to see why Mabel and Micah were hanging upside down from the monkey bars while Seth counted underneath them, Evan leaned forward and put a hand on my knee. I quickly covered it with my own.
“What’s up?” I asked him.
“Hey, um, Loudon and I have been talking, and we both agreed that if—heaven forbid—anything ever happened to us, we want you and Sam to take the boys.”
I panned slowly to see his face.
“Okay?”
It was a shock.
“Are you sure? I mean, Loudon always says how much he worries about Sam’s job, and—”
“Yeah, but Loudon knows, just like I do, that no one will take better care of them than Sam. He won’t let anything happen to them, and you worry as much as I do.”
“Why do people keep saying that? I don’t worry.”
He gave me a look.
“I don’t,” I insisted.
“Come on, Jory. You’re very protective, and I love that. And Sam’s gonna be like a prison guard, and I like that too. I mean, when all the kids get older and they start to run around wild—because if the curse is true and you get a kid just like you, oh, honey, how out of control will our kids be?”
I shuddered to think. “Just … what’s your point?”
“Sam’s going to be the one we all turn to. He’ll be checking up and ruining parties and putting the fear of God into whomever our kids see and letting those people know that if they mess with them, sell them any drugs, smoke with them, drink with them, he’ll be there to put a bullet in them.”
I nodded because it was very possible. Not the actual killing, but the threatening and the fear that Sam Kage could—and would—inspire.
“And he has all those cop friends, and I’ve met his buddies—Chaz and Pat, right?”
“Right.”
“Yeah, see, and I’ve met their kids, and they’ve got nice ones, so—”
“They have mothers, you know, those kids. It’s not just fathering that’s happening.”
“No, I know. I just mean that they’re law enforcement types, and their kids turned out okay, and since we’re all counting on Sam to watch out for our kids, even peripherally, then for sure, if Loudon and I both go down in a fiery ball or get hit by a crosstown bus, then you and Sam are the ones we’d want to step in for us. ”
“But your mom would—”
“She’s older, Jory, and the kids will need hands-on parenting, two people who can keep up physically as well as anything else.”
I studied his face and saw only absolute seriousness.
“I see Hannah and Kola, and they’re weird”—he shrugged—“because you’re weird, but so are mine and for the same exact reason. My boys are going to be messed up a little because Loudon and I are. No way around it. You’re a good father. I always figured you would be.”
“Really?”
“Yes, baby.” He squeezed my knee. “You have the best heart.”
I sighed deeply. “Okay. Sign me up. It would be an honor to be the guardian of your kids.”
He nodded. “You don’t have to ask Sam?”
“Oh, no.” I shook my head, turning to look out at the playground, watching Hannah growl at Robert as she chased him and he laughed and ran.
“Sam accepts that kind of responsibility as an honor. It’s the same way he took the news when I told him that Dane and Aja had written us into their will to be Robert and Gentry’s guardians.
He was deeply moved. I mean, they’re trusting him with the most precious part of their lives—their kids. He takes that very seriously.”
“I know.” Evan patted my leg, smiling at me. “And you guys will do the very best you know how. Can’t ask for better than that.”
I nodded as he got up to go see what was happening since Dylan was talking to her daughter, who was upside down now, and Micah was holding his breath.
Looking around, I saw Robert on the ground, twitching every time Hannah pretended to dig into his head with what looked like, the way she was holding her hands, an imaginary knife and fork. I stopped Kola as he ran by me with Harper and Tess.
“What is your sister doing?” I asked, pointing her out for him.
“Oh, eating Robert’s brains. She’s a zombie.”
“With utensils?”
“You always tell her not to use her hands,” he said with a straight face.
“Oh, yeah, of course.”
He shrugged and ran away. Moments later, Robert passed me, howling.
“And you’re what? A werewolf?”
He stopped to look at me. “My daddy says there’s no such thing. I’m a rabid wolf.”
Rabid. Of course he was rabid. He was so Dane’s kid, even though he was only three.
“Carry on.”
His smile was huge as he raced off.
Minutes later, Kola was a rabid wolf with him, which made Robert light up. I was so happy my kids and my brother’s kids got along so well.
“Micah wants to be an evil scientist when he grows up,” Dylan told me as I sat on top of the monkey bars with her.
It was easier to see the whole playground from higher ground, and the kids all thought it was awesome that we could get up there. Of course I had to then inform them that it was bad.
“You’re an example of what not to do?” Evan asked from below, arms crossed.
“My life serves as a cautionary tale for many things,” I reminded him.
“I can’t argue with that.” He shrugged before he walked away.
“So, spill. Kola’s career goal?” she prodded me.
“Veterinarian.” I smiled. “At least this week. How about Mab? What’s her life goal?”
“She wants to be a US marshal.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Nope. Sam said girls can do the same things that boys can. And I love him for that, but I hope to God she grows out of it.”
“Me too,” I agreed.
“If I die though, it’s all over.”
I turned and squinted at her. “Sorry?”
She shrugged. “If Chris and I die and you get Micah and Mabel, she’ll be living with her idol at that point. It’ll be game over.”
“Do you realize how many kids I’ll be raising if all my friends and my brother and his wife die in a tragic cruise ship disaster?”
She started chuckling. “Yeah, you’d better make sure we don’t all vacation together without you.”
I grunted. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“You do that.”
She laughed, and I grabbed hold of her to make sure she didn’t fall off the monkey bars and crack her head open. I didn’t want to have to explain that to her husband.
Sam thought that the idea of Duncan and Aaron together was absurd, and then when I told him what Dylan had said, Sam rolled his eyes.
“What? I remain”—I paused dramatically—“the love god.”
He waved me over to him. “Come here, love god.”
I ran, but he caught me easily, and when I was under him on the floor in the hall, his eyes sparkling with mischief and heat, I melted.
“God, I love you.”
He waggled his eyebrows at me.
“Do you realize how many kids we’ll have to provide for if everyone dies at once?”
His scowl came fast. “I’m sorry?”
“Evan and Loudon are making us the legal guardians of their kids.”
“They don’t even like me!” He was indignant.
“They love you. Everybody loves you.”
“Since when?”
“Since they’ve seen you take care of me, take care of our kids, and love us all with your great big heart. It’s hard not to adore a man you know is all thunder and lightning on the outside and warm, gooey goodness inside.”
It took him a second to process everything I’d said. “I don’t think any of that was a compliment.”
I laughed myself silly.
That evening, Sam and I made pancakes and eggs and bacon for dinner since we were having brunch the following morning and not a traditional breakfast. I hated having two meals exactly alike back-to-back.
It was fun to watch Sam take requests for shapes of pancakes and then try his damnedest to make them.
“Stop sighing,” he grumbled at me, even as he bent and kissed my nose.