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Five Years Later
I walk out of the attic bathroom to find the triplets have already started painting and are making a mess of their creation.
Two paint brushes hover over Frida’s head, telling me she’s using her invisible tentacles, while Leo and Vincent are splattering multicolored paint across the watercolor paper.
I clear my throat. “What did I tell you about waiting?”
Three pairs of hazel eyes turn to me, feigning ignorance.
“Sorry,” Frida says with a giggle, “But Vincent started painting first.”
Her curls bounce, and she rocks forward with a scowl, presumably from being smacked over the head with an invisible tentacle.
“Vincent,” I say.
He swings around and points a chubby finger at his brother. “Leo did it.”
Vincent stumbles forward with a yelp.
“Leo.” I crook my finger.
He shuffles forward, his shoulders up around his ears.
“What did I tell you about hitting people?” I ask.
My youngest child’s tentacles wrap around my thigh, and he buries his face into my hip.
“I’m sorry.” he murmurs.
When I give him a pat on the tentacles, he pulls them away and meets my eyes with such perfect innocence that my heart melts. Warmth fills my chest at his warm smile, but I force myself to stay strong. He can’t get away with hitting his siblings because he’s cute.
Placing my hands on his narrow shoulders, I turn him around to meet Vincent and Frida. “And what do you say to your brother and sister?”
“Sorry Frida, sorry Vincent!” he says.
The other two rush up to Leo and give him a hug. I have to pat at the air above them to see if they’re having an invisible tentacle battle, but it looks like they’re serious about making up.
We’re home schooling the children at least until they’re mature enough to keep their tentacles under control. It’s hard to explain to four year olds that other humans don’t have invisible appendages, especially when the other kids they meet on play dates are also the offspring of other umbras.
Jessika and her mate, Neil, live around the corner in a large house they bought with the royalties from his first book, and they have four little boys about the same age as our triplets.
With all the money we made from selling my paintings, we bought the store next door and expanded both the coffee shop and our living quarters.
“Is this where you’re hiding?” ask a deep voice that fills the attic.
“Daddy!” Three sets of feet pound across the wooden floorboards.
My mate bends down and scoops them in his arms, while his tentacles stretch across the room to wrap around my waist. He lifts me off my feet and reels me, but unlike the first time we met, I relax into his touch.
It turns out that my mate is also adept at art, but his talents extend to cooking elaborate meals, putting together delicious recipes, both for food and beverages. His creativity is the reason why we needed to extend the coffee shop, and it’s now one of the busiest establishments in town.
Over the years, my mate adjusted his Gordon Roberts camouflage to reflect minor changes. People dismissed the darker tint of his hair color as upgrading his image, and he explained away his muscular frame with regular sessions at the gym. The facial features were a little trickier, and there was a short stint where he wore a bandage over the bridge of his nose, claiming that he’d had minor surgery.
He pulls me into his bundle of squirming four year olds and places a soft kiss on my lips.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I ask.
“I arranged for the triplets to visit Jessika and Neil’s quadruplets,” he murmurs. “In fact, Jessika is waiting downstairs.”
“Auntie Jess,” they chorus and wriggle out of his arms.
Tiny footsteps thunder out of the room and down the stairs. Jessika has been a lifesaver in more ways than one. She and her mate adore children and have plenty of space for sleepovers.
I turn to my mate and smirk. “What do you have planned for us tonight?”
He growls into my ear. “First, I’m going to fill every hole imaginable, then I’ll fuck you so hard with my cocks, your screams will shatter the windows.”
END
