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“I do understand. I do, and I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? For what? Loving me? Wanting to shield me from the hardest things? Wearing socks to bed? No. There is no reason to be sorry about anything. Except maybe that last one.”

“Ha-fucking-ha. I’m serious,” he mutters with a smile.

“Yeah, well, so am I. Socks to bed is weird. I will die on that hill.”

“No. Absolutely no dying. We have talked about the impact that would have on the world’s well-being at least three times.”

So very, very bad, if Nix remembers correctly.

He flies into Jamie’s arms and rubs his face over his mating bite, biting him gently through the fabric of his black T-shirt.

“No dying, check. But Iamserious. I am sorry if my not talking to you about it before I left hurt you. I know you have your own memories and stuff you’re dealing with while we’re here.”

“Don’t remind me.” Jamie kisses his cheek repeatedly, rubbing his early morning scruff against Nix’s smooth jaw and chin.

“We aren’t going to worry about them…unless you want to?”

“Fuck, no. They’re part of the past, and I am here with you, despite their shit. I’m not going to make this harder than it needs to be by involving my parents in something that doesn’t affect them at all.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Finn says from his spot on the couch.

“Have you been lurking there the whole time?” Jamie asks.

“I have been lying here the whole time. Am I invisible? No.”

“What’s with the cryptic foreshadowing?” Leo asks when he sits up on the other end of the sectional.

Nix laughs. “You’re here, too?”

“I, too, am not invisible. You guys only had eyes for each other. Don’t put your lack of observation on me and mybae.”

“No. Nobae.” Finn shakes his head. “You know that meansshitin Danish.”

Nix throws himself over the back of the couch with awhoop, taking the chance that everyone will get their soft spots out of his way.

Leo’s mutteredoof!means he was not feeling so lucky.

“What were you saying, Finn? Nix, watch the knees, please. Our future children depend on your care.”

Nix would like that…a Boo-Boo-Bébé. Maybe next time.

Finn stands up with the encrypted tablet and meets Jamie halfway.

“Look. I was finishing the research I started on the plane.”

“The stuff about my parents?” Jamie asks, accepting the tablet. “Holy shit.”

The door to the laundry room opens then, and Gideon hauls a lax Luca over his shoulder, while Rowan carries a grinning Grayson on his back.

Does no one walk anywhere in this pack? Nix bites back a laugh at his mental hypocrisy.

“I am tired of the ‘holy shits,’ Jay Rhodes.”

“I dare say so, Gideon. The shits are terrible.”

“Ew, Ro,” Grayson says, pulling his ride’s ear.