Page 38 of Falling in Love with A Tiny Bat

Xios: Please stop calling him Papa Pollux.

Zahra: I was designed to make you uncomfortable.

Xios: Truly a gift you abuse. Also, you’re correct about whose is whose.

Xios: You thief of joy.

Rolling my eyes, I check the time and realize I should really abandon both my vampire king and chatting with Xios. I’ve got to head to bed before I mess up my entire sleep schedule mere nights before school resumes. The last thing I need on top of general baby exhaustion is staying up until one in the morning the night before I will need to be up at six.

Not to mention, tomorrow. Wade and the crew will be coming over in the afternoon. And staying. Until late. Five hoursminimum. Five hours minimum without my baby.

There is still time to cancel. I already know that Wade has never slept a night in his life… I could message at three in the morning, and he’d respond in four seconds. If I cancel…I’ll get more time to cuddle my baby before I have to go back to school. And stress even more. Because that’s a full nine hours, including transport time rounded up, of no baby.

Do I…do I need to quit my teaching assistant job? At the bare minimum, I’d need to stick around until a replacement can be found—which means I would need to suffer long hours without my baby anyway—and Kassandra would be asking so many questions since she knows how long and hard I worked to find a position like this that would accept me.

Before I can fall any deeper into that complicated rabbit hole, Alexios messages again.

Xios: You don’t have to be worried about tomorrow. Nothing bad will happen. I’ve been helping take care of Ash since he sprouted.

I take a deep breath and tame my irritation.

Zahra: Not fond of your ability to sense my emotions from all the way in your room.

Xios: I’m right outside your door.

My brow furrows.

Standing, I quietly march across the carpet, open my door, and watch Alexios tumble back at my feet.

Holding his phone in both hands above his chest, he stares up at me. “Oh. Hello, snowflake.” A sly smile overtakes him. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“What are you doing?” I ask.

His gaze skids off me. “Well, I never heard Ash soon enough to intercept him before you did last night. I seek to remedy my errors by closing some distance between the babe and I.”

I blink. “So you’re going to sleep on the floor outside mydoor?”

His head tilts against the carpet. “Yes. Unless…of course…you’re offering an alternative solution.”

When his gaze sneaks toward my bed, my stomach knots, and I think I’d feel a little more disturbed if he weren’t…lying on the carpet…with his head at my feet.

As far asnon-threateninggoes, he’s doing a good job of presentingharmless.

I cross my arms. “You couldn’t handle it.”

“Are you offering?”

“No, go to bed.Yourbed.”

Disdain marked with sulking takes over his expression. He huffs. “We need to figure something out. You won’t be able to function if you continue taking the brunt of Ash’s care. All night long. For days to weeks on end.”

“It’s really hard to take you seriously down there.”

He arches a brow and touches his phone to his chin. “Why’s that? Are you plagued by the human tendency to compose your opinions based on naught but appearances?”

“It is all I do in my spare time, really.” I glance at my hand, on the doorknob, and tell myself it would not be nice to shut the door on his body. It might hurt, even. And good children don’t hurt people.

Ah, temptation. My old nemesis.

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