“If he grows up to be anything like me, we’re going to have so many foot-in-mouth conversations,” Aaren said, tucking his head under Hades’ chin. “But we’ll both love you with all our hearts.”
“I don’t need anything more than that, sweetheart,” Hades said, and leaned in to kiss his omega again.
EPILOGUE
A COLLECTION OF GROWING-UP MOMENTS
“Fake it tillwe make it, fake it till we make it,” Aaren sang, rocking four-month-old Jer in his arms and warbling until Jer burbled and smiled gummily. “See, you agree!We’ll fake it together, we’ll make it together, no one knows we’re impostors and scammers!”
Hades laughed, stepping into the nursery. “Is that really the lullaby you want to raise our child with?”
Aaren puffed out his chest. “Well, it makes him smile.”
“Anything will make him smile if you do it with a smile,” Hades pointed out, coming to wrap his arms around Aaren and Jeremiah. “I’ve heard about the age where they make you sing the same song on repeat untilyouget entirely sick of it. Please don’t let this be that song.”
Aaren giggled. “But it’s a life motto song.”
“No,” Hades said. “We’re not going to a parent-teacher thing because Jer has been singing about impostors and scammers.”
“Aww,” Aaren said, but he was giggling. “Does it help if I tell you that I wrote it all myself?”
Hades sighed. “Make up another song that won’t get us in trouble.”
“Fake it till we make it,”two-year-old Jer sang.
Hades froze, Jer in his arms. “Aaren, sweetheart. Did I just hear what I thought I heard?”
Aaren’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Did he really learn that song already?”
Hades sighed, thumping their heads together. “Sing anything else but that.”
“I mean, that’s better than the murder song.”
Hades stared wide-eyed at him. “Please don’t tell me you’ve been singing the murder song.”
Aaren shrugged. “Sometimes he follows me into the bathroom when I shower. I don’t realize he’s been listening in on my showertime music until I step out.”
“Oh dear gods,” Hades whispered.
“Who’s ESC?”six-year-old Jer said, peering at Aaren’s phone.
“Oh. That’s your Papa,” Aaren said.
“Is that Papa’s name?”
Across the room, Hades was rocking seven-month-old Katie in his arms. He turned to look Aaren in the eye. Aaren grinned. He hadn’t changed Hades’ contact name on his phone, because after all this time, Hades’ chest was still very emotionally supportive.
Aaren cleared his throat. “When an alpha and an omega—”
Hades sighed. “When an alpha and an omega love each other very much, they give each other silly nicknames,” he said before Aaren could come up with a stranger explanation. “That is Daddy’s silly nickname for me.”
“Oh,” Jer said, wandering off to do something else.
“Mr. and Mr. Scalding,”the teacher said, frowning at Hades and Aaren. Ten-year-old Jeremiah was sitting next to them, four-year-old Katie on Hades’ lap.
Katie was humming Aaren’s Fake It Till You Make It song.
“We feel that Jeremiah shouldn’t be singing inappropriate songs,” the teacher said sternly.
