Page 31 of Endless
Islid across the open, expansive mattress until I reached her. My arm fit perfectly around her waist, and she left enough room on the pillow for me to lay my head just behind hers. It was rare that we ended up in bed together alone, and I wanted to bask in it.
Mari stirred, stretching out long with a soft groan before she laced her fingers with mine. “You’re not on breakfast duty?” she asked sleepily.
“Nah. Daren wanted Gunner’s pancakes, so he pounced on him. And Rori wanted Shadow to make orange juice with her, so she got him up.” I squeezed around her waist, nuzzling her cheek. “You slept through all that? It was a fucking racket in here for a minute.”
“Long night at the hospital, we had an emergency C-section,” she mumbled, then elbowed me lazily. “You know I sleep like the dead anyway.”
“Never fails to amaze me, what you sleep through,” I chuckled into her hair. “Everything turn out okay at the hospital?”
“Oh yeah, everything was fine. Triplets.” She elbowed me again. “Threebigboys.”
“There’s Rori’s future harem.”
“No, don’t,” Mari pleaded. “They’re growing so fast. I don’t want to think about her as a woman yet.”
I laughed into her hair, a question on the tip of my tongue. One that we’d danced around, brought up in passing, but never had a chance to really discuss before now.
“Sugar.” I wrapped tighter around her, bringing her back flush to my chest. “Do you want to have any more?”
Mari turned her head, looking at me over her shoulder. “More kids?”
“Yeah.”
She rolled slowly, turning over to face me. We lied next to each other nose-to-nose, her arm settling over my shoulder with her fingers stroking lightly over my back.
“I think we could handle another one or two more.” Caution tinged her voice, and she didn’t exactly look overjoyed.
“But do youwantmore?” I asked.
“I don’t want to carry twins again,” she admitted. “I’m glad we got Rori and Daren at the same time, but even though everything turned out fine, that was fucking rough. Even with all you guys to help.”
“What are the chances of that happening again?”
“I don’t know. Greater than zero,” she chuckled. “It already happened once.”
“True.”
We were quiet for a few moments while she nuzzled her head under my chin. “If we do try again, it should probably be soon,” she said in my chest. “Before the twins get much older.”
I stroked down the length of hair covering her back. “None of usneedmore kids. The twins are perfect. They’re the center of our universe, and all of us would be happy keeping it that way. Our life is perfect, sugar. Nothing needs to change if we don’t want it to.”
Mari sighed against my skin. “If I was almost certain I could have one at a time, I wouldn’t hesitate to say yes. But so many women are having multiple births right now. There’s some kind of baby boom going on and none of the doctors can figure what’s causing it.”
“You think it’s Freyja’s doing?” I wondered aloud.
“She’s involved, I’m sure.” Mari lifted her head to look at the cat, curled up and sleeping at the foot of the bed.
“She looked after you during your pregnancy, right?”
“They all did,” Mari said with a soft smile. “She’d rub on me when the aches were the worst. Hades never let any strangers get near me. Even Horus screeched his head off when that missionary came over, remember?”
“He did a full-on hunting dive, then pulled back at the last second.” I laughed at the memory. “Poor guy almost got his neck flayed open.”
“Even with all that,” Mari waved her hand in the air. “Pregnancy with twins is not something I’m dying to repeat.”
“I get it, sugar.”
“It’s like,” she leaned away from me, chewing her lip, “I never got toknowthem until they were born. They kept switching places, flipping around inside me. I never knew if it was Rory kicking the shit out of me or Daren.”
