Epilogue
She couldn’t stand the screaming. The running. The noise. Not that she had much choice, since a dozen six-year-olds were going to make a lot of noise. But she was very much looking forward to when their parents came and got them and she could sit down with a glass of wine.
I smirked at the second-hand cake knife that Hart had gotten from somewhere, since I couldn’t imagine him attending a six-year-old birthday party. Probably a thrift store or something. Or maybe he’d borrowed it—or I suppose he could have lent it to someone. Taavi did work with kids.
I was keeping myself occupied washing the serving dishes by hand in Beyond the Veil’s kitchen to avoid having to deal with the enormous mess in the lobby.
Nobody had ever explained to me the danger of giving anything to babies.
I hadn’t been the one to give things to the babies—yes, babies, plural, even though Ward and Mason had always discussed adopting one baby, but when it came down to it, they couldn’t decide and ended up with two.
I kind of understood how someone might end up with two kittens instead of one. Or birds. Or fish.
I did not understand how you accidentally ended up with two babies unless it was twins, and these two weren’t.
But here we were.
Zane was the older of the two, by five whole days. He was a faun, and his mother had caught Arcanavirus while pregnant. Mason and Ward had been contacted about potentially adopting him after the poor woman had died—and although he’d been born almost two months early, he’d been surprisingly healthy.
Grace was an orc, although she’d been born human, but had contracted Arcanavirus from a sick neonatal volunteer—as had another four babies—and had transformed a day after her birth.
Her human parents decided they no longer wanted her and couldn’t get rid of her fast enough.
The woman who’d contacted Mason and Ward hadn’t been told they’d already begun the paperwork for Zane, but when they’d heard about her, they couldn’t say no.
So, they had two infants. One of whom had an unbelievable throwing arm for being less than two weeks old.
She’d thrown several bottles, two of which had shattered, because Ward insisted on using glass instead of plastic because of toxins, multiple stuffed animals, some teething rings, and three sets of plastic keys.
She’d also torn one of the stuffed animals into shreds.
Zane just chewed on everything.
Fauns apparently teethe much earlier than human babies. Much earlier.
Hart and Beck had gotten me to help them plan the whole thing—making sure there was an appointment on the schedule so Ward and Mason would both be here, then helping to email all the necessary people, including all their families and friends.
It was a lot of people.
I wasn’t a big fan of people, so I’d chosen to be helpful by going to the kitchen so I could stay away from them. I didn’t mind, and I was genuinely happy for Mason and Ward, who seemed thrilled with fatherhood, even if also exhausted.
But I was also looking forward to the party being over.
I stopped when I saw him, tall, his dark hair glinting in the early evening sun, golden-brown eyes obscured behind black sunglasses. I watched him notice me, the slight tilt to his head, the shift in his smooth, feline gait.
“Hi,” I said, still a little tongue-tied whenever I saw him again after not seeing him for a few days.
“Hey,” Raj replied, his voice low and smooth. He gestured back toward the direction he’d come from. “Glad I caught you. I was hoping to take you to dinner and a movie… if you’re free.”
I grinned at him. “I’m free,” I replied. I liked it when he took me on surprise dates. He started walking back in other direction, and I followed.
When we reached his car, he pulled out his keys, hitting a button to make the Subaru’s lights flash and unlock it. He reached out and opened the passenger door. I smiled, tucking my backpack on the floor, then slid into the passenger seat while Raj walked around to the driver’s side and got in.
I watched the city go by before Raj turned onto an on-ramp to the highway. I turned to look at him. “I thought we were going to a movie?”
He grinned over at me. “We are,” he replied. “At the drive-in.”
“Drive-in?”
“Yup.”
“Can you explain?” I asked, then. We’d agreed that anytime he said something that didn’t make sense to me, I was supposed to ask him to explain.
“What a drive-in is?”
“Yes, please.”
He let out a breath, thinking. “Well, back in the nineteen-fifties or -sixties, something like that, anyway, somebody thought it would be a fun idea to put up a big giant screen and project a movie on it that people could watch outside.” He shrugged, a movement of one shoulder.
“Probably cheaper than trying to run a regular old movie theater, too, since you don’t have a big giant building to heat and cool.
They were super popular when they were first made, but then they mostly disappeared as big companies that could afford the overhead for a building found that they could make a lot more profit from a captive audience who had to buy their over-priced popcorn than if people could drive up in their own cars. ”
I thought about this. “Is it kind of like a Sonic?” I asked.
Sam had dragged Melissa and me to a Sonic once.
“Kind of, yeah. Except with a movie instead of someone bringing food to your car.” He looked over at me and smiled. “You’ll see.”
The movie was a re-release double-feature, Jaws followed by The Meg. The concession stand had not only popcorn and candy, but burgers and a special-occasion fried fish sandwich, as well as tater tots. And ice cream.
It wasn’t good, exactly. But it was the kind of not good that was still appealing. Cheap food that was unapologetic about what it was and tried to be the best it could be. And they did a decent job of it.
Or maybe it was the fact that Raj and I were cuddled up in the back of his Subaru with a light blanket that we probably didn’t need.
We’d brought enough food back to the car for four people, most of which Raj happily ate, feeding his shifter metabolism with two burgers and a fish sandwich, three orders of tots, and then—when we were done with our dinners—ice cream sundaes—swirl for Raj with hot fudge, whipped cream, and sprinkles, chocolate with fudge, whipped cream, and extra cherries for me.
And then, between movies, popcorn and candy.
I liked Jaws a lot. The Meg, less so, although Raj found it hilarious in places I was pretty sure weren’t supposed to be funny. But I enjoyed watching him laugh, snuggled up next to him, one of his arms over my shoulders, my newly-healed arm tucked protectively against his side.
But the best part was that the hand of the arm around me toyed with my hair, the constant brush of fingers reminding me that he was there, reminding me that he wanted to touch me, reminding me that I also very much wanted to touch him.
I let one of my hands rest on his thigh, my head on his shoulder, the warmth of his body pushing away the cool once the sun went down.
I felt… content. Safe. Cared-for.
For perhaps the first time in my life.
Raj pulled up in front of my apartment building around two in the morning, yawning hugely. “Thank you for humoring me,” he said, the words very slightly slurred.
I frowned. “You’re tired,” I pointed out, entirely unnecessarily.
He nodded. “I’ll be fine,” he said. The fact that he’d said it made me worry that he wouldn’t be.
That, and I didn’t want to say goodnight.
“Or you could stay,” I countered before I thought better of it.
Those gold-brown eyes widened, and he drew in a breath.
“It’s not much,” I added. “My tiny apartment. But it is late, and you are tired…” And I want you to stay.
“You don’t have to—”
“Stay,” I interrupted softly. “Please.”
He stared at me for what felt like hours.
Then he nodded.