And, alright, maybe Wendy should have taken Peter because he wailed every single time Alex tried to put him down in the crib, and even a half banshee wail was something that no one wanted to hear, so Alex ended up taking him to bring Leah her sandwich of the day. She huddled in the same position as she did the other day like, somehow, nothing had even changed.

“You still working on that list?” Alex tried to keep his tone light, but he could feel his tension bleeding into the words. “You know I could try to figure out who to accept if you want.”

“I am not sure if I trust your judgement.”

“If this is about yesterday, I’m sorry. I know I stepped out of line, and I’m not going to make excuses for myself.”

Leah’s entire body shuddered with a sigh. “Are we having this conversation now?”

“Uh, depends on what conversation it is?”

“Rohan Abbot.”

“Actually, this might not be the best time. Call back later?”

Leah’s glare kept him in place. “With him coming so often, the Pack is starting to question what both of your intent here is—Mark already assumes the worst. You can’t exactly pretend not to realize this for much longer.”

Alex scoffed. “Hey, at least he know everyone’s names already for when we announce our wedding plans.”

“Now is not the time for jokes.”

“I mean, if they’ve already made their own assumptions, what can I do about it? I’d rather just leave it, honestly.”

“Let’s just leave it?” Leah growled. “You are sleeping with a paranormal examiner. He holds the lives of everyone in that house in the palm of his hand. One wrong step, even if it is an accident, could mean we all are deemed deadly, our rights can be taken away, or we can be carted to jail. And it doesn’t even have to be their mistake. If you give out too much information even unintentionally, his supervisor could destroy us.”

“We have a mutual understanding. Neither of us talk about life issues. No one needs to know more than slight personally details.”

“A mutual understanding? Alex, do you even like him?”

“Which answer will make you less mad?”

Leah scrubbed at a spot between her eyebrows. “Let me rephrase this. Is he worth any potential consequences.”

“You say that like something will go wrong.”

“Of course something will go wrong. There is no way you can navigate this situation gracefully. The longer it goes on, the worse the consequences will be.”

Alex let the plate clatter. Peter shifted on his shoulder, so Alex put his newly free hand on the kid’s back. The warmth rolling Peter soaked into Alex along with that strange sense of calm that sleeping kids always seemed to ooze.

Leah didn’t acknowledge Alex’s little tantrum, so he just walked out. She didn’t try to stop him this time—didn’t even bother giving him work for the day. He would just have to do whatever felt right.

And what felt right was being a child.

He swiped the screen and scrolled through all the messages he missed until he reached the single one Rohan had sent almost twenty four hours ago.

He typed out his own message. “Coming over tonight?”

Peter seemed to sense troublemaking in the making because he woke up with a whole new burst of energy. Once Alex set him up in his playpen with all the little soft chew toys the boy could imagine, it had practically been an hour. But it was an hour that Rohan hadn’t gotten back to him yet. That just felt weird. Though, work should pick up now that he had graduated the academy.

And, without him, Alex had nothing to do. Seriously, he was pitiful. He literally had no idea what to do when he was alone and that was just sad.

He scooted around the little plush owl—the one Allison gave him earlier and Alex immediately donated to the pile of kids toys. Peter was just at that age that he could kind of pull his body around with his front arms like a little horror game monster. He went after the owl with what was a scary amount of dedication.

“I should learn something from you,” Alex said to Peter. “You are perfectly fine just doing your thing every day, and you can ignore all the scary adult stuff until it all goes away.”

Peter shrieked, a little less high pitched and ear splitting than before at least.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t give you enough credit. You are always very aware of all the scary adult stuff.

Peter just gurgled back, and Alex made sure to focus on that instead of the heavy feeling in his chest.