“Can you go over the differences between this one and the first one again?” Candrin had his notebook out. He’d been taking notes like it was his job. I’d never seen him so invested in a purchase before.
The first one we’d been shown fit twenty people and Candrin immediately dismissed it as being too large for our needs. I wasn’t sure why he wanted to revisit it, but the salesman was all too keen to go over everything one more time. And one thing our years with Candrin had taught us was that he was stubborn, so sitting back and listening was our best bet.
The kids were staying with Molly and I was grateful for it. They’d be bored out of their skulls if they were here and making it known. They were amazing children and I loved them to pieces. But they were cubs and as such, they had buckets of energy. Listening to a boring presentation about something they didn’t care about wasn’t the best way to keep them sitting in their seats.
Once the man was done with his spiel, Candrin thanked him and said we would think about it. The salesman was not impressed, being sure to tell us he had other people interested and not to wait too long.
“Are you getting the van?” Huston asked as he turned on the ignition of our minivan.
“The bus?” Candrin corrected.
“Yeah, the bus.” Huston put the mini van in reverse. “Do you think you want it?”
Candrin chuckled. “I’m pretty sure no one wants a bus. Well maybe that’s not true. There are people who convert them to live in. They probably want them. But everyone else gets them because they need them. Speaking of need, we need to grab lunch. Pumpkin’s?”
“Sure, Pumpkin’s will work.” Huston let the unanswered question go unanswered. And off to Pumpkin’s it was.
~Huston
I had an idea as to why our mate was suddenly on team bus, but he wasn’t budging. For whatever reason he wanted to keep usguessing and if that made him happy, I was going to go along with it. Which was how I ended up parking the car at Pumpkin’s when what I wanted to do was ask him straight out if he was carrying our cubs again.
We hadn’t done anything to prevent pregnancy and done a whole lot of the thing that makes a baby. But unfortunately he never got pregnant again. The first year he conjectured that it was because of the chest feeding and since that was a thing, none of us thought too much about it. But then year two came and went with no pregnancy. Candrin did seek the advice of a midwife who told him it would happen or it wouldn’t, which wasn’t very helpful if you asked me.
By the middle of year three, we decided as a group to enjoy every moment with our cubs and accept that our family was complete. And somehow we managed to do exactly that. But now with this whole bus thing going on, all those old feelings were coming back, I wanted an answer, but at the same time I didn’t want to bring it up in case I was wrong. No one needed those feelings resurfacing if I was wrong. Maybe he just wanted a bus.
Pumpkin’s had become our favorite since they opened up a couple of years ago. They were close to home,welcomed kids, and had homemade bread. On any other day I’d have been thrilled to be walking in with my mate and brothers, but today I was on edge, wanting to know if our mate was with cubs or if I needed to push these feelings of hope back down.
We sat at the table we always did, out of habit. It felt so empty with only the four of us there.
“I miss the kids,” Oberon said what I’d been feeling.
“It is weird being here without them,” Tanner agreed.
“We can go get them,” I offered. It wasn’t as if they were doing anything particularly fun or exciting.
“Not today,” Candrin scootched his chair in. “I think we need to talk about the bus.”
“We can get it if you want,” Tanner said. “It will take some time getting used to driving something that big, but we can handle it.”
“How much time do you think we’ll need?” I asked.
“Less than nine months, I hope.” All eyeswere on Candrin as he spoke.
I’d been right. Our mate was having a baby. My eyes filled with tears, the joy flowing through me. We were having another baby.
I choked on my words, “How long have you known?”
“I suspected last week and saw the midwife two days ago. Is this okay?”
“Better than,” I reached over and took his hand.
Tanner leaned in close and told him exactly how we would be celebrating if we weren’t in public and my mate’s cheeks turned a gorgeous shade of pink. No one else in the restaurant would’ve been able to hear it, unless there was a random shifter I hadn’t sensed and they’d understand completely.
Oberon reached over and cupped our mate’s cheek. “I love you.”
The server came over to take our order, unknowingly interrupting our good news. And when she left, Candrin told us about how the midwife thought it was another set of triplets. Everything was looking amazing so far, and he’d been trying to think of a perfect way to tell us but the salesman irked him with his pushiness so he opted to make the guy sweat for a while to tell us here.
The entire time all I could think about was how I wanted to kiss Candrin breathlessly, tell him that I loved him, and thank him for making me the happiest bear on earth. And when lunch was over and we were outside, I did exactly that. My brothers both had the same idea and did the same when I finally let him go.
