“Mon rêve, look at me. Nothing that has happened is your fault. You fell in love with a man you thought would be there for you. That’s not a bad decision. That’s you trusting with your heart and I love that about you.”
“Thank you for loving me,” she says softly.
We head out to the living room and let Seraphina and Eros know that they’ll be switching places for bodyguard duty. Then we order up breakfast, I always forget how much shifters eat. The look on Genevieve’s face makes me laugh.
“Okay, now I know you’re a snake, what are the rest of you?” she asks the brothers.
“We’re polar bears. And the Nikolaidises are white tigers. Oh! And our oldest brother Ares, his wife is a red panda.”
“Oh my god, a red panda? They’re adorable!”
“Don’t tell her that.” Adonis laughs.
“They like to be called bearcats, they said that they’re not really pandas. Sakura’s bearcat is a feisty one,” Eros adds.
“And she bites.” Apollo chuckles. “She doesn’t usually bite us, but she bites Ares.”
“My snake still wants to nibble on you.” Seraphina smiles innocently at Apollo.
“We’ve talked about this. No.”
“Why not? I mean I’ve seen Seraphina’s snake. She’s not too big and if you’re a polar bear, I don’t think it’ll hurt…” Genevieve says as Apollo’s shaking his head no.
We’re all laughing at the look on his face. He looks kind of terrified at the idea.
“Genevieve’s right. You know my snake loves you, she’d never really hurt you.”
Apollo snorts. “What if she mistakenly bites me with the wrong venom? I could die.”
“Psh. I don’t think you’d die”
“Yes, they’re like this all the time.” Eros laughs. “Seraphina’s snake has been asking to ‘nibble’ on Apollo from the beginning of their relationship.”
Seraphina continues to try and convince Apollo to let her snake nibble on him. I wish Genevieve and I could just take time off and hide out in the room. But I have daily stuff I have to do for the hotel and she’s determined to save up some money. Just another reason I love her, even though I’ll never take her money for this room. And eventually I plan on asking her to either move in with my family or we can get our own place. Either plan works, as long as I get to go to bed and wake up with her.
Genevieve
My day goes by faster than normal and before I know it, I see Enea and Panagiotis coming towards the front desk with my family. I run over and hug each of them. My maman is crying as she holds me.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she says as she hugs me tightly.
“Where is Michel?” my papa asks.
“He’s working, Papa. But you’ll meet him soon. He usually meets me for lunch. Why don’t I check you in so you can drop your bags in your rooms. Michel made sure you all had your own rooms and they’re all adjoining.”
I get my family checked in and get all their room keys ready. They all leave to drop their bags off, they plan to have lunch with us and then nap. My papa was already yawning.
“Your family is adorable,” Abigail says to me as she smiles.
“Thank you. I’ve missed them so much. It’s weird how you know you miss people, but when you see them, it’s like it’s amplified.”
She nods. “I know what you mean. When my brother moved away, it was the worst for me. He tried to stay after our parents died. But he just couldn’t. He’s tried to get me to move closer to him.”
“You don’t want to leave Storyville?”
“I feel like I’m closer to my parents here. Most of my memories are here, so I can go places and I feel them here with me. I know that sounds weird.”
“No, that doesn’t sound weird, I understand that. For me, sometimes it’s the opposite because of Julian. But I was kind of lucky. We never really went anywhere. So I feel like Michel and I can make new memories.”
