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“Sugar and electric bills? You enjoy this holiday because of the sugar and electric bills? Isn’t heating in winter expensive enough without the addition of a dozen blow-up lawn ornaments and thousands of lights?”
I exaggerate my expression and point at my face. “Look. I’m emoting my inside thoughts. This one I call depression.”
“Your mouth is making a very impressive complete upside down capital U.” Lifting his hand, he swipes his thumb across my bottom lip. “It’s precious.”
My heart skips as I step back. “Pollux. Not where the kids might see.”
“They’re already making bets on which month you’ll announce that you’re pregnant.”
My eyes go massive. “What?”
“I have a spy on the inside. So far, most are certain you’ll plan your delivery for summer, so you don’t miss any school. It’s an apt speculation, and I am rather fond of the diligence it conveys in your character.”
Red floods my entire body. I hiss, “Pollux, you are aware what needs to happen in order for pregnancy to occur, aren’t you?”
He steps down off the footstool, scoots it to the center of the next few places that need pins, and steps onto it again before drawling, “I believe the humans often explain it as when a mommy and a daddy love each other veryyy much…”
I shove him.
He manages to keep his footing as he flashes me a dreadful grin. “The fae are more likely to just call it a word you’d rather I not say in this building.”
I try again to plow him down, succeeding in absolutely nothing. He steps gracefully off the stool and out of my reach.
I lift the string of lights I’m holding. “Get over here so I can strangle you with these.”
“Tempting, really. But we’re within earshot of your littles, so I’m not encouraged to encourage that kind of behavior.”
My eyes go massive. “Pollux. That is extremely inappropriate.”
Leaning closer, he says, “Choke me.”
I wish I kept more than plastic knives in this room. Although, potentially, threatening to stab him would make these specific matters worse.
Huffing, I turn my blazing face away from him and long for the repetitive, stable motions that come with crocheting, sewing, or embroidering. It feels like something inside me is about to burst, but I don’t know what to do with the energy.
Apart from, potentially, stabbing a needle into something a couple hundred thousand times.
Through sheer force of will, I wait until the lights are all put up before I stretch my fingers, close my hands into fists, then open them again. I regain myself long enough to know decorating time is over, so I lift my chin. “You should stay in here and think about what you’ve done while I go teach math.”
“If I don’t stay near you, I may frighten a child,” he reminds me as he crosses his arms and peers down his nose at me. “Why don’t we go together and teach Chemistry instead?”
“Did you come up with that one all by yourself?”
He arches a brow. “No, I’ve been studying a book on human mating practices. There’s an entire section full of outrageous pickup lines.”
He cannot be serious. I mimic his stance. “Women don’t like cheesy pickup lines, dreamboy.”
“Shame. We’d be gouda together.”
I bite my lips to keep an obnoxious laugh from exploding out of me. No matter how overwhelming the concept is, this awful man is entirely my soulmate. I feel the truth of that more each day, and it’s both frustrating, enticing, and a little nerve racking to admit—even just within my own mind.
As I’ve said before, I hate how much I like him.
I hate it more every time he lowers his big frame so he can talk with a child as though he’s conversing with a small adult. He doesn’t talk down to anyone. He’s so careful with everyone that it melts my heart.
Well, actually he’s so careful with almost everyone.
He did, at Andromeda’s request, throw her onto the gym roof to get a toy Josh tossed up there on Tuesday.
