CHAPTER 18
RYAN
At Miz's first appointment, Dru heard something "interesting" with her stethoscope and scheduled an ultrasound at the hospital. I took the day off from work to be there with them, and our lovely fae neighbors agreed to watch Ellie while we were gone.
We had a private room, and only Dru was with us, working the machine. "I thought so," she said. "Twins."
She showed us two little beans in separate sacs on the screen. I nodded while my head reeled with the new information.
"It's a good thing Mr. Taylor owns his own construction company," Dru said, answering my thoughts like a mind reader.
Our new house was plenty big enough for the three of us, but I hadn't planned for five.
"Ellie will have her own room, and the twins can share," Miz reassured me.
That sounded better than the instant buyer's remorse already sinking into my gut. We could make this work.
Just over a month later, we said goodbye to our fae friends at the airport. A high of 115 degrees Fahrenheit waited for them in Phoenix, but they looked excited to begin a new chapter of their life.
"We'll visit in the spring," Juice promised.
"Keep us posted on the babies!" Cherry said, squeezing Miz's shoulder in lieu of a hug.
Once they disappeared into the airport crowd, we had nothing but hard work before us. I recruited several friends to help with the heavy lifting for our move, since Miz wanted to do more than he should. I let him carry in the boxes and bags we'd packed, but the beds, dressers, and other large furniture were off limits.
"I'm no delicate fucking flower," he grumbled.
"No, but our babies are." I kissed him hard on the mouth, and he melted against me.
"Fine," he said when we broke the kiss. "You do the big macho thing now, and I'll show you who's got the bigger dick tonight."
"It's me. I have the bigger dick." There was no contest with my extra inch of length and the swell of my knot.
He sighed. "Yes, you do, and it will feel fantastic inside me."
He kissed me again, and I almost carried him upstairs to our new bedroom. The as-of-yet unpacked bedroom with the bed in pieces along the wall.
"Later," I promised.
We moved in with just enough time to get used to our new home before Ellie went back to school. Our steps were louder on the hardwood stairs, but my days of sliding were over. We enjoyed the bigger rooms and the large front porch. Cherry and Juice had left us their lounge chairs. We sat outside most nights, enjoying the breeze and chatting with our neighbors.
The yard was still large enough for a swing-set, but closer to the woods now. My moose loved it. We especially loved the three-season porch in place of the patio. It was the perfect place to store firewood and to protect my bare feet when I shifted into my moose. It wouldn't be nearly as cold as the concrete patio.
Ellie's room and my office were still on the second floor, along with a guest bedroom and a spacious bathroom accessible from the main hallway.
Downstairs, the front door opened to the hallway through to the porch door. On one side of that hallway sat our spacious living room and the room we would eventually call our nursery, once the babies could lift their heads on their own.
In the middle of the hallway, a door opened into our spacious bedroom beside the walk-in closet. A long stretch of windows spanned the outside wall, filling the room with natural light.
The opposite side of the hallway led into the kitchen. Instead of a formal dining room, the kitchen had a large island and a corner nook for meals. We would need to get creative when we entertained guests over the winter months, but the porch was the perfect size for a party the rest of the year.
I came home early to surprise Miz on Ellie's first day of school in late August. I thought he would be typing away on his computer, but I found him sprawled on the couch with a tub of popcorn and the television remote.
"What are you watching?" I asked.
He sat up so fast popcorn went flying everywhere. "Hi! You're home early! I'm not watching anything really …. " He flushed pink from his pointed ears to his nose. "You caught me. I've been watching this soap opera with Dru, and now I'm hooked. I forgot all about it over the summer, but today we watched the most recent episode. I'm binging the ones I missed. They reference so much from the past."
"I don't mean to laugh at your worries," I said, shoving him so he lay back on the couch, "but you can watch whatever you want on television."
"Even if I should be writing?"
"Ever heard of filling the creative well?" I asked.
He stared blankly at me.
"One of my coders is also an author. He says he works temp jobs to feed his creativity. If soap operas do that for you …"
He smirked. "Yeah, they do. I think of all kinds of fun plot twists for Ellie's dragons and unicorns from watching this show."
"See? It's worth it."
I started pulling popcorn out of the couch cushions. Miz surprised me by shutting off the television, even after our discussion.
"You're home early," he said. "I want to make the most of it."
He grabbed the hand not filled with popcorn and dragged me to bed, stopping by the compost bin on the way. Then, he stripped me naked in no time, his mouth following his hands to every exposed patch of skin, down to my calves.
"My turn," I said.
He frowned. "Don't. I look?—"
"Beautiful." This was my main purpose for coming home early. He couldn't turn the lights off and disappear into the darkness. I wanted to see, touch, and kiss his gorgeous naked body. "I love how pregnancy looks on you, and it's only going to get better."
"Better for whom?" He raised an eyebrow at me. "It's already uncomfortable. Soon, I'll be waddling to the bathroom every five minutes and complaining about my backaches."
We were still standing at the foot of the bed. I carefully hoisted him on my shoulder and lay him down in the middle of the mattress. He tried to fight me, but I tangled his arms in his t- shirt and left it there while I unbuttoned his pants and shucked them off with his boxer briefs. His cock bounced off his slightly rounded belly with a snap.
"I'll get to you in a moment," I said, giving his cock a caress. Then, I peeled off his t-shirt the rest of the way. Instead of looking like a woman's breasts, his pecs looked more developed, like he'd been bench pressing cars instead of watching soap operas. I loved how sensitive his nipples were when I rubbed my thumbs over them, and then when I sucked them into my mouth one at a time.
"Dasher's balls, why does that feel so good?" he asked.
"Did you just swear at me in reindeer?" I laughed. "My cousin's one of the Donners. Please don't bring them up, okay?"
"We don't joke about the Donners," he said, his eyes wide with mock sincerity. "They might … you know … eat us."
"That's it," I said. "I'm eating your ass." Still careful of his growing belly, I flipped him over onto his stomach and did just that.
Two more months passed. I felt like I was missing out on so much of Miz's pregnancy and Ellie's school year. When I worked from home, I could pick and choose my hours, often using the early mornings and late evenings to work on projects without distractions and freeing up some time around lunch and when Ellie got home for an afternoon snack.
Working from the office meant I still had to make up those hours without distractions at home while also spending the full ten hours away, when I included the hour for lunch and my commute to and from work. I was grateful they'd given me a pay bump for my time, but it wasn't worth it in the long run. I liked working from home, and I couldn't wait to return to my job as a keyboard maestro instead of a supervisor.
Finally, in mid-October, the temp workers finished beta testing the new and improved software. I wrote each of them a letter of recommendation for their employment files in my boss's stead. Despite my reservations on the first day, they all pulled their own weight and helped us climb out of the hole our full-time coders had dug for us. If any of my bosses asked, I would have told them to fire a few choice folks (not on my team) and replace them with the temp coders.
Ike would have been a fabulous full-time employee, but I understood why he preferred the temp jobs. When I told him we planned to visit the apple orchard the Saturday after our last day in the office, he offered to meet my "author husband" to dispense some wisdom.
It was a beautiful day with the sun bright in the clear blue sky. The air was already cool but not cold enough to show our breath as we walked between the trees. It was sweater weather, as Ellie kept reminding us, quoting something she'd seen in one of Miz's video clips.
He still worried he spent too much time online, but I saw the massive pile of chapter folders he had on his desktop. He'd written enough for five or six children's books, which was why I wanted to introduce him to Ike.
The coder in his early sixties looked every bit a stuffy professor in a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, wire-rimmed glasses, and his white comb over blowing every which way in the wind. His cheeks were ruddy, but his smile was bright.
Ike reminded me of a certain someone who worked at the North Pole, except his belly looked flat compared to Miz's. The twins were making themselves known. People sometimes asked his due date when we were out in public like this, and they were always surprised to learn it wasn't until March.
"I'm not a children's author," Ike said after our introductions.
"Neither am I," Miz joked. "Not yet anyway."
"Nonsense. You've written several stories, from what Ryan said. You're an author, and no one can tell you different."
Miz blushed from the praise, and he led Ike over to a bench where they could sit and talk while Ellie and I filled our bucket with ripe apples still on the trees.
"What do you want to be for Halloween?" I asked Ellie as we walked.
"Janey said we should go as ghost hunters. Her dad has cool equipment in their basement for checking electrical currents!"
"He uses that equipment for his job," I reminded her. "Ask permission before you take it, okay?"
"Okay." She hung her head for a moment, and then she was off on another tangent, telling me about a game she, Janey, and Alicia played at recess. It sounded a lot like the card collector games I'd played when I was in school. Those got expensive fast.
"Where are you getting the cards?" I asked.
"Miz bought them for me!" She grinned. "For us. He said he doesn't have anywhere else to spend his money, so he bought me, Janey, and Alicia starter packs. We go to the comic book shop in town to buy supplemental packs whenever we do well on a test or project."
I felt like a stranger in my little girl's life. "This has been going on since the beginning of the school year?"
"Yep!"
I didn't object. If either of them had told me, I would have been on board, but they hadn't told me. The twinge of emotion deep in my gut was regret. I'd missed out on so much in the last four months.
I inhaled deeply and smiled down at my happy, well-adjusted daughter. "You'll have to show me how to play sometime."
"You bet! It's so much fun!"
"Does Miz play?"
She shook her head. "He's terrible. You could beat him, too, Daddy."
I laughed at that. I had a feeling Miz could play better than all three girls, but he was a sweetheart who would let them win.
"If it's your thing with Miz, I don't want to interfere," I said, voicing my thoughts out loud. My fated mate and my daughter from my first marriage liked each other. I was luckier than most. I didn't want to intrude on their relationship and make things weird.
"Miz keeps saying he's going to teach you to play," she said, "but you always end up playing that other game you like so much."
"Oh?"
"The one where you make lots of moaning noises and Miz swears about Christmas. He says it's something only adults do. Does it involve alcohol?"
I laughed at the abrupt question. "No."
"Okay. Good. Alicia's parents got divorced because of alcohol. I don't want you and Miz to get divorced."
"We won't," I promised. Miz and I were compatible in all the ways fated mates were supposed to be. Staying together wouldn't be a problem if we continued to talk through our problems and let each other in. We needed to invest in some noise canceling walls, though.
I forgot all about the card game when Miz found us a few moments later. "Ike had to go, but he gave me so much information on publishing. I think I'm ready to shop for an agent!"
"Yay!" Ellie tackle-hugged him and gave his belly a kiss.
"That's amazing," I said. "I'm so proud of you!" I gave him a quick side hug and kissed his temple, careful not to knock the bucket of apples into either of them. Then, we were off to the main building to pay and take our apples home.
The whole time, I couldn't stop thinking about how lucky Ellie and I were to have Miz in our lives. We came to the apple orchard every year, but I had been grieving. I couldn't remember a time I had been this happy. John had been sick for so long, and then he was gone.
Miz was good for both of us. The babies would be the icing on the apple crisp.