Page 59 of Taming the Beasts (Crooked Point #3)

Zoey

This was the first Thanksgiving with all of us together. Titan had gotten back from the hospital before Thanksgiving last year, but he’d exerted himself too much and ended right back in the emergency room.

It wasn’t my fault that he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. He was practically obsessed with me. Which was fine. I was obsessed with him too.

“It smells amazing in here, baby,” Otto said and wrapped his arms around me.

“Thank you. I’m just about to pull the turkey out. How’s the game?” They’d been watching football all afternoon.

“Not as entertaining as you.” His hands slid lower.

I hit him with my spoon. “You’ll have to wait until later.”

“How much later are we talking? Is there dessert too?”

“Of course. What kind of Thanksgiving doesn’t have pumpkin pie?”

He sighed and dropped his chin on top of my head. “Tonight is going to feel like an eternity. I’m used to eating you on the dining room table for dessert.”

I laughed and turned around to look up at him, looping my hands behind his neck. “Maybe we can do that later.”

He smiled. “I’m holding you to that.”

“Sorry we’re late,” Emma said as she walked into the kitchen with her hands on her very pregnant stomach. “Everything takes me twice as long these days.” She leaned over, putting her elbows on the kitchen island to rest.

I would have been worried that she’d be the one to go to the ER and miss this Thanksgiving, but she still had another month before the baby was due.

Callum kissed her cheek and put down a huge platter of...seafood?

“Callum, what is that?” I asked. “I thought I told you to bring a Thanksgiving favorite.”

“This is a Thanksgiving favorite,” he said.

“Is that lobster?”

“There’s some lobster, smoked bass, and mussels. All the best Thanksgiving traditions, if you ask me.”

Old people were so weird. “Well...um...thank you for bringing that.”

Emma laughed. “I tried to tell him that people don’t eat seafood for Thanksgiving anymore. But he wouldn’t hear of it. I hope someone else is bringing mashed potatoes.”

Luckily I had prepared all the essentials. “They’re almost done,” I said and pointed to the bowl where I’d just drained the boiled potatoes.

“Oh good. I’ve been looking forward to them all day. Can I help finish them? I’m going to add so much butter.”

I laughed. “Help yourself. ”

“You want to catch some of the game?” Otto asked Callum. He turned to me. “Unless you girls need some help in here?”

“No, we’re good,” I said and shooed them out of the kitchen. I wanted to prepare the perfect feast for them. I checked the temperature of the turkey and pulled it out of the oven so it could start resting.

I turned to Emma as she plopped a whole stick of butter into the potatoes. “How is my favorite girl?” I asked.

“I’m doing okay,” Emma said.

I laughed. “You know I’m talking about the baby.” I put my hands on her stomach and smiled when I immediately got kicked. That kid loved me.

“We don’t know if it’s a girl.”

“It’s definitely a girl,” I said. “And I know that you looked at the gender reveal card and you’re just not telling me.

She smiled. “We haven’t looked, I swear. We want it to be a surprise. Like how it would have been in the 1700s.”

“I read that some babies were fed directly from a goat’s udders back then. And you can give it a diaper made of moss.”

“Ew, what? To both of those things.”

“And since you’re keeping things old-fashioned, are you also going to hire a wet nurse? I’m pretty sure they were quite common back then.”

“No.”

“I mentioned it to Otto the other day and he’s been going around talking about boob nannies ever since. ”

Emma laughed. “Well you can tell Otto I’m not planning on hiring a boob nanny. Where does he come up with this stuff?”

I shrugged. “No idea.” But he always made me laugh.

The twins walked into the kitchen.

“Do you lovely ladies need some help in here?” Ace asked.

“I think we got it covered,” I said. I was just waiting for the turkey to rest and a few sides to finish in the oven. “Have you heard from Grudge and Kebe? Dinner will be ready really soon. Where are they?”

“Grudge just texted,” Huxley said. “They’ll be here any minute. Apparently they had some issues with their side dish.”

Ace walked over to the stove. “This smells so good.” He put his arm around me and lightly nipped at my earlobe.

God, all my boyfriends were so distracting today. Luckily everything was pretty much done.

Kebe and Grudge walked into the kitchen just as Emma finished the mashed potatoes and I pulled out the biscuits from the oven.

“Sorry we’re late,” Grudge said. “She tried to bring raw tubers and we had to pivot at the last minute.” He slid into a stool at the kitchen island. “What’s up, hot stuff?”

I ignored his last comment. Kebe and Grudge had been dating for a year now. But it was only fair that Grudge still said stuff like that to me because Kebe still flirted with Callum and Huxley way too much. But what the heck had he just said about raw tubers?

“Excuse me?” I asked. “What the heck is a tuber? ”

“Potatoes is what people call them these days,” Kebe said. “Oh, I see that you cooked your tubers. That works too, I guess.”

Who the hell ate raw potatoes? “So what did you bring?” I asked and stared warily at the bread pan covered in foil.

“I made a loaf of bread from ground papyrus flour.”

“Isn’t papyrus...like...paper?” Emma asked.

Kebe waved her hand through the air. “Yeah but parts of papyrus are edible too. You’ll see. Because it’s in the loaf.”

I was glad I’d made homemade biscuits. This was even weirder than the seafood tray.

“How is my little nephew doing cooking in there?” Kebe asked and leaned down to stare at Emma’s belly.

Emma laughed. “I still don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl.”

“It’s definitely a boy,” Kebe said.

“No, it’s definitely a girl,” I said. But her thinking it was a boy did make me doubt myself a bit. She was a goddess after all. Maybe she could tell. But she was the goddess of serpents and embalming. So babies probably weren’t her specialty.

“You two are so funny,” Emma said. “You’re going to make great aunts, whether it’s a little boy or girl.”

I smiled. I wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened, but Kebe had wormed her way into our friendship group. It probably started when she stopped being evil. Now I couldn’t imagine life without her.

And luckily my boyfriends actually liked Grudge now. And Callum. They’d become fast friends ever since they weren’t mortal enemies .

And today was going to be perfect. Especially because everything was finally ready. “I think we’re all set if you guys want to transfer the turkey to the carving plate.”

“I think we can handle that,” Ace said. Huxley walked over to help him.

“And we can bring everything else out.” I grabbed the green bean casserole out of the oven.

“Oooh who brought a seafood tray?” Kebe asked. “One of my favorite traditions.”

Our ancient friends were so freaking weird. All I could do was laugh as we all carried items to the dining room table. “Dinner is ready!” I called into the family room.

The rest of the guys walked in.

“Good game?” I asked.

“We’re up by two touchdowns,” Bennett said and kissed my cheek. “I don’t want to jinx it, but I think we’re going to win.”

“We’ll definitely be winners tonight no matter what,” Otto said and smiled at me.

What was that supposed to mean?

Ace elbowed Otto in his side.

“Ow.” Otto rubbed the spot.

Well, I had no idea what the two of them were planning. But I was planning on eating this delicious feast.

Bennett sat down at the head of the table and started to carve the turkey.

I sat down in the seat closest to him and Titan quickly sat down next to me. I smiled over at him. “Better Thanksgiving than last year? ”

He smiled back. He’d been doing a lot more of that recently. Except in the bedroom. I loved his menacing scowls when he had me bent over. “Much better,” he said. “The meal at the hospital was total crap.”

I laughed.

He stared down at me.

I lifted my hand and ran it along one of his new scars on his jawline. “So handsome.”

He turned, kissing my palm. “So beautiful.”

I felt my cheeks flush.

“Agreed,” Huxley said.

I turned to look at him. “Thanks, Huxley.”

“And it’s going to be a night to remember for sure,” he said.

“Why did I get in trouble for saying something similar?” Otto asked.

“Would all of you stop it?” Ace said. But he was smiling more than usual too.

They were all acting kind of strange. I stared at Bennett who’d stopped carving the turkey.

“Bennett, the rest of the food is getting cold.”

“Yeah, sorry,” he said. “But apparently this can’t wait.”

“What can’t wait?”

“I forgot something. I’ll be right back.” He stood up.

Well I wasn’t going to let the whole meal get cold. I grabbed a biscuit.

But I dropped the biscuit as soon as Bennett dropped to one knee in front of my chair. Holy shit.

Bennett cleared his throat. “Zoey.”

Is this really happening? !

“We’ve been looking for over a decade for the perfect woman. Each of us have dreamt of her. And it truly feels like we’ve dreamt you into existence. You are perfect for all of us. Even Titan.”

I laughed and covered my mouth as Bennett pulled a ring box out of his pocket.

“As soon as we moved to town, I knew it was you. But you friendzoned me so hard.”

“I didn’t mean to,” I said. “I liked all of you so much.”

He smiled up at me. “Well, all of us love you. We love your humor and wit and that beautiful smile.”

I knew I was smiling so big right now.

“You’re our girl.”

I loved when he called me that.

“But we were hoping you’d do us the honor of being our wife instead.”

Titan put his hand on my thigh. I turned to look at him. He nodded.

I looked over at the twins.

Ace smiled at me. Huxley winked.

My heart was racing so fast.

I turned to look at Otto.

“Baby, I would have asked you last Thanksgiving,” he said.

Oh my God. I turned back to Bennett.

“What do you say? Be ours forever?”