“You’re happy.” Elijah returned the smile. “I’m glad.”
“I need a bigger table.” Eric shook his head mockingly. “Or I need fewer friends.”
Elijah paused in a way that made Eric look at him.
“All those people are friends you consider family?”
“No, but they’d all come if I had a dinner party.”
“This is more than a dinner party. It’s a once-a-year tradition. Deciding who to invite, deciding where to go, is important. Which of those friends is more than a friend but family to you.”
“Colum,” Eric said immediately. “His trinity. Someday his kids.”
“Good. Who else?”
Eric saw it in his mind’s eye—this room, ten years from now. A bigger table. Chaos as a couple kids ran around. For some reason, his imagination gave the dark-haired little girl a foam sword which she proceeded to use to whack her sibling untilXavier and Annie got up from the table, Xavier separating them, as Annie disarmed her.
That left him and Colum at the table. Him sitting at one end, Colum on his right.
And across from him, seated at the other end of the table, was Nikolett.
“Fuck,” Eric breathed.
“Care to share?”
He leaned forward, elbows on the table, head in his hands. “Fuck.”
Now, imaginary Nikolett had a wiggling toddler on her lap, the little blonde girl holding a tiny foam sword of her own and baring her teeth in frustration that she wasn’t allowed to join the melee.
Eric jammed the heels of his hands against his eyes, as if that could block out the image.
Imaginary Nikolett stood up, her belly round with pregnancy. “Fuck!”
“I’m going to give you a minute.”
Eric sat at the table, utterly still, though his insides felt as storm-tossed and chaotic as the sea outside.
He tried to erase her from the picture, to put someone else there.
Family.
It didn’t work. Elijah had said family, and the only people he considered family were Colum…and Nikolett.
He loved them, both of them. And though his love for each of them was distinctly different, the love was broad and deep.
They were his family.
More than that, he wanted to start a family with Nikolett. Colum had started an immediate family of his own, and while that didn’t make him any less Eric’s brother, it did push Eric down the list.
Eric wanted to be at the top of someone’s list. Nikolett’s list.
“I hate you,” Eric said after a long silence.
“No, you don’t.”
He raised his head. “I wasn’t supposed to have a future, let alone a future family.”
Elijah looked up from the leftovers he was putting into glass dishes. “What…or maybe I should ask who…did you picture?”
