Page 65 of The (Maybe) Murderer Who Knocked Me Up

Everyone laughs. Uncle Dagger owns his own antique shop.

“Jewelry has no gender,” Mom reminds him.

“I know, I know. Jesus. Just let him decide for himself without pressuring him into anything, okay?” he says.

I love the many earrings and bangles my mom wears, but it has always felt like a female raccoon shifter thing to me. Maybe that’s because of how sparse Uncle Dagger’s jewelry is. He only wears a locket with a simple silver chain around his neck.

“Let’s gather the money first, so he can know what he’s working with,” Aunt Chrystal suggests. She holds out a stack of twenty dollar bills. Has she been saving money for my collection too?

My mom opens the glove box and grabs an even larger stack. Between the two of them, they must have thousands of dollars on top of what Aunt Emerald has already offered me. Uncle Dagger leans forward and reaches into his back pocket for a smaller collection of bills.

“This is all for me? I don’t think I need?—”

“Yes, you do,” he says. “If you’re collecting goblets, you’ll need every cent. It’s the display cases that will get ya. Those things are pricey.”

“Yeah. Not all of us collect picture frames that we can just hang on the wall,” Chrystal says to Mom.

She smiles back at me. “It’s nice to have a beautiful display for you and your mate. It will make Slade happy to see your loveglittering all over your house. It will make me and your alpha mom happy to see it too.”

“Okay,” I agree. “Thank you. Where should we go first?”

They all look at each other.

“Magic paw jewelry?” Aunt Emerald suggests.

“Absolutely. We have to start there,” Aunt Chrystal says.

“For fuck’s sake. He isn’t getting a bunch of earrings. The man needs curios from a quality antique shop.”

They argue about the inherent manliness of curios all the way to the jewelry shop, where much to his dismay, I do get a few piercings.

It’s tradition, or so my aunts claim. They even remind him that he got a piercing on his collection day. But he wouldn’t tell me where it was. I think I don’t want to know.

There are some things in life that should probably remain a mystery.

32

SLADE

Chime and I spend the afternoon playing with kittens. She giggles and runs around the barn, dancing with the little fur balls. We give each of the six kittens a name based on the color of their fur. The barn is technically air conditioned, but it’s still a little hot, so we come back to Quin’s house around four o’clock to draw.

It’s easy spending time with her like this. She draws a diagram of a human eye and starts labeling all of the parts, using one of her anatomy books for reference. She can already read, which reminds me of Jake. He was reading before kindergarten, too.

At five o’clock, I rummage through the cupboards to figure out what to make for dinner. Chime is an eager participant while I cook spaghetti and meatballs. She helps me roll the meat and add the spices. I use a recipe I found online, which she eats with gusto, including the broccoli I find in the freezer. At seven o’clock, I start to wonder when Quin is coming back. Chime’s bedtime is in just a few minutes, and I’m not sure if he’d want me to see her in her animal form yet.

Not long after we clean up dinner, someone knocks on the door.

Chime sprints for the front door, throwing it open to find Quin’s alpha mom. Shae is still wearing her coveralls from work and has her hair tied back in a pony tail. She lifts Chime into her arms and gives her a big hug.

“There’s my little wind chime,” Shae says. “What have you been up to today?”

“Slade and I played with the kittens.” She tells Shae their new names, chattering until the two of them sit down on the couch.

“Ruby asked me to come over to handle bedtime. Is that okay?” Shae asks me.

“Of course.”

I wonder if I should leave or if it’s okay for me to stay. I haven’t heard from Quin yet, and I haven’t had a chance to talk with Aunt Emerald about those projects she wants me to do. While Shae takes Chime to her bedroom, I text Jake and tell him that I probably won’t be coming back tonight. I also send Stew a text, detailing how the morning went with Quin. He starts a group text for the three of us, and they congratulate me. We message back and forth for almost twenty minutes before Shae comes out of Chime’s bedroom. She walks toward the kitchen, her eyes focused on the glass display of goblets.

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