I adjusted my bag on my shoulder and headed down the hill to join my family and friends. Ethan, Josh, Tyler, and Alec were with me every step of the way.
Epilogue
I heard Alec thudding through the foyer and snapped my head up to check the time.
“Shit.” I cursed under my breath. “Alec!”
“Yeah?”
“You may wanna skip the workout. We should probably head to the hospital soon.” I leaned over my desk, rushing to finish the section of the research report I was working on.
Alec appeared in the doorway. “What do you mean? Now? It’s happening now?” His eyes were wide, his shoulders tense. He looked like a really sexy, tattooed deer in headlights.
Before I could answer, Uncle Luce wheeled himself out of his office. Mine was next to his on the ground floor. I’d had it set up just before I started my PhD. As I researched how Vivid Light could be used to treat terminal diseases, it was handy to have a space to work from at home.
“Yeah, you may want to get going,” Lucian said. “I’ll meet you all down there later.”
“Shit!” Alec ran his hands over his buzzed hair. “Should I change? Never mind. No time. Let’s go.” He waved his hands maniacally, trying to shoo me out of my chair.
I groaned and got up, reluctantly giving up on getting any more work done. “Alec, calm down. These things take time—sometimes days. We’re not in any kind of rush.”
“You don’t know that,” he argued. “Sometimes they happen fast. Really fucking fast. Like in the back of the car on the way to the hospital fast.”
I chuckled as I took my time walking down the hallway; Alec buzzed around me like a toddler on a sugar high.
Josh came down the stairs just as Alec and I reached the foyer. He had my bag and shoes in his hands.
“Heard Alec losing his shit.” He gave my Master of Pain a teasing grin. “Figured it was time to go.”
Alec flipped him off as he grabbed his wallet and keys and I slipped my feet into flats.
Josh drove, the leather pads on his elbows stretching every time he changed gears. When he’d started teaching Variant studies at Bradford Hills Institute, he’d taken to wearing tweed. He was pairing the traditional, preppy Ivy League uniform with his band T-shirts and jeans, combining his two signature styles into one delicious one. When he wasn’t at the front of a lecture theater, he was leading a program that provided Variant studies teaching in public, predominantly human, schools. All the girls had crushes on Professor Mason—human and Variant.
As we walked up to the maternity wing in the hospital, Tyler and Ethan got up from their seats in the waiting area.
Ethan wrapped me up in a big, warm hug and gave me a soft kiss that I just about melted into. He was in a white T-shirt but still had his chef pants on. He was the head chef at a painfully trendy restaurant in Manhattan and chasing his first Michelin star. In the next year or two, he planned to open up his own restaurant.
“We don’t have time for this.” Alec tried to wedge an arm between us, and we pulled apart, chuckling.
Tyler pulled me away from both of them with a hand around my waist. “Would you calm down? You’d think it was Eve about to have a baby and not Dot, the way you’re carrying on.”
He gave me a kiss too, taking his sweet time—no doubt to irritate Alec. Tyler was the youngest headmaster Bradford Hills Institute had ever seen. One of the first things he’d done was create a new position—a human liaison who worked on building ties with human communities and broadening the Institute’s admissions guidelines. Tyler had just come from a meeting in the city. His tie was loose, his crisp shirt rolled up at the sleeves.
I smiled against his lips and pulled away, putting Alec out of his misery.
“OK, which room are they in?” I asked.
“This way.” Tyler took my hand and pulled me down the corridor.
Outside the door to Dot’s birthing suite, Olivia sat casually flipping through the latest edition of Variant Weekly while Henry slowly paced the corridor, a very serious frown on his face.
We shared hugs as Alec scowled at us all impatiently.
Everyone else stayed outside as Alec and I went in.
“Your pain management plan has arrived.” I grinned.
Dot looked up from her phone. “Thank fuck. The contractions are getting really close, and I’m more dilated