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“I think so. Plus, I pumped earlier, so there’s food for all three kids. I’d say we can disappear for a couple of hours.”
“At least.” He yawned, walking them to the owner’s suite. “But we need to set an alarm this time. Our last nap turned into a sleep.”
EPILOGUE
Joel watched as Theo raced around, going from activity to activity, his friends running beside him. Everyone had attended, from Theo’s classroom to the soccer team. Theo might have been a hare in a tortoise world, and not everyone would understand or accept that, but that didn’t stop him from being one of the most amazing kids even to be born into that tortoise world.
Malia and her family flew out for Theo’s birthday, and he spotted Josiah and Josiah’s friends teaching her how to do a turn on a skateboard. It filled him with pride to know how kind Josiah’s friends were, primarily because Josiah was kind himself. Like Josiah, they didn’t coddle Malia because she wore a prosthesis, but they didn’t push her too hard, either.
What he wasn’t looking forward to, primarily for Josiah’s sake, was having “the talk.” At the moment, he wasn’t sure whether he’d rope the guys in or whether it would be him and Ayesha. He was leaning more on the guys because Ayesha had a panic attack if he hinted at it.
“Hey, Eesh? With Malia popping up more and more, think we should go ahead and talk to Josiah about sex?”
Ayesha’s face lost all its color. “He’s just a baby, Joel.”
“Eesh, Josiah’s twelve now.”
“A twelve-year-old baby.”
“Whether we like it or not, biology is going to start kicking in. He’ll start having…sensations, and that’s if he doesn’t already. Shit starts getting intense around puberty.”
“What sensations?”
“Sexual feelings. Physical attraction. Curiosity about sex. Increased interest in…anatomy. At least, more interest. Then there are the surprise erections. Those, I do not miss at all.”
Ayesha scrubbed her face, and he watched her go from gray back to her usual lovely brown as she removed her hand.
“Joel, baby, I can’t do this. I can’t. And what do you mean by ‘more interest’? Malia barely has ‘anatomy’ to speak of.”
“Not Malia. When we’re out, I notice where his eyes go. The boy is an ass man.”
“Please stop. I’ll go into early labor.”
“Babe, it’s better that we guide him than leave him to try to figure things out independently. That’s where he’d run into problems.”
“You didn’t start having sex at twelve, did you?”
“God, no.”
She exhaled.
“But that’s around the time I definitely started thinking about it.”
Tiare snoozed in the carrier strapped to his chest, adorable as hell in her little cardigan with the animal ears. It was the first time he got to spend alone with her all morning. If she wasn’t with her grandparents, she was with someone else—Dez, Mo, Giorgio. She adored Giorgio, the lucky recipient of her first official smile.
Dmitri and Sydney had made it out with their boys. Dmitri’s treatments were going well, and he’d already regained much of the weight he’d lost over the last several months.
“Baby girl,” Joel kissed the top of Tiare’s head, “I want to let you know now that your family’s a little…unconventional. One of your uncles is a high-functioningsomething-o-path—the jury’s still out. Your father is, apparently, not right in the head. All of your uncles are, I guess you could argue, dangerous. Then the worst infraction of them all, sweetheart? The absolute worst? It’s your godfather.”
“Why am I the worst?” Adrían smoothed Tiare’s hair with an index finger. “Huh, little querida? How could I be the worst?”
“The querida ban extends to my daughter.”
Adrían laughed. “I concede. She is her father’s daughter.”
“Your feelings for my wife are finally dying?”
“Not dying. Transforming. It’s a love that’s wrapped in friendship. Like I’m part of something bigger.” Adrían looked out at Theo’s birthday party bonanza. “This is amazing. No wonder Central fears Alpha. They can never break this up.”
