Page 23 of The Dragon's Surprise
Daniel pulled her close. “How you do it, I’ll never understand.” His eyes widened. He moved back, and then he placed a hand over her protruding belly. “The little one is eager to come out and join in.”
As Daniel led Jenny over to some chairs, Lexi couldn’t hear any reply, but could see how much the pair cared for each other. She wondered if she’d ever find that.
However, Ethan dashed from behind her, snapping her out of her head as he said, “Next time we should hold a swimming contest instead.”
“Oh, are you good at it?”
He stood a little taller. “I was the best in my class. The teacher said I had to be part fish. Well, before…”
His face fell, and Lexi’s heart wrenched. Wanting to cheer him up, she gently raised his head with her fingers and said, “There are a lot of lakes nearby, smaller ones than Tahoe, and maybe in the summer you can swim again.”
A familiar male voice came from behind her. “I’ll take you to some of them, Ethan, once it’s warm enough.”
“Really? When will it be warm enough? Soon?”
Kyle walked to stand next to the boy and ruffled his hair. “It should be in the next few weeks.”
Ethan did a little dance. “I can’t wait! I’ve never swum in a lake before. Do dragons swim in lake water?”
“Yes, and my beast rather likes it. He might even let you sit on my belly as we float on the water.”
Lexi tried to imagine the scene, never really thinking about how dragon forms and children could interact and play. Oh, she’d slid down Kyle’s side, but part of her yearned to also sit on his belly as they drifted over the lake.
Ethan and Kyle finished making plans, and Lexi debated if she should leave them. However, Kyle’s green eyes met Lexi’s for a beat, flashing between round and slitted, his expressionserious. Before she could ask anything, he crouched down in front of his son. “Actually, Ethan, I want to make a lot of plans with you in the future.”
“You do?”
“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “In fact, I hope to know you a lot better and have a rather important question to ask you.”
Lexi’s heart skipped a beat. Had he really decided? Shouldn’t he have talked with her first?
But as she watched Kyle smile at Ethan, she saw how much the dragonman already cared for the boy. Oh, she still had to stay around and make sure Ethan transitioned smoothly. But she sensed that if Kyle made a decision, he stuck to it.
Ethan, as if sensing something was going on, glanced at Lexi and then back at Kyle. “What? You’re not going to ask me to leave, are you?”
“No!” Kyle said. “Of course not. I wanted to see if you wanted to stay with me, Ethan. I’d like to be your new dad, if you want. You can take your time to decide…”
Ethan launched himself at Kyle, and the dragonman engulfed him in a hug. Ethan’s muffled voice said, “I want to stay with you. Please don’t send me away. I like it here.”
“Never, Ethan.”
Kyle met Lexi’s eyes, and at the fierceness mixed with tenderness, she knew he meant it.
Still, she needed to talk with Kyle privately about this, and soon. So she touched Ethan’s shoulder, and he looked up at her. She smiled. “You’ll be happy to live with Kyle, then? You can always take a little more time to make sure, if you need it.”
“No, I don’t need more time. H-he’s like me. And he likes to teach me things, and we have fun together, and I don’t think he’ll hate me for my dragon eyes.”
Lexi crouched down and placed her hands on Ethan’s shoulders. “Never. I’m actually a little jealous of your flashing eyes. It means you’ll always have a best friend.”
His pupils flashed, and Ethan gave a shy smile. “I’m trying. He’s still loud, though.”
Kyle spoke up. “We’ll work on that whenever you want, okay?”
“Okay.”
Ethan noticed Jackson and Reyna waving at him. He looked torn between staying with them and going to his new friends. Lexi glanced at Kyle, and he nodded, so she said, “Why don’t you get some dinner with your friends while I talk with Kyle?”
Ethan looked at Kyle. “You’ll come over to the table soon, too?”
