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Chapter Four
"Daddy, it's choking me." Josh said, tugging at his collar.
Adrian finished tying the lace of the boy's dress shoes. "I'm sorry, baby, but we're going to a very important dinner and you need to be dressed nicely."
"You too?" He asked, looking over his father's garb.
"Yes." He fussed with his tie as he stood. "We dress nicely when we go to see this Grandma and Grandpa."
"We don't see my other grandpa." The boy pointed out, a touch of melancholy in his voice.
"No, we don't. And when you're bigger, you'll understand a little better why."
"Is it the same reason this grandpa doesn't like me and Marti?"
"Yeah." He smoothed the boy's dark hair down. It stuck back up in a few places. He smiled. "But we'll be all right. You have your grandmas who love you very much. And Mommy and me. Mommy and I adore every little thing about you." He scooped his son into his arms and walked across the hall.
"Wow, Mommy, you're beautiful." Josh said when they saw Sydney in the bedroom.
She wore a simple black dress Jill had let her borrow. She smoothed a hand over her stomach. "Thank you, baby." She asked Adrian, "Do I look okay?"
Adrian sat the boy down and walked over to his wife. He took her hands and held them out to her side. He took in every inch of her and gave an appreciative nod. "Very nice. Very, very nice."
"Thank you, sweetheart." She brushed her lips across his.
He leaned over the crib. "Do you think they'll be okay?"
"I don't know." Sydney reached in and picked her up. She placed a kiss to her head and then put her in the car seat. "Now, let me have a look at my boys." She took Adrian by the shoulders and smoothed down his lapels. "As handsome as the day I married you."
He smiled and kissed her hard on the mouth.
"You'll smudge my lipstick." Sydney said against his lips.
"Who cares?" He said before he kissed her again.
She laughed and pushed at his shoulder playfully. She kneeled down in front of Josh. "Well, now, Joshua. You are looking very smart."
He gave her a confused look. "Smart?"
"Handsome. Just like Daddy." She kissed his cheek. "Now, I need you be on your best behavior. Think before you ask a question and make sure it's something you have to know right at that moment."
"Yes, Mommy." There was a note of apprehension in his small voice.
She smiled. "You'll be okay, baby." She stood and found her shoes. "All right, let's get going."
"We have a car waiting for us." Adrian said, picking up Marti.
"Mommy, carry me?" Josh held up his arms.
"Not in these shoes, baby. We'll both fall and get hurt." She held out her hand. "Hold my hand instead."
In the car, Josh kicked his feet nervously. Sydney held his hand steadily. She gripped Adrian's anxiously on the other side. Marti gurgled.
"Stop kicking your feet, Joshua." His father admonished.
He ceased his movement and pushed himself up on his knees to look out the window. "When are we going to be there?"
"In just a moment." He assured the boy.
"Daddy, are we going to have to eat gross things?"
"Probably. But don't be rude about it. Just try it and if you don't like it, move on to something else."
He nodded and pressed his face against the window as they pulled up to the familiar house from the night before.
"Come on, baby." Sydney said as the door opened.
Their son scrambled out and stood on the pavement, staring up at the house in wonder. Sydney took his hand as they walked up to the front door. It opened as they stepped onto the stoop. They were ushered inside and showed to a formal sitting room.
Daniella walked over in a green velvet gown and greeted them warmly. She knelled down in front of Josh. "You're looking very handsome, Joshua."
"Thank you, Grandma." He said, wrapping his arms around her neck.
She laughed and hugged him back "Come along." She stood and took his hand. She led him across the room to where Nathan lounged in an overstuffed arm chair. "Nathan, this is Joshua."
Adrian's father looked at the boy in silence for several tense moments. Finally he leaned forward. "Hello, Joshua. Do you like chocolate?"
He smiled and nodded.
Nathan reached over to the table beside the chair and picked up a box. He opened it and held it out to the boy.
Josh looked up at his parents.
"Go for it." Adrian said.
"Thank you, Grandpa." He reached in and took one of the sweets, stuffing it into his mouth.
"Call me Grandfather." He stood and walked across the room.
Adrian lifted Marti out of the carrier and presented her to his father. "This is Marti."
"Hm." He said as he leaned over her. "Pretty enough. As far as dhampir babies go."
"I guess if you want to be a dick you could say that." Adrian snapped.
"Sweetheart." Sydney admonished.
"Look, if you want me to try, you have to try too." Nathan shot back.
"Nathan." Daniella said from the sofa.
He sighed and held out his arms. "Here, let me have her."
"Are you sure?" Adrian asked uncertainly.
"I am."
He reluctantly passed the baby to his father. The older man looked down at her. A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "You look a little like your grandmother."
"A little." Adrian agreed.
Sydney moved off to sit beside her son and mother-in-law on the sofa. Daniella had pulled out an old photo album containing pictures of Adrian as a small boy.
"Josh really does look like him at that age." She commented as she looked over her son's shoulder.
"I've been looking at these albums all day." She said nostalgically.
"Don't show them the naked ones, please, Mom." Adrian asked with a grin as he and his father sat on opposing chairs.
"Well, why not? I never got the chance when you and Sydney were dating. And you have two children. Obviously that ship has sailed."
Sydney chuckled and kissed the top of Josh's head as her mother-in-law explained about a photo of small Adrian dressed in a bear costume.
Nathan still had the baby and was now smiling down at her. Sydney loved the way Marti seemed to melt some of the hardest hearts. If only her father would take the chance…
Adrian caught her eye and winked.
Nathan tickled the baby's tummy. "Well, this isn't so bad." He said softly.
"No." Adrian responded. "They won't be guardians unless they want to be. Sydney and I have decided that. We'll keep them at home, they'll know who they are and where they come from, but they won't be sent to school unless they're older and they ask to. And then they will most likely come here."
"Here? St. Vladimir's is much closer." Daniella said.
"But we know some of the teachers here on a personal level. We know the results of their teaching. Unless Eddie takes the position at St. Vlad's like they've been begging." Adrian smiled.
A man walked into the room, "Dinner is served."
"Thank you, Jacobs." Nathan said. He looked down at the baby still in his arms. "Um…"
"We can put her back in her car seat." Sydney walked over and gathered her from her father-in-law.
"We have a little bassinet you can put her in while you eat." Daniella said, leading her out of the room. "We had it placed in here earlier. Adrian said you like to keep them close."
"Thank you, Daniella." Sydney followed and smiled. "Look there, Marti. You get to lie down and relax while we eat. Daddy won't be juggling you this time." She gently placed her into the bassinet.
"Nathan was very much the same with Adrian." She said, patting the young woman on the back.
"Joshua, I want you sitting here." Nathan said, pointing to a seat to his left. "You have to tell me about yourself."
He scrambled into the seat. "What do I say, Grandfather?"
He smiled at the boy and started filling a plate. "Are you in school?"
"Yes. Mommy says it's just preschool and I go to Kindergarten next year."
"How old are you, then?"
He held up four fingers.
"Tell Grandfather how much that is, baby." Adrian prompted from across the table.
"Four." He said proudly.
Nathan chuckled. "Good. And when is your birthday?"
"October thirty-seventh." He announced.
"Twenty-seventh." His mother corrected.
"Twenty-seventh. But I stay home with my Daddy sometimes. We paint together."
"That painting there is his." Nathan pointed to a desert landscape above the door. "Somewhere in California, he says."
"Near Palm Springs." Adrian and Sydney said in unison. They laughed.
"I can tell you've been married a while." Daniella joked.
"It's a very special place to us." Sydney said, smiling across the table at her husband.
"Oh?" Her mother-in-law said.
"It's where we fell in love." Adrian supplied.
There was a small silence around the table. It wasn't entirely unpleasant. Nathan and Daniella exchanged a look of two people who had been together and loved each other a long time. Sydney tangled her feet with Adrian's under the table as she leaned over and wiped sauce off the side of Josh's face.
"My mommy fixes cars." Josh said, breaking the silence.
"I'd heard that." Nathan said, looking a little annoyed.
"Sydney is a great mom." Adrian said before his father could say anything against her working outside the home, much less being a mechanic.
"Oh, I don't doubt it." The older man said. "It's just not a profession many women have."
"I learned from my own mother." Sydney said humbly. "And I hope to teach Josh and Marti the important things about vehicle maintenance. More if they wish."
"Those are very good skills to have." Daniella smiled. "If they were trained at one of the schools, they wouldn't learn such a useful tool."
"They'd learn to keep our kind safe." Nathan pointed out.
"I would rather not have my son hear the 'my kind, your kind, our kind' stuff, if you don't mind." Sydney said smoothly.
"Sorry." He said. But he didn't really sound it. "Anyway, I suppose knowing how to change one's own oil could be a useful pastime. Unlike subduing a creature hell-bent on killing Moroi."
"They'll also know how to tell when a belt needs changed or a bolt needs tightened and how to change out spark plugs." She looked across the table to her husband and took a deep breath and turned back to her father-in-law. "As well as self-defense. And when we feel they are old enough to make the decision themselves, we will let them decide if they want to pursue the life of a guardian or go on being whatever the hell else they want."
In the tense silence that followed her speech, Josh said to his father, "Mommy said 'hell.'"
"Yes." Adrian said proudly. "But she said a lot more than that."
"She did." Nathan conceded and went on eating in silence for a while.
Daniella spoke up, "I forgot to ask, how old is Marti now?"
"She just turned a month." Adrian said. He rubbed a toe against his wife's leg. "Growing like a weed. She's going to be pretty tall, I think."
"She's a good baby for one month old."
"She's still mostly sleeping." Sydney looked toward the bassinet in the corner. "I'm looking forward to seeing what she's going to become."
"This one has a good personality." Nathan said, nodding toward Josh. "And quite respectful. You've done well so far."
"Thank you, Dad." Adrian said quietly.
"Yes, thank you." Sydney echoed.
Marti awoke and started fuzzing.
"Does she need to eat?" Daniella asked.
"No, she's fine." Sydney said.
"Then may I hold her?"
"Sure, Mom. Go ahead." Adrian grinned.
As Daniella gathered the baby and the entre plates were taken away, Josh happily announced, "Mommy feeds Marti from her boobies."
Adrian snorted and tried to hide a laugh. Nathan didn't even attempt to hide his guffaw. Sydney turned slightly red and explained softly to her son that while it was a true statement and she didn't hide the fact that she breast fed his sister, it wasn't something people announced at the dinner table.
Daniella sat down with Marti in her arms. "I didn't breast feed long. It didn't work with my lifestyle."
A servant came in with a tray loaded down with individual cups of layered dessert of fruits and whipped cream and sat one down in front of each of them. Josh leaned forward and examined it. His grandparents and father dug in.
"Eat up, Joshie." Adrian said. "This was my favorite dessert when I was a kid."
Encouraged, Josh took a tentative bite. He smiled. "This is delicious." He exclaimed and ate with enthusiasm.
Sydney took a few bites out of courtesy, but sat back after a while. She offered to take Marti, but Daniella swore she was perfectly fine.
"Can I have the rest of yours, Mommy?" Josh asked, licking his spook clean.
"Don't you think you had enough? It might make you sick." Sydney asked, smoothing a hand over his hair.
He shook his head. "There's always room for more."
Sydney chuckled and pushed her cup toward him. "But if it gives you a bellyache, just remember that I warned you."
He nodded happily as he scooped up a spoonful of the sweet confection.
"At least it's fruits and not artificial sweets." Adrian said, reaching out a hand for her.
She smiled and slipped her hand into his.
Marti started fussing some more. Daniella tried to calm her, but it only got worse. Adrian took her and she quieted a bit, but not completely.
"Maybe she's ready to eat now. She didn't do a lot earlier." Sydney reached for her. "Do you have anywhere I can take her?"
"Yes, of course." Daniella stood. "Follow me."
As soon as the women left the room, Nathan looked sternly at his son. "Well." He said.
"Yes?" Adrian asked.
He looked at Josh who was slowing down on the last of the food in front of him.
"You've done well for yourself." He said almost reluctantly.
"Thanks. That means a lot."
"Daddy, I'm tired." Josh said around a yawn.
"I know, baby. We'll leave soon." He chuckled. "You have whipped cream all over your face."
He picked up his napkin and attempted to clean it, but only smeared it further.
His grandfather laughed. "Here, let me help."