Naughty Elf: Mistletoe (Santa’s Naughty Elf Mates)

Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

RYAN

Three weeks later, my boss Nicole asked me to attend a meeting that wasn't on my calendar. She was human but mated to an alpha bird shifter. She was also five months pregnant with their first child. We'd talked a lot about her pregnancy, since John was also a non-shifting human omega. John and I had called Ellie our miracle baby because human women often had better chances with shifter pregnancies than human omegas.

When I entered the virtual conference room, I was surprised to find both the department head, who was Nicole's boss, and their boss already there, along with our Human Resources director.

Shit, what did I do?

"Hi Ryan! Thanks so much for agreeing to meet with us," the department head said.

Nicole joined a moment later. "Sorry I didn't have a chance to warn you about this," she said. "It was a little unexpected. As you know, I was planning on working the full nine months of this pregnancy, but no one told me I'd be having nesting urges this early or laying eggs."

"Eggs?" I blinked.

She shook her head. "You would not believe what just came out of my body. They're fine, but I'm going to need the next few months at home to take care of them. My mate will take over after they hatch, but until then, I'm on egg watch."

I balked at the mention of multiples. One baby had been more than enough for me and John to handle. I doubted our bosses wanted to be part of that conversation any more than I did.

"In the meantime, I need to transfer my physical duties to someone until the end of my maternity leave."

Along with the project development team and scrum leaders, she also led a team of temporary workers who were debugging the code for the second iteration of our relaunched software. The work would have been finished before I took over for her, but now …

"Absolutely, I can handle it." I flashed my best smile, hoping to diffuse any concern over my delayed response.

The conversation went on without me, with Nicole discussing other projects she would delegate to the other senior members of my team.

Even with the huge shakeup to my routine, I felt oddly calm. I would have freaked the fuck out if Miz couldn't watch Ellie. My only alternative during the summer would have been Dru, and I didn't want her to take Ellie on any midwife excursions. It was bad enough my daughter had overheard some strange conversations in Dru's home over the years.

"The team already has their assignments for the rest of this week," Nicole said, drawing me back into the conversation. "They'll expect you next Monday at eight."

"I'll be there."

"Fabulous. Thank you so much, Ryan. This is a lifesaver. My eggs are pretty much indestructible right now, but in a month's time, they'll need constant supervision so they don't roll themselves into something and break too soon." She shook her head. "Eggs! I knew he was a bird shifter, but if I thought in a million years, I'd be laying eggs … even my doctor didn't know. I'm switching to the midwife you recommended, by the way. She knew I'd laid eggs the moment I told her what kind of shifter he is."

"That sounds like our Dru." I grinned. "You're in good hands. She was wonderful for Ellie."

After a few more instructions and a promise to send everything to me via email before the end of the day, including the temporary pay bump documentation for the five-day commute and staff supervision, we ended the call.

I stumbled downstairs. It was almost lunchtime. Miz sat at the kitchen table, typing away on his phone's keyboard accessory. The amount he wrote on such a small keyboard amazed me every day.

"When is your birthday?" I asked. We'd never talked about it. Ellie's had come and gone in April, and mine was in October.

"July 10," he said.

I grinned. I knew the perfect gift.

"We'll throw you a party!" Ellie cheered. "Please, can we?"

"A small party?" Miz's blush was so pretty, I almost forgot why I'd come downstairs.

"We'll invite Dru, and our fae neighbors," I said. I hoped we were still on friendly terms by then. I'd put an offer on their house, but the bidding war was skyrocketing. Too much higher, and we'd have to look elsewhere for a bigger house.

"You're early for lunch," Ellie said. "Miz's alarm hasn't gone off yet."

Miz had a million alarms. When he didn't leave his phone lying around, blaring for all to hear, it was endearing.

"I had a surprise meeting." I sank into my usual seat at the head of the table and filled them in on my new duties for the next four months.

"I'll be back at school," Ellie said. "Who will keep Miz company?"

He laughed. "I have plenty to keep me busy."

She pointed at his phone. "More stories?"

"Maybe." He leaned forward and scrunched his face up to match hers until they both giggled. "I'll have time to start the necromancer story you want me to write."

"Necromancer story?" I asked. Ellie was a smart kid, but that sounded a little too advanced for her.

"Skeletons rise from the grave," Ellie said in a spooky voice. "The necromancer and his human boyfriend have to find out why and put them back in the ground before the necromancer police come after him!"

"The Bureau of Necromancy," Miz corrected.

Their creativity astounded me. I was definitely getting Miz a laptop with the money from my raise.

His phone blared with a happy instrumental tune.

"Time to eat!" Ellie hopped up from her chair and headed straight for the pantry door. She pulled out the loaf of bread and the peanut butter.

Miz handed her a couple of plates and two knives before he returned to my side. "I promised I would make her peanut butter and jelly."

"That sounds delicious. How can I help?"

Working together, we had a full lunch spread on the table in less than ten minutes. I didn't care for jelly, so Miz made me a peanut butter sandwich. I garnished it with a dill pickle spear and a handful of chips.

"Gross, Daddy!" Ellie said. "Peanut butter and pickles?"

"Don't knock it until you've tried it!" I took a bite of my sandwich and chased it down with a bite of tart pickle. Really tart. I made a face, and they both laughed. "Okay, so maybe don't eat them at the same time," I amended.

After lunch, Ellie ran off to read the stack of library books she and Miz had brought home that morning.

"Do you have any concerns about being here alone during the day?" I asked Miz.

"None." His super-bright smile was a dead giveaway that he was worried about something.

"What's wrong?"

He sighed. "We talk a lot during the day. I run errands for you, and you're here if I have questions about Ellie. I don't want to be the guy who calls or texts every five minutes with questions."

"That's fair." Most of my complaints about my coworkers were their annoying habits of pinging me with questions they could have answered themselves, if they'd looked at our resource manual. That wasn't the same as Miz popping his head in the door to let me know he was taking Ellie to the store for a few groceries.

"I don't want to bother you," he whispered.

He looked so worried, I motioned for him to stand up and pulled him into my lap. "You never do. I want you to continue telling me where you're going and what you're doing. If I can, I'll text you back."

I lifted his chin and kissed him, licking the peanut butter and jelly from his lips. He tasted so good, I reconsidered adding jelly to my next sandwich.

"We still talk about Ellie's calendar every week," I said. "This will be no different."

"I'm worried I'll set the house on fire or something."

I laughed. "That could happen while I'm home, too," I reminded him, "and it hasn't, so you'll be fine."

He sighed and dropped his head to my chest. His breath was warm against my collar bone.

"I'll be fine." He didn't sound fine, but I let it go. Only time would build his confidence.

That first Monday back to the office, nothing went "fine." I woke to the sound of retching before my alarm. I stumbled to the bathroom to find Miz brushing his teeth.

"I'll be all right," he said. "I just haven't felt great the past few mornings."

I'd been oblivious, or maybe I had ignored it. Now, I couldn't deny it. He didn't look well. Before he finished brushing his teeth, he bent over the toilet again.

I made him toast for breakfast, hoping he recovered quickly. I wasn't going to catastrophize his illness, but it reminded me of John's struggles to keep food down after the chemotherapy.

Miz would get better. Ellie still had a month and a half of summer vacation left, and they would do all the fun things Ellie had on her list, such as go to the amusement park and swim at the pool.

Next week was a short week, only three days with two off for Independence Day. I had to make it through this week first, and then it would be the holiday week, followed by Miz's birthday.

I'd already ordered a writing laptop with publishing software for him. I put Ellie on door duty until it arrived. It was gift wrapped, but I didn't want him to see the box and know. I had a feeling Santa's elves excelled at the box game my sister and I played when we were kids.

Work didn't go much better than the morning at home. Only one of the temp workers had finished the assignment Nicole gave her. The others had decided they would wait to ask me their questions in person.

Once I proved I knew not only what they should be doing but also the contents of their employment files, they finished their assignments before lunch and had a good start on the next batch of fixes before we left for the day. Nicole had been giving them deadlines every Friday, but I moved this one up to Thursday and hinted that I would let them off early on the day before the holiday if they finished two batches by then.

My phone rang as I walked to the parking lot. Dru's number.

"You need to stop by the pharmacy on the way home," she said.

"Did Miz go to the doctor?"

"In a way. He came to see me this morning, and I caught a whiff of him. You'll want a pregnancy test to be sure."

"Miz is pregnant?" Of all the things I'd expected to go wrong, this was something right! "You're not fucking with me?"

"If I wanted to fuck with you, I would have swept you off your feet when John died." She continued with a short list of items to add to my shopping list.

After we ended the call, I entertained the possibility of Dru as a partner to combat my nerves. It never would have worked. I was bisexual, but she was our neighbor and midwife. That would have gotten messy. I didn't do messy relationships. I left them, starting with the narcissist cheerleader I'd dated in high school. She was pretty but so not worth it.

The pharmacy counter was busy with folks picking up prescriptions. I remembered waiting long hours in that line to pick up John's meds. I was grateful I didn't need a prescription this time. I found the pregnancy tests and grabbed a box with two of them, just to be sure.

Ellie greeted me at the door when I got home. I handed her the jug of apple juice to put in the refrigerator.

She leaned in and motioned me to lean down. "The umputer-kay is under my ed-bay."

I chuckled. She'd picked up Pig Latin from John. They'd always pretended they had a secret language I couldn't understand. Now, it was a sweet reminder of them ganging up on me, the same way Ellie and Miz did now.

Miz sat on the living room couch with his phone in his lap, staring at it like it held the secret to life itself.

"Hey, omega mine," I whispered, kissing the top of his head.

"You're home already?" He glanced up at me. "This has been the weirdest day. Did you know YouTube has a whole channel dedicated to kittens?"

"Now is not the right time for a kitten." I pointed to the ball rolling across the floor, where Marshawn the hamster merrily examined the living room floor through the bottom of his clear ball. "Too tempting."

"True, but …" he shrugged. "Might be fun?"

"Let's hold off on getting another pet for now." I handed him the paper bag. He pulled out the orange slice candies first. "How did you know I was craving these?"

"A friendly cougar told me."

"What's this?" He pulled out the box and his face lost all color. "Oh, tinsel."

"I need you to take that for me."

"But—"

I draped over the back of the couch and hugged him to my chest, kissing his temple. "We're a team, no matter what happens."

Okay, so maybe I should have found something better to say. My brain had been in work mode all day, and I was a little tired. I was quickly falling in love with my fated mate, now that my beast and I were on the same page, but I wasn't ready to say it yet. Still, if that test said what I thought it might, I was about to be the happiest moose daddy in the world.