right now?”
“It’s fine,” I told my cousin-in-law as his eyebrows winged up to his hairline. “Alex and I are acquainted.”
“Is that what the young people are calling it now?” he asked, his eyes tracking between us.
“I’m very safe with Alex, I promise. He’ll probably have to drop me off a half-mile from the gate, but I’ll be safe.”
“I don’t love that,” Zeb muttered.
“I don’t either,” Alex told him. “But Ty promises me that it’s better that way.”
“Just so you know, I’ll be calling Jane to ask her to run a background check on you,” Zeb said, shaking his hand. “It’s nothing personal, you would understand if you’d been around the last couple of years – with all of the various serial killer types and general mischief makers we’ve dealt with. And Ty is family, so it’s even more important.”
“You trust Alex with your children,” I noted.
“Dick and Jane already ran a background check on me,” Alex said. “Well, they ran two. One when I moved into town and then another much deeper check, when Dick found out I was seeing Ty.”
“He what?” I gasped.
Alex put his arm around me. “I respect his protective nature, especially when it comes to you.”
“This is all pretty normal procedure for Dick,” Zeb assured me.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the stories,” I muttered. “Getaway cars, incorrect German speeches.”
“That one time he helped Cal give Ben Overby an illegal lie detector test,” Zeb added. “He was dating Gigi at the time. And he was human. In his current state, the test would be pretty ineffective.”
“Dad! It’s time to go!” Janelyn called, snapping Zeb out of his thoughts.
He turned to me. “Text Jolene when you get home, okay?”
“I will,” I promised. “Night, kids.”
The twins hugged me around the waist. Then they gave Alex high fives and ran out the door.
I patted Zeb’s back. “Good luck with your assault on the Burger Shed.”
“This is going to be so expensive,” Zeb grumbled.
The twins were the last to be taken home by their parents. Somehow, we waded through the crowd of Junior Leaguers, some of whom were giving me hard stares. Alex’s hand at the small of my back seemed to make a statement. The fancy ladies didn’t like what he was saying.
Alex led me outside to his sedate black SUV with Half-Moon Hollow Music Academy written in vinyl on the doors. It seemed like such a dad car, but I guessed it made sense. He spent so much energy and time on his students.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, loading bags of extra instruments and equipment through the back hatch.
“I don’t know, it’s just a shame that you won’t have kids of your own. You’re so good with them,” I said. “Unless, you don’t want them, which is also a valid choice. This sentence is not turning out as planned. I want you to have whatever you want.”
“Well, it’s not so much a choice, but a biological impossibility,” he said. “And as much as I enjoy working with my students, I think I’m better off as a ‘role model’ instead of a father. You’re also very good with children. Do you want little werewolves running around?”
“I kind of like the ‘fun Cousin Ty’ thing. I’m there for the holidays and the concerts and the special stuff and then I can just hand them back to Jolene and Zeb before the uncomfortable parent-teacher conferences and the discussions about student loan debt and puberty,” I said, shaking my head.
“You know, I’ve never heard parenthood described like that.”
I snorted. “I’ll bet.”
My phone screen showed a message from Zeb. “This is Janelyn, using Dad’s phone. Dad’s driving. He’s making me type everything out with punctuation and good spelling because he’s a teacher and text speak makes him sick to his stomach. Anyway, Joe left his math textbook in his locker at the music school. He was doing homework before we left. Dad asked if you can pick it up. We’re already on the other side of town.”
“Everything all right?” he asked, as I buckled the passenger seat belt.
“Do you mind if we go by the school? Joe left a book in his locker and it contained homework. The consequences could be dire.”
“No problem,” he said. “I need to drop this off anyway. And it means I have more time in the car with you.”
“You’re gonna end up doing so many of their errands if they get wind of this,” I warned him.
We chatted about innocent nothings as we drove through town. It was nice to