Chapter 12 #2
“How can someone be too squeaky clean?” Finn asks, sliding the back door open and letting Rowan-wolf in first. The big wolf sniffs Skye and then each of the babies before pressing his nose into Nix’s belly with a huff.
When Nix shoos him away after a kiss to the head, he disappears down the hallway and into the laundry room.
“Well, everyone has a skeleton or two. Even you, Dr. Merritt.”
At that, Finn’s jaw drops, and he looks like he’s about to start on a tangent about either Gideon and Adam prying into everyone’s business or about what the hacker could have possibly dug up on him.
The pack descends into a loud discussion about what skeletons are in everyone’s closet, but Grayson has his eyes on Gideon, who is watching for any impact the noise has on Skye.
Way ahead as usual, Jay puts a hand up at the loud noise, and the pack falls silent.
“We gotta get ready to go, Jaybird.” Leo nods toward the stairs.
“Shit, yeah.” He meets Grayson’s eyes and puts a calloused palm on his cheek, and then rubs his wrist on the side of his neck. “Grayson, I need you to keep a level head.”
“I’m just going to school like usual?” It’s hard not to sound incredulous.
“Yeah, do like you usually do, except this time you’re bringing my representative and your soulmate.”
“I’ll make sure he comes home in one piece, Jamie.”
“That’s why I’m telling Gray to keep a level head. Baby boy, if you could not cause an inter-agency incident today, I would take it as a personal favor.”
Nix frowns and crosses his arms over his chest. His fluffy brown hair has dried in waves around his head, and his red mouth is firmed into a stubborn line. He looks like a toddler who got told he couldn’t ride the big rides at the amusement park.
“Please?” Jay asks, curling a strand of hair behind Nix’s ear and kissing his nose.
“Fine. But I am not making promises if she pushes my buttons. Besides, you’re at the Guarda, anyway.”
Grayson can feel their soul surge with his mate’s determination, his connection to The Plain jumping and overflowing the banks of the multi-hued river.
Rosie squeaks in her chair and throws the wooden spoon Gideon had given her. Skye growls too, snapping his pink crayon in half.
Rowan sneaks behind Gideon and presses his cold nose into his mate’s hair before dodging the older man’s second wooden spoon to the face. “We’ll be on backup, too. No one is messing with our pack today.” Gideon says it like he’s almost looking forward to it.
Navigating the requirements of his tenure at school, while not rocking the boat with whatever Kirwan has going on—or worse, calling down the creepy man from last night down on their heads—isn’t going to be easy.
It takes twenty minutes for Jay and Leo to fly out the door in their most serious-looking suits, Jay in his rainbow tie and Leo wearing his lucky olive green suit with his maroon tie.
As Grayson had predicted, Skye clings to Luca after the security lock clicks closed and the sound of the car fades down the drive. Both men had scented him, and Jay had offered his t-shirt from yesterday, which the boy had clutched between his and Luca’s chest like a lifeline.
It hurts to watch him shake as he holds back tears, and the scent of rotting oranges is so strong that Rowan gags until he has to run for the main floor powder room and slam the door.
“Hey, baby. It’s okay. They’ll be back. They’re going to see Ignatius, Nimue, and Elysia,” Luca murmurs.
It didn’t matter that Ignatius and Elysia were two of Skye’s newest favorite people. He just shakes his head and points at the door, whispering, “Big.”
Big. As in Big Daddy.
“Oh, my goodness. He’ll be sorry he missed that,” Nix murmurs, returning to the living room dressed in his jeans and long yellow cardigan sweater with his It’s Bitch O’Clock t-shirt on underneath.
It’s true. While Luca (Woo), Rowan (Grr), and Leo (Rio) had names from Skye, the rest of them did not. Jay, more than any of them, had wondered out loud when he might be gifted his “Dad” name.
Although Grayson has heard Skye whisper Angel to Nix, he’s never used it in front of anyone else, and he can’t tell if it’s Nix’s name or just an observation.
“We have to go soon, right? Doesn’t your first class start at nine?”
“Shoot. Yes. I’ll be back in ten.” Grayson heads for the laundry room, where his uniforms appear as if by magic.
(It’s not magic at all. He has eight different sets of grey trousers and white shirts with three ties, and Gideon sends them out to be dry cleaned with the house cleaners once a week.)
“No time for a shower. But also, how are we getting there?” he calls as he buttons the shirt and steals a pair of Gideon’s boxers from the clean pile.
He buttons his trousers and finds Luca’s eggplant emoji socks in the basket.
They’re not technically uniform, but he dares anyone to mention them today.
“I’ll drive you,” Finn calls out, a nanosecond before Rowan can offer.
Grayson doesn’t need to see them to know Rowan is about to start an argument that he’ll lose (no one wins against Finn, especially when he’s backed by Jay and Gideon.
Not that he has to rely on their authority—he’s smart enough to win all on his own).
Grayson can hear Finn convincing Rowan that he won’t want to miss the blanket fort and the chance to watch Skye’s favorite Disney movie, Moana.
There’s a lot less arguing than Grayson expects, and when he exits the laundry room, his polished loafers in hand, he sees why.
Nix is seated on his lap at the front door, out of sight of the living room and inquisitive eyes.
He has his hands in Rowan’s pants, while the alpha is sucking on Nix’s tongue like it’s the sweetest treat.
From this position, Grayson can see both Luca and Skye building their fort with the girls on a blanket in the middle. They’re sweeping the lavender sheet up, up and then down, down while Mari shrieks and Rosie kicks her arms and legs. Rowan calls it the parachute game.
When Rowan groans low, and Nix responds with a moan, Skye drops his end of the blanket.
“Uh, guys? Kiddo, incoming.”
“We’re done, anyway,” Rowan whispers, sucking on Nix’s neck. “But I think Nix needs new pants.”
“I do, at that. Be right back.” He scurries into the laundry room to change his pants, sucking Rowan’s release off his fingers.
“Don’t let Jay know you were doing that in the hall, Ro,” Grayson says.
“I’m not going to tell. Are you, Finn?” Rowan chuckles, his voice gravelly.
Grayson hadn’t even noticed his mate standing in the door to the kitchen. He’s hard in his navy khakis and has an attractive flush high on his cheeks. “Not a chance. He’ll only want to know why I didn’t stop you with the kids ten feet away. No, thank you.”
“Finn was just getting warmed up for later, right?” Nix returns, the scent of vanilla sex and spiced rum still clinging to his clothes. But Grayson can smell cinnamon toothpaste, too. He sidles up to Finn and runs a single finger over the zipper in his pants. “Who’s on tonight with the kiddos?”
Finn can’t focus for a moment, but when Nix steps away, he blinks, pushing his steamed-up glasses up his nose. “Rowan and Grayson.”
Any thought Grayson had of joining in the party when he got home from school disappears in a baby-scented puff of smoke. He wouldn’t change a minute of being a parent, but Nix makes it so hard.
Rowan snorts at what must be Grayson’s look of disappointment before kissing him hard on the mouth. The taste of spiced rum and vanilla is hot and heavy in his mouth as Rowan leads with his tongue and finishes with his teeth in Grayson’s lower lip.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
It takes a minute for him to remember he’s supposed to be in his Air Affinity class in less than ten minutes. It’s a twenty-minute drive.
“Dammit. Yes.”
“Better catch up, then?”
Rowan had him so distracted that he’d missed Nix and Finn going out the door.
“Yeah, yeah.” He grabs his messenger bag and slips his loafers on.
“Gray?”
“Mmm?”
Rowan frowns before stepping closer. He looks uncharacteristically serious. “You do what you have to do today, and I’ll see you tonight. Right?”
It’s Rowan’s way of telling him to be strong, and telling him in his own Rowan way that his mate believes in him and that he wants him to be safe—that he wants to see him later, happy, and in one piece.
It puts a silly grin on his face, which makes Rowan roll his eyes and run away when Grayson pretends he might hug him goodbye.
Grayson shouts, “I love you,” and waits to hear Luca and Rowan shout it back. But it’s the small, “Bye, Hei-Hei,” that makes him stop like an idiot on the front porch, fighting back tears of joy and forgetting for a minute that he’s headed into yet another fight he’s determined to win.