Chapter 28
BASTIAN MAKES ARRANGEMENTS WITH CASSIUS for us to travel in a week, giving us time to pack and ship the items we want to go back to New Orleans.
We decide to keep most of the baby furniture in California so we can return if necessary.
I busy myself with planning, trying to push away the reality we are all about to face.
The truth will come out eventually—Aven is a boy, Bastian is back—but Mother feels like we’ll leave the blessing ceremony with important answers, and I will do as she asks, since she’s been keeping the coven happy while we’ve been gone.
Over the next week, Bastian adjusts more to life as a human, waking up in the afternoon instead of the evenings, happily taking over the night shift with Aven once I’ve fed him.
I’ve woken to more of his nightmares, but he refuses to talk about them.
I have also woken up to them sleeping together in the rocking chair, Aven on Bastian’s bare chest, Bastian’s head tilted in the most uncomfortable position.
I think about how witches have been mostly deprived of witnessing this kind of love.
The kind between a father and his child.
And how wrong it is, because watching this kind of devotion is absolutely breathtaking.
I find myself turned on by everything Bastian does, the pull I have to him, constant and beating. I yearn to make up for all the time we’ve lost; I crave that treasured intimacy when I feel the closest to him.
How he puts on his T-shirt, buckles his belt, the way he brushes his teeth—for God’s sake—ignites every particle in my flesh.
I’m certain that if he hadn’t been dead, I wouldn’t be feeling this way so quickly after having a baby, but good God, all I want is him on top of me, inside of me, undressing me, over and over.
I try not to think about it because the beach house is not conducive to the kind of sex I want to have—Chantal’s room is too close, and Aven sleeps in the same room as us.
I tell myself that once we get back home, we can carve out time for intimacy, but I can’t get the morning on the beach out of my head.
I’m not the only one that feels this way.
“You’re driving me crazy,” he mutters one day while I’m bent over the floor, playing with Aven.
I sneer at him, fighting the urge to bite my lip just to drive him crazier, but I clear my throat and sit up. “Four days until we’re home and have our own room again,” I say, and he gets up quickly.
“Jumping in the ocean,” he yells and walks out the front door, and I shake my head as Aven coos.
“Your daddy is so silly.”
That evening I go into Chantal’s room and am met with shoes, clothes, and luggage littered across the floor.
“Almost done?” I ask, sitting on the bed next to a suitcase.
“Yeah.” She nods. “You know, it’s not that I don’t like it here. The boys are yummy, and it’s beautiful. But I miss my house. I miss my boys. I miss performing.”
Guilt floods me, and I wonder if it will ever go away. “I’m sorry you left everything—”
“This is where I wanted to be. And if we needed to stay longer that would have been okay too. Heck, it’s a paid vacation, right?”
I nod.
“Bastian’s with Aven?”
I sigh. “He’s hell-bent on getting Aven to stop crying with no help from me.”
She looks to the floor, whispers, “Pack,” and with a flick of her finger, piles of clothes begin packing themselves in her suitcase. “I guess your mom was right.”
“Right about what?”
“If there was a good vampire to fall in love with, he’s the one. I see how he loves you, how he loves the baby. It’s real, what you have. I’m happy you have it.” She leans in close to my ear. “And that man is beautiful, like movie star beautiful.”
“God, I know,” I exhale.
“Just don’t let it get us killed.” Her mouth straightens, her face serious, and it breaks my heart and fills it at the same time.
“I won’t let it get any of us killed. I swear, Chantal. I won’t. We have our magic, and bonus padding with Nicola and Cassius’s protection.”
“You think Nicola is really going to protect us?”
“I think Nicola will do anything for Cassius and Bastian, especially Cassius. And Cassius will do anything for Bastian. And Bastian will do anything for me. And I will do anything for you. Domino effect.”
“I hope you’re right,” she says, twisting a lock of hair between her fingers.
“Me too.” I groan, looking at the door. “It’s quiet. Bastian must have finally got him to sleep. Better get to bed.”
“Goodnight, baby girl,” she sings, causing a smile to cut across my face.
“Goodnight. I love you,” I say, bending to kiss the top of her head.
From our bedroom door, I hear Bastian whispering, so I pause, not wanting to interrupt anything important.
“I’ll play dolls with you or ball with you.
I’ll support you any way that you need, any way that I can.
You’re all I ever wanted, my love, you and your mommy are all I ever wanted.
Do you understand? You are going to have every opportunity this life can offer, and I will spoil the shit out of you, I don’t care what your mom says, okay?
You want a pony? I’ll get you a pony. You want a rocket ship?
Done. You’re my miracle and will have the world at your fingertips, okay? ”
My hand grasps my chest, the words that every mother wants to hear the father of her child say, and I just couldn’t love this man more. He’s adjusting, he’s getting better, and I know he loves Aven more than I could have ever imagined. And there’s no feeling quite like that.
There’s a pause, so I open the door to Bastian walking around the room, bouncing Aven, one of his little hands wrapped around Bastian’s finger.
“A rocket ship might be a little much,” I say, placing a hand on Bastian’s back as we stare at our son.
“Yeah, well. It’s his.” Bastian’s face reaches down to place a soft kiss on my lips, and I gasp at how tender he is, how much I love every part of him. “The world is his.”
I wake to Bastian having another nightmare that night.
Sweat dampens his forehead, his face twisted like he’s enduring some kind of torture.
Pressing on his head, I bid the nightmare to cease.
It does in seconds, and his breathing steadies, his heartbeat returns to normal, and he pulls me into him like I’m a life raft.
His body cocoons mine, like I’m keeping him afloat in the darkest of waters.
I don’t wake him to question him, I let his poor body rest.
“Baby!” Bastian yells the next morning while I’m in the bathroom, wrapping a towel around my chest. My heart falls flat as I run into our bedroom, relieved to see a bright smile on Bastian’s face. He’s hovering over Aven, who’s lying on our bed.
“He just smiled at me. Look, he did it again!” He pulls my elbow so I can get a closer look, my mouth widening with surprise at the huge gummy smile on Aven’s wet mouth.
“Oh!” I yell, clapping as Aven’s green eyes circle the room. “My baby’s a genius!”
Chantal races in from her room, hands outstretched with excitement. “Smiles?” she asks.
“Cousin, look!” Bastian yells and makes this crazy buzzing sound with his mouth that only he can do, and there’s Aven’s smile again.
“Look at those gums!” Chantal says, covering her mouth, and the three of us start making sound after sound, his face sending our hearts into fits of affection.
We sit there for twenty minutes, doing every silly thing under the sun to get him to smile again, and he obliges until Chantal announces she needs to run to the store, and Bastian decides he has somewhere he wants to take Aven and me.
Though I had seen and heard of the Santa Cruz Wharf many times, I had never taken the time to walk it before I brought Bastian back. But Bastian insists before we leave that he buys Aven his first lollipop from Marini’s, a candy shop he’s loved since he was a child.
“You know he can’t have a lollipop for like, years,” I say, pushing Aven’s stroller down the wharf that stretches into the ocean.
“I don’t care. It has to be from Marini’s, and it has to be bought now.” He smiles at me, his hair more wavy than usual, maybe from his more frequent dips in the ocean.
We pass fishermen as we walk, their rods hooked onto the wharf, their coolers sitting opened.
“They want those coolers filled with kingfish or white seaperch,” he whispers, loving when he can be a tour guide.
I nod because I’ve never heard of those kinds of fish, and then he’s waving at them, hand up, smile big.
“How’s it going, guys?”
They small talk with each other, and it only reminds me why I gravitated toward him. He’s friendliness, his charm. The characteristics I admired in others but was unable to adopt for myself. I’m not a waver; the most you get from me is a smile on a good day. But I love that about him.
“Do you hear the sea lions?” he asks when he turns back to me, his white T-shirt glowing from the sun.
“They sound angry.” I squint, shielding my eyes from the sun.
“When we get back, I want to do something special for Cousin, okay?”
He looks down at me, eyes sincere. The first night he met Chantal he called her Cousin, and it seemed to stick. “She was there when I couldn’t be. I owe her a lot.”
“I owe her everything,” I say, exhaling deeply. “Maybe a trip somewhere unbelievable?” But that doesn’t even scratch the surface of what Chantal deserves.
Bastian nods, taking in our surroundings.
“Definitely. Speaking of trips. We’ll bring Aven here every summer, okay?
” He slings his arm around my shoulder, his other hand moving into his pocket as we pass restaurants and shops.
“I can teach him how to surf, can you believe that? During the day. Surfing.”
This wouldn’t sound so wild for most people, but for a former vampire, I can see how it’s thrilling.
“As your partner, you’ll have to get my permission before anything too dangerous. You can’t break my baby.” I laugh, looking up at him, but he doesn’t get the joke or think it’s funny. Instead, his face falls serious. “Oh, I was just kidding,” I say quickly.
But he just pulls his sunglasses on top of his head, stopping to stare me in the face.
“Partner?” he asks.
“Well…” I stammer. “Yeah, we’re partners, right?”
“We’re partners?” he asks, eyebrows raised, chin to his chest.
“Aren’t we?”
“Oh, Aster.” He shakes his head with mock disappointment then quirks his mouth up. “We have to work on labels.” And with that, he drapes his arm back around my shoulder as we arrive at the candy shop, and he’s radiating with excitement again and it’s the most beautiful thing.
We spend the day shopping for items we’ll need for the flight tomorrow.
Bastian has kept his word not to leave my side, but I’m able to convince him to wait for me in the café area so I can shop at my own leisure.
Aven needs a few more outfits since he’s growing so quickly out of the newborn clothes.
I go crazy inside Target, buying little shoes he will never wear, sweaters he probably won’t need for long in New Orleans, dapper hats suited for the cutest baby gentleman.
Then I pass the girls’ section, my feet suddenly freezing, my hands clenching the shopping cart handle.
I’m not sullen for what I don’t have, I’m terrified about what I do have will bring.
The daughter I was told to birth from as early as I can remember does not exist. I walk past the dresses, the patent leather Mary Janes, the blessing ceremony making me sick to my stomach.
Trusting my mother hasn’t always gotten me where I want to go, and I’m frightened.
But then Bastian turns down the aisle, the face of an angel smiling at me.
It’s a bizarre sight, this once vampire pushing a shopping cart with a baby in it.
I step back from the spectacle of him, his wavy hair, his sparkling eyes, his wicked grin.
Gone are the suits that had once been his vampire uniform.
He wears jeans and T-shirts these days, and looks even more delicious than before.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He laughs, and I roll my eyes.
“I technically have.” I bat my lashes at him.
“Fact,” he says, raising his eyebrows in amusement, moving closer to me, smelling like freshly brewed coffee.
His eyes move around the aisle, taking in all the little baby toys.
“It’s like a wonderland for babies.” There’s an excitement in his eyes, a youthful glow at little toys that make crunching sounds when you squeeze them, little elephants whose bodies have mirrors in them, and boxes that light and glow from touching the shapes.
“We need all of it,” he decides, quite seriously, hand on his chin as he accesses.
He then proceeds to dump hundreds of dollars’ worth of toys into my cart, and I don’t stop him.
Because this kind of joy is a drug, and right now, I need a hit.