Well, it was my son’s sexuality, and Neil had a lot of experience with parents struggling to accept the truth. I did not have that problem. “You mean they have a crackling sexual chemistry between them?”
Neil shrugged. “You have to admit Dean is pretty cute. He’s got that silver-haired but-really-young thing going for him.”
“And he has a thing for my kids. He was half in love with Summer.” I’d told him a lot about what had happened with Summer and Marcus while we’d worked together this afternoon.
“So sexual fluidity is big in the outer planes, too,” Neil mused. “You’re handling this pretty well.”
I snorted. “Am not. I’ve got one daughter in what’s probably a hopeless relationship. One who’s a sex god afraid of sex. And one who seems to have worked his way through most of the supernatural world. And who’s ready to die, but only after he’s tried a bunch of illicit drugs because as he puts it, he’s going to die anyway and doesn’t have to worry about getting addicted.”
Neil’s laugh rang out. “I love your kids.”
I turned slightly so I could see Neil’s profile. “Yours seem pretty cool.”
His smile got bigger, the love he felt right there on his face. “They’re awesome. I know it’s not the way I thought I would start a family. I thought Chad and I would find a way to adopt a baby. That’s what we’re taught. You hold that baby in your hands and you’re a parent. It wasn’t like that for me.”
“That’s the easy way, I think. Not that any of it’s easy. They put this tiny thing in your hands and you have a profound connection to this wriggling bundle and you’re a parent. You had to choose. You had to look and see a need you didn’t create and build that profound connection. You didn’t get the perfectly clean ground to plant that garden in. You got all the mistakes and fuck-ups from someone else, and you had to start there. Do you understand how brave you are?”
He sighed, a soft sound. “I don’t know about that. I couldn’t leave them alone, you know. For a couple of years there I thought it had gotten better. I thought we’d fought the battle and my world was safer for wolves like me. Instead, it all just went underground. When Myrddin took over and the Council fractured, it came to the surface. Not all packs, but the brutal ones can do whatever they like again. They left Brendan to die in the woods alone. Chad found him one night while he was hunting. From what I can tell he’d been in wolf form for a long time. We had to teach him how to speak again. Cassie…they brutalized her, but she still had the sweetest smile. Somehow that little girl managed to survive with her soul intact. God, Z, I love them so much. I didn’t know I could love the way I love them.”
I reached out and held his hand. He’d become a parent. He’d chosen to love. “You’ve done a magnificent job with them.”
His hand squeezed mine. “I hope so. I feel like I’m fumbling all the time. It came so naturally to you and Sarah.”
“Hah. That’s where you’re wrong. It did not come naturally. We learned on the job. The biggest problem we had in the beginning was how to change a diaper and get them on a sleep schedule.” Those times had been tough, but they’d eased me into motherhood, letting me dip my toe into what would become a vast ocean of emotion and decisions, teaching me how to handle what would be harder than I’d dreamed. “You were thrown right into the deep end and you swam. Neil, one of the things I’ve learned—and you were one of my teachers—is there is no one way. The world will try to set up a definition of what a parent should be. It’s easier for the vast majority of beings to have this boxed-in definition that reflects their own experience, but it’s false. There are two requirements for parenthood, and neither one of them has anything to do with biology. As you’ve learned, the fact that you donate sperm or manage to push one out of your vagina doesn’t make you a mother or a father.”
“Love and responsibility. They’re the only things that can make you a parent,” Neil said quietly. “Is it weird that the responsibility came first?”
“It always does, babe.” I shifted so I could lean against him. “But the love that comes from it is a wild ride.”
A ride I was thrown off of and had to figure a way to get back on.
“So you don’t have a problem with Lee flirting with Dean?”
“Nope. I always knew my kids wouldn’t be straitlaced when it came to their sexuality,” I replied. “They have three parents who talk pretty openly. One of their dads is a sex god and the other is Fae.”