Epilogue

"Why not?" Thia exclaimed with a stomp. "I have one. All the daddies have one. Percy needs one."

"He does." Sometimes with Thia, it was better to agree to her premise but redirect her to something else. "But the tutu is going to scratch at Daddy Fyn's chest, and that will hurt him."

She spun around, showing me her newest purple, glittery tutu. "It doesn't hurt me. See?" She even made a charade of rubbing her skin against the fabric. "No scratching."

Fyn laughed but wasn't helping. He and Zeus were letting me fight this battle alone. "How about this?" I asked, picking her up and putting her in my lap. "After Percy is done drinking milk, we can change him and put a tutu over his little onesie so that it doesn't scratch his skin. Because babies' skin is a lot softer than ours."

"A pink one?" she asked.

"Whatever color you'd like. You're the big sister and queen over all the tutus in the land."

She snorted. "That's silly. I'll be back."

I scrubbed my hands over my face. Somehow I'd won that argument, but then again, had I? Didn't matter as long as we had two happy children. Kindness over rightness was always the way to go.

"Are you tired?" Fyn asked, switching our Percy from one side of his chest to the other.

"Am I tired?" I asked, going over to hold Fyn's cup, letting him sip on some water. Chest feeding made him so thirsty, he swore he could drink a gallon of water in one sitting. I'd seen him attempt the feat several times. "You grew this babe in your belly, and now you're feeding him from your body and have been for four months. You're asking if I'm tired?"

He took my hand in his as my other smoothed our baby's dark-brown hair across his forehead. "You're allowed to be," he said. Always the understanding omega. "The nights have been rough, but thank goodness he's sleeping through now. Aren't you, sweet boy?" Percy's gaze met Fyn's, making my heart want to leap right out of my chest with love.

When our babe was done feeding, I changed him and put him in the cradle by the bed for a nap. Thia hadn't returned with the tutu. Probably distracted by something in her playroom.

"Walk with me?" Zeus said after Fyn lay down beside the baby. We insisted on Percy's naptime being Fyn's naptime as well, and he didn't protest one single second.

"Of course," I said. We checked on Thia before strolling out to the garden and sitting on a bench.

"You looked like you could use some air. Sometimes your panther gets antsy."

I gasped and turned to him. He had his hair up in a bun all the time now and, as the weather turned warmer, he'd decided to shave the back and the sides off. The almost-Viking look suited him. Fyn thought so, too. "I didn't realize you could feel him."

He nodded. "It was strange at first, but my bunny wasn't scared of him."

"I hope not. My cat would never hurt any of you. We love both of you too much."

We sat together, enjoying the stillness. A lot of people came to the motel for our garden. There were hashtags on social media, highlighting the visits and photos. We'd even made an account for both the motel and the garden.

A gardening magazine had sent us a request to come and take pictures—our garden would be the main feature in an article on hidden gems.

Our lives had flourished in so many ways since meeting each other. I hadn't realized how hollow I'd felt before, always trying to fill myself up with hard work and business and driving myself into the ground.

"What are you thinking?" Zeus asked, holding my hand. We'd sat there so long that Fyn and our babies emerged from the office, looking for us. We embraced all of them as though we hadn't seen them in years instead of hours ago.

"I was thinking that I couldn't have asked for anything more than us."

Fyn sighed and sat on the bench between us, our babe in his arms, watching Thia bless every part of the garden with her wand. "I love us."