His Pups Called Me Mama. He Called Me Nobody. novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Ours

"Clover," I said. "Listen to me."

Heavy breathing on the line.

"Where I live, you live. That's the rule. It was always the rule."

"Even in the castle?"

"Especially in the castle."

"Can Mister Buttons come?"

"Mister Buttons gets his own room."

A gasp.

Then, to someone in the background: "ARLO. Mister Buttons gets a ROOM."

We drove home for two days.

Mags slept across the whole back seat with her bad leg up and snored.

The circlet rode in a shoebox on my lap, because I wasn't wearing a crown in a pickup truck.

We came over the last pass at sunset on the second day, and the lake was gold below us.

The whole Langtry household was on the porch.

So were the Silver Moon remnant.

There was a bedsheet hung between the porch posts.

Somebody had painted on it in big blue letters.

WELCOM HOME QEEN MAMA.

"Clover spelled it," said Aldric.

"Clover can't spell."

"Arlo held the brush. Clover told him how."

I was out of the truck before it stopped.

They hit me at the bottom of the porch steps, both at once.

Clover went straight up into my arms.

Arlo held on around my waist and didn't say anything at all.

He just held on.

"Did you bring the crown?" Clover demanded, into my neck.

"It's in a shoebox."

"Can I wear it?"

"Tomorrow."

"Can Mister Buttons wear it?"

"Tomorrow."

Arlo let go of my waist.

He looked up at me very seriously.

"I have to ask you something," he said. "It's important."

"Okay."

"Now that you're a queen, are you still allowed to be Mama?"

The porch went quiet.

The cook put her hand over her mouth.

I knelt on the step in front of him, so we were the same height.

"Bug," I said. "I was Mama before I was anything. I'll be Mama after everything. They can take the crown back if they want. Not that."

"Okay," Arlo said.

He thought.

"Can it be official, though? With Dad saying?"

He turned and looked at his father.

Aldric was standing at the bottom of the steps with my bag.

He set it down.

"It's official," Aldric said. "I'm saying."

"Out loud. In front of everybody."

Aldric looked around at the porch, the household, the old Silver Moon wolves, the cook with her hand over her mouth.

"She's your mother," he said. "She's been your mother for five years. Anybody who calls her anything else in this house can explain it to me."

Arlo nodded, satisfied, and went to tell Mister Buttons.

That night I did bedtime with him.

Both of us, together, for the first time.

He did the bear.

I did the rabbit.

Clover said we were both bad but Daddy was worse.

Arlo checked the window and the closet himself and made his father say goodnight to the moon, and then made me say it too.

"Both moons," he said. "Real one and mine."

"Goodnight, moons," we said.

Out in the hall, Aldric shut the nursery door very softly.

Then he stood there with his hand still on the knob, not moving.

"What?" I said.

"Nothing."

"Aldric."

"I keep waiting for somebody to take it back."

I took his hand off the knob.

I walked him down the hall to his room.

The same room.

The same window over the lake.

It was silver tonight.

The Hunter's Moon was two nights old and still nearly full.

I turned around in front of the window and pulled my braid over one shoulder, off my neck.

He went very still.

"Twice I told you not yet," I said.

"I remember."

"I'm not saying it tonight."

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