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It was Corbin who nodded first. “It is weird. Less for me, I think, than for the two of you, because at least I get growing season, harvest season, fallow season. Beginning, middle, end. Inside the house like this, there aren’t any.”

Hawk gave them all a sad little smile. “That is how life works. You do know that?” He softened the words with a smile and a blown kiss to Cosmo. “We have this timeline, and we wander along it inventing, building beginnings, middles, and ends.”

Cosmo shook his head. “No, we’re not simply inventing. We didn’t make upourbeginning. And the end won’t come until it’s both of us together. All of us. That’s an eternity away.”

Hawk came to him, hugged him. “You do know if you want to go back to work, I would come with you?”

Cosmo stared at Hawk. “Love. You can’t just wander out in the human world. You are kind of intensely dragony. Cullen could cover you, but if something happened, and he slipped? Whoa. It would be a nightmare.”

Hawk tilted his head, eyebrows drawing down. “What do you mean?”

Cosmo stroked Hawk’s forehead. “Up here. Scales.” He kept touching. “Eyes, dragon. Arms. Belly. You’re very dragony, love.”

Hawk looked shocked. “I suppose since I don’t have to hold a certain form…”

Cosmo nodded. “Right. Just like I’m really pink. I could be not pink, but it takes some energy. Honestly, though, I like being pink.”

He loved getting his dragon on.

“I love you being pink too.” Hawk winked at him, and Cosmo had to grin because he could see the care in Hawk’s eyes. “But I understand what you mean about us not going out.”

“No. It’s not like I won’t take you out. It just means that we have to be careful about it.” Cosmo figured there were just a few logistics involved.

Hawk shook his head. “I’m perfectly content here. I just don’t want you to be unhappy, love. You or your brothers. If we need to have some sort of ceremony to make it where there’s a beginning, middle, and end to the years, we could start celebrating the holidays? We’ve let several go by, I think, without notice since I came. Is that something that you do?”

“We’ve never celebrated the human holidays completely because we don’t really know them as well, I suppose. But that could be fun.” Cosmo liked the idea of like, decorating. He would get on Pinterest.

Corbin nodded. “We could get a calendar. We could do all sorts of stuff. I kind of like that idea. You know, weird holidays. They have all sorts of things now, like. Bring your dog to work day. That kind of weirdness.”

Cosmo blinked at Corbin. “We don’t really have dogs.”

“Well, we could.” Corbin laughed out loud. “I mean, a lot of dragons we know have familiars.”

Cullen shook his head. “No, but those familiars show up on their own. We don’t do that.”

Hawk tilted his head to one side. “I seem to remember having a familiar once. Not the way that omegas do when they have babies, but I do remember it. That was a long time ago. I think it was a big cat.”

“Really? What kind?”

“Oh, I imagine it was something amazing brought over from Africa. Something no one had ever seen back then.”

“That’s really cool. I mean, not that somebody would take a lion away from their family and take it to Europe. But that you know all about how it happened. The story behind it.” Cosmo had never felt as anchored in history as Hawk.

“I know all sorts of things, my love. If you think really hard on it and decide that you want a familiar, then one will show up.”

“Is that how it happens?”

“Well,” Hawk mused, “it can also work when someone in the family is having a baby and then the familiar is needed to help take care of the children, but that’s not the only reason they show up. It’s just like a brownie or another house spirit. When they’re needed, they come.”

“Do you really think so?” That was kind of an intriguing thought. He loved the idea of having more friends to enjoy, more beings to interact with.

It wasn’t as if he was bored.

There was so much to do and so much to learn, and he had Hawk. He just felt unrooted, like it wouldn’t take anything to just spin them away into nothingness. That was an uncomfortable way to live.

“Well, when you get pregnant, someone will come, right, Cosmo?” Cullen acted as if it was just a simple and easy answer.

“Well, I think it’s more an if than a when, isn’t it?” He wasn’t pregnant now, and it wasn’t like they hadn’t been very, very busy.