“Hey,” I said as he opened the driver’s side, drawing his attention over the roof. “You know what this means, right?”
Milo raised an eyebrow. Which was fair, because it meant a lot. It meant everything, honestly. Everything in the whole world.
But it also meant one thing in particular.
“You’re gonna have to change your Instagram handle.”
42
MILO
“Are you making pancakes?”Xander asked as he stepped into the kitchen, hooking his chin over my shoulder to watch as I mixed the batter, setting the mail—including a big package in a plain box—down on the counter.
“Today’s a special occasion,” I said, grinning at the thought of what we were doing this afternoon. “Thought we’d start celebrating now.”
“About that,” Xander said, slipping his fingertips into the waistband of the sweatpants he’d insisted I had to keep. They were a little small on me, but according to Xander, that was why I had to keep them.
And wear them.
Which was interesting, because all he ever seemed to want to do when Ididwear them was help me take them off. Not, obviously, that I was complaining.
“Is it cool if Dante comes with us?” Xander asked, toying with the elastic of my boxer-briefs.
He knew exactly how to get the answer he wanted out of me.
“It’d be cool even if you didn’t have your hand in my pants,” I said, smirking to myself. “Does that mean…?”
“Nebula’s getting a new home too, yeah. And Seth and Mark are coming over later in the week to meet Mercury, and the shelter have had a couple of enquiries about Orion, but he’s not ready to go to a forever home yet.”
“But it’s definitely official? We can keep Luna?”
“We can keep Luna,” Xander promised, pressing a kiss to my bare shoulder. “I always wanted to,” he confessed. “Because you liked her so much.”
“Glad we’re keeping one of them,” I said.
Xander squeezed my hip, making a sympathetic noise as I finished up the batter.
“You’ll get used to it,” he said. “You’ll see, when someone comes to pick one of them up, how excited they are. And you’ll be happy that you helped them find each other. Trust me.”
“I always trust you,” I said. “Can I ask what’s in that package?”
“Oh!” Xander let go of me to shove it in front of me, moving the pancake batter aside. “It’s a relationship milestone! Someone sent you mail here!”
I stared down at the label. Itwasaddressed to me. Not even forwarded, just addressed to the apartment above the bakery, with my name on it.
“No sender?” I asked, turning the box around.
“Not that I saw.” Xander shrugged. “Open it.”
“It could probably wait until after pancakes,” I said.
“Open it,” Xander repeated. He was giving me puppy eyes, so my powers of resistance failed me. I accepted the kitchen scissors he offered me and slit the tape on the box open.
Inside was a brand new DSLR camera—agoodone, the kind I’d need eventually if I was going to take this photography thing seriously, which I planned to. I already had half a dozen requests.
I glanced up at Xander, wondering if this was from him, but he was clearly just as surprised as me.
Underneath the camera box was a note in familiar handwriting. So familiar I almost didn’t want to read it.
