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“Koby is in his room with his bears.”
“Very good, and?”
“Koby taked off his clothes.”
She put an arm around him and hugged. “That’s right, and why?”
“Because Koby telled Daddy Justice he is going to gorawr, and Daddy said ‘go for it, Koby.’”
“And then?”
“And then Koby goesrawrand plays in his room.”
“Can Koby gorawranywhere else in the house?”
“Yes, but not if the pipe man is here.”
We’d had a plumber yesterday, and I wondered if we’d had a close call. But I was amazed at Livvy’s way of helping Koby learn about shifting and where he could or could not. She was talking to him like an intelligent being, which he was, and not a mindless toddler…which he was not.
Koby ran into the house, and Livvy stood up and brushed off the back of her shorts. “You can come out now, Justice. Maybe tell me why you were hiding there?”
I stepped out, cheeks a little warm, but since it was the most she’d said to me in days, and my panda was very happy about that, I would take what I could get. “I didn’t want to interrupt you doing what we should have thought of long ago. Except for the drawing. Can I see?” I held out a hand and, after a moment’s hesitation, she passed over the pad. “Wow. You’re talented.” I flipped through the pages, finding drawing after drawing of a Kobe in boy or panda form shifting where he should or should not. The yeses were represented by a smiley face, the nos by a frowny one.
“I like drawing and Koby seems to learn from the pictures.” She reached for the pad, and I handed it back. “Anyway, we’ve been working on this so Koby can be in public and not turn into a Unabomber panda because he never leaves the house.”
I cringed at the thought of our adorable, friendly cub being lonely. “He needs friends.”
“He does. And also, he needs to be free to be out and about.”
Livvy was the answer to prayers when it came to Koby, but both Sloan’s and my pandas had more to say about her. The mate-in-name-only thing wasn’t working for them, and they wanted her for real.
Saturday morning, I left Sloan making breakfast and went to get Koby out of bed, but there was nobody in his bed. I checked the bathroom, the other upstairs rooms, and the gate at the top of the stairs was still in place. He could have climbed it in panda form, but he hadn’t tried yet, and I hoped he would not. The night before, we’d had a practice shift when he wanted to and let us know and it had gone really well, but I hoped that he hadn’t taken that to mean shift anytime. He’d sounded like he was really learning, but he was only three.
I ran back down to let Sloan know about the missing cub, but instead of getting as frantic as I was, he sighed. “Did you check everywhere?”
“Yes, everywhere inside, but…” Oh hell. “All but one place.”
“Then we’d better go there.”
Together, we went back upstairs and found Livvy’s door ajar. It must have been like that before, but I never considered violating her privacy and had been pretending she wasn’t there in her bed all warm and soft at night. It was more than my panda and I could handle.
I peeked through the crack and sure enough, Koby—panda Koby—lay curled up with Livvy like a live stuffed animal. She cuddled him close, and my heart just about exploded with feelings I wasn’t ready to explore.
“Look.”
I stepped back and Sloan took my place.
When he moved back, we stood close together and whispered.
“Do you think she’ll ever want us as mates?” he asked.
“I don’t know. But if she ever leaves, it will break Koby’s heart, and I don’t think mine will fare much better.”
“Then I guess we’d better try to make sure she doesn’t hate us. It’s a start.”
Leaving the sleeping angels, we returned downstairs and continued making our Saturday special, blueberry pancakes. It was one of the few things we cooked well, and when Livvy came downstairs alone, I blurted out, “Livvy, I’m very sorry about what happened the day you went to the park. We didn’t mean to imply we don’t trust you.”
“Absolutely. We do. And Koby loves you already,” Sloan put in.
