“Is it time for more presents?” Ivy tugged Rubi’s sleeve. “I want my other dad to open his.”
Rubi had his arms filled with the sweet things I had sat at this table to eat. He piled them between Orla and me. “All right, all right. Folk, Juana, Locke, and Mats. You’re up.”
Liliana flitted out of the room and returned with a package as artfully wrapped as the one I’d abandoned upstairs. She gave it to Folk, and he peeled back the paper to reveal a wolf keyring sculpted in pewter.
“I made it,” she said. “It’s the same wolf I drew for your birthday.”
“I can see that.” Folk held the wolf to the last of the winter sun filtering through the glass door. “Now I get to keep him with me all the time, eh?”
Liliana gave him a rare hug and whispered something to him.
I turned away, watching River pass his gift to Juana instead. A knife, naturally. For killing things. She loved it. Mateo did not, but Locke distracted him with a sketchbook and charcoal set, skipping his own place in the order Saint and the children had commanded.
“So you can draw when you’re alone instead of pacing around like a psychopath.”
Mateo flipped the blank pages. “I’m gonna do Rubes first.”
“Are you fuck.” Rubi flicked balled paper across the table. “Last time you drew me, I had a conk that could smell a Sunday roast on Tuesdays.”
“Serves you right.”
Rubi opened his mouth to retaliate.
Ivy cut him off. “It’s Locke’s turn. Dodger, give him his present.”
Dodger.
Viktor.
Beside me, he dug into his pocket and pulled out a slim flash drive.
He passed it to Locke. “You told me when we were... away, that you had lost all the pictures of your children when they were young. I asked my brother to find them for you.”
Emotion kept Locke quiet. He cocooned the flash drive in his fist and tugged Viktor into an embrace that swallowed the smaller man whole. “Thank you.”
The table gathering broke up. Rubi put the children to work washing up. I retreated upstairs, aware of footsteps behind me.
Cam.
He followed me all the way to the spare bedroom, and I knew why.
“You are worried I will escape?”
“Do you want to?” He came up behind me, pressing his chest to my back. “It’s okay if you do. I know it’s a lot.”
“Is a lot for Saint too.”
“He’s used to it.”
“Being used to something doesn’t make it easier.”
“Are we still talking about rowdy dinners?”
Probably not. But my vodka-loosened tongue had neglected to inform me of the subject change. So I did not answer. I opened a wardrobe that contained dusty records and storage boxes. Lifted the lid from a box and retrieved a benign iPad I kept for benign things and a USB adapter to connect Locke’s flash drive, reasonably certain he did not possess such things. “I am not going anywhere.”
Cam turned me around, dark gaze simmering with love and the rum he’d drunk. “I think this is the first time I’ve really believed you.”
We were definitely no longer talking about dinner. And I couldn’t be offended. Perhaps it was the first timeIhad believed it too.