The Trouble with Hades

Chapter 47

Beatrice had duties to attend to for the festival and suggested that she could drop us off in town to begin the long day of baby shopping. At the moment, it was just Anzide and myself but it would change later on. When she was done with her duties, Beatrice would join us. Karina was also going to be here at some point, though I don't know when exactly. She said that she had a test to study for and Nora wasn't letting her out until she'd clocked a few hours. I knew that Karina was eager to go baby shopping so I said that we would start with the big ticket items and by the time she was ready to join us, she could help pick clothes and other little things.

Anzide was looking at the prams at the moment, frowning at one of them. He lifted the swing tag to show me.

"Are they serious?"

"Having children is expensive."

"Yeah," he said, sighing.

"Do you like it?"

"It's alright. When will we use it, though?"

I shrugged. It's not like we went on walks or did groceries. Beatrice liked to do the grocery shopping. Personally, I think she liked to do it because it gave her time away from the property. As much as they keep saying everything is fine, I knew it was a struggle. The sooner the house was built, the better. I could say the same about ending the blood war but for now, I was focusing on the one thing that had a strong visual presence in our lives.

"Maybe if we take them somewhere?"

Sighing heavily, Anzide moved further along the row.

"How about we just get it and not worry about how much it will be used?"

"Sure. What else did Beatrice put on the list?"

"Car seats. Cots. Bassinets. Change tables. The list is endless."

Anzide looked exasperated when he turned to me.

"We don't even have the house yet."

"Sure we do."

"It's not in our name, and you can't live in it until this stupid war is done. Where are we going to put everything?"

Pulling him closer, I wrapped my arms around his neck.

"There is room in the marquee. We don't have to get the big items just yet. We'll start with what's needed in the beginning."

Anzide was panicking about it, but the reality was that we were close to finalizing the purchase of the house anyway. Because we were paying cash and there was no mortgage over the property, it was going to be done quickly. It had been inspected and while there were issues, they were only minor. Between building the coven house and the repairs to our home, Henry was going to be busy for a long time. We were yet to inspect the other house but that was happening soon, too.

"You know that we're closing on it next week. We can organize for everything to be delivered the next day."

"To an empty house."

I huffed and frowned at Anzide.

"Well, we can go furniture shopping today if you like."

Because I was in the mood to test lounges. The kind of testing where I'd lay down with my feet up, eyes closed, and perhaps even snoring. I suppose that we needed to find a bed too. Testing the beds might seem inappropriate if my mind was in the gutter, but it wasn't. All I could think about was how much I really wanted to sleep for several hours.

He shrugged and took the scanner from me. With the barcode recorded, Anzide picked the pram that apparently wasn't that expensive.

Row after row, we looked at everything, decided what we wanted, and scanned it. The list that Beatrice had written out for us was long, pilfered from a baby store website but perfect because they'd thought of everything. The bonus of this store and their registry scanner was that anyone could come in here and buy from it. Apparently, that was necessary because they were already having heated discussions about who would buy what for their grandchildren. My father was probably trying to make up for the past when he wasn't around, and of course, he believed that he didn't search hard enough.