Page 74 of Falling in Love with A Tiny Bat

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy Mother’s Day…to me?

It’s the flowers on my bedside table that catch my attention first, mostly because they are vibrant, unfamiliar, and perhaps the most beautiful blossoms I’ve ever seen. I don’t need anyone to tell me they aren’t from the human realm.

I do need the crisp, gold-lined card to explain why they’re here, and, subsequently, why the purple petals adorning my comforter trail out of my bedroom.

Due to my nightmare of a childhood, I’m a fairly light sleeper.

How Alexios managed to get these flowers to my nightstand and steal my baby—yet again, because he does this, often, so I can sleep in on the mornings I don’t have school—is a testament to his abilities as a faerie.

The power imbalance should make me more nervous than it does.

Maybe I’m calm because I understand that if I ever come into my faerie blood, I get to yoink his powers for myself. Anything he can do, I will do better. Basically.

Yawning, I sit up, pull the elegant card free from the flowers, and snap it open. I rub an eye as I read the flowing cursive. That, for the record, Icannotdo better…

Happy Mother’s Day, snowflake!

Daddy and baby are waiting for you downstairs with breakfast.

But breakfast is only the first thing on today’s agenda.

Follow the petals to the loves of your life.

My heart constricts as my mind catches up to the fact today isSunday. Mother’s Day. MyfirstMother’s Day as a mother. Lipsparted, I stare at the objective stupidity whereDaddyandloves of your lifeare concerned, but then I also fight back tears.

Alexios…isn’t my boyfriend or my lover or anything. He’s a live-in babysitter and my soulmate, which is a fact I’m adamantly ignoring all plot points about. That said, remembering Mother’s Day, giving me flowers, and promising breakfast outshines husbands everywhere.

What makes it even more heartwarming is that faeries don’t celebrate holidays.

They shun matters of calendar obligation. Gift giving can be a minefield of twisted words and demanded favors, so events wrapped around an expectation of gifts aren’t a thing for them. Andromeda’s told me that accepting anything from a faerie who doesn’t wordlessly thrust their gifts into your hands could be a trap.

When a faerieasksif you want something, they’re gauging interest. And that interest provides an angle for manipulation.

Or something.

I don’t know exactly.

All I know is that Alexios—sneaky bugger that he is—does not appear to be asking any questions with this card, so I dip my nose into a flower, let the sweet aroma calm my heart, brush my teeth, get dressed, and make my way into the hall. The petal trail very clearly leads downstairs, but it also very clearly leads backupstairson the other side of the steps.

Blinking at the petals that disappear into one of my unused guest rooms, I take myself down the steps between the two paths, fortifying myself for the worst as I go.

Alexios doesn’tlikefood, and Ash certainly can’t cook.

Whatever I’m heading toward is going to be atrocious.

I mean. Come on. Both of “my boys” are less than a year old. This is nothing short of letting the four-year-old concoct something disastrous for Mommy instead of just ordering hersomething nice from a restaurant. At least Alexios knows how to clean. He’s proven that. I’ve not seen dust since he started living with me.

Small victories.

Be gracious.

He’stryingto do something nice, and I…

My heart stops when I lift my gaze off the floor at the entrance to the kitchen.

Standing at the stove with Ash in his baby wrap, Alexios flips something in a frying pan with an edge of professionalism that leaves me tongue-tied. Whatever he’s making smellsamazing.

---