s much info on it as possible and then promise not to say anything but then tell you everything as soon as we get home.”
He grins at me, and even now, after all these years, my heart trips a little at the sight. “God, I love you,” he says. “So devious. We’re pretty much the best parents who ever existed.”
I roll my eyes as I step forward, placing my hands on the counter on either side of him, boxing him in. He tilts his head back to look up at me, a mischievous look on his face. He leans up and kisses my jaw once. Then again.
“I have a better idea,” he says, chest bumping mine. “We tell the kids to get the hell out of the house, and then you take me upstairs, and we get naked.”
I kiss him fiercely, because I can, his tongue brushing against mine.
“I read that your libido is supposed to be one of the first things to go when you get older,” a disgusted voice says from behind us. “I wish that was the case in this house. Old people should not be allowed to eat each other’s faces in front of impressionable youths.”
Bear and I both sigh at the same time into each other’s mouths.
We’ve had a lot of practice doing that.
“You hear that?” Bear says, murmuring against my lips. “We’re old people.”
“And apparently eating each other’s faces,” I whisper back. “Maybe we need to have the sex talk with them again, because I don’t know if we did it right.”
“Lily?” another voice says. “What are you staring at—are they making out again? My eyes! God, someone get the spray bottle so we can soak them! It’s like they’re in heat all the time!”
Instead of stepping away from Bear, I curl my arm around his shoulders and pull him to my side before turning around.
Lily and Noah stand in the kitchen entryway, looking scandalized, as only sixteen-year-olds are able to do. They’re bigger now, obviously, and almost spitting images of how Ty and Bear looked at that age. Lily is still bright and brash and sarcastic. She tends to step on people in a rush to get things done, but she’s learning to apologize for it. She’s an amazing young woman who is going to change the world someday.
Noah is still our sweet, sensitive boy with a heart of gold. He tends to be a little nervous at times, and shy. His mouth runs away with him before he has a chance to think of what he actually wants to say, but he’s endearing, even when he fidgets. It’s impossible for him to stand still at any given moment. Even now, his finger is tapping against his leg, foot bouncing just a little.
They’re also staring at us with such judgment that I can’t help but snort at them.
“Old people can get funky too,” Bear says.
They both groan in unison.
“Jesus, Papa,” Lily says. “You are so lame.”
“So lame,” Noah says, because he agrees with whatever Lily says. He didn’t have the easiest time when he was younger. Given that he was small and soft-spoken, it made him an easy target for bullies that thought he’d be a pushover, especially for a few months when they were both in fifth grade. What they didn’t expect was to have to deal with our fiery daughter, who always found a way to protect him, even when their friends and interests led them in separate directions. They drifted a little from each other for a while, but somehow, they always found one another again. They were a team, and no one fucked with Noah Thompson, not when Lily was involved.
Bear, of course, had threatened to destroy anyone who ever dreamed of touching his kids. I remember the day the parents of the instigators had all met in the principal’s office, how they had come in with chips on their shoulders, sure their precious little shits could do no wrong, but had left practically quaking in fear at the sight of my husband. I’d stood behind him, arms across my chest, scowling at each of them in turn, but Bear? Bear had lit into them, listing off each encounter with precision, providing signed documents from kids and teachers who’d witnessed kids picking on Noah for being nothing more than himself.
People didn’t really pick on Noah much after that.
And that was good, because I was pretty sure Bear had already plotted out how to get away with murder. I couldn’t say that with a hundred percent accuracy, but I wouldn’t put it past him.
“We’re lame,” I tell Bear.
“So lame,” he says mockingly as he kisses me again, much to the disgust of the twins.
“Did you hear that Mikey’s parents got divorced?” Lily asks Noah. “He’s so lucky.”
Noah squints at her, then looks at us, a frown on his face. “You guys can’t get divorced. I don’t think I’d like that very much.”
“Lily,” Bear scolds. “Stop upsetting your brother.”
“I’m not upsetting him! I merely stated a fact, and he drew his own conclusions from it.”
“We’re not getting divorced,” I say to Noah. “Bear wouldn’t know what to do without me.”
Bear shoves me away. “Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. I’d do just fine. Probably. Mostly. I’d last at least a week before I’d let you come crawling back.”