“I know,” I said with feigned self-disappointment. “I know, and here I thought wearing all this shit would help curb the urge.”
Millie giggled.
Fern shot me that squinty look of hers that meant she wasn’t pissed, but she would be soon if I didn’t watch myself.
Sometimes, I didn’t heed her warning just to see her get mad. It was a thing of beauty. Plus, she never beat me up, so that was a win. I got to watch that gorgeous face turn as red as that stunning hair of hers—of which she now kept a little below her shoulders.
Fern was a sight to behold when in a rage. She didn’t even talk, she just stood there, cussing up a storm while opening and closing her tiny as fuck hands.
“Jude,” she warned now.
I bit my tongue, taking the main road home, and made a sound of compliance. I didn’t trust myself to speak without laughing.
We still lived right near campus. Alone, thank fuck. We’d tossed the idea around of moving to someplace bigger, but just because we could didn’t mean we wanted to.
We’d both agreed that for right now, we wanted to remain in the same place that brought us together.
“I don’t know what you want me to say here other than the whole truth and nothing but the truth—the ball came to me.” I slapped a hand against my chest. “I’m the chosen one, right, Mil?”
She giggled again. “You’re the embarrassing one, Daddy.”
“Hey,” I said, turning to make a face at her. “I’m hardly old enough to be called embarrassing.”
She wasn’t even five years old yet, and she was already thinking this? Unbelievable.
As though she could read my mind, my wife sighed and placed her hand on my thigh.
My balls instantly tightened. “Too high, darling.”
“Don’t you tell me what to do.”
“I’m just saying.” I cleared my throat. “We wouldn’t want to embarrass our lovely little girl anymore today, now would we?”
“How?” Millie asked at the same time as Fern said, “Stop talking, Jude.”
I forced a mock-gasp. “Am I about to be objectified again?”
“What’s obnextified?” Millie asked.
“Never mind, Mil. And yes,” Fern said in that husky voice that told me she was daydreaming and that I really should shut up if I wanted playtime when we got home and could escape from our child. “You most definitely are. It’s already begun.”
I mimed zipping my lips, then waggled my brows, already raging hard as we waited for the drawbridge to lower.
Fern laughed. “Don’t ruin it.”
“Impossible,” I muttered. “You’ve said so yourself.”
“You guys say things I don’t understand,” Millie said. “Can we just make sure Daddy doesn’t steal the ball again? Maybe he shouldn’t be allowed to come, Mommy.” She made a huffing sound. “I mean, maybe never.”
Fern and I both laughed.
“But won’t you miss me, Mil? I would’ve loved for my dad to watch all my football games growing up.”
“No,” she said, no hesitation or humor whatsoever. “Pa can come, but not you.”
Fern’s hand squeezed my thigh, and then she doubled over, laughing into her lap.
Sighing, I made to loosen my tie, then remembered I’d already taken it off.
I was Peridot’s new mayor in training, and I couldn’t say I hated it. Not one bit. Dad hadn’t retired yet—and so we kind of ran this crazy place together—but he would be in the next few years, and he wanted to make sure I was ready. He was still alpha of Nightingale here on Peridot Island. I wasn’t sure when he planned to step down—alphas could step down at any time if they had an initiated successor—but he’d been making more changes, especially since Millie came along.
Staring into my daughter’s eyes for the very first time, I’d known I had to find a way out of the compulsory initiation for the children of our members. And when Elijah met Millie, he’d taken one wet-eyed glimpse at her before nodding at me, as if he too would ensure that specific changes were made.
We couldn’t go back.
But we could always go forward, and the journey didn’t seem nearly as dark with sunshine in my life. In fact, I was dreading that the journey wouldn’t be long enough.
Dad never remarried, and my mother still hadn’t left the institution. But with the new additions to our family coming to visit her, I could see the longing return to her eyes when it came time for us to leave. She’d ask more questions about our lives—what we were up to and where we might see ourselves in the future.
I no longer pressured her to come back. I trusted that she knew with every hug and smile exchanged that she was wanted, and that we’d be ready whenever she was.
Millie was asleep before the clock in the kitchen reached eight, her head lolling on the side of the couch as her beloved TV show played for no one in the background.
Fern had been on and off the phone since we’d gotten home with some type of launch drama. Thanks to Nightingale and her mother, she was now co-owner of the island’s newest and only publishing house.
I left the last of the dishes and carried Millie upstairs to bed.
Fern found me in her room, messing with her sun-shaped night-light. She’d told me she didn’t need it, but I wanted her to have it, and old habits forever died hard.
Fern bent down to sweep some rogue curls from her face. She kissed the cleared space of smooth skin, then whispered, “Quit fussing. I’ve been waiting.”
Midnight, our dark gray rescue cat, lay curled up in the corner of the bed. Fern gave his chin a scratch when he lifted his head, blinking sleepily at us.
Out in the hall with Millie’s door cracked open behind me, I said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I told you I was taking a shower,” she said with a roll of her eyes, traipsing down the hall to our room.
Over time, we’d moved into the spare room. The same one I’d made her mine in. After sleeping in there the night after I’d proposed to her from my bedroom balcony at Dad’s, we just kept coming back. Eventually, so much of our stuff had ended up in here with us that we decided to finally overhaul our deserted rooms months later and make it official.
We’d both laughed when we realized how stupid that had been, all things considered.
I closed our bedroom door. “I didn’t know shower was our new code.”
She turned at the end of the bed and opened her robe to reveal nothing but beautiful skin. “It’s not, but I winked.”
“I didn’t see you wink.” I stared at her tits, which had done what I’d thought impossible and had only gotten better since Millie came along. I moved closer, my eyes still pinned on them, and squeezed.
“You nodded,” she said.
“Okay, all right.” I lifted my hands to her shoulders, my fingers sliding down her arms until the robe hit the floor. “I failed, and you’re probably soaking wet after waiting so long, happy?”
She laughed, then grabbed my cheeks in one hand, squeezing them. “Undress and I will be.”
“On it.” I stripped in record time, then chased her onto the bed.
My body glided over hers, pressing her into the bedding. Our mouths touched, whispering without words, and I rocked into her, teasing, watching her eyelashes flutter. “Let me see if I’m right.”