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“What is a landline?” she asks.

“It’s a phone that connects through a wire instead of a cell signal. It stays in the house, and you can’t carry it around with you like a cell phone. It’s nice to have because we don’t always have great cell service, even with the internet, and when we’re working from home, we need to be able to call people.”

“Oh, uhm… okay. I didn’t know phones did that. I don’t think I need one.” She shrugs, then looks out at the living room. “Whoa, this place is huge!”

“It’s okay,” I say, closing the door and making sure it’s locked. I should have mentioned that the alarm is only on during the night hours. At least that’s how we set it before, but maybe we should change that and leave it armed all the time. Or maybe just when she’s home alone? It’s something to talk about.

“Your room is upstairs. I hope that’s okay,” Pierce says. “It’s the only spare room we have.”

“Is your bedroom up there too?” she asks, looking up at us with hope in her eyes.

“No,” I say with a pang in my chest. “Ours is down this hallway.” I gesture down the short hallway that leads to our bedroom.

“Oh, so I won’t be near you?”

“If it’s a problem, we can figure it out,” I add quickly.

“It’s not too far, though,” Pierce says. “Just up the stairs over there.” He points to the stairs across the room. “Your room and a bathroom are up there. Down here is the living room, kitchen, another half bathroom, and then our bedroom.”

“So you share a room?” she questions.

“Yes,” Pierce says carefully.

“And a bed?”

“Yes?” He says again, this time it comes out as more of a question.

“There’s a bed big enough for the both of you?” she asks innocently, like she really has no idea that’s possible.

“Ours is custom made, but they do have beds that would fit us. We just wanted more room, so we had one built.”

She nods as she looks around. We give her a tour of the house, showing her where everything is in the living room, like the book shelf, TV, and even a few DVDs. She has no idea what they are, so we explain it. We venture into the kitchen, and do the same there. Show her the pantry, the fridge, where the plates and forks are.

“That’s a lot of food,” she comments.

“We just went shopping today. We, uh, weren’t sure what you liked,” Pierce says, scratching the back of his neck.

“I’m learning there are a lot of things that I like that I didn’t know existed. It’ll be fun to try new things.”

She comments on all the appliances we have, and we tell her we hardly use any of them. She’s fascinated by electricity, which is something she doesn’t have in the village. Being at Trinity’s has taught her all about that though, so it’s not brand new.

The dining room is off the kitchen and only big enough to fit the table and chairs with enough room for us to walk around and get to them.

We fell in love with this house because of the layout. It has everything we need with not too much space.

Finally, we go upstairs and show Raewyn to her room.

“I put extra blankets on the bed, they’re very soft, but if you need more, there are some in the closet. I wasn’t sure what color you wanted, but figured blue was safe.”

“I like blue,” she adds.

We look at each other, and I know what he’s about to say. “We weren’t sure if you wanted anything of ours in your bed, you know, for the scent, so we didn’t put anything there, but if you want something, we can do that.”

“And also if you want a nest, we can set that up too, but we weren’t sure…” Pierce says hesitantly.

She smirks, looking up at us. “If I want to smell you, can’t I just go smell you?”

Fuck.