The first thing Mich usually did when she woke up was reach for Nev. This morning was no exception, but as her hand met with air she murmured a soft curse.
She rolled over and pushed the blankets aside. “Last time I ever sleep on the floor,” she muttered, the joints of her knees and back cracking loudly. She looked at the couch, starting slightly at the sight of the neatly folded blankets. Where was Dante?
Relax, Mich. Nev wouldn’t let anything to happen to Dante.
Crawling to her feet, Mich made a vow to carpet her room a little more thickly. She stumbled over to the bathroom, brushing her hair out of her face. Nev was there, humming loudly as he carefully shaved around his monstrous sideburns. Mich watched bemusedly as he combed his hair and turned this way and that, giving himself an objective scrutiny that had been absent for quite some time.
“Hey there, Han’some,” Mich said, yawning. “Where’s Dante?”
“‘Uncle Nameh’ took him across the hall to meet the rest of the family, and then me and m’son are goin’ out and I’m gonna show him around.” He beamed with fatherly pride at his mirror image.
Mich wandered in and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I fell asleep before Namie came home. What did he think of Dante?”
Nev grinned. “I thought he was gonna bust open, he was so excited. Now HE’S the ‘older brother’.”
“Heaven help us all,” Mich teased, leaning up to kiss Nev tenderly.
“You ever thought of marriage?” Nev said casually as he rinsed the razor in the sink and wiped his newly shaved chin.
Mich choked and nearly lost her balance. “What?”
Nev shrugged. “I dunno . . . I mean, we got a kid now.”
“What in the world made you think of marriage, though? Mattie and skeeter and Caroline have children but none of them are married.”
“Yeah, but . . . ” Nev shrugged. “I don’t know—it was a dumb idea.”
Mich slipped her arms around his waist and held him tight. “No, it’s a very very good idea. But not now. We have something more important to worry about at the moment.” She heard the sound of Nameh’s and Dante’s happy voices. “And here he comes right now.”
“Mom!” Dante shouted, leaping into Mich’s arms.
“Hey there, kiddo,” she said, kissing him on the forehead. “Did you have fun?”
“Oh yeah!” Dante immediately began to rattle off everything he and Nameh had done that morning. Mich looked at the Peter clone, smiling. Have fun? she mouthed.
Nameh nodded, his eyes shining and a wide grin nearly splitting his face. “He’s a great kid.”
Nev stepped out of the bathroom. “Okay, where’s m’son?” His gaze panned across the room. “Where is he? I don’t see him!”
Dante waved his hand. “I’m right here!”
“Mich, I don’t see him. You said he was home! Where’s Dante?”
Dante wiggled out of Mich’s arms and tugged on Nev’s shirt. “Right here, silly!”
Nev sighed. “I guess he’s not here. Oh well . . . I had a lot of fun planned.”
Dante jumped up and down. “RIGHT HERE!”
Nev looked at Mich. “He’s your son, all right.”
~*~
“Ooh, what’s that?”
Nev looked up at the sprawling Gothic/Victorian mansion that housed St. Matthew and her formidable clan. “That, m’boy, is St. Matthew’s house.”
“Oh. What’s he like?”
“Who?”
“St. Matthew.”
Nev chuckled. “St. Matthew is a GIRL, and she’s . . . well, she’s nice, but . . . ”
Dante’s smooth forehead creased into a frown. “But what?”
Nev stopped him and knelt down, still marveling at how far down he had to go to be eye level with his son. “She’s nice, and so are most of her clones, but trouble seems to follow them wherever they go. I don’t want you goin’ to her house alone until you’re older, okay?”
Dante’s brows drew together into a fiercer frown. “So . . . they’re evil?”
Kid’s gonna have a hell of a glare when he gets older. “Not all the time. You don’t have to be scared of her clones but I want you to be more aware when they’re around, okay?”
Dante nodded.
Nev hid his surprise. He’d been expecting more questions or a demand to know why he had to be more careful around Mattie’s clones, but Dante seemed willing to accept Nev’s words without question. It was a quality Nev suspected he’d inherited from his mother, who, despite her fierce, take-no-prisoners attitude, had been a rather quiet, obedient child who rarely challenged authority.
Which means, Nev thought with only a hint of amusement, Dante’s gonna be even more of a handful when he grows up. God help us then . . .
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