Page 18 of Omega Dragon Manny
Beau looked across the blanket at me and winked.
We fell into our evening routine. The kids now ate at the table with us. They weren’t eating what we did, at least not in the same form, but we always made sure they had puffs or Cheerios to practice grabbing and gave them the homemade baby food that Beau made every day.
No matter how careful we were, dinner time always led to messy babies and bath time.
It was nice having this routine, something to look forward to when we came home. And while it did change as the kids grew, the framework stayed the same.
And just like most days, they were all sound asleep before the last story was read.
“Do you think I’m boring?” Beau asked, rubbing his chin. “They always fall asleep when I read.”
“They do.” I wrapped my arm around his shoulder. “And I wouldn’t call your reading boring. I’d call it magic sleep whispering.”
He rolled his eyes. “Do you want to wash or dry today?”
“Hmm. What doyouwant to do?”
It was the same conversation we had every night, and in the end, we always settled it with rock-paper-scissors like we were seven years old instead of full-ass grown-ups with three little ones in their care.
Doing dishes together was one of my favorite things, which sounded ridiculous. We had a dishwasher. Everything could go in there. But more often than not, we opted to wash by hand. That was when we had some of our best conversations.
Which was good, because today, I had something I wanted to talk about.
I knew Beau was a dragon. I’d known he was a shifter from the beginning, and he’d told me about his flight when we first got together. But I hadn’t met his dragon yet. And it wasn’t like he was a bunny and could just shift in the living room so I could say,Hey, nice to meet you.He was way too large for that. At least I thought he was. I’d never asked. Maybe those teacup-sized dragons at the giftshops were true to life.
In any case, I wanted to move forward with our relationship. The only reason I hadn’t pushed it earlier was because of our weird dynamic. He lived in my home and worked for me. That gave me power even if I didn't choose to yield it. I never wanted him to feel cornered into anything.
Except the pull to mark him was getting stronger every time we were together. I wasn’t alone in this. But until we knew each other completely, including his dragon, we both agreed it wasn’t time.
“I was thinking,” I said, drying a plate, “maybe we could find someone to watch the kids for a date.”
He raised a brow. “A date?”
We hadn’t had a date outside the house, not unless you considered it a date with the kids in tow. I hadn’t minded. We were able to have plenty of in-home dates. But also, it would benice if we were able to get away for an afternoon, just the two of us, even if it wasn’t to see his dragon.
“I thought maybe you could…show me your dragon.”
He dropped the plate he was washing into the sink. Thankfully, it didn’t shatter.
“You’re not scared of him?”
“No. But now that you say it like that, maybe I should be,” I teased.
“Not at all,” he said, still looking stunned. “But what brings this up?”
“I’ve been thinking.” There were so many ways I could say this wrong, and I wanted to get it right. Instead, I went with the first thing that came to mind. “I don’t like you having your own room. I want you to move into mine.”
He blinked. “It feels weird asking me to do that, though. Not when?—”
“Not when I’m paying you?” I finished for him.
He nodded. “Yeah. That.”
“But I don’t want you to work for free either. Thiswasyour job. Taking your job away because I want to hold you all night wrong isn’t good either.”
“Why is this so awkward?” He grabbed a towel and dried off his hands.
He took out his phone, typed something, and held it out to me. There were numbers, not just numbers, dollars, at the bottom.
