Lincoln came over with the phone. "Here you go." He played the video for me, but as he did, notification after notification came through, each and every one a text message from his brother—his brother who had a habit of hitting "send" after every single thought instead of just getting them all out in one line. In that one way, he was such an old man.
Get ready.
I'm coming to get you.
You know what day it is now, don't you?
Oh, tell your maid to pack a diaper bag.
45 minutes. Tops. That's all you've got.
"Could you maybe explain to me what's happening?" His brother’s message was in code. There was no other explanation.
"We have a tradition in our family that once you start crawling, you get to go shifting with your parents. And my brother apparently thinks that means him, too."
"Works for me," I said. "I'm really bad at the shifting thing."
"Do you mean because you can't...?" He nuzzled in close to where he’d marked me, which made it impossible to remember what we were even talking about.
"All right, little one, let's get you fed and ready," Lincoln said. "It looks like we're about to go on an adventure."
Lincoln was such a hands-on alpha dad.
True to Dale's word, he was there 45 minutes later, excited as could be. He picked up Arthur. "I've been waiting for this day! You are going to see something very disappointing today." He spoke so seriously to our son, but I knew him better than to believe his lead-up. "You’re going to discover that I am so much better-looking than he is, and that will make you sad."
"I've seen you both," I reminded him. "And Lincoln wins in the looks department."
"We'll see about that."
We packed the car with everything we could possibly need for the afternoon and drove to an area known to be safe for shifting. We set out a blanket, put Arthur on it, along with a cooler bag I'd filled with random items from the fridge, unable to pull together an adequate picnic for the event. But the food didn't matter. Today was about Arthur getting to play with his dad and his uncle. He'd met his father's beast before, but this was different. It was a rite of passage, because this time our son was mobile.
The two of them undressed and shifted into their panther forms, and then I crawled over to my mate, trying to give Arthur the idea that he should, too. At first, he giggled and stared. Then he reached for his father, and finally, he rolled onto his belly, pulled himself up, and attempted to crawl over. He didn't make it very far, but Lincoln's panther met him partway.
We spent the next hour, the two of us crawling, the panthers going far slower than they probably ever had before as we played together. It was the perfect way to celebrate our son's first crawl.
For a tiny second, I thought it would be a good idea to take some video. And then I remembered how we first met… a photo of mymate's beast getting into the wrong hands. It was best to leave those memories just in our heads and in our hearts.
When they shifted back, we ate the food I brought and enjoyed the last of the afternoon sun.
"Dale, you're the best uncle ever," I said. "Thanks for a great day."
"Hey, don't I get some credit?" Lincoln teased.
"Oh, well, you give me every great day," I replied. "I was just tossing your brother a bone. Or is it catnip?"
"Hey!" Dale scrunched up his nose. "Enough with the catnip jokes."
"As if you don't have fifty of them to pull out, thinking you’re funny," Lincoln said, shoulder-checking his brother. "Why don't you put everything in the car since you dragged us all the way out here?"
"If 'everything' includes my adorable nephew, I am on it." He picked up Arthur in his arms and reached for the bag. I shook my head.
"I've got that." And off he went, leaving Lincoln and me to collect the last of the things.
“Thank you, mate.” Lincoln took the bag from my hand and settled it on the ground.
“For?”
He wrapped his hand around my waist and pulled me flush to him. “For today, for accepting me for who I am and embracing all that entails as we raise our son.” He brushed his lips against mine.
