Page 316 of Bride of Choice

Hooking a thumb behind him, BapaFuz rumbled, “BapaJo, BapaGof. Ugliest with tiny head BapaLuf.”

BapaLuf, I assumed, was the one to bare his teeth at Fuz and grumble, “Always know Fuz. Denaii with fattest head. Never lose in crowd. Too tall. Always hit fat head on things, it get bigger, bigger, ‘til head melon all see now.”

Fuz barked out a laugh at that as Mamma fussed at them. “Quiet now, before she sees you are all silly and thinks her male is as silly as you are!” She laughed all the same along with them.

“I can’t believe you all came out here,” I blurted, before I’d thought better of it. I honestly had no flippin’ idea why his big family that he’d kept a secret for so long had just up and decided to come to our village.

“Go’ wants stay with Jo. Girls want mates. Stubborn Bapa Fuz only gets worse. Needs help, like Go’ says.” Gopher growled as he gave his father a look but his words were full of caring and affection.

“Our boy swears by you all. Says you’re good folks. We all know of Dorothy and her mates, good folks, from when we brought our boy into town to trade when he was young. We’ve seen firsthand y’all have good people residin’ here. And, well, we ain’t gettin’ any younger, the girls are all getting older and wantin’ to meet with the local menfolk, search out a mate. Go’ brought some of your sheriff type town heads for a meetin’ with us the other day and we’ve been offered huts for the oldest to stretch their wings, and another big enough for the rest of us. Have their word our girls’ll be safe here. They’ll have the choice,” Papa stressed, pausing for the group’s agreement before continuing. “We know Mamma would like nothin’ more than to have us all together, close, see our boy marry and be happy and whatever might come along. About broke her heart to hear he wanted to venture off on his own, find his own way and decided to settle here.”

Mamma smiled, tears in her eyes, and clapped her hands together. “Now we can all be together and Fuz has no choice but to see a healer.”

“Fuz has choice,” Fuz grumbled.

“No, you don’t,” Papa and Mamma, the mouth pieces of the group, barked at him in unison.

Gopher’s slim but tall, silent type daddies at the back who made me think of him, reining all the wayward kids in and keeping everyone together, grinned simultaneously in an odd, triplets in sync fashion, flashing fang, at their sassy, smaller, vocal human counterparts.

“Are they married-ed yet?” a veritable clone of brown eyed Celia but for her hazel eyes like her Papa, and her hair styled in twist braids similar to her mother’s burst from the group to ask her BapaFuz, taking his hand in her much smaller one to cuddle into his side.

“She say yes. They kiss,” her BapaFuz informed her.

“Can we dance and eat cake now, like you did with Mamma, Papa, and Bapas?” she squeaked out hopefully, looking like she might explode if she withheld her excitement a moment longer.

“I don’t- We don’t have any cake or anything,” I murmured with a wince. If there was one thing I absolutely hated it was crushing a kid’s excitement. I’d been that kid so many times as a child, I felt that secondhand disappointment like it was my own. “I have music on my phone… and some cookies?”

“Oh- Are we late?! Did we miss anything! Oh- Hurry! Hurry!”

Everyone craned their heads along with me to stare off to my right. Dorothy was hurrying up the way, a basket overflowing with flowers in her arms.

Glancing from her flowers to the ones still in his hand, Gopher sheepishly held them out to me.

“Thank you, Tall N Fuzzy Wuzzy,” I whispered, then gave him a kiss.

Gopher’s purr fought with the happy rumble rattling his chest.

His fathers exchanged knowing looks, glancing to their mate, and smiled.

“I forget the one times,” BapaFuz grumbled.

Mamma leaned into him to rest her head on his and take his hand. “And it’s just as sweet to watch our boy do it as it was to live it with you,” she told him. A rusty, rattling purr that made him cough rumbled to life in Fuz’s chest.

“We here!” Mosau and Lukar called out, right behind Dorothy.

Two by two, marching in, beings and food appeared, like magic.

Rosa and Zhuii and the kids popped up, bringing up the rear. Noyel walked up with them, holding the boys in his arms. Kehko held hands with Rosa, flowers in her free hand and a flower crown in her hair. She pranced over to us wearing the fairy dress I’d made for her upon request.

“Aunie Jojo-mine!” she shrieked, giving Gopher’s sisters a run for their money.

The girls peering at her from the safety of their group smiled as she danced up to me and thrust a wild bouquet up at me with an adorable grin. “Mama said you gots married and Odd-hits and God-fur are your mates!” A small frown puckered her blue furred brow. “Does that make them my unkrels now?”

A soft gasp and a, “Mamma! Look! She’s so cute! Can I go and play with her?! Please-please-please!”

“Yes! Can we?!! Please! They have little ones smaller than us! Can we play with them?!”

“Can we hold them?!”

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