The Housemates

Epilogue

Epilogue

Six Years Later

Elli hung her keys on the rack and set her bag on the table as she entered the house. In her hands was a vegetarian casserole, which she promptly placed in the fridge. Jasper was not in the kitchen, so she headed to the room he had turned into an office shortly after they had moved into the quaint little house. He intercepted her on the way to the study, coming down the stairs and flashing a smile before giving her a quick kiss.

“How was work?” he asked, migrating to the kitchen to heat up the casserole he knew would be there.

“Busy. A bunch of high schoolers came in today and it was hectic, but they liked the food so maybe we have some new regulars,” she replied, smiling at the thought.

“Who’d have thought? Teenagers eating rabbit food,” he teased.

She rolled her eyes. “There are plenty of teenage vegetarians. How was your day?”

“Great. I got some programming done on that game and Mia went almost all day before asking for ‘Mama’.”

A small smile appeared on her lips. It always made her happy to know that their daughter missed her when she was gone. “I should cut back on my hours... Spend more time with you two.”

“That would be great, but do you really trust anyone else to run your restaurant?”

She sighed. “Not particularly.”

He shrugged. “Exactly. Worry about it later, when she’s older. Oh, Noah called. He asked us to babysit on Sunday.”

“Their anniversary is Monday, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but Noah’s working the night shift and Richard has work during the day, so they really won’t get to enjoy it.”

“I get it. Baby-sitting is fine with me. Ryan’s calm enough and Haley and Leo aren’t too bad if they haven’t had sugar.” The twins were more like tornadoes when they were hyper.

“Okay. Addy wants to have dinner as a pack next week. She promised vegetarian food and no bad news.”

She laughed. “Sounds great. Anything else?”

“You got a letter from your favorite vampire,” he replied, gesturing towards the pile of mail on the counter. She sorted through it, finding Blake’s letter. He sent them whenever he had the time, although there was never a return address.

He had been all over the place since leaving. He had even spent some time in England, making sure to stop let Desmond’s family know how he was doing. A year or so ago, he had a fling with another vampire, but it had ended after a few months. Elli figured it had to be more serious than he had made it out to be for him to mention it, but he hadn’t brought it up in quite some time, so perhaps not.

“So how is he?” he asked as she finished reading the letter.

“He was in Japan when he sent it. Dated a human a few months ago, but I guess it didn’t work out. He misses everyone and thinks he might stop by in June when he’s back in the States.”

“That would be nice. He could meet everyone’s kids.”

“Yeah. It would be great. We haven’t seen him in like four years.”

“Three. He came to our wedding.”

She grinned at him. “It’s cute that you remember how long we’ve been married.”

He laughed. “Give it a few more years. I’ll lose track.”

“It’s okay. I’ll still find you cute.”