Merlin started to fuss, and Papochka got up and brought our son over to me. “I’m not sure,” Papochka said. “I’ve never lived in the area, and although I will miss the tropical climate in Ibiza, we aren’t completely leaving the island either.”
“How so?” I asked. Merlin, I discovered, had wet his diaper and needed to be changed. I used magic, and nobody knew what I’d done. I could feel Camden’s yearning through our bond, so I carefully passed our son over to his omega daddy.
“We’re not selling our house on Ibiza,” Father said. “We’ll use it as a vacation house and visit often because we have made some really good friends there.”
“So they’re paranormals as well?” I asked.
“Yes,” Father said. “How else could we have the same friends for the past two and a half decades and not age a single day?”
“Botox?” Camden suggested. We all laughed.
“True,” Papochka said. “I think that can only do so much though.”
“Your father is going to bring my kiln and wheel here though, so I will be able to continue with my pottery, and I’ll have something to fill my days while he is busy at the council.”
“Would it not be better to just get a second set?” Camden asked.
Merlin seemed to still be a bit fussy, even with the recent diaper change. “Does he need a bottle?” I asked my One.
“Maybe. It’s been a few hours since he ate last.”
I held out a perfectly heated and mixed bottle, and Camden smiled at me as he took it. The noise that our son made when the bottle got closer told us all that yes, he’d decided he was hungry, and he needed to be fed. I stood from where I’d been sitting on the oversized lounger with Camden and offered a burp cloth for his shoulder. “Here,” I told him. Camden smiled at me and leaned forward enough to allow me to tuck it behind his shoulder some.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “What type of pottery do you do, Lukyan? Maxwell mentioned before that you did pottery. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who throws pots or cups or whatever.”
“You had it right the first time. It’s mostly pots. I do a lot of different sizes. Some are overly large, some are smaller, and you can fit a couple dozen on a standard bookshelf. It’s something I picked up on Ibiza, actually.”
“They’ve truly embraced some of the hippy lifestyle there,” I told Camden with a smile.
“Hey now,” Lukyan said. “We’re not really hippies.”
“Love, we’ve all lived through the hippy era,” Winston said. “Lukyan had hair down to his waist in the early seventies.”
I looked at Camden. “He really did. I personally went for the feathered Robert Redford look myself.”
Camden laughed. “That’s probably better than mine was. Living in Bangor, and of course, never actually surfing because the water is never warm there, I still had the surfer look going. I was so stylish,” Camden teased by throwing first one shoulder forward and then the other.
“Very well. We’ve all been hippies,” Lukyan said. We all laughed again.
“Back to the pottery,” Camden said, leaning forward as much as he could with Merlin in his arms. “I’d love to see it. I think some of the pieces you see online are unique and amazing. I do not have any sort of artistic abilities at all. I can cook, and of course, I can study enough to pass an MCAT and then the USMLE, but don’t ask me to do more than draw a stick figure or finger paint.” Camden looked down at Merlin. “All right, little man? Daddy probably isn’t your art buddy. But I’ll read you all of the bedtime stories.”
“That’s important too,” I said and leaned in and kissed my One. “We’ll tackle art when we get there. Maybe he’ll do all of that at the childcare facility.”
“Are you putting him in?” Father and Papochka asked at the same time.
Camden gave me a glance, and then we both looked at them. “Not at first,” I told them. “He’ll go to the clinic with us at first. We’re at the omega clinic. We work with pregnant omegas, small children, and omegas that don’t want to be pregnant. He won’t be in the way there, and it’s not an issue. Once he can crawl, he’ll go to the childcare center.”
“But,” Papochka started. He looked at Father, and I sighed.
“There is no but, Papochka. We are both doctors. We both have jobs that are important, and I’m not going to ask Camden to take a hiatus simply because we’re mated and having a family. There are plenty of dual working families.”
Papochka took a deep breath and let it out slowly before nodding. “I understand.”
“Times are different, love,” Father said. “It’s safe here for him to be in the childcare center. They have it for that very reason.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“I am going to drop down to three days a week then, so Merlin will only be in the childcare center for two,” Camden said.
