Gatsby Wolves, Vol. 4

Emelie was hiding from Celine. Or at least, she thought she was. Celine knew exactly where she was, scrunched up under hers and Kade’s bed.

“Hmm, I wonder where oh where, little Emmy could be,” Celine mused aloud. She waited several more seconds before swooping down and catching her daughter by the ankle, pulling her out from under the bed. Emelie yelped, trying to flee as Celine caught her in her arms and tickled her.

“That was a terrible hiding place,” Celine laughed.

“I thought you wouldn’t look in the usual places,” Emelie pouted. “But you always find me.”

“I literally grew you inside my body. Sorry, kid, but you’re never going to beat your mother at hide and seek. Why don’t we play a different game? Like a nice round of Emelie cleaning her room?”

Emelie rolled her eyes, groaning and dramatically going limp in Celine’s arms. The girl was technically only two years old, but she looked closer to six and acted more like thirteen. Always with the theatrics.

“You have more toys and clothes than a fairy tale princess, and you need to keep them put away,” Celine said, amused.

“But Daddy and Grandpa Silas gave me all the toys and clothes, shouldn’t they clean it up?”

“I’ll be sure to point that out to them both,” Celine laughed. “But for now, go put your toys in their chest so we can all go for a walk when Daddy gets home.”

“Fine,” Emelie sighed. Celine kissed her cheek and set her down, and the girl went bounding out of the room. Celine padded downstairs, tidying up Emelie’s school supplies and drawings that were scattered across the coffee table. She could hear Emelie upstairs talking to her toys. With a bit of free time while Emelie cleaned up her toys, or at least rearranged them into a different looking mess, Celine settled down at the piano. She hummed to herself as she played, then paused to make adjustments on the sheet music spread out before her. She tweaked a note here, and a lyric there. She was still trying out how her adjustments sounded when Kade came home. He crossed the room and bent to kiss her cheek.

“I haven’t heard this song before,” he remarked. “What is it?”

“It’s mine,” Celine said. “I know I have a pretty big set list, but it still feels a bit repetitive sometimes. I thought I’d try writing some songs of my own.”

“Of course you did,” Kade chuckled. “Is there anything that you can’t do?”

“Get you to stop spoiling our daughter,” Celine remarked dryly. She turned to face him. “Who, by the way, says it should be yours and Grandpa’s job to clean up her room since you two are the reason she has so many things to clean up. She has a point, you know.”

Kade grimaced and Celine laughed. She rose to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him.

“At the rate you’re going, we’ll need a second house just to hold all the outfits you buy Emelie and all the jewelry you buy for me,” she teased.

“I just want you two to have nice things,” he said, looking pouty. Celine kissed him again.

“We have you, and that already makes us pretty lucky.”

“You lucky? I’m the lucky one,” Kade laughed. “Ask anyone.”

Celine yelped and then laughed as he dramatically dipped her before kissing her again.

“Get a room,” Emelie called from the top of the stairs.

“We’re in a room,” Celine told her. Emelie came down the stairs, taking them three at a time and leaping at Kade. He caught her with one arm, keeping the other wrapped around Celine.

“I put my toys away,” Emelie said. “Can we go for a walk now?”

Celine had a feeling that some of Emelie’s toys hadn’t been “put away” so much as “crammed under the bed,” but she decided she’d deal with it later. The early evening walks before dinner had become a habit for them; Emelie loved to romp around in the wooded areas near their house. They’d try to spot bird nests or Kade would pretend to be a big scary dragon they had to defeat. Which basically just consisted of him letting himself be dog piled by Emelie and Celine. Emelie and Kade “helped” Celine make dinner, and then Kade and Celine both went to tuck Emelie in.

“I want a story,” she declared, looking and sounding for all the world like the little princess Kade said she was, tucked under her fluffy pink comforter.

“What story do you want tonight?” Celine asked, unbraiding Emelie’s hair and pulling a brush through it.

“I want the story about how you two met,” Emelie said eagerly.

“Again? You’ve heard it about a million times,” Celine laughed.

“But it’s my favorite.”

Celine let Kade tell the story in his dramatic, goofy fashion; downplaying the life threatening parts a bit.

“And then your mom saved me from the big scary werewolves, and said she was madly in love with me and agreed to bless me with her presence every day,” he concluded, winking when Celine shot him an amused look.

“All right, now it’s time for you to go to sleep,” Celine said. “You have school tomorrow.”

“I can’t tell if Emelie really loves that story as much as she says, or if she just knows you love to tell it,” Celine teased as she slipped into bed beside Kade

“It’s a timeless classic,” he grinned. Celine laughed softly.

“I really am in love with you,” she said.

“Madly in love?”

“The madliest.”

“That’s good. Because I’m pretty madly in love with you too.”

The next morning Celine gave Emelie and Kade lunches and kisses as she saw them off to school and work. She was back at her piano working on her songwriting when there was a knock at the door. She opened it to find a bashful looking Tommy.

“Come in,” she said warmly. “What brings you here? Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Everything is fine. Uh. It’s my day off so I wanted to come by and talk to you.”

“Would you like something to drink? Or a snickerdoodle? I have a fresh batch.”

She saw him perk up at the mention of the snickerdoodles. Kade was convinced she secretly snuck some kind of magic potion into the batter. She smiled and brought Tommy a plate as he sat on the couch, looking nervous.

“What’s on your mind, Tommy?”

“I…uh. I wanted your advice about something.”

“Oh. Okay. Is this about a girl?”

He choked on his cookie. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I guess I should’ve known you’d know that.”

Celine smiled. “Where’d you meet?”

“At the diner, the one that’s not far from the pawn shop? I go there for lunch sometimes and…well she accidentally spilled a milkshake on me. And she got really flustered and tried to mop it up with a bunch of napkins. She kept apologizing and then asked if she could make it up to me with lunch.”

“That’s so cute,” Celine laughed. “What’s her name?”

“Clara. Clara Miller. She’s a wolf, actually. A pure wolf I mean. But she doesn’t have a problem with shifters. She thinks it’s cool actually, about the pack and everything. We’ve kinda…talked at the diner a few times now. We eat together.”

“That’s great. And she’s pretty,” Celine added, an image popping into her head of a teenage girl with blue eyes and curly red hair cropped around her chin. “So, you want to know how to ask her out and you’re coming to me because you don’t want the guys to tease you.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking sheepish.

“Well. You’ve been talking to this girl for a while, right? So try to come up with a date that you think she’d like, something that shows you’ve been getting to know her. And then just ask her.”

“What if she says no?”

“If she says no, I’ll bake a whole batch of snickerdoodles just for you, but it’s not the end of the world,” Celine said gently. “But I have a pretty good feeling she’ll say yes.”

He smiled slightly. “Thanks, Celine. Can you…maybe not tell anyone about this?”

“Your secret is safe with me,” Celine assured him. She sent him on his way with a plate of cookies, smiling and shaking her head as she went back inside. At least Tommy kept his dating questions simpler and less personal than Delia did.