While You Were Creeping - Poppy Rhys Page 0,52
up. Never again.
Except—
“I’m pregnant,” I blurted against his lips, effectively breaking the kiss.
Kye pulled back, his eyes darting from my face to my stomach and back again.
“Are you yanking my horns?”
Suddenly nerves hit me, and sarcasm bubbled out of me even though I didn't mean it to. “I only do that when I want you to screw me.”
The grin was back, and Kye grabbed my arms and spread them as if he wanted to get a look at me with fresh eyes.
“I’m gonna be a dad? No fucking shit?!”
“Yes. And we should probably start using replacement swear words, like fork and bull shark.”
He tossed back his head and laughed, frosty breath huffing into the air before he returned his attention to me.
“How’re you feeling? Is this something you want?”
“With you. Yes, I want it with you.”
If I wasn’t mistaken, Kye’s exhale seemed to be one of relief before he hugged me again and declared, “You make me so forking happy, you know?”
I cracked up, burying my face into his shoulder. Kye held me in a way that felt fragile and crushing at once. Like I was something precious, but he was greedy enough to squeeze just a little tighter.
“But how?” he asked, pulling back. His red-flecked turquoise eyes peering into mine, full of questions. “How did you free me?”
“Well,” I began, prepared to tell him all about how my meddling therapist was actually the same berchta who’d been in possession of his prison, as he tucked me into his side and guided me toward the house.
I couldn’t help but loop my arm around his waist and squeeze, willing him to never disappear again.
“It all started with my bizarre compulsion to flush toilets.”
EPILOGUE
The following December...
HOLLY
“You sure you’re not here just to sneak across the street to The Bowl?” Kye side-eyed me after he stole baby Jovie, named after one of his brothers from long ago.
“Me? The Bowl?” I snorted and brushed him off. “It’s not like I go there every day or something.”
Kye canted his head. I hated it when he did that. He saw right through me.
“You do.”
“Not every day!”
“Every day for the past two weeks.”
“Okay, stalker.” I turned away so he couldn’t see my exasperated smile and fiddled with one of his new designs. “Maybe I just wanted to visit my husband at work. How’s business?”
“You know exactly how business is.” I didn’t even have to turn around to know he had a shit-eating grin on his face. “I knew you were here for The Bowl!”
“Gah!” I tossed my hands in the air and whirled around. “I’ve just had this insatiable craving for their hot cocoa. It’s liquid gold and I just wanna bathe in it while I munch on unhealthy amounts of their chocolate dipped pretzels.”
“You fucking—”
“Aht-aht!”
“You forking weirdo,” he amended with an exaggerated eye roll. “Jovie can’t even understand what I’m saying yet.”
“Yes he can. Maybe. I don’t really know, but I don’t want his first word to be shit, fuck, or damn.”
He shot me a flat stare. “Oh, so you can say it, but I can’t?”
“I meant,” I cleared my throat, “shoot, fork, or dang.”
“Uh huh...”
The smile that parted my lips was so wide it hurt my cheeks and maybe I fell in love with Kye just a little bit more—if that were possible—as I watched him make ga-ga faces at Jovie. The baby laughs certainly helped.
The whole pregnancy only lasted seven months before Jovie’s lease on my uterus was up. We’d determined he was a New Year’s Eve utility closet baby.
I’d had my bouts of paranoia that he’d come out with hooves and horns and rip me apart but ultrasounds, and Kye informing me that horns didn’t start growing until around ten years old, reassured me.
Little Jovie didn’t have hooves, just plain human feet, but he was turning out to be a fuzzball of a baby.
He had soft, downy fur on most of his body, like his father. Except it was a mixture of white and red, taking after both of us.
And his eyes were identical to Kye’s. Even his pointed ears were just like Kye’s and part of me wondered if he’d have tusks like his father too, but we’d have to wait and see on that one.
Dad appeared in the doorway. “I thought I heard my grandson giggling.” He moseyed over, stealing him from Kye.
My eyes drifted over the workshop filled with prototype toys, figurines, and Kye’s sketches.
He’d convinced my dad to start selling his wooden sculptures and to teach him the trade. Except Kye applied it to old-world toys.
It seemed, in a world where everything was digital and holographic, there was a certain charm to old-fashioned wood-carved creations.
Dad and Kye opened a shop—right across from the Reindeer Bowl Café, much to my waistline’s detriment—and were busy year-round, but especially during December.
They did so well that Ivy quit her job at the Mezook Lodge and managed the finances here full time.
Dad went back to the front, taking Jovie with him, and Kye cornered me. Backing me up until my ass bumped into one of the workshop tables.
“You have no sense of personal space, do you?” Not that I minded. Especially when he trapped me there, planting soft kisses against my throat and shoulder.
“We could try for a workshop-table-baby.” His laughter rumbled in his chest, making my toes curl. “How about it?”
It took an extreme amount of willpower to not let his kisses distract me. “First, we’re not trying for any kind of baby while Dad’s here.”
He grunted, twisting the ends of my hair around his fingers. “We could come back after hours.”
My brows hiked into my hairline. “Why would we come all the way back into town when we have a perfectly comfortable bed. And kitchen. And living room. And the armchair that we still have yet to christen.”
We shared a wicked smirk before I gave him a quick, chaste kiss and whispered, “I don’t want a chisel poking my ass while you fuck me. Not sexy.”
“Armchair baby it is,” he sighed, like he was accepting the next best option. “Should I at least buy you a drink first? Soften you up a bit?”
“Hmmm,” I hummed, reaching up to tap his chin with my index finger. “Well, if you insist. How about hot cocoa?”
He shook his head, laughter dancing in his eyes, and I had to keep myself from getting swept away by his gaze. “I know just the place.”
Kye donned his coat and slid his hand into mine. We made our way to The Bowl, ordered our drinks, and met at the windows where, almost exactly one year ago, I’d dabbed whipped cream off his nose.
I reached up now to do the same after he took his first sip, because he still didn’t have the skills to drink The Bowl’s monstrosity properly.
“I’m starting to think you do it on purpose,” I accused, balling up the napkin. I’d never openly admit it was one of my favorite things.
“Holly?”
“Yes?”
“Shut up and forking kiss me.”
And I did. I forking kissed the big, Krampus-looking, kindhearted, funny, foul-mouthed, available all-months-of-the-year alien.
It just happened to be another one of my favorite things.
Author Note
2020 right?
What. A. Year.
I think we’ve all been on a messy rollercoaster. Ya know what it felt like? It felt like Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) in Anchorman. The scene where he’s in a phone booth, having a breakdown and screaming, “I’m in a glass case of emotion!”
Yeah.
That.
I laugh thinking about that scene, but damn. Upside though (because if we don’t look at the positives, we’ll be overwhelmed by the negatives, right?)! For all us hermits, grocery delivery and curbside takeout becoming the norm was AMAZING. And theater releases at home. And it being socially acceptable to not answer your front door.
I hope each and every one of you have a safe holiday and happy new year, no matter where in the world you are, or how you’re celebrating or not celebrating, popping champagne or not popping champagne.
I appreciate your support. So. Dang. Much! And I hope you enjoyed Kye & Holly’s story. They were a fun, quirky, sappy, happy, a-little-unhinged couple to write about. Sia’s album Everyday Is Christmas was definitely my go-to while writing this book, but the songs Snowflake and Candy Cane Lane—absolutely loved and looped.
See you next time!
WOMEN OF DOR NYE
The Melier
The Melier: Home World
The Yarian
The Khyma: Taken Part One
The Incuabri: Taken Part Two
The Melier: Prodigal Son
NOVELLAS
A Wolvenk Holiday
VALOS OF SONHADRA
Tempest
Galvanizing Sol
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Poppy is a small-town American girl, living in a tiny Canadian hamlet, who spends her days pounding on the keyboard, drinking tea, and living one step outside of reality. Her retirement plan is to be abducted by the aliens she writes about, but for now, she enjoys life with her husband, their cats, and when she’s not getting sucked into cute animal videos, you can normally find her with her nose in a book.
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