From scratch ✔️

11. Family dinner

Simon turned out to be a pretty nice guy and together with Lena they made my days even more fun. Somehow they were similar - both silly, like teens, and kept the mood light, although I was getting more tense by the hour. Simple reason - in a couple of days all the family would be together (except for the second son - Nick, who's gone till November) and I would meet Nathan, the Alpha, and it would determine my faith in the matter of staying in town. It was now the end of July and my belly was getting bigger, but somehow I found it strange. I googled pregnancy and discovered, that I started showing really early, way to early. I had a small bump on the second month, which was uncommon, but I gathered, that I was just having a veeeery healthy baby... what other explication could there be? And also the doctor never said that something was wrong, so I didn't really have a reason to be worried. Except for the fact, it it was getting harder to walk with the additional weight, but I couldn't do anything about it, so I'll just have to suck it up. As to the vet thing, doc Evans did drive me to the nearby town and we filed all the papers, starting from this point I had exactly one month to study and then I would take my final exams and graduate. That is if I pass.

Right now I was sitting in the kitchen and chopping carrots for dinner, that we decided to make for one of the sons that was due to arrive later tonight, don't know which one though, so I decided to get some inter from Shirley, just to be ready for everything.

"So, tell me about this son of yours? Anything special I need to know?"

Shirley glanced at me from her spot near the stove and went back to the sauce, that was sending some enchanting aroma straight to my nose and teasing my always hungry tummy.

"Well," she started, "this is Simon's twin, actually. His name is Seamus and he's 10 minutes older, thus, 10 time serious"

"It's not so hard being more serious than Simon...", I chuckled. Shirley had found my remark quite amusing as well and laughed with me.

"True, dear. They've been polar opposites their whole life - Simon the troublemaker, and Seamus cleaning up his mess to keep him out of trouble. Due to that they argue a lot, but nothing major. Always got each others backs and are pretty successful at hiding their deeds from the parents. I swear, half of their mischiefs is a mystery to me and somehow I'm glad about it!"

The way Shirley spoke about her sons made me a tiny bit jealous. I mean, look at them, all grown up, still so close, they have their parents unconditional love, even though they challenged them all their life. And then there is me, always the good girl, never lied, never stole, polite and kind, and then when I needed my parents the most, they turned on me and threw me out like some useless trash. This was an example of the family I craved. This was the love I would give my child no matter what.

I tossed my now chopped carrots into a bowl and moved on to peeling potatoes.

"Wow, you have such a lovely family, Shirley, you are so lucky..."

Something in my voice must have gave away my mood, even though I tried to hide it, it made Shirley turn the heat under the pan way down and take a seat right across from me. She gave me a soft look and a pat on a hand before speaking.

"Emily, love, listen to me. I don't know a lot about you. In fact, I know nothing about you, except for what you've told me, but I know one thing. You are a kind soul and a good person, hard working and honest, If I had a daughter, I would love for her to be just like you. I know that you don't know us, but we care for you and we consider you our family, at least me and Jonathan. Hell, Hannah and doc Evans consider you family already, if you haven't noticed. So let us take care of you and share some love with you and be the family you deserve, ok?"

Her kind words and acceptance struck me straight in my heart and I felt tears streaming down my face. How the hell did this happen? The people that I knew less than two months took me in and now want to take care of me? They consider me family? I grabbed Shirleys hands, squeezed them hard and choked out a thank you. We just sat there for a couple of minutes, then she patted my hands again and without another word we got back to cooking dinner. What else was there to say? All was left was to embrace the warm feeling and be grateful.

* * *

Seamus arrived not long after our conversation. He was a carbon copy of Simon, but a tad bit more serious, less smiley. He greeted me with a firm handshake, apparently someone already talked to him about me, so he wasn't that surprised about the fact that I was human, in fact, he didn't say a word about it, but went straight to questioning me about work. He himself was studying to become a bookkeeper, a place in town council was secured for him to deal with the packs finances, but he was curious about everything in the world. The dinner was light, Lena and Simon were goofing around and making jokes, which resolves in Seamus constantly rolling his eyes and Jonathan barking laughs every now and then. Shirley was beyond the moon having the house full with people.

"So," Simon started with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "How's life with humans on campus so far?"

Seamus rolled his eyes once again, but answered his brother calmly, in his usual style, if I figured him out correctly.

"Not bad at all, and not boring, if you're about that."

"Really? How have you been entertaining yourself?" Simon was adamant to find something to tease his brother about, I just sat there waiting for how it will all play out.

"As a matter of fact, I have made a couple of friends amongst my course mates. We attend a book club and regular poetry readings in the campus cafeteria."

"Wow, that's so exciting....", Simon teased.

"Simon! Stop mocking your brother, at least he knows how to read!" Scolded Shirley. Simon widened his eyes with pretense hurt.

"I can read! I read 2 whole books during the semester!"

"Yeah, yeah", Lena chimed in "one was the TV manual, and another one was the menu in McDonalds?"

Seamus snorted at that. "Sounds like my brother, alright."

"Hey, at least my tv works..." Simon defended himself.

That's, basically how the dinner went, full with harmless teasing, jokes and stories about Simon's and Lena's deeds when they were teens. I went to sleep with a smile on my face feeling happy that I have a new family. Now the only thing left was to impress Nathan and get accepted into the pack. Easy peasy, right?...