Carolina Wren

Chapter 30

Wren's POV

Around noon, Victor heard my stomach starting to grumble as we were ringing up our purchases. Rubbing a soothing hand down my arm as I watched the number rise in horror, he said, "Gabe, it's time for a break."

Gabe actually pouted, like he hadn't been spending his friend's money all morning. "We have another store in this section that I wanted to hit."

"Wren's hungry, I'm hungry, and I'm sure the kids are hungry. We need to eat. We can hit the rest of the stores after lunch."

He was still frowning but agreed. Once Victor had swiped his card and signed his name, we headed out towards the play area. When Keegan saw me, he took off sprinting towards me. Luke, not realizing that I was there, went chasing after him. "You're too short to be this fast! Slow down!"

I started giggling and Luke's head shot up, a grin spreading as Keegan collided with me and I scooped him up. "Regretting releasing him from the containment device?" I teased as I hugged my brother close.

"I'm starting to understand why people put leashes on their kids."

North grunted as he took bags from Victor. "All you had to do was ask Uncle. I'm sure he could give you a list of reasons from your second year of life alone."

Luke leveled a grin at him. "Nah. He just gave me candy. I behaved for candy." North's expression turned into a full-on scowl before growling at him to take bags from Gabe. Watching the three of them on their latest trip to deliver my clothes to the back of the suburban-- Luke's steps far more energetic than Gabe's or North's-- I didn't have to work too hard to imagine a world where sweets were used as an effective technique to get Luke to do anything.

A hand slipped into mine and I looked up into Victor's amber colored eyes. He spoke to Kota, though. "Wren's hungry and I'm sure the boys are, too. Let's go claim a table while we wait." Kota nodded and pointed out the stroller to Victor before we all started trooping to the food court.

As Kota and Victor pushed two tables together, gathered chairs, and procured a highchair for me to drop Keegan in, Dylan perched a knee on a chair as he looked around the food court curiously. "What are we eating?" he asked, his eyes wide as he took in the glowing signs over all of the different options.

Kota sat down in the seat next to him, rubbing Juni's back as she woke up. "That's the fun part about eating at a food court," he told him. "You can eat anything you want, here. All of the service counters have different options. You can get a burger, chicken strips, Chinese food, hot dogs, baked potatoes, pizza..."

"Pizza?" Dylan chirped, straightening up and looking around.

Soft smiles graced both of the guys lips. "Yeah, you can get pizza if that's what you want. Keegan, do you want pizza?"

The last sentence was delivered in sign language and Keegan watched his hands just as curiously as he watched Luke's. I knew he couldn't understand it yet, but I still loved that they tried. That they wanted to give him the chance to become fluent. "I think I'll get Keegs some chicken nuggets. It'll probably be the least messy option."

Kota winced, looking apologetic. "Sorry, Wren. I didn't think about how messy it would be. Luke's on his way back over and he'll probably get a burger from the same place, so he can grab it for you. What do you want to eat?"

It took all of my effort not to sound wistful. "Chinese. I'm getting Chinese food." It's been years since I've had Chinese that I didn't make myself, and that was mostly a sad rendition of fried rice that was cheap, easy to make, and easy to get the kids to eat. "Give me Juni and I'll start on her bottle. I'll go grab my food once I'm done."