Spooky Business (The Spectral Files #3) - S.E. Harmon Page 0,81

opened—instead, I just kicked the entire can down the stairs.

I swallowed. “I just want to make sure we’re both sure, that’s all.”

“So… you’re not sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“So you don’t think I’m sure.”

“I think we should stop saying the word sure before it loses all meaning.”

His expression got grimmer, if possible. “If you’re not sure about us, then maybe we should talk about that.”

“I don’t have questions about us.” Not one. I was a hundred percent certain about that topic. “You just took me off guard with this joint account business.”

“How so?” He frowned at me. “When you’re building a life and a family together, you plan for the future. That includes finances, Rainstorm.”

“I understand that,” I said, trying to control my prickly tone.

“Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page,” he said dryly. “I’d hate to have to pick our favorite kid to send to college and tell the rest to hit the bricks.”

Pick our favorite… wait, what the what now? “You want kids?”

He looked surprised. “You don’t?”

I stared at him for a few seconds. Someone was pouring cold water on all my fragile mental circuitry. “You want kids?” I asked again.

“I thought we could adopt a few, yeah.” He raised an eyebrow, and I reached out and touched the barbell glinting there. “Because of my history in the foster system, I thought it might be a good way to go.”

“Wow.”

“Not today or tomorrow or even a year from now. But someday.”

“I mean… wow.”

“Could you stop saying wow, please?” Any higher and his eyebrow was going to leave his face. “I need other words now.”

“That's… that’s certainly a conversation we should have.”

“Then let's have it.”

Fuck. I didn’t have my ducks in a row yet. My ducks were scattered all over the damn pond, and they weren’t listening to my frantic calling. I needed to think. And walk. I definitely needed to walk.

I got out of bed and started to pace, ignoring the fact that I was stark naked. For his part, Danny sat up in bed and leaned against the headboard. He sat quietly, arms folded across his chest, watching me as I made a few circuits around the bedroom. He knew I had to hash things out my way, and I was grateful for his seemingly endless patience—it was a trait I didn’t possess and just one more thing I loved about him.

I never really thought about having kids. Hell, sometimes I still felt like a kid myself. Even if I was ready to take on raising a human being—a human-fucking-being—our lifestyle didn’t exactly jibe with having kids. We were cops, and that wasn’t exactly the safest job in the world. We also worked a lot and odd hours at that. Fuck, we weren’t even home enough to have the dog Danny had been angling for.

Although, plenty of busy people had kids. And dogs. Would there ever be the perfect time to expand our family? Maybe that was just the anal part of me trying to apply a term to parenthood that didn’t exist—perfection. Parenthood was the most imperfectly perfect, messy thing, and Danny would be the most amazing dad. I already knew he would be gruff and strict with them sometimes, but he was a big softie at heart. His kids would be lucky to have him.

Our kids.

Someone touched the panic button in my mind again. Didn’t kids need routine or something? I think I remembered hearing something about that. They also needed stability. Rules. And peanut butter. Didn’t they like peanut butter?

I rubbed my forehead. Wait, no. I think they were allergic to peanut butter now. I’d brought peanut butter brownies to my nieces’ bake sale once, and I was lucky they didn’t cordon me off with yellow police tape and have me picked off by a sniper.

All the questions coursing through my mind made my head hurt.

“Rain?” Danny’s tone was patience personified. “You should probably say something now.”

“We don’t even have any peanut butter,” I blurted.

“Okaaay.” He squinted at me. “I should’ve been more specific. You should probably say something that makes sense now.”

Well, if my brain cells would fucking hold hands, I would. “I just… we’re not even married.”

He turned into a painting—Daniel McKenna, Still Life. I didn’t blame him. We didn’t have to be married to have kids. Some families did the co-parenting thing, and when they did it well, it was pretty amazing. But marriage wasn’t just a piece of paper to me. It represented a level of commitment. I blushed, almost