Page 15

Pierce

“No. I apologize for interrupting, but it was brought to my attention last night that while a significant portion of our group appreciated the stories we were telling yesterday, it might be a good idea to deal with the situation logically.” That got sighs from several people present and smiles from others, but no one contradicted me.

“Making decisions about sending people to other planets is scary.” Kenzie shrugged when every eye turned to him. “Maybe we should ask WWPD.”

Huh?

Merritt coughed, barely covering a giggle as his eyes sparkled. “What would Picard do.”

Oh.

Well, personally I wasn’t sure which captain was more reckless but it was a good place to begin. Merritt seemed to agree with him. “I think we need to start with an understanding that we’re not sending unwilling people there. We’re asking dragons and mages if they want to do something strange and reckless. They’re going to volunteer.”

A very good point that got nods around the room.

“We do not have to feel guilty about people volunteering to answer questions. I’m sure half this town would volunteer to go.” Especially if we told them they could ask people on the other side about their mating practices.

Hell, that was actually something someone needed to ask at some point. Because mates were popping up right and left lately and that hadn’t been normal in a long time.

“We do dangerous things on a regular basis.” Kenzie shrugged as he admitted that. “Daddy pointed that out when I started to worry. I can not worry about the stupid things other people do. So I will confidently send several stupid people through the portal and I will be very excited when they come back with good stories.”

He was strangely the most logical individual in the entire room and his Daddy was wearing an ear-to-ear grin as he held the wall up again.

“I agree.” Merritt sounded less likely to laugh that time but not by much. “I’ve personally seen half this town do incredibly dangerous things on a regular basis. This is just important and dangerous.”

No one could argue with that either.

“We need information.” Spelling that out shouldn’t be necessary, but it seemed like it was. “We need to know where we come from. We need to know who’s on the other side. We need to know if they realize the gate is open. I could keep going, but you get my point.”

That got a round of sighs from most of the room, but heads started to bob and even our resident Florida Man couldn’t give me any strange pushback.

“We’ve already agreed on the need to make sure the gate is monitored at all times.” That hadn’t been as difficult to get through to everyone as I’d thought. Primarily because they’d already barely stopped several teenagers from going on an adventure. “We’ve agreed on a combination of remote and in-person monitoring. We’ve actually made a lot of progress.”

Not really, but they seemed to like the praise, so I wasn’t going to give them facts that would get more drama from any of them.

“So next we need to start by making a few more basic decisions and then we can go from there.” The silence was better than the constant stupid ideas, so I took that as permission from everyone to continue. “From my perspective, I think the first decision we vote on this time is if we’re going to ask a mixed group of volunteers to go through the portal.”

There’d be a thousand decisions after that, but to me, it was the place to start.

More silence.

Reminding myself that at least it wasn’t another idea for a theme park, I decided I was glad for the silence. Boyd seemed to agree and gave everyone another push. “Another important decision we need to make is if we’re telling the US government what’s happening.”

Nearly every head in the room cocked to one side, confusion on their faces.

He looked like he wanted to throw something at them…a spell or something firmer…but he settled on sighing and rolling his eyes. “We’re not our own country no matter what some people seem to believe.”

The number of scoffs that filled the room said very few people were going to agree with that. It was mostly the locals that were stubborn about it but that didn’t surprise me. Boyd’s expression said he thought they were morons, so he elaborated slowly. “We could end up bringing anything from aliens to dinosaurs through that portal. Is that really something we want to surprise people with?”

Boyd paused before rolling his eyes again when his question didn’t seem to faze any of them. “What would your mothers do if you brought home a fucking dinosaur without warning her?”

“Oh.”

It was like watching a cartoon.

Every stubborn idiot in the room had their epiphany and started nodding, brains finally coming back online. Even Kenzie noticed it because he glanced between Boyd and Merritt and then leaned closer to my boy. “Do you know a spell that would make a light bulb go off over their heads when they do that oh thing?”

Good grief.

Thankfully, the deputy cleared his throat before Merritt could answer. Kenzie sighed and straightened in his seat. “Never mind.”

I was glad to hear that because judging by the way Merritt’s eyes lit up, he’d figured out a way to do it.

Boyd’s lips twitched too, but I was going to pretend I hadn’t seen that.

“Now, let’s start at the beginning and see what kind of progress we can make before we break for lunch and you all tell everyone that we’ve done nothing but play pretend all day.” Merritt and I had been asked earlier if we were going to play imagination with the council again.

He’d thought it was cute.

I hadn’t.

At the other end of the table, one of the mages from Canada huffed. “The men at the diner got me. It’s not my fault.”

We were going to have to check out the diner.

“It’s understandable.” Somehow. “At least we know it’s an efficient system for distributing information.”

“And we’ll know everyone’s opinions on our decisions by breakfast.” Another out-of-town dragon shook his head as he barely held back a sigh. “If they think we’ve made the wrong decision, we’ll hear about it soon.”

That reminder seemed to make it easier for everyone to get into decision-making mode. “Alright, do we have any logical questions or topics of discussion about the first vote to send a group through the portal?”

When several people sat straighter and looked a bit too excited, Boyd stepped in. “He said logical questions. Don’t ask anything stupid.”

Kenzie and Merritt managed not to laugh, but Wren had a coughing fit and even the deputy seemed to have something stuck in his throat.

The next time anyone in my family volunteered me for something, I was going to let that sparkly dragon eat them.

****

“I think the deputy aged ten years in that meeting.” Finally getting privacy as we climbed in the car, I was relieved to be able to be honest and not polite any longer. “Did he actually think Kenzie wouldn’t want to go to another planet to meet dinosaurs?”

“Do we know how that got started?” Merritt frowned as I buckled his seat belt. “I wasn’t raised hearing that we had any connection to dinosaurs at all. Is there science in that?”

He had to be kidding.

“There’s no science in anything they do around here, or logic, so I’m making the incredible assumption that it was a strange comment that got completely out of hand.” That seemed to be how everything else happened around here.

Merritt’s sigh said he agreed with my assessment. “In better news, Kenzie went to the diner at the afternoon break because he conned his Daddy into buying him cake? I think there was something about winning against everyone yesterday, so it might’ve been a reward? Never mind. Either way, the general consensus is that we made the right call agreeing to send a party to the other side of the portal.”

Wait.

“Had we actually finalized the vote on the decision at that point?” The day had been long but I wasn’t losing my mind. It’d taken us an incredibly long time to get to that vote because people kept asking reasonable questions.

The fuckers had to finally find their brains and couldn’t wait to use them.

“No.” Merritt shrugged and looked like he wanted to hug me and tell me it was all right. “But I guess someone decided it’d be how the vote went? I don’t know. I’m just reporting the gossip.”

“You are a marvelous gossip reporter, but I always end up hoping that it made more sense to begin with.” Merritt thought that wish was so ridiculous it made him giggle. “Fine. I’ll do my best to be more logical too.”

“Or Boyd will come after you.” Chuckling, Merritt kissed my cheek before settling back in his seat. “I have to admit everyone in this town is like a fun character in a book. No one back home would’ve asked me if I needed coloring pages for the meeting.”

Everyone had known it was going to be painful.

They’d been right.

“They’re helpful?” Merritt liked having everyone’s acceptance, but I didn’t appreciate the constant assumptions that I couldn’t take care of him myself.

Having a little as a mate was not a group project.

Merritt managed not to laugh but it was a close call. “Yes. Helpful. That’s what we’ll call it.”

He was trying to take my side, which I appreciated, but I’d seen his face light up when he’d been offered coloring pages. “It’s okay to enjoy the attention and how open-minded everyone is.”

Shrugging, he couldn’t seem to decide if he was going to look sheepish or smile. “It’s so different, I’m enjoying the novelty. It’s like a vacation where you go away and everything feels perfect.”

With the little I knew of his home life, I could understand that.

Reaching over, I stroked my hand over his head. “Being accepted for who you are is nice but they’re…enthusiastic about it, which is going to make the feeling even stronger.”

Leaning into my touch, Merritt let out a slow breath and closed his eyes. “As long as our house feels private and we can have enough Daddy and little time together, I don’t care where we live.”

I could hear the sincerity in his voice, but I knew we couldn’t keep putting off the conversation about what would come next. “We’ve got a lot of options. Let’s figure some out while we have dinner. I feel like taking my mate out, so are we having nuggets at the pub or Italian? I asked the sheriff for some recommendations.”

He was easy to talk to when the locals weren’t driving him batshit crazy.

“Hmm, Italian? Does that work for you?” Merritt was still snuggled up into my hand as I leaned over and kissed his forehead. It got a smile from him. “Don’t overthink if you give me options to pick from?”

“Bingo. You’re so smart. It’s sexy.” I was teasing but there was enough honesty to it that he snickered. “Start listing off all the bones in the body and see what it does to me.”

Barely holding back what was going to be a belly laugh, Merritt held his breath for a moment before letting it out slowly. “That’s not a kink I want to encourage. It’ll make work uncomfortable.”

I was the one laughing that time. “Fine. You have a good point.”

“I have an excellent point.” Peeking his eyes open, he turned his head and kissed my palm. “And I was right about your subtle message?”

“Yes.” Giving him a quick peck, I made sure to be clear this time. “I will not give you options where I have a negative feeling about one of them. If we come to that issue at some point, I will be very clear so you can make an educated decision. In this case, there were enough options at the pub that I could eat there at least three more times this week and not get frustrated.”

“Thank you for explaining that.” It was his turn to kiss me before snuggling back into my touch. “I would still like Italian and I don’t mind cooking in the camper even if it’s tight quarters, but I liked the pub and I liked their chicken strips.”

Grinning, his little side peeked out. “They’ve got good sauces and dunking is fun.”

“I think you like being able to play with your food in public more than the actual chicken.” His quiet bark of laughter made it clear I was right about that. “I knew it.”

Still looking like he wanted to giggle, he sat up straight in his seat so I could move my hand back to the wheel. “You like being right. I’m wondering how that’s going to play out in our where do we live and what do we do next conversations.”

“I don’t mind giving my boy credit when he’s right.” I shrugged when he gave me a slightly skeptical expression. “It just means I’ve done a good job being his mate and Daddy.”

Shaking his head, he gave an overly dramatic sigh. “I should’ve expected that answer.”

“Yes.” I wasn’t hard to predict. “I don’t mind being the better mate, though. You’ll catch up eventually.”

He managed to keep a bored expression but his laughter was barely under control. “It’s a hard job, but someone has to be the best.”

“See? I knew you were smart.” I couldn’t resist teasing him, though. “Fate gave me the best mate because I’m amazing.”

His face said he thought that was ridiculous and hilarious, but the only way not to show it was to hold his breath. Just when I was at the point of deciding if I was going to poke him or not, he let the air in his lungs out slowly and nodded. “Yes. Your amazingness definitely came into play when fate found me for you.”

“It’s hard to be this incredible, but I’ve accepted my role in life.” Ha. He lost control, giggles pouring out. “Realizing how wonderful your mate is just makes you overjoyed with happiness? I can understand that.”

Giving my giggly boy one last kiss on the cheek, I started the car as he worked on catching his breath and he finally got control as we drove out of town. “Fate did give me a wonderful mate, so that means we’ll figure out the next steps.”

Reaching over to rest my hand on his thigh, I nodded. “It feels like a daunting task because there are so many options but we can figure it out. We’ll know what’s right when we see it.”

Relaxing again, Merritt rested his hand on mine and laced our fingers together. “I was kind of assuming we had to go back to Texas because that’s where your family is and your job. I can’t remember if you said you belonged to a larger company or if you had your own firm, but that’s a big consideration.”

In most cases it would be.