Page 78 of Wishes and Research

Oh.

“They’re going to see my cups, Daddy.” Goodness gracious. “I…what if they bring out one of my cups. I like my cups, but I wasn’t expecting to have anyone see my cups. What if they pretend not to see my cups? Do I mention it? Do I hide that I want one of my cups? They’re magic and magic friends probably need magic cups.”

Daddy gave me a big squeeze and held me tight. Once the words stopped coming out, he kissed my head and whispered back. “Baby, they came to our house to play, discussed if we’d finished our scene, commented on my pants, and then made themselves at home in our kitchen…and that was them trying to be nice. Nothing we do is going to be weirder than what they’ve done already.”

Oh.

He had a point.

“I…I think I just needed the reminder that I’m not the strangest one here.” I also had more reasonable manners because no matter what species I was, I knew not to go make myself at home in someone else’s kitchen.

Daddy scoffed. “You will never be the strangest one in the room, cutie. I promise you that.”

Hmm.

Taking a deep breath, I inched back to let him know he didn’t have to squish me to keep me upright and functioning anymore. “Thank you, Daddy.”

He didn’t look like he believed I was fine. Raising one eyebrow, he looked highly suspicious and just waited.

And waited.

“I’m thirsty.” So we had to brave my new friends.

Daddy managed not to laugh but he looked like all that holding it in was going to strain his stomach muscles. “Alright, one second and then we’ll go get some juice.”

Before I’d met Daddy and my new friends, I never would’ve understood how scary that sentence would be.

Chapter 22

Fraser

Interesting.

Lorne and Kenzie didn’t make any comments about my clean new pants, but that seemed to be because they were watching for Paxton’s reaction.

He just blinked and inched closer to me, which was telling all on its own, but Kenzie and Lorne were frighteningly patient when they wanted something. The troublemakers just smiled and sat on the floor like sweet angels as Paxton took in the sight on the coffee table.

Beside a plate of cookies sat four sippy cups of juice and a pitcher of water that I was pretty sure I’d gotten as a housewarming gift a thousand years ago when I’d first moved out on my own. They’d even set out some plastic cups beside it so we had plenty of options.

It was ingenious actually.

Paxton hadn’t expected it either judging by his wide eyes. “Smart people are a pain in the ass.”

Oops.

I could see that Paxton hadn’t intended for his whispered words to come out of his mouth, but he didn’t apologize when they just smiled wider. They knew they were behaving badly and were going to power through it because they liked making new friends.

“Thank you, gentlemen.” Ignoring the shenanigans, I led Paxton over to the couch and sat us down so he didn’t have to decide what to do. “You’ve done a good job with our impromptu tea party.”

I got beaming smiles for understanding their plan, but instead of making Paxton more nervous, he actually started to relax.

Assuming that getting more information made it easier to handle the situation, I focused on talking to the troublemaking twosome. “How is work going, gentlemen?”

Looking down, I nodded toward a sippy cup. “Juice, please.”

I could almost hear Paxton telling himself that a cup didn’t make the Dom or something equally as adorable, but he was very quiet as Kenzie handed me a sippy cup. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Shifting like a matron getting more comfortable in her ballgown, he nodded. “I’ve had a lot of work lately and just finished restoring the cutest set of handmade baby toys. People need to stop storing things in attics if there are animals in the attic.”

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