Page 6 of Over and Above (Mount Hope #4)
Chapter Six
Eric
In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been so caught off guard by Maren and Diesel wanting to live together. With the immediacy of Maren’s ongoing morning sickness, it was only too easy to forget a baby was coming, a baby who would need a lot of care. Logistics were usually my strong suit as well.
But hearing Maren trying to use logistics to justify moving in with Diesel and potentially marrying him had my chest tight with the worst case of heartburn in my life. Magnus’s food offering had been much appreciated, but now it sat like a bonfire behind my sternum.
“Define already.” Maren’s lawyerly tone had me gritting my teeth.
“We have a license,” Diesel revealed in a far too chipper tone. “But Maren— we— wanted to tell you first.”
“Thank you.” Magnus’s chill reaction to everything from the pregnancy to this latest bit of news had me that much more on edge. It wasn’t a competition, but the guy made me look uptight and out of touch.
“We want to do the courthouse thing after the Fourth of July.” Maren earnestly returned to those pesky logistics again, as if arranging to get married was on par with scheduling a dental cleaning. “Wren will be at science camp next week, and John has another camping trip. And everyone else can come to the real wedding next year. But we’d like you two to come with us to the courthouse.”
“I…” The edges of the room seemed to draw together, reality spinning as an oppressive heat stole all the oxygen. “I need air.”
Unable to give more warning, I darted onto the front porch, gulping the evening air like a bottle of water after a marathon. At least it was relatively cool, the late June weather featuring sunny days but milder nights as we inched toward the warmest weather of the year.
I wasn’t normally prone to anxiety or panic. If anything, I was the opposite, able to tamp down unwanted emotions, even if it might be healthier to let them out. However, this was an unprecedented situation, and the number of rapid-fire changes I had no control over was as overwhelming and unwelcome as a dunk in the nearby cold and unforgiving Columbia River.
I wasn’t surprised to hear heavy footsteps behind me and didn’t bother turning around from the porch railing I was leaning on.
“Had a feeling they’d send you to talk some sense into me.”
“I volunteered to check on you.” Magnus sounded suitably concerned and, maddeningly, not nearly as worked up over this turn of events as I was.
“Do you see any universe where we talk them out of getting hitched?” Rather than spinning to face Magnus, I spoke to the bushes.
“Nope.” He stayed insufferably calm. “They seem rather set on this plan.”
“I know.” I drew out a long groan. “And Maren seems to be going through an unusually stubborn phase. If I forbid it, she’ll double down that much harder on doing the thing. I miss when she’d actually take my advice.”
“Hey, at least you had a time when she listened. Diesel always took ‘no, you shouldn’t’ as a personal challenge.” Magnus sounded proud of his kid’s rebellious streak, which made my jaw clench against the urge to say something less than kind. “But you can still give your advice. There’s no requirement here to give your blessing or rent to them or anything else you’d rather not do.”
Damn Magnus and his reverse psychology to hell because I immediately saw his point. “Nothing I say or do will stop this from happening.”
“Nope.” To his credit, he didn’t gloat. Instead, he dropped his hand to briefly pat my shoulder, a warm, electric touch that was gone far too soon.
“They’re really having a baby.” I finally turned to meet his kind gaze, slumping back against the porch rail.
“They’re really having a baby,” he echoed. Magnus was slightly shorter than me, with more of a wrestler’s build. His jaw had either the beginnings of a goatee or several days of laziness, giving him even more of a dangerous edge than usual. He looked the part of a bar owner, but he’d also make a great bodyguard or stuntman. I’d never been smitten by muscles, but something about Magnus’s sheer strength and steady vibe allowed me to put my guard down in a way I didn’t often do.
“I’m not ready,” I whispered in a moment of bald honesty.
“Are any of us?” Magnus gave a sympathetic chuckle. “I doubt the kids are ready either. I’m sure not ready to add grandpa to my resume, but here we are. I’m not sure we’re ever really ready for this sort of change. How did you know you were ready to adopt way back when?”
Huh. I wasn’t expecting the question, and I sucked in a breath, thinking. “Montgomery told me.”
Magnus gave a slow blink. “Well, that works.”
“Seriously, though, I always wanted kids but never thought it would be possible for me.” I thought back to well over a decade prior, maybe closer to two. “Then I met Montgomery, and neither of us was close with our biological families. I loved the idea of a big family of our own.”
“You do seem like you were destined to be a dad.” Magnus used a curious but complimentary tone.
“Oregon started making it easier for same-sex couples to adopt from foster care, but Montgomery was slower to get on board with my grand idea. Then, one night, he came in from the hospital and handed me a printout of the listing for this house. While I was looking at it, he offhandedly said we better request siblings if we wanted to fill all the bedrooms in a hurry.”
“That’s romantic.” Magnus smiled, exactly like someone who’d never met Montgomery. My late husband had been refined. Elegant at times and practical at others, always deeply reliant on logic and reason. I wouldn’t call either of us romantic, but Magnus’s characterization warmed my chest, like perhaps I’d missed some key detail over the years of sharing the story.
“Maybe.” I gave a lopsided shrug. “Two sibling group adoptions and a dozen years or so later, and here we are.”
“And my point stands. You hoped you were ready, and yes, you planned more than some of us, myself included, but none of us know .”
“Gah.” I made a frustrated noise. Why did Magnus, of all people, have to be so damn wise? “I’ve got to go back in there and tell them I’ll be there, don’t I?”
“It might be helpful, yes.” Magnus stretched, his expression indifferent until a mischievous grin swept across his rugged feature. “I mean, unless you want me to run away with Grandpa of the Year.”
“Thanks.” I might have given a friend a friendly shove or light tap, but Magnus wasn’t my friend, and touching him was all kinds of risky that had nothing to do with his bad joke. Instead, I sobered, practicing saying what I needed to even when my throat wanted to scream instead. “Seriously. Thank you. I keep giving you reasons to be less than nice to me, yet you never are.”
“Perhaps you’ll have to accept that I like you, Eric.” Magnus held my gaze. And held it. His hazel eyes were almost gold under the porch light. As if pulled by a magnet, I stepped closer. He held out a hand.
“Uh.” I gulped, suddenly willing to follow this man anywhere.
“Now, let’s go relieve the kids from spying on us through the shades.”
Oh. Right. Back inside. Hell. I’d been moments from… something .
“They were watching?” I glanced over Magnus’s shoulder at the front room. Yep. The blinds gave a wiggle too deliberate to be accidental. “Yeah, best get my serving of crow over with.”
“I’ll bring you some flan next time to wash it down.” Magnus winked at me, making heat lick at the base of my spine. I wanted . Lord, how I wanted. And now, we were about to be in-laws, and one simply could not go around wanting their fellow grandfather-to-be like this.