Epilogue
A COLLECTION OF GROWING-UP MOMENTS
“Fake it till we make it, fake it till we make it,” Aaren sang, rocking four-month-old Jer in his arms and warbling until Jer burbled and smiled gummily. “See, you agree! We’ll fake it together, we’ll make it together, no one knows we’re impostors and scammers!”
Hades laughed, stepping into the nursery. “Is that really the lullaby you want to raise our child with?”
Aaren puffed out his chest. “Well, it makes him smile.”
“Anything will make him smile if you do it with a smile,” Hades pointed out, coming to wrap his arms around Aaren and Jeremiah. “I’ve heard about the age where they make you sing the same song on repeat until you get entirely sick of it. Please don’t let this be that song.”
Aaren giggled. “But it’s a life motto song.”
“No,” Hades said. “We’re not going to a parent-teacher thing because Jer has been singing about impostors and scammers.”
“Aww,” Aaren said, but he was giggling. “Does it help if I tell you that I wrote it all myself?”
Hades sighed. “Make up another song that won’t get us in trouble.”
“Fake it till we make it,” two-year-old Jer sang.
Hades froze, Jer in his arms. “Aaren, sweetheart. Did I just hear what I thought I heard?”
Aaren’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Did he really learn that song already?”
Hades sighed, thumping their heads together. “Sing anything else but that.”
“I mean, that’s better than the murder song.”
Hades stared wide-eyed at him. “Please don’t tell me you’ve been singing the murder song.”
Aaren shrugged. “Sometimes he follows me into the bathroom when I shower. I don’t realize he’s been listening in on my showertime music until I step out.”
“Oh dear gods,” Hades whispered.
“Who’s ESC?” six-year-old Jer said, peering at Aaren’s phone.
“Oh. That’s your Papa,” Aaren said.
“Is that Papa’s name?”
Across the room, Hades was rocking seven-month-old Katie in his arms. He turned to look Aaren in the eye. Aaren grinned. He hadn’t changed Hades’ contact name on his phone, because after all this time, Hades’ chest was still very emotionally supportive.
Aaren cleared his throat. “When an alpha and an omega—”
Hades sighed. “When an alpha and an omega love each other very much, they give each other silly nicknames,” he said before Aaren could come up with a stranger explanation. “That is Daddy’s silly nickname for me.”
“Oh,” Jer said, wandering off to do something else.
“Mr. and Mr. Scalding,” the teacher said, frowning at Hades and Aaren. Ten-year-old Jeremiah was sitting next to them, four-year-old Katie on Hades’ lap.
Katie was humming Aaren’s Fake It Till You Make It song.
“We feel that Jeremiah shouldn’t be singing inappropriate songs,” the teacher said sternly.
Aaren shrugged. “It’s a good motto to have in life, though. Surely you’ve faked it ‘till you made it at least once.”
Hades coughed.
The teacher winced. “We value honesty in this school.”
Aaren shrugged again. “But when you give presentations in class, you have to fake confidence even if you have stage fright, don’t you? That’s a literal application of this song. And you get rewarded by getting better scores if you appear more confident.”
The teacher sighed.
Hades grinned.
“Okay, wait, what’s ESC, again?” thirteen-year-old Jeremiah said. “You’ve told us before, but you’ve never said why.”
“Why, why, why?” seven-year-old Katie said, bouncing next to her brother.
Hades sighed. “You may as well.”
Aaren coughed. “Well, you know how people have emotional support animals?” Both children nodded. “Your papa’s chest is my Emotional Support Chest. It has been for a very long time.”
Jeremiah scrunched up his face. “Ew!”
Katie tilted her head. “Can I have an emotional support tree?”
“Of course you can,” Aaren said.
The morning after Christmas, Hades and Aaren stepped out of their bedroom to find large white labels on several things in the house.
Emotional Support Table.
Emotional Support Cookie.
Emotional Support TV.
Emotional Support Toilet Paper.
“What... is this?” Aaren said, stunned.
Jeremiah was clutching the label printer he’d requested for Christmas. He hurried over to them and stuck a label on Hades’ chest.
Emotional Support Chest.
Aaren began to giggle.
Hades took one look at his chest, and snorted.
“Daddy! Papa! I got a label too!” Katie came racing around the corner. There was a white label on her forehead.
Emotional Support Sister.
“Aww,” Aaren said, melting.
Hades’ eyes gleamed. “What about Daddy? Does he get a label too?”
“Yeah!” Jeremiah punched the keys on his label maker. It spat out a new label, and Jer tore it off, waving it in the air to help it dry faster. He stuck it on Aaren’s belly.
Emotional Support Belly.
Aaren stared at it.
“It’s so round and squishy,” Jer explained. “I like petting it.”
Hades laughed. “So do I.”
“Me three,” Katie said. “You need a label too, Jer.”
Jer hummed. “What am I?”
“Emotional Support Brother,” Aaren said.
Jer lit up. “Yeah. I like that.” He tapped on his label maker again. Hades and Aaren leaned into each other, watching with proud grins as Jer stuck the label on his own forehead.
“That’s it, we should take a selfie,” Hades said. “This is going on our holiday card this year.”
“Next year, you mean,” Aaren said. “Christmas is already over.”
“Damn it,” Hades said, but he was already pulling out his phone. “We could send a New Year’s card.”
“I like that idea,” Aaren said.
He exchanged a warm look with Hades, and Hades kissed him on the lips.
“I really like our family,” Hades murmured. “We did good.”
“We faked it till we made it,” Aaren said.
“I don’t know about the faking,” Hades replied. “All of this has felt real. Even if we’re strange people.”
Aaren nodded solemnly. “We’re real fake strange people.”
Hades barked a laugh. “Only you, sweetheart.”
He pulled Aaren into another kiss, and like all their other kisses, it was the best thing in the world, surrounded by the people they loved most.