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Sergeant Zerbrowski of the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team, RPIT, and his lovely wife Katie held an annual barbecue at their house for all the cops who could come They timed it for when the worst of the summer heat was past, but it was still shorts and tank top weather This year was unseasonably cool, so late August was the date It was the earliest they’d ever been able to do it The cookout was fa at best, and if you wanted to get drunk, Katie Zerbroould hand you your head in a verbal basket before she kicked your ass out the door Since she was a few inches s; it was always fun to see her take on a big, tough, drunk cop and win, but I’d stopped going a few years back Far too , and too le fe the wives had either tried to fix uys had tried to hit on me, ormy social skills hadn’t been up to it, but that had been before Micah Callahan and Nathaniel Graison

They’d been to dinner at the Zerbrowskis’ house before, both to a cop cookout and a dinner party, but those had been uest list for people ould deal better with the fact that I came with two al

I hadn’t intended to brave the big event I wasn’t a fan of crowds, and I didn’t want to have to alienate cops I’d have to ith later by defending my lifestyle to them, but Nathaniel was Facebook friends with Katie, and she’d beenup her secondparty, so my wonderful domestic boyfriend had offered to help, and just like that ere committed

Nathaniel had been cooking for days, mostly sides like potato salad, ed tothat made it healthier but still yummy He’d also baked a frosted layer cake and a batch of homemade rolls If it had been left to Micah and ht, andthe chocolate layer cake, I ondering what he’d done to it toI liked chocolate cake

I wasn’t the only one Mattheas four, asked from his child safety seat in the back, “When can we have cake?”

“After ies,” Nathaniel said auto Matthew a lot in the last two years

I was driving, so I could only glance back at Matthew and Nathaniel He was holding the cake in his lap, because iced cakes and cars are always chancy This was the first time that any of the other cops’ wives had really treated Nathaniel like another wife, and he was a little nervous about it It was cute, and so was he Okay, he was gorgeous, his face lasses They hid the lavender eyes, not blue, but the color of spring lilacs The blue tank top he earing would make his eyes lean closer to blue, but they weren’t I’d never met anyone else with lavender eyes, but they were just the cherry on the too-pretty-to-be-mine cupcake that was Nathaniel, because the tank top also showed off the muscles in his shoulders and arms, a hint of chest The shirt was a little loose as it fell around his upper body, because a tank that clung to his body would just be unfair to the other men at the party

He had his ankle-length auburn hair back in a braid, but I realized that his hair was only a little more red auburn than Matthew’s browner auburn How had I never noticed it before? Maybe it was that Matthew’s curls had finally grown long enough to trail over the collar of his blue T-shirt, because he’d persuaded his row his hair out like Uncle Nathaniel and Uncle Jean-Claude and Uncle Micah Monica ay on a weeklong business conference She was a successful lawyer, and theof one of Jean-Claude’s employees, Robert, who had been a vampire companion of his for over a hundred years It made him feel responsible for the family Monica had no family in town, so he felt we should step in to help her with Matthew It was a noble thought, but since Jean-Claude was the head of the American Vampire Council, he was usually dead to the world when Matthew had to be picked up from preschool, or taken to dance class, he was unable to be on twenty-four-hour availability when Monica had a deposition out of state or a business conference Since Monica’s deceased husband had been a vampire, too, it made me realize she’d have been als you don’t think of when you date vampires

Micah was beside reen T-shirt that did cling, but he didn’t muscle up the way Nathaniel did, and he was five foot three to Nathaniel’s five foot nine, so a baggy T-shirt would have made him look even sle with only a little extra length through the jawline that made him look hter shirt you could see the leanness of his body, the fine hting practice My s, except I did weapons drills iirl frame, too I actually bulked up easier than he did, but I bulked up for a girl, so that between hi more than most woh today he was in jean shorts that wouldn’t have been cohs Nathaniel and I were both in jogging shorts, because they fit over the hs we both had Lush was a word you’d use for both of us, where Micah was lean I’d never dated anyone before as sh to share my clothes I kind of liked it

We both had long curly hair to just past our shoulder blades, his dark chestnut brown that had been blond when he was a child, mine true black and always had been Nathaniel had braided Micah’s hair, and braided the upper level of mine, so we’d be a little cooler in the heat It wasn’t the usual August hot, but it still wasn’t as cool as ainst the St Louis summer sun, but my eyes were just a nice solid brown like Matthew’s, except a little darker Micah’s eyes were green around the pupil with a circle of yellow outside of it; depending on the light, his reen, but they were chartreuse, a mix of both colors, and not human He was a wereleopard, and his eyes were the leopard eyes of his beast form, because a very badthat when he calasseshow unusual his eyes looked, but surprisingly few people realized what they were looking at They’d just say, “Pretty green eyes” People see what they expect to see

Cops don’t, but then everyone at the party knew that my two boyfriends ereleopards They even knew that Micah was head of the Coalition for Better Understanding Between Human and Lycanthrope coroup Lycanthropy was a disease, but less than twenty years ago it had still been legal to kill so it In some western states, even today, if you killed a wereanimal and the blood test proved it, it was deeardless of circumstances

I was in the actual neighborhood where Zerbrowski lived now, driving past the three different styles of house in the development over and over, just different colors, different accessories, but it was an Auely alike The Zerbrowski house was the one-story ranch style Theirs had brick siding and a neatly trih to show they watered it The shrubs were neat and trimmed low near the foundation with a small flower bed on either side of the sidewalk that led to the front door The floere a brilliant splash of yellohite, and red

The driveas full, but there was only one car out in front, and I pulled in behind it Last time I’d been here the entire street had been full of cars; this time we’d arrived early so that Nathaniel could help the other “wives” with the kitchen stuff Meat would be grilled outside by Mr Zerbrowski and any other ement was all very traditional, but then most cops like traditional roles Their jobs can be full of such weird shit I think itto the normal stuff I was a US Marshal for the preternatural branch of the service, which meant I was only involved in cri an active warrant for the Marshal service,zo a lot of historical society jobs lately—you know, raise the dead and just ask them what happened at such and such battle on this date

All my jobs eird shit, so I should have been more conservative than the rest of the police, and once I had been, but that had been before Jean-Claude, master va va corpses Now here I was, showing up with two live-in lovers and a child, all without the benefit of a wedding band Mattheith us for a week; it was the longest he’d ever stayed with us and he was taking it as norht Matthew rather than leaving him home with one of his other “uncles” was because Nathaniel realized there’d be other kids Nathaniel had pointed out that Mattheas pretty isolated from other children once he left preschool Monica was a busy single parent, she didn’t have a lot of tiht Matthew so he could e, and lots of older and younger ones It ht be the most children Matthew had ever been around except at a dance recital The thought was a little overwhelood one for the kid

Once the car was stopped I undid nal for everyone else to undo theirs Matthew could undo his own child safety seat, which is e called it, since he’d objected to “baby seat” as a term