Page 137 of The Pushy Pixies Are Going Down
Aeson nodded, so Winter pulled out his phone, found the pictures, and passed it over to the kid.
Aeson asked, “Can I send myself some of these?”
“Yeah, sure. As many as you want. I’ll start sending you updates if you want?”
He nodded. “Definitely. Thanks, Win.”
Winter smiled softly at him, then looked at me. “Did you order food yet?”
“Yep. Chinese. Should be here in about twenty.”
He sighed in happiness. “Thank god. I’m starving.”
“Me too.” I sat beside him, and he put an arm behind my back, hand resting on my hip as he pulled me closer into his side. “Today was a lot.”
He snorted. “Yeah, it really was.”
I leaned in, letting him take some of my weight, physically and metaphorically. He was so good to me, and I found myself leaning more and more on him, and he seemed to… like it.
I’d never had that before.
We stayed that way with Aeson playing with the cats, and Winter and I simply being with one another for a long time, and when the doorbell rang, Winter was the one who got up.
He brought in the food, so we moved to the table, and of course, Aeson had the kitten in his arms the entire time. We ate and hung out, and neither Win nor I brought up anything about foster homes or runaways. We were both unsure since we hadn’t planned for this, but I wanted so badly to ask Ace—and Chaos—to stay here.
Aeson hung out all night, and when Chaos came to pick him up, I was surprised the kid came to the door.
“Do you want to come in?”
He glanced past me at Aeson and Confetti, and I had a feeling that he missed the kitten too.
So I opened the door wider and waved him in. “Come say hi to the animals and get some food.”
He nodded, not making eye contact, as he walked in and immediately dropped down to the floor in front of the kitten. Win shot me a grin from his spot on the couch, so I went over to join him.
We watched the kids playing for a little while, and my eyes started to droop. I was ready for bed, and I really, really, really wanted to ask them to stay, but I was too nervous that they’d take it the wrong way and run away from us.
Plus, I wanted to talk to Win about it.
Chaos gasped loudly, and my head snapped over to him. He was standing in front of the nest. “Holy shit, did you guys see this? There’s a crack.”
Win, Aeson, and I all jumped to our feet and rushed over to get a closer look. Sure enough, there was a large crack running down the side of the egg.
“Holy crap,” I breathed out as Win wrapped an arm around my back, kissing my temple. “We’re gonna have a baby dragon.”
Aeson let out a strangled squeal-like sound that had all the animals jumping and staring at him like he’d suddenly grown three heads. “Oh my god! I’m sooooooo excited! We have to callLyric—they texted me to ask me to make sure you guys didn’t forget about them when the dragon hatched. Holy crap.” He turned to me. “Can we stay? I know it can take hours, and it’s late, but we’ll be quiet. We can watch the egg if you guys want to go to sleep or something.”
“Of course you can stay. You’re always welcome here. You don’t even need the excuse of watching a once-in-a-lifetime dragon egg hatching.”
He snorted and threw his arms up in the air like he was silently cheering, making me and Win chuckle. Chaos shot him a small smile but quickly refocused on the egg.
Win said, “I’m gonna call Mags.”
“Yeah?”
He glanced at me. “Is that okay? If I ask her and Nash to come?”
I kissed his cheek. “Of course. You don’t even have to ask.”
