Chapter 17 Raff
RAFF
I'd faced down defensemen twice my size, but pulling into my parents' driveway with my fated mate and my seven-year-old nephew in the car had my belly in knots, and not the good kind of knot.
Thorne had been quiet for most of the drive. He kept smoothing the front of his shirt and checking his reflection in the visor mirror. I’d already told him twice he looked fine.
“They're going to love you.” They would, my folks would be beyond happy at meeting Thorne and Rupert.
“My dad will feed you and ask if you enjoy gardening. Pop will pepper you with questions about your job and how we met.”
Rupert was in the back seat with the flamingo on his lap, and he’d talked the entire drive. He’d chatted about school, the passing scenery, and asked questions about me and Bodie’s life growing up. But his most insistent of queries was about shifters.
Where did they come from?
How did you know you were a shifter?
Are some of my friends shifters?
Thorne had instructed him this was a secret, so any of his schoolmates wouldn’t talk about beasts in their family. Until he was an adolescent, any shifters who encountered Rupert would treat him as human, which he might be.
“Will you and your parents shift for me?”
I couldn’t speak on my parents’ behalf, only for myself.
“They might if you ask politely, but I will.”
He squealed, and Thorne stuck his fingers in his ears.
When I pulled into the driveway, Dad shot out of the house with Pop at his heels. Rupert didn’t wait for me to turn off the car, and he leaped out and threw himself into Dad’s arms.
I couldn’t move. My tears came first, followed by sobs. My vision blurred, and I wept at Dad clutching Rupert and Pop with his arms around both of them. Thorne grabbed my arm as he bent his head and peered past me. His body shook, and he clung to me and cried.
We experienced joy and sadness and grief that was so devastating, it left a mark on all of us.
Rupert recovered first, and a stream of words left his mouth. Pop put an arm around him and told him they would shift later but first he and Dad had to meet Thorne.
I held my mate’s sweaty hand as we strolled up the path, but Dad didn’t wait for introductions and wrapped his arms around him. I must have introduced everyone or Rupert did or there was no need. I couldn’t recall.
I’d shown my folks photos last week after I’d done a huge information dump.
Bodie’s child.
Another death.
The brother who’d stepped up.
And he happened to be my fated mate.
“A full circle,” Dad noted, and he’d asked when they could meet Rupert and Thorne.
But we were here now, and Dad wouldn’t let Rupert’s hand go as we walked into the house.
“Thank you for having us.” Thorne's voice had lost the tension from the car.
Rupert acted as if this was his house and inspected the photos on the wall and mantle while hugging the flamingo.
“Is that Bodie, my other dad? He looks like Raff.” The kid had a lot of fathers, two of whom were not here, but Thorne had shouldered the parenting so far, and I was here to take some of the load.
“He does.” Pop used the present tense as Dad did because Bodie existed somewhere in the universe, though sadly not here with his family.
“Raff says you make good pie.” Rupert was in the kitchen and eyeing what Dad had in the oven.
Everyone laughed, and that chased the lingering sadness out of the house, at least for now.
“I do. Would you like some when it’s done?”
Rupert nodded and grabbed a plate from the pile on the island.
After devouring a piece of pie, Rupert asked to see Bodie’s room. Dad escorted him, and Thorne and I stayed with Pop. This was a Dad moment between just the three of them.
During lunch, Dad and Thorne discussed cooking techniques. I zoned out because that wasn’t my thing. Pop chatted to Rupert about the subjects he liked at school. They talked about flamingos and their ability to change color based on their diet.
Rupert picked up one of the photos he’d looked at earlier. “It's weird that my dad looked just like you.”
“We were twins. We had the same face, but we were different inside.”
“Which one of you was funnier?”
“He was.” I braced myself for Rupert to tell everyone I wasn’t funny at all. But he didn’t, and Dad reached under the table and squeezed my hand.
“Can I see you shift now, please?”
“Okay, but you’ll see bare butts.”
He shrugged. “So?”
I led everyone into the backyard which bordered the tree line. This was where Bodie and I had taken our first shifts as kids.
Hurry. I want to meet him.
I removed my clothes and let my wolf take his fur. He faced Rupert and sat. My nephew’s face registered joy and excitement, and he bounced on his feet.
“You’re a wolf,” he screeched.
Thorne and my folks put a finger to their lips. Our neighbors were shifters and no human would pay attention to a kid yelling someone had turned into a wolf. But it was a lesson he needed to learn, that shifters were a secret from humans.
Pop shifted next. His wolf was bigger than mine, and he padded over to Rupert who touched the beast’s fur.
“You're so soft.” He giggled.
Dad went last. His wolf nudged his way between Pop and me until he was in front of his grandson. He lowered his head and pressed his nose against Rupert's chest over his heart.
“Is he smelling me?” Rupert looked at Thorne because there was no one else to ask.
“My guess is he’s saying hello.”
“Hi. I’m Rupert.” He lowered his voice and leaned in close. “And I want to be a wolf too when I grow up.”
Dad's wolf’s ears pricked. He sniffed Rupert and looked at me. He glanced at Pop. My parents had scented Bodie on Rupert, but now the three beasts had too. My brother’s scent was embedded in their memories.
Rupert said into my fur. “Do you think I will be a wolf?”
My wolf couldn't answer him, but I bumped my nose against his shoulder, and he giggled and reached out to pat me with his free hand.
We shifted back, and Rupert announced it was the best day of his life. He asked whether wolves could eat pizza and if shifting hurt and could he ride on one of us next time. Pop told him yes to the pizza, no to the hurting, and no to the riding.
By late afternoon. Rupert was asleep on the couch with the flamingo tucked under his arm, and Thorne was loading the car with food Dad had given us.
“Kitchen.” Dad grabbed my arm. “You and Pop.”
Pop was already there, leaning against the counter.
“What's going on?” I looked between them. The visit had gone so well, so I thought. Perhaps it was too much and my folks were overwhelmed.
Dad closed the door. Oh no. This wasn’t good. It wasn’t just that he was going to lower his voice, but he was shutting us away from my mate and Rupert.
“It’s Thorne.”
“What about him?” I didn’t want to know but doubted I had a choice.
“I scented something.” Dad glanced at Pop who nodded. "When we had our fur, I picked it up. It was very faint, but we both recognized it.”
Was my mate ill? Shifters and their super-sized senses often sniffed out human illnesses before anyone else.
“He's pregnant, Raff.”
The kitchen swirled around me, and Pop grabbed me. Pregnant? A baby? My baby? Our baby?
Stop asking so many questions.
“Are you sure?” I couldn’t get excited if they were mistaken
“There’s no mistake,” Pop said. “Thorne probably doesn’t know yet because he’s only a few weeks along.”
I sat down before I could fall. My wolf was cheering.
Thorne was carrying our baby.
“You need to fill him in when you get home and then figure out when you’re going to tell Rupert.” Dad put a hand on my shoulder.
“Yeah, of course.” I was more concerned with how Rupert would respond to the news. He’d been an only child for seven years, and now the new guy, me, and Thorne were going to bring a new baby into the home. Our little one would be his sibling but he’d no longer be an only child.
“Congratulations.” My folks beamed.
We hadn’t planned on a baby just yet, and I wondered if Bodie secretly had a hand in this. But I had to tell my legs to propel me into the living room, wake Rupert, and drive home where I’d tell my mate the news.
Life had a funny way of throwing curve balls.