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-Work schedule

-Sex

-Sleeping arrangements

-Communication

-Disagreements

-Last Names

-Love Languages

-Date nights

-Blood drinking

-Childcare

-Parenting

I’d dreaded all of the topics the last time we sat down to discuss them, but now… I was kind of excited. Without the secrets hanging between us, and with the time that had passed, I actually wanted to figure things out with him.

Of course, I hadn’t processed the fact that I was pregnant. That one would take some time to wrap my mind around, but we’d get there.

We played through the first hand, and unsurprisingly, I lost.

I sighed dramatically, though I really wasn’t disappointed.

“Let’s talk about sealing the bond,” Beck said.

“Alright. I don’t feel strongly about it, but I know it’s important to you to solidify everything between us. It would probably make me safer, too, so I think it’s a good idea.”

He nodded. “I would prefer we seal it as soon as possible. It offers you protection, in a way nothing except drinking my blood can.”

I bit my lip at the mention of drinking his blood.

His curved upward.

Something told me that conversation was going to make my toes curl.

Beck shuffled and dealt again, and we played through another hand.

“Are you cheating?” I asked, when he won again.

He laughed. “No. I haven’t played this enough to know how to cheat.”

“There goes my excuse for sucking at it.”

He glanced at the list briefly. “How about communication and disagreements?”

“Communication is pretty important. Disagreements make me feel stressed. I don’t know what there really is to talk about them.”

“I’d like us to have a plan for how and when we communicate. It doesn’t sound romantic to schedule a time, but if we tell each other about our day while we cook dinner every night, it keeps us talking. And having a plan for disagreements can help keep them manageable, in the same way.”

My mind went back to something my friends had mentioned. “Love told me her and Madd take baths together, and talk through things there.”

Beck grinned. “A bathtub would be a good place to disagree. It’d be hard to be angry at each other while we’re naked.”