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I wasn’t buying his innocent expression for a second. “Where there’s smoke there’s fire, lovey, if they’re up to something I guarantee you are waist-deep in it with them.”
“Ciara, did you seriously forget your birthday? Again?” Brynn’s voice came from the open doorway of the rink and I glanced up to find my entire family coming down the short walkway dressed in silly party hats.
“I was hoping we could all forget,” I called dryly, gently prying my son’s fingers out of my hair as I watched them start to set up for a party. “Isn’t food not allowed in here?”
Colt, who was putting out a cake, snorted. “Who’s going to tell me no?”
He had me there.
“And we have one more thing to show you,” Enzo said as he ducked and produced a little bag. “Do you remember what you told me before Ronan was born? What you wanted to do?”
“Did I do anything other than scream?”
So many people told me that I would forget childbirth, that there were special hormones that were built-in to make me forget the pain and make me want to have another baby as soon as this one was done weaning.
But even now I still remembered feeling like an alien was ripping its way out of my body with a head that was in the ninety-ninth percentile for infants.
I think the guys were still traumatized from it all and I’d nearly broken Leith’s hand from hanging onto it so hard.
If I ever did the whole childbirth thing again—and that was a big if—I definitely wasn’t going to try and tough it out because of some silly sense of pride. I’d learned my lesson the first time.
Enzo just grinned at me. “You said, and I quote, ‘I want to do all the things my mam didn’t get to do with me. I want to teach him how to skate.’”
“That seems like a lot of words to have happened in between my shouting,” I said, returning his smile with one of my own.
“You are very good at multitasking, mo ròs,” Leith chimed in as he and Wiz stood and joined us.
“Who knows, maybe I imagined it because you were trying to crack my hand in half once Leith and I switched out, but either way…” Enzo dug in the bag before producing a pair of the tiniest ice skates I’d ever seen.
“They aren’t functional in the way that yours are, but they will make for some adorable pictures.”
I gaped at them with glee before I pressed my lips to Ronan’s soft cheek. “What do you say my leanbh? Do you wanna ice skate with Mama?”
Ronan let out a happy squeal that I was taking for his version of baby consent.
“And we’re all going to join you,” Brynn said excitedly as she stepped onto the ice, the hands of the now five-year-old Birdy and Theo in each hand as they wobbled on their children’s skates.
A lump formed in my throat as I realized exactly what kind of party they were throwing me.
“Is this…?” I started as Leith took the baby from me so he and Wiz could finagle the skates onto his plump little feet.
“A children’s skate party?” Artie asked with a grin as he wrapped his arms around me from behind. “Of course it is.”
I’d only told them about it once—wanting to have the kind of kids’ party that I was too old for by the time the dads brought me back to Minnesota with them.
“Oh, I’m going to cry,” I muttered, waving a hand at my stinging eyes. That was one thing that had never gone back to normal after my pregnancy. I still cried at the drop of a hat, much to the amusement of my family.
“Try to hold it in, gorgeous or else your makeup is going to be smeared in your pictures with Ronan,” Wiz called as he finally managed to get the second skate on his foot.
“How did you two get those on so quickly?” Christa, one of Aurelia’s alphas, asked as she and Wilder struggled to get a similar pair onto the feet of the baby that was wriggling in her mother’s lap.
“Nina is not having it,” Wilder grumbled as the baby shot her father a red-faced glare.
“I think she just wants to stay with Mommy,” Christa said, finally giving up and turning to Tobey who was at his mother’s elbow and grinning at his little sister.
“She can stay with me and Mom,” the boy said only to be swept up by Charlie who had shot up into a gawky, full-fledged teenager in the past year.
“Oh no you don’t, you were the one who wanted to play hockey which means that you need to practice your skating.”
