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“Jesus, it’s so hot.” I peered into the rearview mirror at my reflection. “Do I look all shiny?”

“You look fine, var Rorik,” Anita deadpanned. “Let’s go. We don’t want to be late.”

“I’m never late.” I eased out of the parking space, and once we were back on the road I reached over and rested my hand on Anita’s thigh. “We’ll probably be the first ones there. Well, aside from Sorin and Kiti, obviously.”

Anita had already met Sorin a month or so back when the three of us went for dinner. She’d also briefly met Suni when we bumped into her in Bismuth’s one night while we’d been out with Anita’s sister, Devi, and Devi’s friend Tamyn—as in, the Tamyn who’d hit on me that night in Carnelians months ago.

Anita had smiled her way through some good-natured ribbing from Devi and Tamyn about how, in hindsight, she’d done a bad job of hiding how pissed she’d been at Tamyn that night. I’d tried not to look too pleased with myself during the conversation, the knowledge that Anita had gotten a teensy bit jealous making me happier than it probably should’ve.

They eventually dropped it after Tamyn gave me a good-natured nudge with her elbow and Devi jokingly apologised to me on Tamyn’s behalf. I liked Anita’s sister, and I was glad to have met her ahead of time when I’d met Mr and Mrs Chaudhary last weekend.

It had been nerve-wracking as shit, even though her family was very warm and laid-back. And calm. No one had been yelling, ‘Ma! Ma!’ from another room. No one had been fighting over the TV remote. No one threw any dinner rolls when we sat down to eat.

Even Anita’s tiny niece and nephew, Mina and Kiran, were better behaved than some of my adult siblings, for fuck’s sake. I wasn’t great around kids, but they were cute, and at the age that made interacting with them a little easier. Mainly because they just talked endlessly at me about whatever weird shit popped into their heads, showed me their toys—or, in Mina’s case, the dead dragonfly she’d found in the garden and dropped into my lap—then decided to start calling me “Uncle Noon”. I allowed it.

Afterward, Anita had told me how funny it was to see a seven-foot-plus demiurgus looking so unbelievably nervous in front of two tiny humans—her parents were on the shorter side.

But it had felt important that they liked me. I’d met girlfriends’ parents before, and it had never fazed me, but I’d been anxious to make a decent impression and show them I was good enough for Anita. I’d reverted back to a nervous teen in their presence, sweating throughout our introductions, calling Mr Chaudhary “sir” and refusing to even sit near Anita on the couch in case they thought I was being inappropriate with their youngest daughter.

Devi and her husband, Malcolm, had helped me relax, at least. Devi was a little more talkative and outgoing than Anita, so she kept the conversation flowing when nerves made me clam up. Malcolm was an awesome dude. He was into swimming and was a big fan of dropball, the most popular surface-side demiurgus sport, so we’d bonded over that. Not that I could relate to the swimming thing—I hadn’t attempted to go back to the grody pool since that sauna session with Anita.

When we turned onto my mom’s street a while later and the house came into view up ahead, I grumbled in irritation. “Damn it.”

“What?” Anita glanced at me, then chuckled as I slowed down and pulled over outside the house. “Oh, we’re clearly not the first ones here. Who beat you, then?”

I grunted as I shut off the engine and unbuckled my seatbelt. “Bax and Indi. Laki.” Squinting at the drive, I added, “I think that’s Tuvin’s car as well.”

Anita patted my leg before opening her car door. “Better luck next time, var Rorik.”

“It’s only because of all the champagne bottles making the car drag,” I protested, climbing out. “The extra weight. We would’ve made it here first if we didn’t have them.”

“Mm.” Anita didn’t sound at all interested as she opened the trunk. “How are we going to get them all inside?”

“I’ll do it in a minute.” I grabbed two bottles for now and shut the trunk, then wrapped my arm around Anita. “Let’s go let them know we’re here.”

She shot me an amused smile as I led her up the drive. “So no one else can turn up in the meantime and beat us to the door?”

I studiously ignored her as I opened the front door. “Ma?”

“Who’s that?” I heard Mom immediately call back from the direction of the kitchen.

“It’s me, Ma,” I called, shutting the door behind us. “And Anita.”

There was a dramatic gasp, followed by the frantic shuffling of slippered feet. I threaded my fingers through Anita’s and led her toward the living room, just as Mom appeared in the hallway dressed in a pair of flowy black pants and a loose silk shirt under her apron, her ancient slippers on her feet. I’d offered to buy her new slippers a million times, but she said those ones were “broken in”. They were so threadbare that I was pretty sure the soles were transparent.

“Hello, darling,” Mom said distractedly, barely glancing at me because she was too busy staring at Anita with wide, excited eyes. “And you’re Anita.”

Anita gave her a slightly nervous smile, which made me press a kiss to the top of her head before I grinned at Mom as my chest expanded with pride. This was kind of a big deal—the two most important women in my life finally meeting.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs var Rorik,” Anita said, barely getting the words out before Mom was rushing forward.

“Oh my word, call me Una.” Mom clasped one of Anita’s hands between both of hers. “It’s wonderful to meet you, darling. All Nuni does is talk about you when he calls me. I have never seen my son so smitten.”

My ears fluttered. “Come on, Ma.”

Mom made a dismissive sound as she stepped back. “As if it’s not obvious to her anyway.”

“Is that Nuni and his new girlfriend?” Aunt Indi suddenly barged into the hallway from the living room and stopped beside Mom.