Anita Blake 22.5 - Dancing by Laurell K. Hamilton Read Free Book Online

to have a kid to keep track of at an event like this; hell, it was weird not to be solo. I’d been part of a “couple” for years, but rarely felt welcome to bring my multiple people to ordinary get-togethers like today.
    Micah leaned in from his seat beside me, and asked, “What are you thinking about so hard?”
    I smiled at him. “It’s just weird to have someone sitting at the kid’s table that’s mine, ours, to keep track of.”
    “Weird bad, or weird good?” he asked.
    I poked a fork into the food on my plate, trying to think the question through rather than just answering it. “Good, I think.”
    Nathaniel leaned in from the other side of me, resting his cheek against my hair for a second, before he said, “I love having Matthew here, and he’s really enjoying the other kids.”
    I agreed that was true. I tensed a little, waiting for him to push on the whole baby thing. He’d made no bones about the fact that he wanted us to have kids. He’d volunteered to give up his job and be a full-time stay-at-home dad.
    The woman with the brown pigtails who had been part of the group in the kitchen sat down in an empty spot across the table from us. I tried not to tense up. “I’m sorry about earlier, I didn’t realize you had a kid. What’s his name? Our Becky and he are getting along really well.”
    “It’s okay,” Nathaniel said.
    “His name’s Matthew,” Micah said.
    I waited for one of them to explain that he wasn’t “ours,” while I worked through the whole idea of this strange woman having seen my sweetie naked and nearly having sex with another stranger. I was okay with Nathaniel’s job most of the time, but every once in a while it got beyond my comfort zone, and I was left not sure how to feel, or act, or . . . It was just one of those weird moments.
    “I’m Jamie, Jamie Appleton, my husband Kevin is around here somewhere.” She looked up as if trying to spot him, and finally found him on the deck with Zerbrowski and a knot of other men talking and laughing. She pointed out a tall man with short, nearly black hair. “That’s Kevin.”
    “Where’s he work?” I asked.
    “He’s in vice, right now, but he’s looking to move.”
    “Where does he want to transfer to?”
    “Homicide, or preternatural,” she said.
    Ah, I was seeing why she was sitting with us now, and why she’d apologized. She was doing politics for her husband like a good spouse does, and I was in a position to give a good word for Kevin Appleton to the preternatural squad if I wasn’t pissed about the whole lusting-after-my-boyfriend thing earlier. Or maybe Jamie really was sorry, and especially so because our “kids” were playing together. Maybe, and maybe Santa Claus was a friend of mine, or was I being too cynical? Maybe, but I doubted it.
    “How long has he been in vice?” I asked.
    “Five years.”
    “Most people need a change after that long,” I said.
    “Would you want to transfer?” she asked.
    I thought about it, and finally said, “I’m not sure. My skill sets are a little specialized to work anywhere else.”
    One of the little girls shrieked. It made us all look up. The little boy across from Matthew was trying to hit him, but the table was too wide, so he’d climbed onto the table and headed for Matthew.
    The three of us were up and moving toward the fight, as were a lot of the adults. Matthew got up from the table and tried to avoid the other boy, but he’d waited too long, and the other boy launched himself at Matthew and down they went.
    It was Zerbrowski’s son, Greg, who got there first, because he’d been forced to sit at the little kids table; at twelve he had resented it. He grabbed a glass of ice water and dumped it on the fighters. By the time we got there, any adult got there, the little boys were silent, wet, and panting, still entangled, but not really fighting anymore.
    I picked up Matthew and a man I didn’t know got the other little boy. They both had dark straight