When Sam was just about two months old, I found a large envelope waiting for me on the coffee table in the living room when I got home from shopping with the baby. It was addressed to both me and Zander. And it came from the publishing company.

“Zander!” I called, excitement coursing through me. This had to be about our comic book. “Zander, where are you?” I looked around, but only Betty came trotting into the living room, regarding me with an expression of disapproval. I'd probably woken her. She wasn't a fan of the baby either, since he wouldn't sleep through the night yet. “Sorry, old lady.”

“Coming!” Zander finally answered—from the bathroom.

“Hurry it up! I need to see what's inside this envelope. I'm gonna open it without you!” Carefully, I sat Sam down on the couch—he cooed at me—and put the bag with our shopping beside him. “Be a good baby, okay?”

Sam sucked his thumb in an image of innocence. Somehow, I got the feeling he was going to be trouble when he got older.

“I waited for you to come home,” Zander said, pulling me out of my thoughts. I hadn't noticed him enter the room at all. Funny how the baby was two months old already and I could still forget everything around me just looking at him.

But now I turned to my mate. “Nice of you. Now let's look what's inside.”

“You're not nervous at all?”

“Why would I be nervous?”

“Spoken like someone who's never received a rejection letter.”

“Don't blame me for being pure and untainted,” I said, tearing the envelope open.

“Pure and untainted?” Zander raised a questioning eyebrow at me, as if I'd just proclaimed that I could turn vodka to wine or something equally ridiculous.

“Don't believe me?” I turned my back on him. “I'm gonna read this letter all by myself then.” Taking the paper out of the envelope, I hunched over a bit so Zander couldn't read over my shoulder. Zander scoffed behind me, but he sounded amused. Good. We wouldn't be able to live together if he couldn't put up with my sometimes childish sense of humor. So far though, our cohabitation was working out well.

Sometimes Zander even read me a story goodnight. Or he read it to the baby, but I fell asleep too, so it was the same, really.

Focusing my attention back on the letter, I scanned the lines on the front page, reading just enough to figure out whether this was a rejection or an acceptance letter. Then I folded it and faced my mate again. “What do you think they said?” I asked, wanting to check how optimistic my mate felt about all this.

Zander thought about it for only a second. “They said yes, didn't they?”

I gave him my widest smile. “Of course they did! This is the best news!” Throwing my arms around Zander's neck, I kissed him.

Suddenly, there was a dull thud, the sound of something falling over. I paid it no mind. Probably just a book that didn't want to be on the shelf any longer. But then, something cracked, and then, our dog barked in a distinctly disgruntled way—as if someone had stepped on her or something. Zander turned to her. “What's wrong, old lady?”

Betty barked again, her head snapping to the couch where Sam lay. Something was dripping from her ears. Something runny, like... egg yolk? It smelled like egg yolk. My eyes darted to my baby. Sam had one hand in the grocery bag next to him. “Oh no. He didn't!” Torn between laughing and crying, I walked back to the couch, Betty's whines in my ear. “I think our baby has egged our dog. And not just that,” I told Zander examining the extent of the damage. Half of our groceries had ended up on the floor next to the couch.

“I thought we had a little more time before he started being trouble,” Zander said, lifting the baby from the couch and away from the grocery bags while I tried to see what I could salvage from the mess of eggs, flour and milk on the floor.

“Guess he's an early bloomer. Just our luck, huh?” I glanced over at Zander as I rescued a bag of bread. Amazingly, he had a smile on his face. “You're not upset about your rug?”

He shook his head, rocking the baby in his arms. “I was just thinking how much it would suck if I had to deal with any of this by myself, but I don't. Even if this kid turns out to be the biggest troublemaker in the world, we're a team. Between the two of us, maybe we can do a half-decent job.”

I looked at my alpha, holding my son and smiling while his dog was dripping egg yolk on his rug. I had to smile too, because he was right. We could deal with this mess, and any that followed. We'd gone through so much together. Our childhood, our fake relationship, my brother's rescue, and now parenthood. There were so many unknowns in our future, but one thing I could say for sure; whatever life could throw on us from here on out, we could handle it. Together. Zander was the love of my life, my best friend. He and I, we were more than mates.

We were team mates.

Zander glanced at the floor again. “It looks like two of the eggs survived. What do you say we clean up and then make some brownies to celebrate our success?”

“That would be perfect.”

“Well, not totally perfect since there won’t be any coconut.”

“Okay, maybe not totally perfect, but close enough,” I said, laughing. “Just like us.”

Nothing and nobody was perfect, but Zander and I together? We came pretty damn close.

The End