Page 39 of As The Shifter World Turns

39

MOVING OUT

Archer

“I can’t believe our little girl is three months old.” I peered at our daughter sleeping in her crib as Micah stood beside me, an arm over my shoulder.

Beautiful , my wolf said.

“And now we begin a new chapter,” my mate noted.

This was our last morning in Sunshine Manor. The apartment was bare except for our bed, a lamp, Elune’s crib and a box of our daughter’s diapers and other essentials. But there were boxes on the landing and we’d had new furniture delivered to the new place.

Micah had negotiated the sale of the house in the street behind Sunshine Manor. It wasn’t identical to the manor as it had a basement apartment which my parents would move into next week. But it had a roof. Daire insisted—as did Ryder, Ivor and Neil—that Friday night’s on the manor roof would continue. And Micah, Elune, Patch and I were expected to be there.

I was still on paternity leave so wasn’t juggling a young baby, a job and moving house. My boss had decided to continue using one of my colleagues until I returned so Ivor was still working for Ryder. But I’d been considering not going back to work full time, though I hadn’t said anything to my boss as yet.

“It doesn’t seem real. You have a beast, we’re mated, and we have a daughter.” Patch whined. “And a furry son.” I picked him up.

Elune stirred and opened her eyes. They were the most brilliant blue and first thing in the morning when the sun peeked in through the window, her skin dazzled, reminding me of Micah’s when he shifted .

“Knock, knock.”

“It’s open,” Micah said as I picked up our daughter and changed her diaper. “I’ll close the bedroom door to give you privacy and we’ll make a start with the boxes.”

Settling myself on the bed, I fed our daughter as she stared up at me, her one hand gripping my shirt. And despite the grunts, groans and complaints of, “What have you got in here?” from outside, my daughter suckled, content to study me while the world went on around her.

And when she’d finished, I got her dressed. She could have a bath later in our new home.

Micah was such a sweetheart. He wouldn’t let me do any of the moving and had made sure our friends were on hand to help. As a thank you, we were having them over for dinner tonight on our roof. A take-out dinner. No way were we cooking and we hadn’t bought a barbecue yet.

Toby raced in and Patch greeted him with yelps and licks. “I’m going to miss you,” he said as he cuddled my dog.

“We’ll be less than a five-minute walk away and you can see Patch whenever you want. Don’t forget you’re taking him to the park twice a week.”

“Can Patch have a sleepover some time?” The boy held my pup close.

“I think that can be arranged. We’ll be here every Friday night so he could stay with you then. What do you think?” And then I added, “As long as your dad says it’s okay.” I didn’t want to have a problem with Martin by promising something when he hadn’t been consulted.

“Dad! Dad! Can Patch have a sleepover on Friday nights?” Toby shouted down the stairs.

“I… I guess,” Martin yelled as he panted. “But we can talk about it later.”

“Yay, dad said yes.” Toby ran back in and told the dog.

“Archer, you ready?” Micah asked as he and Ryder walked in, smelling of sweat.

“Yes. Toby, you're responsible for Patch, remember.” He took the leash and attached it to my dog’s collar. “Let’s go.”

Toby and I followed Martin and Daire as they carried the last of the boxes from the landing, while Neil and Ivor were in the new house making our bed so we had somewhere to sleep tonight even though we’d be surrounded by chaos.

And they’d helped me unpack a lot of kitchen stuff yesterday so we could eat and make tea and coffee. The new fridge was installed—along with a washing machine—and we’d arranged for a food delivery this morning.

And when the moving was done and all our stuff was in the new house, Micah waved goodbye to our friends and thanked them, reminding them to come back for dinner.

“Don’t worry, we won’t forget,” Daire said as he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “You owe us.”

We’d arranged for someone to clean our former apartment but Daire wanted to make repairs and having it empty was the perfect time. Knowing our grizzly friend, he’d forget or try to do it himself. But he’d come up with a scheme to earn more money by making wacky gardening videos, and he’d gained masses of followers. He had companies paying him to advertise their stuff, so he could allow apartment 3B to stay empty for a while.

“If you set up Elune’s crib, I’ll unpack what I need of her things for today and we can put off the rest of the unpacking until after lunch.”

“I like the sound of that.”

And later that night, when our friends arrived, we climbed to our bare roof which right now, wasn’t nearly as inviting as the one at Sunshine Manor. But Micah had carried up an old piece of carpet we’d had at the manor and put that, along with some rugs Patch had chewed, on the concrete. With cushions and some solar lighting, it’d do for now. And we’d brought the dog’s portable playpen upstairs as with us eating on the floor, there was no way he wouldn’t snatch some of our food.

Micah clamored up the stairs with the food delivery helped by Martin and Toby. “We’ve got Thai.” He glanced at Neil who clapped. “Pizza, tacos, chicken and fries.”

“Please tell me you have some greens in here,” Neil said as he poked his head in the bags.

“Yeah, Archer insisted I order salads.”

“A house-warming present,” Daire said as he placed a potted jasmine on the roof.

“Thank you.” Micah would have to look after it as I was a plant killer.

“Poor Patch looks so lonely,” Toby said as he took a slice of pizza.

“Once you’ve finished eating, you can get in the playpen with him.” I handed him a doggy snack. “But this might cheer him up.”

I hardly saw my daughter the entire night. She was entertained by one Sunshine Manor uncle before another one demanded to hold her.

Martin and Neil sat cross-legged at one end of the mat, their heads close together. I hoped they would last. With a young son, Martin didn’t strike me as someone who was looking for a short-term relationship.

“I don’t know. Man, there must be something wrong with me.” My head snapped to the side as Daire chugged a mouthful of beer. “I really liked Wesley, but we weren’t in love.”

Neil grimaced at the mention of Wesley even though it’d been months since Daire kicked him out.

The grizzly shifter continued. “He was good at f…”

“Daire,” Martin shouted and jerked his head toward Toby who by now was in the doggy play pen with Patch.

“Shoot, sorry. Anyway he was good at that if you get my meaning.”

“Shame he was a thief,” Ryder noted as he shot Ivor a glance.

Daire had reported his suspicions to the police about Wesley being the one who’d stolen his identity and they’d finally gotten enough evidence to charge him.

“And then there was a guy at college.”

“Who?” Neil’s head shot up.

Daire shrugged. “You never met him.” I suspected the poor guy was worried Neil would disapprove. “I kept it on the down low. Someone from college. And again, we hadn't progressed far enough for me to want to mate with him, but I thought he could have been the one, you know.”

Neil leaned over and took his friend’s hand. “What happened?”

“He found someone else and they mated the night they met!”

“I’m sorry.” Neil slung an arm around Daire. “You can always cry on my shoulder.” With Martin in Neil’s life, Daire and Neil didn’t see as much of one another as they used to, even though they lived in the same building. “Come for dinner tomorrow night. Just the two of us.”

“I’d like that,” Daire said.

It was a sweet moment between two friends.

Ivor

“Say bye to your dads.” Neil held Elune and waved her hand as Micah and Archer stood in the doorway blowing kisses.

“Maybe we should get take out,” Archer said as he took a step toward his daughter.

“She’ll be fine, love,” Micah assured his mate. “We’ll only be gone an hour.”

“Okay.” Archer relented and allowed Micah to guide him out to the car.

“Wanna take a bet on how long it is before he texts us?” I asked Neil.

The phone beeped. “Too late,” my friend said.

Elune rubbed her eyes and according to the long list of instructions Archer had sent us before he left, that was because she was sleepy. We each gave her a kiss and Neil put her in the crib.

I poured us each a glass of wine and we curled up on Archer and Micah’s new couch. Archer’s parents were arriving tomorrow and while there were still some boxes to be unpacked, they’d done a lot in the last week.

“I’ve got news.”

Neil took a sip of wine and I was sure he’d guessed whatever I was going to say was to do with Ryder. “Good or bad?”

“Good but I don’t know what to do.”

Neil’s eyes opened wide and he was grinning. “Ivor, you’re pregnant?”

“No.” Ever since Elune was born, Neil had been talking and thinking ‘babies’. “No.” I needed to get my own life together first before looking after another one. “Ryder’s asked me to move in with him.”

That shocked Neil into silence. He hadn’t been expecting that. He’d probably been preparing himself for more of Ryder’s and my back and forth .

“Wait.” He gulped another mouthful of wine. “That’s huge, Ivor. I’m so happy for you.” He gave me a hug. “It’s been a long rocky road for the two of you.”

“Not so fast. I d-don’t know if I should accept?”

“Why not?” He took one look at my face. “If you’re worried about you know who, then you should say no because that means you don’t think Ryder’s ready.”

I chewed a nail. “Is that what it is?” Maybe Neil was right. “I don’t trust Kellan to stay out of our lives. It’s not Ryder, it's his ex.”

“Again, a reason to say no.”

Ryder and I had gone slowly over the past few months. We worked together with no dating and no sex. Then we dated. The next step was sex and we did that a lot.

“If you have any doubts, keep your relationship the same as it is now.” He sighed. “Or end it,” he whispered.

“No to ending it.” I nibbled my nail some more. Some days I wondered if my breaking up with Ryder would rid my life of a lot of stress. I loved him but being with him was hard work.

“Okay, I have a question. Why aren’t you mated? Why does Ryder want to live with you but not make you his mate?”

I didn’t say anything, knowing the answer but Neil gave me a look. It might not have worked on Daire but I crumbled. “Because he’s not ready to commit?”

“Mmmm. For whatever reason, he’s not there yet.”

“But Micah and Archer were basically living together before they mated,” I reminded him.

“True, but they didn’t have the ghost of Kellan coming between them.”

I didn’t bother pointing out they had a much bigger issue with unicorns only being able to mate with other unicorns—or so they thought.

“I guess.”

“I can’t tell you what to do, Ivor, but think about it some more before you give him an answer.”