AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Can we both move in?” I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly. Sure, we’d had a great night together, but we’d spent the time since she left, strategizing on how we could convince her to give us long enough to prove we were the mates she’d always needed in her life. While washing the bedding from her nest, while putting together a lasagna and salad for dinner, while baking the carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting she mentioned in her profile were her favorite treats, we tried to come up with the words that would sway her.
We agreed that she deserved patience, and we recognized that she would need to be the one to make the next move…but we still wanted to do whatever we could to let her know we were on board whenever she was ready.
“Do I smell lasagna?”
Fitz kissed her on the lips, a quick brush, but her little shiver showed the effect he had on her. “And carrot cupcakes.”
“Aww. You read the favorites section of my profile.”
“Yes. I think it’s a very important part because it gave us food for thought.”
“And food for my tummy.” She giggled. “Is the lasagna done?”
“No. We didn’t expect you this early.” Fitz brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and bent in close to whisper, “But the cupcakes are done.”
She gave a squee and darted off for the kitchen, leaving us bemused and staring at each other. “It looks done to me!”
We followed her, and Fitz pulled out a couple of potholders and removed the lasagna from the oven. “It needs an hour more.”
“I’ll try to control myself.” She bent over and took a sniff. “I really hope you accept my invitation. You wondered what you could give me in a relationship, but I think it’s the other way around.”
“What?” I really thought I was hearing wrong now. “Why would you feel that way? You’re smart and successful and beautiful.”
“And you have great taste in mates,” Fitz added, placing the lasagna back in the oven and setting the timer.
“Yes, I like them modest.” She rolled her eyes. “Let’s go to the living room and eat all the cupcakes and talk.” She scooped up the plate and a handful of napkins and sailed back into the living room.
“She wants us to stay, right?” Fitz whispered to me.
“She did say so.” I shrugged. “But she might want us for the cupcakes.”
“But she didn’t know about them when she asked us to stay.” I filled three glasses with milk. “We’d better get in there before she changes her mind.”
Haven had the plate of cupcakes on her lap when we joined her on the couch. “Milk!” She leaned back, half a cupcake in one hand, and reached for a glass. “I never buy it because I always end up forgetting about it and throwing it away.” She tipped it up and gave us a milk-mustache grin. “But I love it.”
I swore right then she’d always have fresh milk, but Fitz gasped. “You throw it away?”
“When it goes sour, sure.” She eyed the glass. “This is wonderful though.”
I laughed. “Fitz never lets me throw away sour milk. It’s ‘the best for baking.’”
“Is that what’s in these? Because they taste so good.” Her expression of horror had us both chuckling.
“No,” Fitz assured her. “I had to make it sour with a little lemon juice because it was too new.”
I couldn’t stand all the baking talk any longer. “If Fitz bakes something, it will always be delicious, but what I want to know is…did you mean it? Do you want us to move in with you? Forever?”
She glanced from one of us to the other. “Everything can’t be about me. I recognize that you have a home and you both have jobs waiting for you. If it’s easier, I can move my office and sell the house and—what?”
“You would do all that just to be with us?” Fitz’s voice shook.
“There’s no just about it,” she asserted. “I realized today that being away from you even for a few hours is painful. I missed you so much, both of you. So, yes, I would do all of that to be close to you. My house was never a home until you arrived. Suddenly my kitchen smells like delicious food instead of the air fresheners the housekeeping service leaves behind. The couch has blankets tossed on it for cuddling, and most important, my nest smells like you. So, it doesn’t matter to me where I live or work as long as my mates are there.” She swallowed hard. “So, tell me where you would rather live because that’s where I want to be, too.”
My vision blurred with sudden tears. But not of sadness. I’d been sad for a very long time, and I could feel the ghost of Sela that lived in my mind fading into a corner. She’d never be gone, but she was leaving room for the present to bloom.
Fitz looked at me over Haven’s head, and I nodded. He could speak for us both. “We will need to do some things to get ready to move. Packing, selling the house, giving notice at our jobs.”
She paled. “How long will you be gone?”
