“Blocks go boom!” Kora exclaimed, making her brother laugh.
“We can make the blocks super high,” Kael assured her.
“Go boom!”
Lurielle laughed along. She now had Tate’s number in her phone and had tentative plans for a playdate for the following week. The spiky barkeep, whose breakfast sandwich had put her marriage in jeopardy. Silva was back, and so was he. And she was going to need to explain that to Khash.Boom indeed.
Silva
When the day finally arrived that Tate met her family, Silva considered that it had taken all five years of heartache to get to where they were. And somehow, the last few months had nearly felt as long.
She invited her mother and grandmother over for lunch. That was it. Simple.
She put down a lovely lace tablecloth, ordered an afternoon tea service to go from the little shop in town, and placed the tiny finger sandwiches on her own three-tiered plates, using the tea set her grandmother had given her as a wedding gift. Tate and Aelin had gone to pick up an order she’d placed at the farm, keeping them both out of the house while she got ready, keeping Tate from spiraling into cleaning her HVAC system, as she knew he would, returning home just in time to wash up and get dressed before their company arrived.
She put Aelin in one of her sweetest dresses, one of her most darling little cardigans from Tate’s mother, pinning back her chestnut curls with a huge bow.
“Why don’t you get dressed?” she directed at Tate, who was hovering in the doorway as she finished Aelin’s hair. “Your clothes are on the bed.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Why do I need to get dressed? Do we have plans? What are you up to, dove? Where are we going?”
She looked up, giving him her most innocent kitten smile. “We’re going to the dining room, and that’s alotof questions. Go on.”
Having a tiny sliver of his clothes in her closet made her stomach flip every single time she pulled open the door, seeing them there beside her own.Home. Are you family? Obviously, we are. The crisp dress shirt she had chosen for him was a dusty violet with a gray undertone, one that made his golden eyes pop and his skin glow. Gray dress pants, a black belt, and his favorite watch, the one with the bees.
His necklace was no longer his, having been commandeered by Aelin long ago, worn double-looped around her tiny neck for special occasions like this. His eyes had filled with tears the first time he’d noticed her wearing it, fingering the locket and tucking an errant strand of hair behind her long ear.
Silva glanced at her phone, knowing they were likely only minutes away, when she turned to him at last.
“I love you. And you love me. And we both love our daughter. And remember what Zola said? You’re a great bullshitter. So I need you to put your professional barman smile on and bullshit your way through the next two hours. Okay?”
“Silva, what are you —”
The doorbell rang at that moment, his eyes narrowing immediately.
“Silva.”
“Nana is here, mommy! With Nani!”
She watched his face the moment when his eyes widened in panic, shooting back to hers with a wounded look of betrayal. Silva pressed her hand to his chest, feeling his heart thumping in double time. “If I had told you, you would have spent the whole morning cleaning the gutters. This is better. I promise.” She stood on her tiptoes, pulling his shoulders until he bent just enough for her to reach the corner of his mouth with her lips. “No regulating yourself. Survival mode time. Fake it till you make it, killer.”
Everything was different now that Aelin was here, Silva had the realization that day at lunch, when he was still in the hospital. And then her grandmother had all but confirmed it the afternoon when they were out shopping.
“I’m so glad you’re home, darling. Both of you. I love you both so much, and she’s such a perfect little dear. She’ssolike you when you were that small.” Her grandmother had tears in her eyes, looking down on Aelin fondly, holding Silva’s mother’s hand, walking just a few feet ahead of them. “You should think of having another one. You’re too good at this not to.”
Aelin didn’t look anything like her. It was a fact that was more glaringly obvious to Silva with each day that passed, as Aelin grew into her big girl face, losing more of her baby features with each passing week.
All they would need, Silva realized, was to see him.
They would see him and they would understand immediately, because it was impossiblenotto. And because Aelin was already there, was already spoiled and adored, it wouldn’t matter. They wouldn’t go back on loving her as much as they did, not now. Silva knew that down to her marrow. And if the tacit suggestion that she have another child wasn’t an invitation for them to be introduced to her non-Elvish lover, Silva didn’t know what was.
Aelin exclaimed in delight when they came to the door, immediately dragging them off to see her bedroom. Her motherwas the first to reemerge, moving up the short hallway and stepping into the dining room already speaking, immediately halting when she realized Silva wasn’t alone.
Silva watched as if it were happening in slow motion. Her mother’s eyes taking him in quickly, widening in surprise, moving up from the ground, taking in his height, the breadth of his shoulders, his tusks . . . and the fine features of her beloved granddaughter. Her eyes were tight and inscrutable.
“Oh.” It was a tiny breath of a declaration, nothing more. It could have been mere surprise that there was someone else joining them, but Silva knew better.Oh.
Her grandmother was next, holding Aelin’s hand, listening to her chatter about the chipmunk in the backyard, their entry into the room reaching its natural pause, her grandmother’s eyes raising, eyes widening in instant understanding. For a long moment none of them said anything, beyond the oblivious little girl, already pulling out her chair at the table.
