Chapter Twenty-Six
Ronan
Maybe I’d gone overboard with the crafting supplies, but I’d decided to make suncatchers for the nursery, and that had required video tutorials and materials. Because I never did anything halfway, there were neatly arranged containers of glass beads, metal shapes, crystals, and several gages of wire beside the nest, enough for suncatchers for all the windows in our home.
I couldn’t wait to see the light shimmer through them, splashing colors on the walls for the girls to ooh and ahh over. I found dragonfly pendants and butterfly charms that I carefully wove into a pattern around a wide metal ring, interspaced with small glass flowers. Alternating lime green and pink hues, I wrapped the wires around the metal, leaving nothing but bright colors behind. It turned out that beading tutorials were as easyto follow as hair and makeup ones, or maybe it was just that with all three, my hands found a rhythm that made everything flow.
I got lost in the movements and the songs I sang to them as I crafted, finishing the first ring and getting to work on the smaller one that would hang inside of it.
“That’s beautiful. What are you making?” Rory asked, his soft voice penetrating the silence between songs with his gentle brogue.
“A suncatcher,” I said, beckoning him closer so he could get a better look. My brother’s mate had a shy side, but I got the feeling that once he relaxed and opened up, we’d be the best of friends. “Would you like to make one?”
“I wouldn’t know where to start,” he said, studying my hands while I worked.
“Wherever you like,” I suggested. “It’s just wire and beads. In the end it’s going to look amazing.”
“You sound a lot surer than I feel,” he said as he climbed into the nest to sit beside me.
I passed him the second tray I’d ordered in case I started something on one and got the sudden urge to try something else before I finished it, and showed him the beads, wires, and charms I’d amassed. His eyes widened, then he dug in, grinning as he picked things out to add to his tray.
“Have you made a lot of these?” he asked.
“Nope,” I replied. “This is my first, but I’ve watched a bunch of tutorials. I thought about making a few for my apartment, but the lighting wasn’t the best, so I never bothered. Having so many bright windows, especially the ones in here, made me think about how much the girls would love to see the colors dance on the walls.”
“It’s so exciting,” Rory said as he paused and stroked the eggs. “I can’t wait to see them crawling around playing with everything.”
“Me too,” I replied. “Just when I think the room is finished, something pops up in my feed that I can’t resist ordering for them.”
“I caught Upalo browsing baby sites yesterday,” Rory admitted. “He pinked up when I asked if he was shopping for our nieces, or in the hopes of having a nest of our own soon.”
“I bet he saidboth.”
“He did,” Rory said, giggling. “I don’t mind in the slightest. I hope it happens soon. Then our dragonets will be close in age with yours.”
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful,” I said as I added another bead to my suncatcher. “Sometimes I wake up in the morning and have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming them. When I think about the way I came here and how lonely I was, it’s hard to wrap my head around how everything changed so fast.”
“I feel the same way,” Rory said. “Being awoken to learn that decades had passed took a great deal of getting used to. The world has changed so much, especially the technology. That’s something I’m not sure I, or my dragon, will ever be able to get used to. Especially my dragon. I have to keep my hands off electronics, otherwise, he sends sharp electrical pulses through them and shorts them out.”
“Note to self, do not hand you the remote on family movie night.”
“You have family movie nights?” He asked. “Movies I remember. There was a drive in theater near where I grew up. I’d sit in a tree on the edge of the property and watch all the movies they played on that giant screen.”
“I’ve never been to a drive-in,” I admitted. “I-I’m not sure if they exist anymore.”
“Sad.” He replied, slowly wrapping a strand of purple wire around his metal hoop. “I used that right, didn’t I?”
“Yup, and it is. I think it would be fun to sit in the car and watch a movie, though knowing my mate, we’d just wind up in the back seat. As for family movie night, it is absolutely a thing, or at least, it will be, starting this Wednesday. Odem even ordered a massive popcorn maker that sits on its own cart, and a slushie machine, so we can have real theater treats. Wait until you see all the flavors of popcorn toppings he found, not to mention the ones for the slushies. He even got a giant box of theater candies and promised to make sliders, so we have proper food to go with all our snacks.”
“Oh yum, I can’t wait.”
“Now that the nest in the living room is done, we can sit together with Ruby and Opal to watch our first official family movie.”
“Do you have something picked out already?” he asked.
“Yeah, but you have to promise not to laugh.”
“Why would I laugh?”
