“You would be right. Enjoy the quiet while it lasts.” The smoldering look my husband shot me promised there’d be nothing quiet about the rest of our evening, once we got finished with the eating and the brawling. “But for now, you must enjoy your steak. You need plenty of fuel for your fight.”
Once inside the steakhouse, the hostess took us to a booth for four in the heart of the restaurant, which was set up with candles and place settings for two. Two nearby booths had been commandeered for presents, which made me laugh.
I sat, rubbing my hands together. “Nobody told me I got prizes for marrying you in front of a bunch of people. And here I thought you were the prize.”
“I am the prize. You’re just getting consolation gifts for having to put up with me daily. Consider the gifts to be payments for getting too little sleep lately.”
With my change of job, I looked forward to sharing the same shift with Quinn, being able to go home with him, and being able to spend time with him without sacrificing as much sleep. “Six hours a night, Quinn.”
“I’ll aim for letting you get eight unless I’m feeling particularly needy, in which case I’ll just carry you to the car and let you sleep on the way to work—unless we sleep in, in which case, I will make use of a quicker form of transportation after calling it in so you’re not chased all the way to Manhattan.”
“You can transform and run with me. We could race!” Would New York survive two fire-breathing unicorns galloping from Queens to Manhattan to get to work on time? We’d find out, and I’d love every minute of it. “I won’t even teleport so you have a chance of beating me.”
“I’m game to try it.” He chuckled, sat next to me in the booth, and held me close. “I like this part. I get to be a king for a day, and everybody has to shower my queen with gifts. And I’ve learned there’s little more my queen loves than presents. I thought you would have been tired of presents after this morning, but it seems I underestimated you yet again.”
“They have two tables for presents, Quinn. Isn’t that crazy?”
“At last count, five hundred cops and their families came from our building, and that’s only the folks who could make last-minute arrangements to come out. I was expecting fewer, but it seems you have a strong following. I bet it has something to do with your evil coffee-making ways.”
I grinned, as I made a point of going to the station and taking over my husband’s floor at least once or twice a month to make coffee for people.
It’d taken me a few months, but I’d discovered I missed being a barista sometimes, and I enjoyed making coffee for a bunch of starry-eyed cops who tended to follow me around like lost puppies whenever I paid them a visit. “That’s going to be awkward once I’m working there.”
“Not particularly. We’ll just give you twenty or thirty minutes a day working the machine and set a rotation so everyone gets a chance to have your coffee. That’ll give you an outlet for your wicked coffee-making ways, and it’ll make everyone happy.”
I liked that idea. “We need to look at increasing our training, too. Once we’re—”
Quinn rested his fingers over my mouth. “We’re not working until January. You can turn the station upside down on me our first day back, but you have to wait until then.”
I stared at him with wide eyes and kissed his fingers.
As always, his smile narrowed my world to him and only him.
Once he seemed satisfied he’d quelled my need to work, he lowered his fingers. “Play now, work later, and if you really need to get some work out of your system, you can express yourself in our suite. Be warned, however. I will do my best to thoroughly distract you from any inclination to work.”
“Yes, please.”
Two
To my amazement, Ra indulged me.
Someone needed to talk to the cops and our family about excess. Presents, which we weren’t supposed to unwrap until after everything was ferried to our suite, towered on the tables, piled on the floor, and otherwise transformed the restaurant into a maze of red, green, silver, and white boxes and bags. At a complete loss of what to do or how to respond, I hid under the table and abandoned Quinn to his fate.
He peeked under the tablecloth. “Would you like your dinner?”
Hiding with steak seemed a lot better than hiding without steak, so I held up my hands in an acceptance of his offer.
The bastard cheated, and he gave me his plate, which had a lot more steak on it than on mine.
“Pregnant cindercorns need to eat more.” He grinned. “I’ll make them bring out another one for you.”
“Rare, please.” With the issue of too many nice people around me solved, I went to work making his steak disappear while my husband resumed chatting with his cops, who insisted on loitering for as long as possible.
“Don’t mind her,” he said with laughter in his voice. “She has reached her limit for people for one day, especially people she’s embarrassed herself in front of already today.”
I chewed on my steak, considered his words, and swallowed. Unable to smother my need to giggle, I said, “It’s true.”
Someone lifted the tablecloth, and my father bent over to peer at me. “Enjoying yourself?”
After a moment of consideration, if I sat on my husband’s feet, there was sufficient room for my father under the table. I scooted over and waved for him to join me.
To my amazement, Ra indulged me.
Despite the tablecloth falling to the floor, I could see surprisingly well in the dark. I showed off my plate. “I am. I’m tasking you with making sure Quinn actually eats enough, because he gave me his steak.”
“He will get plenty to eat, never fear. Making certain he is fit for your enjoyment later is in the forefront of his thoughts, and he plans on getting a steak for himself while ordering you another. I spotted you crawling under the table and wanted to make sure everything is all right.”
“I’m fine. This steak is not long for this world, and I have never seen so many presents in my life. What am I supposed to do with so many presents?”
“Enjoy them. You will find there are many you will like, and as word has spread you shall have twins, many gifts come with something for your little ones as well. You will enjoy your time opening them later with your husband. As he does not expect me to discuss serious matters with you today, I thought it would be prudent to do just that.”
I giggled and had another bite of steak. “Now we’re talking. He’s in vacation mode. I can’t blame him for that, because he doesn’t get to go on vacation, but I’m in a different mode. It involves me having a salary for the first time in my life, so I want to do a good job.”
“You get your vigilance from me and your ethics from your mother, which means as long as there are problems you are aware of, you are not happy until it is dealt with. I will help you learn to control those tendencies.”
I considered my father, eating more of my husband’s steak. “You say that like I have an actual desire to change those tendencies.”
I’d only met him earlier that morning, but Ra’s sigh implied I tested his patience. “That comes from your mother’s side of the family. It is part of your mother’s charm, but it can be quite the source of frustration from time to time.”