"My family is really just my mom and me. So all of this is very new to me."
"It's overwhelming, but it is also amazing. I mean, the holidays? There's nothing like it. And they are totally going to invite your mom. It will be one, big, happy family. But if you take any meds, you might want to make sure your script is full around Thanksgiving and Christmas. The cold sucks, but it helps, right?" she asked when a shiver racked my system.
"Yeah," I agreed, nodding. "I feel better already."
"Good. Because we can't miss out on dinner," she told me. "This food is other level good."
"Let's go get some then," I suggested, moving to stand, surprised how much better I felt already.
With that, we moved back into the house, finding everyone already seated at the dining tables. There were two spots open, one next to each of our men. Who had been extra sweet and grabbed plates for us already.
"You good?" Rush asked, voice low, when I sat down, his hand squeezing my thigh under the table.
"No," I told him, shaking my head. "I'm awesome," I told him, smile tugging at my lips as I glanced around the room, finding everyone lost in their own conversations, no one paying Dusty or me any mind.
She was right.
They just accepted us.
Took us in, issues and all.
If there was a family I could be excited about joining, it was this one.
"I know your dirty little secret," I told Rush, lips twitching.
"That I can't get enough of you?" he asked, giving me a wink.
"Well, that," I agreed, feeling my chest warm up like it had been doing a lot lately. "But also that you were the one who taught Becca to drive."
"How did you—" he started.
"Say what now?" Fiona asked, looking across the table at us.
"Uh oh," I said, pressing my lips together.
"I'm gonna get you back for this," Rush warned, a dark promise in his eyes.
"I'm looking forward to that."Rush - 7 months"Don't look at me like that," she said, grabbing a blanket off of the back of the couch, wrapping it around her shoulders that already had on a long-sleeve tee, a sweatshirt, a cardigan, and a robe.
"Yes, sixty degrees is practically the arctic," I agreed, shaking my head at her as she slipped her feet into a pair of rubber-soled fluffy slippers, following me out onto the porch.
It was barely dawn. The birds were still fast asleep in their nests. I wanted to be up in our little nest, waking her up with my tongue and fingers.
But we'd had grand ideas in bed before falling asleep the night before. About grabbing some coffee and blankets and making our way to the lake, sitting on the rock and watching the sun come up.
I was holding us to it. Even if Katie was intent on bringing every blanket in the cabin with us.
"Wait, did you grab the bat?" she asked, turning back.
"I thought we covered this. There are no cannibals," I reminded her, smiling.
"No," she agreed, rolling her eyes. "But there are bears."
"Love that you think I can fight off a bear with a bat, baby," I said, grabbing the bat to humor her. "Okay. Anything else? A heated blanket, perhaps?"
"Hey, it's not my fault I have a chill," she reminded me. "Someone insisted he would wake up in the middle of the night without an alarm to re-stoke the fire."
"Yeah yeah yeah. I fail at the manly fire setting things. But if I recall correctly, someone sapped me of all my energy last night," I reminded her.
We'd made it back up to the cabin just about an hour before bedtime, so we'd skipped food, fell into bed, and fucked until we couldn't move anymore.
And since we weren't in the middle of a power outage, and the heat was working fine, I'd mistakenly thought she would be warm enough.
I should have known better by now.
This was a woman I'd once caught turning the heat up to seventy-five while wrapped up in a comforter.
She wore two hats, a scarf, gloves, woolen leggings, and three layers of sweaters and jackets just to run out to her pre-heated car, the system I had installed for her as a Christmas present. She'd been more excited about that than the books, the jewelry, the invitation to move into my apartment... after I put in the soaking tub she wanted.
I didn't bother telling her the move would be a temporary one; that I wanted to get a permanent place. The kind with a yard. Some extra bedrooms we might put a kid or two in one day.
"Okay, fine, this was worth it," she told me forty-minutes later, leaning back against my chest, both of us watching the pinkish-yellow sunrise, hearing the bird waking up, seeing the occasional fish ripple the surface of the water.