Page 81 of Jake and Conner
Conner
After the ceremony,we enjoyed a meal with our wedding party and our immediate family. The food was fantastic, and so was the company.
"You should get married more often," Jake's younger sister said after savoring a piece of lobster. "This food is to die for."
Jake laughed. "I don't wanna get married more than once."
I kicked him under the table because my dad had gotten married more than once for reasons outside of his control. I couldn't really be mad at Jake, though. Not after he'd so recently become my husband and I was still kind of floating on that high. Besides, he wasn't intentionally being mean. He was just enjoying the champagne a little bit too much.
"I'm sorry," he said, hastily facing my dad and stepfather. "I didn't mean to--"
"It's fine," my dad cut him off even while he was trying to feed Connie some mashed vegetables in her high chair and she was having none of it. "I was lucky to be given a second chance at a marriage. I'm glad I took it."
"I'm glad too," quipped Hope, my youngest sister who wouldn't exist if not for our dad giving it another go with Kade.
"I'm sure you are," I said, and then I scooped the last piece of lobster from my plate with my fork. It would be time to move on to the reception soon. I leaned in to Jake. "You sure you're up to cutting the cake?"
"What do you mean?"
I nodded at the empty champagne glass before him.
"Oh, c'mon," he protested. "I haven't had that much."
"It doesn't take much for you," I teased to murmurs of agreement from the table around us. "How do I know I can trust you with a knife?"
"I'm really not drunk."
"Yeah? What's 17 plus 84?"
Understanding dawned on Jake's face. He knew exactly what I was doing, taking my revenge on him for that day he made me jump through hoops to prove that I could still think clearly. In retrospect, I could laugh about Jake’s antics, especially now that I hadn’t experienced a heat in a year. The pregnancy might have just fixed that issue for me. "C'mon, Jake, answer me," I said. My friends probably thought I'd gone bananas, but I didn't care. All my attention was focused on Jake.
"102," he said. "No, wait, 101."
"64 minus 18."
"46."
"120 divided by 5."
Jake hesitated, then, "24. C'mon, Conner, I'm fine." But he sounded more amused than anything.
"All right." I leaned in closer and dropped my voice. "One last question then. What's Jake plus Conner?"
"That's..." Whatever Jake was going to say, he was interrupted by the indignant wailing of a child. Our child. Wordlessly, he rose from his chair to pick her out of hers and the crying stopped almost as soon as he lifted her up. "You don't like to sit in that chair, do you?" he talked to her. "No, you don't. You like crawling around and destroying things like the little rebel you are."
"Oh, does she take after Conner?" Raphael spoke up.
"I don't go around destroying things," I said.
"No, but you can be a bit of a rebel," Kade pointed out.
"I don't know how Jake is going to survive having a rebel daughter," Jake's alpha father said with something that was almost a smirk.
"We'll be fine," Jake claimed, looking at our daughter with that gentle strength that always shone in his eyes when he gazed at his baby girl. "Conner isn't taking her to demos before she's at least sixteen. We've talked about it."
I had the feeling demos were going to be the least of Jake's worries when our girl was sixteen, but I chose not to mention that, because he was right--we were going to be fine.
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