Nate

“Do you want another cup of cocoa?” Brian asked. “I’m getting some more for myself.”

“Sure, that sounds good.” Brian got up from the couch, then leaned over and kissed me on the lips. I had little baby Kitty in my lap and she squealed when she saw her alpha daddy so close. “Of course I would never forget you,” Brian said as he bent down even further and kissed our baby girl on the forehead, then inhaled her baby scent.

As I sat there and stared at the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree I thought back over the last year. I was so amazed at how different things had gone from the direction they seem to be heading after settling my parents estate.

I went from having no money and no place to live last Christmas to live being cuddled up inside a cozy house with my baby and the love of my life this Christmas morning.

I stared out the window and watched the snow fall, listening to the crackling logs on the fire as Christmas music played from the kitchen. It reminded me of when I was a kid and my mom would always have the radio going while she cooked Christmas dinner. I told Brian about that and he insisted he was going to continue the tradition. Only instead of a radio he was streaming some Christmas playlist of old standards.

He told me that he was going to cook all of my favorite foods today, and his too. Neither one of us had really learned how to cook. When I was in college I pretty much existed on cafeteria food and pizza. But after the bike championship we both took turns learning how to cook new things. Each of us took a meal and surprised the other one with what we came up with. Sometimes my meals were only pancakes and scrambled eggs, but Brian always loved trying complicated new recipes.

So, for Christmas dinner he was going to attempt a beef Wellington, something his parents had on occasion. Brian’s parents had moved away from Portville after he moved out of the house, so he called his dad up and got the recipe when he broke the news that we were all too exhausted to travel for at least another month. They totally understood and were okay once he promised that the three of us would video chat with them every night until they got to meet their granddaughter.

Brian was also going to make my mom’s sweet potato casserole recipe. It was one of my all time favorites, something I knew would make our home smell like mine had when I was a kid. We were also going to have Brian’s family’s green bean casserole, which wasn’t the mushroom soup variety and I was excited to see what it tasted like. Then, to top everything off, he was going to make an old-style mushroom gravy that had been handed down from generation to generation. And, of course, a giant bowl of mashed potatoes.

Brian had also been baking cookies all week while I was on the couch nursing little Kitty, and there seemed to be a never-ending stream coming out of the kitchen. On pretty much every surface in the house, there was a plate of some kind of amazing Christmas cookies, and I was completely powerless to stop eating them.

After polishing off almost an entire plate of shortbread cookies on afternoon, I told Brian that he had to get rid of at least half of them. So, he took some over to Hank and Jason’s next-door, then he took two big plates over to the kids at The Sunnyside Home and the doctors at the clinic. He also took plates of cookies to all of our friends, Shane and Holden, and their new partners, and he even drove all the way out to Jeremy’s house in the boonies to give him and Alex a big plate. And somehow there were still a ton left over. But I was secretly happy about that. They were just about the best cookies I’d ever had in my life.

Brian set a steaming mug of cocoa down on the table next to me, then took a seat on the couch again. “You haven’t opened any of your presents yet. Don’t you want to see what I got you?”

“I told you not to get me anything. I have everything I could possibly have ever wanted, Brian. I’m having an amazing Christmas just sitting here with the two of you. I can’t even tell you how happy I am.”

“Okay, fine. Am I gonna have to open your present for you?”

I smiled and held out my hand and Brian handed me a small box wrapped in ornate gold foil paper. I peeled the tape back carefully, trying to preserve the paper, but I could see the Brian was anxious for me to get it opened, so I went ahead and ripped right through it. I flipped the lid of the plain white box up and looked inside. “A mug?” I said, looking at Brian. “I don’t need a mug.”

“Well, take it out!”

I took the mug out of the box and started laughing when I saw what he had done. Brian had used that same damn picture of me pregnant after I won the UBO national championship, but instead of the original picture the way it was, Brian had Photoshopped our daughter’s head over my pregnant belly and added A Winning Team underneath the image. “Brian,” I said. I was going to tell him how ridiculous the mug was, but I immediately got choked up, and tears started streaming down my face. “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” I sobbed.

“Do you like it?” he asked moving so that he was sitting right next to me. “It’s your commemorative mug.”

“I love it,” I said, looking up at Brian. He smile and took me in his arms, and with our little baby Kitty in between us, he kissed me.

Suddenly a beeping sound rang out from the other end of the couch. “What on earth is that?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s my new tablet.” Brian reached over and picked up his new device, then tapped it and an image of Alex, Jeremy and their son Joey appeared. Brian sank back down onto the couch next to me and held the tablet up in front of the three of us. Kitty squealed and kept touching the screen like she thought she could grab a hold of little Joey.

“See who it is, Kitty,” I asked, pointing at the screen. “It’s Joey.”

“How are you guys holding up out there?” Brian asked over Kitty’s squeals of joy.

“Really good. Just opening presents and having some coffee out here in the middle of nowhere,” Alex said.

“Oh, come on. We are not in the middle of nowhere,” Jeremy said as he rolled his eyes.

“Oh yeah?” Alex said with a grin. “Where are we, then?”

“We’re right where I want to be.”

I watched as Alex leaned over and kissed Jeremy. “Yeah, this is exactly where I want to be too.”

Brian and I talked to Alex and Jeremy for a little while, then sat and watched the fire together. I closed my eyes and thanked the universe for the way my life had turned out. A lot of things didn’t go the way I thought they would. I missed my parents every single day. But I had my own family now, and a really big extended family too, and I had proven to myself that I could survive and succeed, even when I felt like everything had been taken away from me.

I knew, after everything I’d lost and won, that I could face anything that was thrown at me, especially with my family by my side, and that feeling was more amazing than anything I could have ever have imagined.

If you feel like you missed out on the moment when Nate gave birth to Kitty, you’re right. That chapter wasn’t included for a special reason. This summer series is about 4 roommates who start out living in a house together, then find relationships of their own and move on. In the final chapter of the fourth book, all four of the omegas will give birth in one, chaotic scene. So, please stick with The Portville Summer Series if you’d like to have that experience.

The next book, His Crazy Summer, is about Alex and Jeremy, and Jeremy’s struggles to deal with his identity and his newfound omega status.