Page 63

Story: Cullen

“You’re so yelling,” Cosmo said.

“What in our long association with one another leads you to believe that we are ever helping?” Corbin had a point.

“All right, I’m going to go meet the parents. I hope you both get boils on your butts.”

“I hope you can keep all of your magic together long enough to not make an ass of yourself when you go and meet his parents,” Cosmo shot back.

“Oh, that’s just mean.”

“Meaner than butt boils?”

“Yes. I need them to like me.”

Cosmo looked him up and down. “I’m not sure that outfit is going to work. Let’s not wear white.”

“What?”

“Well, you’ve got on a white muumuu thing. You’re not pregnant enough to wear one of those muumuu things.”

His cheeks started to burn. “Well, no…”

“I mean, look at what you’re wearing. It’s almost like a nightgown. You look like an old romantic poet, as if you’re going to be wandering along the Moors. Put on some pants.” Cosmo nodded as if that was that. “And that green shirt, the really silky dark emerald one; it makes your skin look nice.”

“All right. I just have to find it…”

Cosmo rolled his eyes. “Never mind, I have that dark blue one he can wear right here. Take that thing off of him, Corbin.”

Cosmo went to the closet and Corbin grabbed his nightgown and started tearing it off.

Gods, this was embarrassing. “It’s not my fault that I was asleep when you all bothered me and asked me to come and visit.”

“You weren’t asleep, you were being lazy. Besides, this is ridiculous—it’s at least eighty-seven yards of lace.”

Cullen grinned at Corbin. “I know. I was honestly testing out what it would feel like to be pregnant and heavy, and so I was wandering around with loose clothes on and just seeing how it felt.”

It had been a silly bit of playacting, but he’d had fun with it, and it had made him feel closer to his little butterfly baby.

Corbin stared at him for a second, then he got a hug. “I would tell you that it was really weird and disturbing that you did that, but really? It actually sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do, or at least something that I would do.”

He leaned closer to his brother. “What if they don’t like me?”

“Fuck them.”

Elliot crowed for them.

He blinked at Corbin. “Brother!”

“I’m serious. If they don’t like you, we don’t have to see them. We will take Orion, we will make a family with him, and they can just fuck right off. You’re amazing. Not only that, but your brothers are amazing, so this family is amazing. And there’s going to be a baby, and if they’re not going to be nice, then they don’t get to be grandparents.”

“I can’t wait until you find a mate, and you say that to mom.”

Corbin grinned, and Cosmo chuckled. “He’s been practicing.”

“I bet.” Okay. He could do pants and a nice shirt. And once he was dressed and his hair brushed, he took a deep breath.I’m ready, love.

Okay. Meet me at that little Regency table Basil put up in our room.

I can do that.That seemed odd, but who was he to say? He headed to their room, and Corbin’s clothes felt kind of big, but he’d cope.