“You found your mate?” Havoc asked.
Ronan couldn’t contain his happiness. His whole face lit up. “I did!” he practically shouted.
Havoc immediately held his hand up above his head. “Yes, indeed!” he yelled, as Ronan slapped his hand twice in an exaggerated high-five.
“I’m so happy for you, Ronan!” Analise said, hurrying back over to him to hug him again, twice more. “Who is she? Where did you meet her?”
“I met her at the shelter when Daniel was showing me around. I met the boys first, then met her after. I was immediately drawn to them, and the minute she appeared I knew why. She’s mine. That makes them mine, too. I got a whole family, y’all.”
“You got a whole family,” Havoc repeated, smiling and nodding supportively.
“I do,” Ronan said, unable to stop grinning.
“Wait. You ain’t finished school,” Havoc said.
“Yeah, and Dad’s pissed. I think Mom is okay with it since when I went back to see Giada today, she was already there and had made friends with her. Enough at least that Giada was instantly less suspicious when Mom introduced me as her son.”
“You quitting school?” Havoc asked.
“You’ve put in so much time and hard work. You can’t quit,” Analise said. “There’s no reason you can’t have school and your family.”
“Exactly!” Ronan said to Analise. Then he looked at Havoc. “I went to Tulane today to talk to them about transferring my credits, and enrolling there. After they got a peek at my thesis, they gave me a probationary registration, and forced my place into some already filled graduate classes. My records combined with the thesis and my trajectory, along with the information they already had on me from when they offered me a scholarship out of high school gave the information they needed to push it through. But they can’t make it official until my sealed transcripts are received from the transfer department at M.I.T., along with any additional information they need to complete the transfer.”
“You giving up your scholarship?” Havoc asked.
“Yeah. It doesn’t transfer with me because it was offered by M.I.T. for M.I.T., so I’ll be footing the bill until I can see if there’s anything available next semester. This semester it’s too late, though.”
“Well, why is Dad pissed? It sounds like you got it all covered.”
“He doesn’t want me to jump into a ready made family. Or maybe he thinks I’m going to start working and just keep working and not graduate. Or maybe I’m just supposed to be the child that quietly does only what’s expected of me,” Ronan said snidely.
“I’m sure he’s just concerned,” Analise said.
“Maybe it’s because she’s older than me and has two kids.”
“Older? By how much?” Havoc asked.
“She’s twenty-nine.”
“Four years isn’t that much after you hit twenty-five,” Analise said.
“Yep. Look at that… you just barely made it to old enough,” Havoc said, grabbing Ronan and playfully putting him into a headlock and ruffling his hair.
“You know I’ll kick your ass now, right?” Ronan asked, trying to break Havoc’s hold on him.
“I know you can try,” Havoc said.
“We’ll help, Daddy!” a little voice shouted, as a three year old replica of Analise with wild red hair and green eyes attached herself to Ronan’s leg.
“Me, too!” another voice cried out. “I can whip him!” a four year old replica of Havoc, but with green eyes, declared just before he released a war cry and attacked Ronan’s other leg, complete with biting.
“Hey! Y’all are going to make me call my Wolf! You know he don’t play!” Ronan threatened.
“Yayy!” they both shouted.
“No!” Analise shouted. “Not now, not in this house. It’s time for dinner and we are not playing shift and attack Uncle Ronan.”
“He started it!” Ruger complained.
