“I do know that. My mother has had the cooks preparing since six this morning and my father opened a bottle of wine that’s older than both of us combined. They’re excited, Jae.”
I nod and unbuckle my seatbelt and get out of the car before I can talk myself into asking him to turn around and drive us home. Sungyoon climbs out of the backseat and comes to stand beside me, and I notice him straightening his shirt and squaring his shoulders in a way that’s so unconsciously Hongjoong-like it makes my heart flip. I start to hang back as we approach the steps, falling half a pace behind, but Hongjoong reaches for my hand and pulls me firmly to his side, his fingers lacing through mine and gripping tight enough that pulling away isn’t an option. He doesn’t look at me when he does it, just keeps walking, but his thumb rubs once across my knuckles and the gesture steadies me more than any words could.
The front door opens before we reach it and Hongjoong’s mother is already there, framed in the warm light of the entryway, elegant and sharp-eyed in a dark silk blouse with her hair swept up, earrings catching the light. She’s aged gracefully in the way that wealthy women do, her features still striking, her posture still impeccable, and when her gaze lands on Sungyoon walking up the steps, her hands fly to her mouth. The sound she makes is small and involuntary, a soft gasp that she presses behind her fingers, and then she’s coming down the steps to meet him before he can even bow properly, her arms going around his shoulders and pulling him into a hug that’s fierce and immediate.
“Oh my goodness,” she says, her voice thick, pulling back just enough to cup his face in both hands and turn it side to side, studying him with eyes that are rapidly filling. “Oh, look at you. You look just like him. The exact same face, oh—”
She presses her lips together hard and blinks several times, clearly fighting to compose herself, her thumbs brushing across Sungyoon’s cheekbones as she holds his face like she’s afraid he might disappear. Sungyoon, to his credit, handles the sudden embrace of a grandmother he’s never met with a grace that makes my throat tighten with pride. He hugs her back and greets her politely, bowing his head and calling her grandmother in a voice that’s steady even if his ears are turning pink at the tips.
Then Hongjoong’s mother lifts her gaze over Sungyoon’s shoulder and sees me standing a step behind, and she stops. Her expression shifts into something knowing and wistful, her eyes moving between my face and Sungyoon’s and then to Hongjoong standing beside me, and she lets out a long breath and shakes her head with a small, rueful smile.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” she says. “The boy who was always attached to Hongjoong’s side in high school. His partner in crime, always the two of you making trouble together. The omega boy from the noodle shop?” She sighs again, and her eyes crinkle at the corners. “I should have known.”
Then she steps forward and embraces me as well, warm and firm, her hand coming up to pat the back of my head the way mothers do, and she says quietly near my ear, “Welcome. Welcome home.” I’m too stunned to do anything but hug her back, my arms stiff at first and then tightening as the warmth of it sinks in, the unconditional acceptance in her grip. I have to press my face against her shoulder for a moment to keep myself from coming apart entirely.
Hongjoong’s father greets us inside the foyer with the same warmth, a tall, imposing alpha with silver threading through his dark hair and the same sharp bone structure that Hongjoong inherited, though his features are heavier, more weathered by decades of boardrooms and business deals. He shakes Sungyoon’s hand with both of his own, clasping it firmly, andlooks at the boy’s face with undisguised wonder, his eyes tracing the familiar lines of jaw and brow and cheekbone before pulling him into a hug too, clapping him on the back with a force that makes Sungyoon stumble slightly and laugh.
“Strong boy,” his grandfather says approvingly, gripping Sungyoon’s shoulders and holding him at arm’s length to look at him again. “Good build. You play sports?”
“Soccer,” Sungyoon says, and his grandfather nods like this is the correct answer.
He turns to me next and asks about my parents, how they’re doing, whether they’re still in the same neighborhood. I navigate the question carefully, saying that we lost touch some years ago and leaving it at that, and Hongjoong’s father nods without pushing, his expression settling into something that tells me he understands there’s history there best left for another time. He clasps my shoulder briefly and squeezes, a gesture that says more than any words he could offer, and then ushers us all deeper into the house.
Hongjoong’s mother gives Sungyoon an enthusiastic tour that I trail behind at a distance, listening to her heels click on the hardwood floors as she leads him from room to room, pointing out family photographs on the walls and explaining the history of the house with the pride of someone who has spent decades making it a home. She takes him upstairs and shows him a room on the second floor that she’s already having set up for him to use when he visits, a spacious corner room with windows overlooking the garden, currently furnished with a bed and a desk and empty shelving that she gestures at with an apologetic wave.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I left most of it bare,” she tells him. “What are your favorite colors? I’ll have it decorated properly before your next visit.”
Sungyoon looks around the room with wide eyes and says he likes blue, and dark green, and she nods and starts talking about curtain fabrics and bedding options with the enthusiasm of a woman who has been waiting for a grandchild to spoil and intends to make up for every single lost minute. Sungyoon follows her around, looking slightly overwhelmed but visibly pleased, answering her questions about school and soccer and his friends with increasing ease, his initial stiffness melting under the sheer force of her warmth.
During dinner, seated around a long table laden with more food than five people could possibly eat, platters of braised short ribs and steamed fish and japchae and at least six different banchan dishes arranged in careful rows, Hongjoong’s mother reaches across the table and clasps my hand. Her grip is firm, and her eyes are bright, and she holds my gaze steadily as she speaks.
“I want you to know how thankful I am,” she says. “Raising a child alone, all those years, with no help from anyone.” She shakes her head slowly. “I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been. Sungyoon is a wonderful young man, and that’s because of you.”
My throat closes up completely. I manage a quiet “thank you” that comes out rough, and she squeezes my hand once more before releasing it and turning back to the conversation with a calmness that I envy deeply because my own is hanging by a thread.
We’re so openly accepted, so readily folded into this family, that I don’t know what to do with the feeling expanding inside my chest. I sit at the table listening to the chatter flowing around me, Sungyoon telling Hongjoong’s father about his soccer team’s semifinal win and his grandfather leaning forward with genuine interest and asking about formations and coaching strategies, Hongjoong arguing with his mother about the room decor, hismother insisting on traditional furnishings with antique wood pieces while Hongjoong advocates for something modern and sleek. Sungyoon chimes in that he wants a gaming setup and all three of them pivot to debate that instead, Hongjoong’s mother looking personally affronted by the suggestion of a gaming chair in her carefully decorated guest room while Hongjoong takes Sungyoon’s side with theatrical conviction and his father stays diplomatically neutral, sipping his wine and watching the argument unfold with the quiet amusement of a man who learned long ago to stay out of his wife’s decorating decisions.
I sit quietly among them with Hongjoong’s hand resting on my thigh under the table, warm and grounding, his thumb tracing absent circles against the fabric of my pants while he argues with his mother about monitor sizes. The weight of his palm against my leg is steady and sure, anchoring me to this moment, to this table, to this family that I kept my son from his whole life and that opened its arms to both of us anyway. But watching them now, I think maybe I’m starting to believe it’s really going to be okay. Maybe we can belong here, I can belong with Hongjoong. It’s not a mistake, not a dream. Just here.
Chapter Sixteen
I’m hovering right at the edge of a perfectly good dream involving a beach and an absurd amount of grilled seafood, rudely interrupted by a slow, idle touch between my legs, a fingertip tracing a path that has absolutely no business existing at this hour of the morning.
I open my eyes with a groan and lift my head just enough to look down the length of my own body. Hongjoong is lying on his stomach between my spread thighs, propped up on one elbow with his chin practically resting on my hip, wearing an expression of casual fascination as he lazily traces circles around my rim with the pad of his index finger. He looks like a man examining something mildly interesting at a museum, completely unhurried, his blonde hair still mussed from sleep and falling across his forehead, his other hand resting warm on my inner thigh to keep my legs apart. Alto is curled up at the foot of the bed, one long elegant ear twitching in his sleep, and Rennard is sprawled across the doorway to the bathroom likea furry barricade, neither dog remotely concerned about what their owner is doing.
“Stop that,” I grumble, my voice still thick with sleep. “I’m trying to sleep.”
Hongjoong doesn’t look up. His fingertip continues its lazy orbit, light enough to tickle, firm enough that my body is already starting to respond against my will, warmth pooling low in my belly and slick beginning to gather at my entrance.
“I can’t help it,” he says, his tone conversational and completely unapologetic. “It’s just so pretty and pink and little.”
I open my mouth to tell him exactly what I think of that assessment but before I can get a word out he presses his thumb flat against the center of my hole and then sinks two fingers in with a slick easy glide that knocks a moan out of me, my hips twitching up off the mattress, my body clenching around the intrusion and then relaxing to pull him deeper before my brain has fully caught up with what’s happening. Hongjoong sighs with the deep contentment of a man who has found exactly what he was looking for and crooks his fingers gently, rubbing against my walls and making my toes curl into the sheets.
“So tight,” he murmurs, almost to himself. He spreads his fingers slightly, testing the give, and I bite down on my lower lip as another wave of slick leaks around his knuckles. “I genuinely cannot believe you pushed a whole baby out of here.”
He pauses then, fingers still buried inside me, and tilts his head up to look at my face with an expression of sudden genuine curiosity.
“You did push him out of here, right?”
