As did the raven-haired goddess, strolling into our living room with a happy smile on her lovely face. She bent down, gave me a sweet, lingering kiss, and then curled up next to me. I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“What’s the source of this smile?” I asked.
“Your mother. And Jeanette,” she said. “We were planning their next trip up here to stay and help with Ruby. Your mother shared some very cute stories of you as a very serious little boy, Mr. Royal.”
“There’s work to be done, always,” I said.
She snorted because she knew that to be a lie. Sloane and I both worked incredibly hard at Codex—the whole team did—but the two of us had cheerfully handed in our workaholic membership cards to become a family. A real family. And that meant nights at home and weekends at the park and enjoying every single moment we had.
Our relationship had moved at warp speed, which aptly fit the unrestrained chaos of our love. Six months after meeting, I married Sloane on the beach in Miami. My mother was the proud officiant. Jeanette, Henry, and Sam stood next to me. Delilah and Freya stood with Debra, the incredible woman who had helped my wife secure her freedom.
Humphrey and Reggie walked Sloane down the aisle, of course.
My wedding ring was engraved with the words: I’m still here.
Sloane’s ring held the words: I’m not going anywhere.
One year later, we welcomed our daughter Ruby to the world. There had been not one moment of doubt or regret.
“It was a very nice phone call,” Sloane said, brow lifted. “In fact, she’s compiling additional adorable stories as we speak. Might even have Freya turn it into a video we can share at our next team meeting.”
“I’ll have to call in sick perhaps,” I mused.
She leaned down and pressed her face to Ruby’s back. “How is my favorite princess?”
“Still the world’s best princess,” I said, stroking Sloane’s hair. Holding these two precious beings to my chest gave me an unbelievable sense of tranquility. As had watching Sloane open her arms—slowly, but surely—to the love and trust available to her now. It had involved a lot of painful work, of shedding past fears and working through our vulnerabilities. We were doing it, every single day.
Thanks, in large part, to Ruby.
“Oh, Freya sent the pictures she framed for all of us,” Sloane said, reaching across the table for a package. “I want to hang them over the fireplace.”
I handed her the dozing Ruby, and she cuddled the baby sweetly against her chest while watching me flip through the pictures.
The first photo had been taken at Henry and Delilah’s wedding at the Long Room at the Trinity Library in Ireland. Delilah looks exquisite in her white gown, and she’s laughing as Henry hugs her close, flanked by the rest of us. We are grinning like fools, a little drunk, and a lot happy.
Only the six of us knew the significance of that location. It had been the venue where The Thornhills had gotten fake married. The wedding had taken place four months after Bernard’s final capture. Henry and Delilah had gone for their honeymoon after that, and I’d shut all of Codex down for two weeks. With strict orders for everyone to go on vacation.
A real one this time.
And with Sloane’s charming encouragement, the two of us had ended up in Belize for two weeks, where we’d done nothing but have passionate sex and lie on the hot sand.
I chuckled at the next picture. Freya and Sam had a newborn daughter named Zelda, and the frame held their birth announcement. Somehow, Freya had convinced Sam to dress up as Agents Mulder and Scully from The X-Files while Zelda was a tiny, baby alien. The card read: Freya and Sam are pleased to welcome the birth of their daughter. Please send tacos.
I continued to enjoy the pleasant, nostalgic sounds of Sam and Freya bickering in the office—although their verbal sparring was more good-natured than when they’d been my students. They still pushed each other, though. And continued to flagrantly disregard my PDA policies.
“Look, Ruby, it’s your cousin,” Sloane said, tapping the glass. Ruby waved her hands excitedly. “If she’s anything like her mom, she’ll be a fighter just like you.”
The next picture was of Henry and Delilah, smiling with all the love in the world on the day their adoption paperwork was finalized. They’d worked with the same adoption agency where Delilah had been adopted by her fathers. Henry and Delilah are hugging a beaming, three-year old boy named Milo. On lighter days at Codex, Milo sits at my desk and pretends to “work” with me—an image that always sends the rest of my team into glorious laughter.
“The last picture is my favorite,” Sloane said, rocking the baby.
I looked down at it. Looked up at my wife, the siren who still had me under her spell. Although she and I knew what it truly was.
“I love you so much, Sloane,” I said, voice rough as I stared into her eyes. Ruby gurgled against her chest, and Sloane smiled, patting her back. Stared at me with the warm sunshine at her back, lighting her like a true goddess.
“I love you, Abe,” she said. Leaned in for a flirtatious kiss. “Let’s hang this, shall we?”
And I did, placing the picture right above our mantelpiece. Because at the end of the day, Codex was about books. And justice. Righting wrongs and saving pieces of history.
But it was also about what was in this picture: Sloane and me in her hospital bed, holding Ruby, who had been born six hours earlier. Before that, I’d been at Codex, leading a meeting when Sloane had called. In her calm, smooth voice, she had said, “I believe I’m going into labor?”
Freya, Delilah, Sam, and Henry drove me to the hospital and watched me lose my fucking mind out of worry. All four had stayed in the waiting room for hours while I watched Sloane become a mother. And the moment my daughter was placed in my arms, and I became a father, was the moment my heart became permanently open.
In the picture, Sloane, Ruby, and I are surrounded by my team. Freya’s smile is incandescent. Sam is holding her tight, cheek pressed to the top of her head. Henry is clutching a grinning Delilah to his chest. They are both laughing. The six of us—seven, including baby Ruby—are frozen perfectly in time. More than a team of private detectives. Even more than a group of friends. We are a family.
Which is what Sloane and I had been searching for all along.