Page 45

Story: Rory

He put spoons in the glasses, then took them out to meet Rory on the floor in front of the couch, the nest of pillows and blankets in front of the fire he’d stirred back into life so inviting.

Fen loved his life. There had been no more shootings, and Niall assured him all was well with the upper pack. He’d learned to snowmobile, and he was learning from Rory’s brothers how to drive the snowcat.

He knew Rory sometimes chafed at being so careful, but they’d come to a compromise about that too. Rory went all over to take supplies to the more remote family, as long as Lucien or John and one of the big males went with him.

Watching the kids was harder now for Rory because he was having a difficult time lifting the little ones, so he was contributing in a dozen other ways.

He was so amazing.

Fen kissed Rory’s cheek when he sat next to him, and he handed over one milkshake, and then pulled the covers up over them.

“Mmm. Thank you, love. This is perfect.”

“It is, isn’t it?” He let Rory lean on him. “You know I adore you.”

“I do.” Rory chuckled. “You even learned to play video games with me.”

“You enjoy them so.”

“I do.”

Fen had not learned to like the more violent games that some of Rory’s brothers liked, the ones about stealing cars and assassins. But he loved the silly ones, the ones with haunted hotels and racetracks and jumping over lots of things.

The cooperative ones were best, the ones where he and Rory had to work together.

He had also spent a lot of time, at Jameson and Keegan’s suggestion, learning about Rory’s likes and dislikes. Macaroni and cheese was one of his favorite foods. His favorite color was forest green.

His favorite band was called Imagine Dragons.

Why would Rory have to imagine dragons when he’d seen them?

Fen didn’t think he’d heard enough commercial music to have a favorite artist. His pack’d had a record player and lots of old records, but nothing newer than 1965, he thought.

“So, what are we going to talk about tonight, love?” Rory asked him. They made a habit, in these wee hours, of discussing all manner of things.

“Oh, I was thinking about baby names.” They still hadn’t settled on one. They wanted something easy, but not boring. Meaningful, but not weird.

It was a surprisingly difficult challenge, to be honest.

Leo? Bart? Ernest? Silas? Trent?

“Trent isn’t bad,” Rory said. “And there’s not one in my family already. No Barts or Ernests.”

He chuckled. “No? What about old family names?”

“Oh God. You’ve seen how many brothers I have. We’ve re-used all of them. What about yours?”

“Oh, sweet, there are some truly terrible names in my family. Impossible to pronounce.” No, he didn’t want to saddle their little boy with one of those.

“Well, we’ll try Trent out for the next couple of days. If we hate it, we move on.”

“Fair enough,” Fen said. He loved how they were easily working through things like this. He did not like being at odds with Rory. After the shooting, they had both been so worried and stressed, as Rory called it, that they hadn’t listened to each other.

Now he felt as if they had that down pat.

“Mmm. This is really good. Did you put caramel in it?”

“I did.” He grinned. “You didn’t eat much supper, so I thought you needed the calories.”