I wouldn’t have it any other way.This short originally appeared as the November 2020 short for my Patreon. Each month, patrons nominate their favorite couples and characters, vote on one, and I write a brand new short featuring the winner. For more bonus stories, please consider joining my Patreon.16Late Night ConversationsAuroraExhaustion weighs heavily on me as the elevator ascends. It’s been a long night in a string of long nights. The Underworld is busier than ever these days. Happiness looks good on the leaders of Carver City, and they’re all fucking like rabbits as a result. The only one I haven’t seen in a few weeks is Tink, and that’s mostly because her morning sickness is turning out to be all-the-time sickness. Tomorrow’s my day off, though, and I’m going to pop in with some grape popsicles and rub her feet. Hook said that’s the only thing she can keep down, so I’m going to load her up.
But that’s tomorrow.
The elevator eases to a stop and the doors open. I take one step out and inhale sharply. What is that I’m smelling? I inhale again, drifting farther into the penthouse I now share with Malone. I wander toward the kitchen, still sniffing and trying to identify the mouth-watering scent permeating the penthouse.
I find Malone sitting at the kitchen counter, a glass of red wine cradled in her hands, an apple pie on the stove, and stop short. “Hey. What are you doing up so late?” She’s a bit of a night owl, too, but with most of her working hours in the morning, Malone is usually asleep when I get home.
She looks up, and that’s when I get really worried. Her green eyes shine in the low light, and there are clear tear tracks on her face. I drop my purse and rush to her. “What’s wrong? What happened? Were you stress baking?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” She gives a strange little laugh. “I’m just more affected than I thought I would be.”
“You’re still not making sense.” I carefully extract the wine glass from her hands and set it on the counter. “What’s going on?”
“The paperwork came through.”
It takes my tired mind several long moments to understand what she’s talking about. And when I do, my throat starts burning. “Already? They said it would be weeks, at least, before we heard anything.”
Malone turns to me, clutching my hands. “Apparently they were wrong.” Her face is too pale. I can’t remember the last time she looked so freaked out, even if it’s a subtle thing on Malone. “It’s happening so fast. I’m not prepared.”
Something in my chest pangs, but I shove it down. We’ve spent the last six months talking about adopting a child, had started the process and made our peace with the fact that we’re in for a long wait. Even with Malone’s connections and our combined wealth, these things take time.
Or at least I thought they did.
That’s when I notice the file sitting at her elbow. I release one of her hands long enough to flip it open and scan the information. I frown and reread. “This says that there’s two.”
“An infant and a toddler. They came in together, and the agency would like to keep them together.” With each word, she seems to gain more control over herself, or maybe she’s just responding to my growing shock. She pulls me closer and wraps her arms around my waist. With her sitting and me standing, we’re almost the same height. “We have to decide by morning.”
I glance at the clock. It’s five a.m. Morning is here. “You should have called the club.”
“I know, but when we decided to do this, keeping your work and personal separate is one of the things we agreed on.”
I know that. I’m happy with the arrangement, but this feels like a special circumstance. I let Malone hold me and stare at the pictures of the two kids. The infant is so young, still wrinkled and red. A girl. The toddler is two, a boy. He looks at the camera with large brown eyes, his hair a shock of black curls. “Two kids is a big jump. We were already talking about it eventually, but going from zero to two is huge.”
“I know.” She says it so carefully, as if not wanting to push me one way or another.
That tells me more than anything what she wants the answer to be. Malone is more than capable of steamrolling me when she feels like it, but she never tries it with shit like this. Important things. Life-changing things. I swallow hard. “You want them.”
Her arm tightens around my waist and she exhales slowly. “Yes. But like with the initial adoption conversation, this isn’t something where there’s a compromise available. We either say yes or we say no. We cannot have one without the other.”