"Really?" I put my arms around him, and his arms closed tight around me. "I thought you guys were going to freak out!"
"Flor...you freaking out?" Waylon asked.
"This is getting real awfully fast," Flor said.
"You have nine months, so not that fast," Ian said. "Or--wait, is it more like seven at this point?"
"Yes..."
"I can guess you're not a family man," Waylon said.
"I'm not sure," Flor said. "I've never had one." He gave me one of his intense looks that made me shiver, even as I wasn't sure what it meant. Was he pleased? Was he angry? It was still hard to tell.
When I imagined him holding a baby I wanted to melt, though.
For that matter, Waylon, are you a family man? At least I knew he could handle a snarky teen.
"All I can think about now is how Frankie will need support and protection, and we already have a lot to worry about,” Flor said carefully. “A pregnancy will raise the stakes. So...I'd better train hard and get these birds working."
I got the message. Florian might need time to process, but he wasn't going to cause me any trouble. I was overwhelmed by the sense of love and support from all of them. I didn't expect anything to go this right.
If I didn't have to worry about them, my thoughts could go back to the idea of a baby, or several. Nearly ten percent of cats had four or five at once, and that was a terrifying thought. More babies than men? Yikes. And it was also pretty likely we didn't even have seven whole months. Twins usually came a little early, and triplets earlier still.
Waylon picked up Ian's guitar and sat down on the couch. "Relax, pussycat. We got time."
"I heard Waylon was playing my guitar while I was gone," Ian said. "So I just told him he needs to play something good or we'll have to have a duel or something."
Waylon started playing a dark melody with a little percussive thump on the body of the guitar.
"Oh fuck, wait, my timing got off." he started again. "It's not like I've been seriously practicing."
"I actually wasn't expecting you to be even that good," Ian said. "What song is that?"
"Something I wrote. I mostly just play to work stuff out. I'm not a musician."
"Does it have lyrics?"
Waylon shrugged and started playing it again, his singing voice as low and soft and delicious as when he whispered to me at night.
“Where do we go when we die?
I'm asking you to tell me why
You left me here
You said shed no tears
Just face the truth
You got no proof
There's nothing more but shadows in the end…
Where do we go when we die?
Wondering if you left me with a lie
No magic plan
No friendly hand
Never saw your face
And you left no trace
There's nothing here but shadows in the end…”
He trailed off. "I'm working on the bridge. Well, no, I'm not working on it, I just don't like it. It goes into a 90s screaming place."
"I like screaming," Flor said.
"That was good. I guess we can skip the duel," Ian said. “You live up to your name, I guess.”
“I wasn’t name after Waylon the country legend, I was named after Uncle Waylon the drug runner, but…”
“He was probably named after the good Waylon,” Ian said, undeterred.
“Sure, and I’ll tell myself you were named after Ian Curtis from Joy Division,” Waylon said.
I could tell this conversation was going to a place where I would be lost, but I was so happy as Ian and Waylon kept talking music, Ian taking the guitar, Waylon moving to the piano to try to pick out a second part, both of them trying things, Flor and I happy to listen and throw in an opinion now and then. We broke out some bags of chips. I ended up sprawled on the couch with my head on Florian's lap, basking in a nice petting and music.
It was easy to imagine kids right now. Happy kids who never had much of a clue about the darker side of life.
But I knew this wouldn't last.
"Waylon, did you write that song about Leif?" I asked that night, in his arms, just the two of us. I wanted to feel him close, to think about sharing this with him.
"Mmhm. It still shocked me that he would end his life. I was so pissed off at him. Such a goddamn waste. You know he left a note asking me to get rid of his body? He wanted it to go in the ocean so me and this other friend of ours snuck it out on a boat in the middle of the night.”
“That sounds traumatic!”
“I was so freaked out we were going to get pulled over and arrested for murder or something.”
“You must have been pretty young,” I mused. “I keep thinking that this whole hobo sorcerer life happened when you were an adult like now, but you were fourteen when you left Brooklyn…” Having any person to guide him must have meant the world. I could see why he was only opening up about his friend’s death now.
I ran the back of my hand down his chin. "I'm going to put everything I can into finding Zelda."
"Who is Zelda?"
"Oh! The Red Queen. Esther gave me her file, which hardly has anything in it. I'm going to get you your sight back before the babies are born."
"Are you that sure you're having more than one?" He raised his brows.
"I'm preparing for it," I said grimly. "Two might be okay. Three or four..."
"What if it was six? One of my cousins had six."
"Shut your mouth!"
He chuckled and then pulled me on top of him and held me close. "I like your plan, pussycat. Zelda can't hide. Too much to do."
"I bet if we could find one of her men, we could lure her out. This consort bond thing is getting stronger, at least for me."
"According to Viktor, Decker is a consort," Waylon said. "So if Viktor is Mina's consort, then Decker is the Red Queen's consort..."
"And we just need to grab Decker, which wouldn't be hard since he's always running Viktor's errands for him. I'll talk to Esther about it tomorrow since she's already looking for Mina."
"We can put some kind of a lure spell on him and try to draw her out. I like the way you think," he said. "And the way you smell...and the way you scream when I do this--"
"Wah!" He slid his fingers up my underwear and pinched my clit, and I smacked him.
"If only there was a way to get a big rubber band wrapped around you," he laughed.
"You're terrible and...mm..."
"We don't need condoms today," he said, sounding way too pleased with himself, as usual.
Chapter Twenty
Mina
The classic Alfa Romeo wound up a slightly terrifying mountain road, heading for a villa perched on cliffs overlooking the sea. The smell of the air was making me crave seafood linguine. Or maybe everything was making me crave seafood linguine.
"So that's your vacation house?" I asked Viktor, trying not to gape. It wasn't like I had never seen Europe, or luxurious places in general, but...as with everything, Alistair was all business when we traveled, and Esther didn't own any villas in Italy.