“What?”
“You don’t need it, Cal. You have everything you could hope for and somehow things will work out. You don’t need morphine to deal with life anymore.” Dallas stepped next to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
When he first got there, he’d been intimidated by Dallas because of the size of his cat. The man was as gentle as they came, but Cal’s cat was about the size of half of Dallas’s cat’s head.
Cal forced his body to relax, drawing warmth from Dallas’s kindness.
“Why is it open?” he nodded at the cabinet.
“Kitchen mishap, Mikael dropped a glass and Kit cut his finger.” Before Cal could freak out and storm into the kitchen, Dallas grabbed his arm. “It’s okay, just a nick. We’re just super careful about that stuff, because infections are a pain.”
Cal glared at Dallas until the tiglon let go of him. Then he walked calmly into the kitchen.
Noah was cleaning up after tending to Kit’s hand.
“Let me see,” Cal said, his tone snapping more than he wanted it to.
“It’s fine, Dad.” Kit’s tone was hundred percent sullen teenager who thought their parent was being over the top protective, and somehow that made Cal feel instantly better.
His perfect, too-old-for-his-years son was being a proper teenager. Cal swallowed hard and caught Derek’s small smile from behind Kit.
Kit showed his hand with two band aids on different fingers. Because he could, Cal did what he’d done to every scrape and cut Kit had gotten as a kid, and blew gently on the fingers.
“Dad….”
Smirking at his son, Cal let go. “Okay, okay… go on then.”
Since the kitchen stuff was done, Kit escaped with Anton to Anton’s room. The adults were left downstairs and they watched TV for a while, until Derek yawned and rubbed his eye.
“Should we get moving?” Cal asked.
“Yeah, I think so.”
Cal went and collected Kit from upstairs, and they walked as a family through the now dark woods. They all had cell phones with flashlights, and they used them to stay on the path.
Kit, who was walking ahead of them, turned off his light.
“Don’t trip,” Derek told him.
“I won’t!”
“Watch him trip in three, two….” Cal murmured.
“I heard that!” Kit laughed. After a few seconds, he yelped and just managed to balance himself again.
Derek and Cal started to laugh, and grumbling, Kit turned his light back on.
The next day, Kit and the boys had gone riding the horses again.
Cal and Derek had taken a nap, and were lazily making out on their bed post-nap.
“There’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while,” Derek said when they went from kissing into cuddling mode again.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I… it’s something that I think we need still.” Something about Derek’s expression was troubled.
“All right. What is it?” Cal had no idea what this was about, but he’d go with anything Derek wanted.
