Cela hurried out to find Tyr with the kids in their stroller., and Peyton leaning over the counter making cheerful baby-cooing noises. Her heart lurched with a combination of joy and anxiety. If only the kids could control their shifting better!
“What are their names?” Peyton was asking.
“Ayra and Aven,” Tyr said. He was looking down at the stroller, probably with the same nervous concern about the twins’ ill-timed shifting as Cela. But when Cela came out of the back, he looked up, and his entire face softened with an automatic delight, eyes lighting up beautifully, that warmed her to her core.
No one had ever looked that happy to see her before.
She was startled out of her soppy gazing at Tyr by Peyton giving her a friendly shove. “Cela! You never told me you hadkids!”
“It didn’t come up,” Cela said, rubbing her arm. Realizing she was probably being rude again, she asked, “Um, doyouhave kids?”
“Me? Oh, thank goodness, no. I mean, the bio clock is ticking, I guess, but that’s never really been my bag.” She looked down at the stroller again. “Kids for me are like a really fine Lamborghini. I love admiring other people’s, don’t need to have one of my own.”
She turned to make coffee for the next customer, and Cela edged around the end of the counter. “Thank you for coming to get me,” she said to Tyr.
“Uh, yeah, any time.” Tyr seemed to realize that he was gazing at her like a love-drunk teenager. He shook his head and said, “Let’s get the kids out of here before they—um, wake up. Do you want to get a late lunch in town?”
“Can we?”
“No problem. We might grab takeout and go to a park or something, just in case ...” He nodded at the stroller.
“Yes, that’s a very good point.”
“Byeeeeeee,” Peyton cooed to the stroller, and waved to Cela. “Bye, C! See you tomorrow! Nice meeting you, Terry! Bring the kids back anytime!”
They went out the bakery door, the bell tinklingcheerfully. Cela said quietly, “Do you like them to call you Terry? It feels so odd.”
“I don’t know, I’ve been Terry Raines so long in the human world that it feels natural to be called that here. It was the only name my ex knew me by for a long time.”
Cela tried not to feel jealous of Paula. It helped to know that she was the one who had known Tyr’s real name, his real self, from the beginning.
They passed DeWitt’s Diner. Through the big front windows, Paula appeared in a waitress’s apron, carrying stacked plates of burgers to a family at a corner table. Cela looked from her to Tyr, who was frowning.
“Maybe we won’t go there today,” he said. “There’s a Mexican place in town. Have you ever had Mexican?”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“Great! Let me introduce you to a human delicacy known as the burrito.”
Not long after, they pushed the stroller out of the restaurant with a large takeout bag. A short walk farther on, there was a lovely little park with an arched bridge over a stream. Tyr found a bench sheltered by trees, half hidden from the road, where they sat and spread out their lunch between them. For a few minutes they were busy unwrapping items, checking the spiciness levels of the little plastic tubs of salsa, and passing around napkins. Tyr had his burrito with avocado; Cela hadn’t wanted to be quite that adventurous. There was also a large carton of tortilla chips.
The burrito was less extraordinary than she had been led to believe, meat and cheese and some unidentifiable vegetable things in a flatbread wrap. She’d had foods like this on the island, though mostly involving fish. But she supposed it was all right that the burrito wasn’t a transcendental experience of deliciousness like the donuts had been. She wasn’tsure how many more truly new experiences she could take before she had time to process them.
“Like it?” Tyr asked.
Cela nodded, her mouth full.
A few bites later, Tyr said, “You know, talking of names, you’re going to need a last name to put on documents and an ID and such.”
“A last name,” Cela repeated, nibbling on a chip. She thought of Kav with a small shiver. “Does everyone have one? Most people haven’t said theirs.”
“No, it’s normal in this culture for most humans to introduce themselves with first name only, but there are so many of them that they need last names to be distinctive. The paperwork is going to require one.”
Cela glanced at him a bit shyly. “Can I use yours? Is that allowed?”
His cheeks turned pink, making him look terribly touchable; the urge to brush a hand across his face was almost overwhelming. “It’s—uh—it’s possible for people to have the same last name, but if we live together with the same last name, it will look like we’re married. Do you want that?”
“You’re right,” she said, though in her heart there was a powerful twang of longing, picked up by her griffin.Yes, we should have his name, his children, his everything!
