Across the gym, Conrad looked up. Our eyes met. The smile that appeared on his face still affected me far more than was reasonable. Or perhaps exactly as much as was reasonable. Hard to say.
He crossed the gym toward me. The wolfman costume remained deeply ridiculous. Unfortunately, he looked handsome anyway. Life was unfair.
“Good news,” he said.
“What happened?”
“We sold everything.”
“Excellent.”
“We also accidentally agreed to provide desserts for three separate school events,” he admitted.
“What? How?”
“You were busy, so I made an executive decision.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Conrad smiled. “I got ambushed.”
“Ah.”
“Also, Billie may have negotiated.”
“Oh dear.”
He slipped an arm around my waist. The familiar ease of it settled something warm inside me. For so long, I’d believed happiness belonged to other people. Normal people. Living people. People who weren’t immortal. People who didn’t drink blood. People who weren’t monsters.
Then Conrad had appeared and ruined years of carefully maintained pessimism. I had never properly forgiven him. Nor did I intend to.
Life carried on. Ordinary and chaotic and wonderful.
Conrad looked around the crowded room, then he looked back at me. The tightness around his eyes completely dissolved. “I can see us doing this for the rest of our life.”
My heart tightened. It still did that. Every single time.
I tilted my head. “Your life or mine?”
“Dealer’s choice.”
Laughing, I kissed him lightly.
It turned out that Billie was right all along. My tea mug had stayed in the same kitchen for over a year. The matter had been settled long before my brain caught up. Somewhere along the way, eventually leaving Conrad and the kids had stopped being the plan.
A long time ago, I’d believed eternity would be lonely. Conrad and the children had ruined centuries of perfectly good pessimism.
Now, surrounded by family and friends and children and laughter, I realized how wrong I’d been. The future stretched ahead of us. I wasn’t afraid of it.
I was home.
