I heave in a breath, then, louder than last time, I whine, “Mooooom! Millie’s talking with her mouth full!”
“You’re so annoying,” Heidi says, but she can’t quite hide her laugh.
Sal joins her, then Rosie, and even Stryker and Basil quirk their lips a little.
Sarelia and Millie ignore me completely, opting to focus on what really matters in life—not laughing around a table in the back garden with your family, but cake.
I sigh, accepting my own slice as Stryker passes it across the table to me.
And when I take my first bite, I think that maybe—maybe—it really does taste just as sweet as a family’s love.
Chapter Eighteen
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Sarelia
“Your family is incredible,” I gush on the walk back to Archie’s—sorry, toourhouse. “Especially Rosie. Rosie number one, everyone else number two.”
Archie tugs on my hand, catching me when I topple. He spins me into a dip as I squeal.
“Am I not number one, my princess?” he asks, grinning devilishly down at me while he plays at dropping me on the gravel.
I clutch his sweater vest for dear life as I giggle. “Of course you are, my knight. But I’m talking about yourfamily, notyou. You’re in a whole different stratosphere.”
Satisfied with my answer, he pecks the tip of my nose, then whips me upright with a twirl.
I sigh, content beneath the moon and the stars with freakingArchibald Charles Pine. No, content is not a strong enough word. Elated, more like.
I’ve been with him barely two days, and already my shoulders feel lighter. I can’t remember the last time a family dinner back at home ended in anything but tense silence. Fred usually got off scott-free, if only because he has enough teenage hubris to notcarethat Mom and Dad are trying to fix him, but I left every dinner table full of guilt and a gut-deep surety that I am Wrong with a capital W. I didnotleave the family table full of terrible-for-me chocolate cake, invitations to tea and book club, or the sort of carefree freedom that being accepted and wanted as you are brings. I didn’t evenknowthat a person could feel this way.
As we approach the bright pink door of our home, I wonder if the kitten will make this feeling even better. Will coming home to a sweet little face add to the experience? Or will I spend family dinners too worried about my ward to get to this level of unbothered bliss?
“What are you thinking about?” my knight asks, guiding me through the door.
“I’m pondering if our marriage kitten will cause me much distress,” I admit. “I have never cared for another creature on the level that a cat requires, and I’m unsure if I’ll be able to stomach leaving the poor thing to go to family dinners.” I frown. “I dearly wish to continue going to family dinners, but I equally wish to be a good cat mother. I feel conflicted.”
Archie toes off his shoes, setting them carefully on a rack in the bottom of the coat closet, and I follow suit.
“Family dinner rotates houses,” he tells me. “So they’re hosted here, at our home, every sixth week, but if you wish for them to always be here so that you don’t have to leave our kitten, then we will take over hosting.”
I bite my cheek. “Will that mean we don’t get any more Rosie meals?” I ask. “Because I’d really like more Rosie meals.”
“Rosie always cooks,” he answers. “Even when other people host, the majority of the food comes from her. We tried for a while to make her take breaks, but she hated it. She loves cooking, and she loves feeding us. Stryker and Millie even get their lunches from her every day, and sometimes breakfast, too.”
Having only had a Rosie dinner, I cannot imagine what a Rosie lunch would be like. She’s probably not putting roast duck, mashed potatoes, or homemade rolls into lunches, and the chances that that chocolate cake makes it into them are pretty slim, too.
“She makes bentos,” Archie announces, apparently reading my mind. “Intricate bentos with cute little faces on the food.They look adorable and taste absolutely incredible. I normally ask her for one a couple times a month. I’ll see if she can arrange for us both to have one sometime this week. A honeymoon bento!”
I beam. “Rosie food!”
He chuckles, then bids me get ready for bed. “I’ll be there in a few minutes to tuck you in.”
I pause, putting on myvery brave girlhat to give him a quick kiss on the cheek before escaping upstairs in a flurry of blush and goosebumps.
By the time Archie knocks on my door, I’ve showered, dried my hair, and donned a long, lacy, butter-yellow nightgown. “Come in!” I call, tucking my hair into a pale-pink bonnet to protect the strands from the dangers of rubbing against my pillowcase all night. I’ve seen enough video deep dives on the subject of the best haircare practices to be properly scared into the healthiest of habits. I shudder to think of the days I was using three-in-one and sleeping on it wet every night. Not only was I getting terrible breakage and split ends, but I was missing out on taking advantage of all the cute bonnets there are in the world. A tragedy, that.
Archie enters the room only to come to an abrupt halt, eyes dragging from the top of my bonnetted head to the tips of my wiggling toes. “You tempt me,” he accuses.
