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Have I mentioned how glad I was to not be pregnant anymore?
All in all, it hadn’t taken us very long to build and furnish the house, but after spending seven months as a married couple, sharing an apartment with Kylie was starting to feel really old.
It was a feeling that Kylie shared. I thought she was going to pack our bags for us and shove us in the car this morning.
“You ready for this?” Nate asked, killing the engine.
“More than ready.”
Cars were filling up the driveway behind us. Nate and I would enjoy having our own place tonight, but first my entire family and everyone Nate worked with had to come celebrate with us. Nate was being good about it. He was always polite and patient when it came to spending time with my family even though he still wasn’t big on humans. My family made me happy, therefore he valued them and made an effort to get along when we spent the holidays and weekends together.
I’d barely unbuckled Nova from her car seat when my mother came running over with her arms outstretched. To say she was excited about having her first grandchild was an understatement. And it only slightly terrified me to let my family pass around Nova as if she were a normal human baby.
She looked one hundred percent human—she didn’t have wings and never would—but she wasn’t human. You know that Greek myth about Heracles, the son of Zeus and a mortal, who strangled a couple of snakes with his bare hands when he was an infant? According to all the angels I’d talked to, Nova was that kind of baby.
I handed Mom my daughter, watching for any kind of sign that she was going to make her superhuman abilities known.
Which is how I didn’t notice Nate coming up behind me until he was scooping me into his arms.
I shrieked. “What are you doing?”
“Isn’t there some human tradition about carrying your wife through the front door the first time you enter your house?” he murmured so my family couldn’t hear.
“This is far from the first time I’ve entered this house,” I pointed out.
“Shut up—I’m trying here.”
I pressed a kiss to his jaw. “Thank you.”
Nate put me down just inside the door, in our makeshift entryway, which consisted of a strip of tiles between our living room and dining room.
“How long do we have to wait before we can kick everyone out so we can properly christen our house?”
I rolled my eyes. “They’re staying for dinner… at least.”
Nate groaned.
I laughed and dragged him with me to the kitchen. It really felt like the center of the house. There was a half wall that separated it from the dining room and living room, over which I could watch everything going on.
I relaxed when I saw Joriel and Danielle enter with my mom and Nova. They’d make sure nothing happened, though Joriel had a surprising aversion to holding our daughter. He adored her but wouldn’t touch her. It was as if he was afraid he’d break her, the least breakable baby on the planet.
Kylie joined us in the kitchen, cleaning the dishes for us while Nate and I made food.
A couple of hours later, we all piled around the dining room table and the large folding table we’d set up to accommodate for the fact that our dining table only seated six. Everyone passed food around and reached over each other and generally acted like the casual and unsophisticated family that we were.
I looked around the table in awe, letting it sink in that this was really my life. I still couldn’t believe it. Everything had happened so fast since Nate came into my life. He hadn’t wasted much time making all my dreams come true.
We’d done everything we’d talked about. We’d gotten married in that little church in Washington where my parents did. We’d gone to Miami for our honeymoon. He’d given me Nova. And now we were moving into our own house. I was also cutting way back on my hours at Fountain of Youth so I could raise my daughter and explore what I might really want to do with the rest of my life.
Nate’s hand found its way to my bare thigh under the table, his fingers just barely slipping under the hem of my shorts. I caught his wrist and sent him a warning look.
Later, I told him with my eyes.
He pouted, and his own eyes darkened with desire.
Samuel coughed, and I knew our eye conversation had not only been noticed but clearly understood.
I glared at Samuel across the table, and he grinned back without the slightest bit of remorse.
“Ignore him,” Nate growled.
I laughed softly and leaned into his shoulder. I was home, surrounded by the people I loved, and I couldn’t wait to see where life took us all next.
THE END
