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I lay there for a long moment, listening to the silence of my house.
"I don't like quiet," I declared, missing the tiny demonic spirits inhabiting the flesh of my babies.
"Well, no one said we had to be quiet," he said, voice dipping low in a way it always did just seconds before his hands touched me.
Sex had been a back-burner thing after the babies since I was all kinds of gross down there, then we could barely get enough sleep to function, let alone fuck.
But I had showered.
I had slept for almost five whole hours put together.
And my body was heating, my sex clenching.
It was time to be more than Mom and Dad, more than just people who shared a life.
It was time to be us again.
And thanks to our friends, we had that chance.Adler - 14 years."Yeah, right," Valen mumbled, rolling his eyes much the way his mother was known to do "I'm not a little kid anymore, Dad," he informed me, as he had done constantly since he turned ten.
"Nah. Ya are a full-grown man now. So why the fuck are ya naggin' at me instead of out workin'?" I asked, smirking at the kid who looked like a perfect combination of myself and Lou with dark hair, dark eyes, but tanned skin like his mother.
He rolled his eyes at that, lifting his chin at me. "Where is Mom really?" he demanded, voice with an undercurrent of steel.
"I told ya."
"No, you lied to me," he corrected, brow raising.
"How'd ya know that?"
"Because Mom would rather take a bath with piranhas than go for a spa weekend with Aunt Kennedy."
"Well, ya got me there," I agreed. "Ya are getting big. I gotta step up my lyin' game, huh?"
"Where is she?"
I was seriously starting to wonder if maybe Lou and I should have taken some parenting classes or yoga or fucking meditation courses before having the kids.
They clearly inherited all their stubbornness from us.
Multiplied, if that was possible.
"Fine," I said, leaning back in my chair. "It's time I filled ya in on the truth, son. Yer momma is a secret agent. She's off to catch a man plotting to kill the president."
"Dad..." he sighed, shaking his head.
"Ya are a stubborn git, Valen," I decided. "But okay. Mom isn't really a stay-at-home mom who takes frequent vacations away from us. She's a bounty hunter." His brows raised at that, eyes looking almost... frustrated "Ya can choose to believe it or not, but it's the truth."
"I've known that since I was six," he informed me. "I meant Where is she? You know... in the world."
These fucking kids.
You could never anticipate the shite that came out of their mouths, I swear, or how much crap they picked up on without you noticing.
"She's right here," Lou's voice declared, making us both turn to find her standing in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, smile warm, but with a small split in her lip.
"Where were you?" Valen demanded, turning his focus on his mother, giving me a ridiculous sensation of relief. It was a fucked up thing to be afraid of your own damn child's line of questioning. But I'd swear Valen was gonna become an interrogator one day. His childhood suggested he'd be ace at it.
"I had to chase down Uncle Graham in Florida," she declared, meaning Geoff's previously unappreciated son, moving forward to press a kiss to his head that he just barely tolerated. "Go tell your sister we are going to go out to dinner," she demanded before dropping down into my lap, resting her head on my shoulder with a sigh.
"Ain't easy being the boss, huh?" I asked, running a hand down her arm.
"When you suggested I start my own business, I only agreed because you somehow convinced me I could be here all the time."
"Don't go blamin' me for ya hiring that loose cannon."
"Fair enough," she agreed, taking a deep breath as she heard the kids coming back.
"Mama," Violet called, beaming at her mother as she came in, her honey-colored eyes bright, her pretty pink sundress matching the pink barrette in her hair, the pink and purple in her shoes.
She's all Sammy, Lou had told me once, a mix of pride and pain in her voice as she did so.
"Hey, baby. You ready to go get something to eat?"
"Can we go get milkshakes after?"
Nearly thirty years after the night her whole life changed, the word still made her stiffen, still made her breath suck in. As far as I knew, she had still never touched one. I'd brought the kids to have them here and there when they demanded them, but let Lou hold onto that one last piece of her pain - that sliver of guilt that nothing could seem to take away.
"Vi, maybe..." I started, giving Lou a reassuring squeeze.
