It was not the best trip ever.
We'd left Frankie and the Murder Triplets back home with Sally as their guardian, making sure they were fed and all.
I renamed not just Myrrh but all three of the hobgoblins the Murder Triplets, because I'd found out--the hard, disgusting, horrifying way--that all three of them were very much capable of committing war crimes against the entire mouse population. It was time to call the Geneva Convention on those monsters.
Anyways, I digress.
The trip had started out fine and all. Molly was in no way a bridezilla, though I had predicted so to Andrei on the way there. That had started a whole new conversation about a certain tv show that shall not be named here, that we may or may not have decided to binge watch together.
Mom and Dad met us at the airport with Evelyn in tow. The little stinker screamed and threw herself at me once we'd gotten just past security.
Patting her head absently, I pulled away and gestured upwards to my boyfriend.
"Evelyn, say hi to Andrei."
She turned her head ever so slightly to look up at him with wide, shy eyes. She gave a barely passable nod hello, then ducked behind my body to peek at him from behind my out-of-season sweatshirt. Andrei, without prompting from me, took a knee and met Evelyn's eyes.
"Hello, Evelyn, I've heard a lot about you. I'm Andrei." He held out his hand for her to shake. Slowly, she placed her small one in his, and he gave it a firm shake. She giggled at his mock serious face.
"You're bigger than I thought you would be." She noted, a bit more comfortable now.
Andrei gave her a wolfish smile full of teeth and smile lines.
"I eat a lot of fish."
"Will I get really tall if I eat a lot of fish?" Her eyes sparkled, and Andrei's smile shrank into a smirk.
"You'll never know unless you try."
"Samantha, introduce us to this nice young man, here." I heard Mom say from her spot next to Dad. Andrei stood as I gestured to my parents.
"Mom, Dad, meet Andrei. Andrei, this is my Mom, Lillian, and my Dad, Perry."
Andrei shook their outstretched hands as he commented,
"Ah, yes, I remember. You asked me to call you Mother-in-law." Mom giggled like a schoolgirl, and I rolled my eyes and sighed.
This was gonna be a long car ride home.
***
It actually wasn't too bad, it was mostly Mom and Dad grilling Andrei for answers about his childhood, his job, how we met, et cetera. Evelyn popped in occasionally with a question. Andrei even got in some of his own about me as a child. Boy, did I ever not want to remember those stories.
Arriving at the house, almost the entire extended family was there already, having a bit for financial stability to take more time off work. Therefore, we were absolutely bombarded with almost the exact same questions we'd just answered once we'd walked in the front door.
Sarah was the first to absolutely flip her lid once she met Andrei in person. After giddily shaking his hand, she stage-whispered to me from behind her hand,
"He's hot, Russian, and tall. Where did you find this guy?"
I shrugged,
"In the ocean."
Andrei's eyes met mine and he winked. I rolled my own, waving away Sarah's curious look, and introduced him to Tracie and Andy, who were much more chill in their reactions to meeting my boyfriend. Rita and Christie varied between fake easygoing and openly fangirling like Sarah had. My aunts and uncles were no different. In hindsight, they might've been the worst of the group, since they would not stop asking us questions. It was almost constant!
Finally, I was able to get the two of us away from my nosey family members to go help finish some projects for the reception. Andrei showed how good he really was at building things and quickly took over. Feeling in the way, I migrated to filling mason jars--of all things!--with fairy lights and mini bouquets.
We spent the rest of our first day in Arizona helping out with decorations, and secretly sneaking samples of the refreshments Mom was able to make from home. Andrei started to show Andy and his sister Tracie how to use some of the tools and what to do, so the work went even faster.
I was taking a break, overheated a little bit, and sipping lemonade on the back porch, watching them manhandle a trellis with ever increasing precariousness, when Mom came out to sit by me.
"Andrei's such a nice boy." She commented, as Andrei laughed jovially at Tracie and Andy's attempts to straighten out the ever-twisting trellis.
"He really is." I agreed, smiling at the spectacle.
"You know, your father and I have been watching you two--"
"Ooh, creepy~" I jibed, and she chuckled,
"And, we think you two work very well together. Would you be alright if your dad talks with Andrei one-on-one sometime? I know--" She held up her hands to stop me before I interrupted her, "that you haven't been dating long, but honey," Mom took my lemonade from my hand to set it down, then covered mine with hers, "sometimes two people just click."
I sighed, and looked down at my legs for a second.
"Okay. I think that'd be okay." I acquiesced.
Mom rubbed her thumbs over my captured hands, then dropped them and stood.
"Gotta get back to the bread, it needs another round of punching!"
I shook my head, laughing softly at her, and looked back out at my selkie laughing and poking fun with my cousins.
To me, as of this moment, he seemed to fit right in.
***
The ceremony went by without a hitch.
All the decorations were beautiful, including Tracie and Andy's attempt at a trellis. Christie and I took it upon ourselves to artfully arrange flowers and greens among the crickety structure.
Molly's fiance, James, had a large family as well, except his cousins were older and thus had little ones as well. Since we, apparently, looked like the best options, with Evelyn sitting by my side, children started to gravitate towards our side of the venue. Evelyn quickly made friends with the other kids her age, and they went off to sneak desserts from the refreshments table. That left a few preschoolers and one squalling ten month old, handed to me by a mother wanting to dance with her husband to "their song," apparently. Now the unofficial babysitters of the wedding, we looked at each other, then burst into laughter, which startled the baby I held into crying a little bit louder.
Remembering my time as a helper when Evelyn was born, I started pacing and bouncing, cooing softly to the light-haired baby boy. When I paused to turn in my rounds, I noticed Andrei had started to swing the little preschoolers one by one into the air. He never let them go, of course, but the exhilaration of defying gravity caused the dapper little things to cling to Andrei's pants begging for their turn next. My heart melted, and I smiled at my selkie boy softly.
Andrei noticed me looking and paused his thrill ride to step over to me. Patting the baby's head gently, he said as quietly as possible--with music blasting from the loudspeaker at the head of the room by the dance floor,
"He looks tired, he's rubbing his eyes."
"He is?" I flipped the baby around from sitting on my hip facing out to the opposite direction. Like Andrei said, the baby had stopped crying and now rubbed his eye harshly and yawned. Shifting him up higher on my hip, arm aching a little bit, I made it easier for him to lay his head down. After fighting it for a little bit, the ten month old dropped his head on my shoulder and let out a shuddering sigh. Andrei watched the whole thing, smiling absently, gently patting the baby's back. I gazed up at him, never having seen that look on his face before. The moment was broken by three-to-four year olds tugging on Andrei's pants again, begging to play rocket "one more time."
Laughing congenially, Andrei picked up the first to grab his pants and shot them up into the air, the kid screaming with excitement.
After a few more songs--and running out of games to play with the little preschoolers--their parents came back to take them. The baby's mother came back as well, husband in tow, and smiling beatifically. The boy got his hair color from his mother, I noted.
"Did Charlie go to sleep for you? Oh my gosh, you're amazing. Thank you so much!" She cried, as she took the slumbering baby from my arms. Her husband gave his thanks as well, and took one of the preschoolers that looked more like him.
Realizing that we were free from the tiny humans, we sighed almost in sync. Realizing this, our eyes shot to the other's, and we burst into laughter.
"Should we make a run for it before they come back?" I joked.
Andrei grabbed my hand,
"Hurry."
We made our way out of the building as quickly as possible, me almost tripping on my long dress and falling flat on my face, and found a secluded gazebo. We quickly sat down on the swinging bench, breathing hard. Andrei's arms naturally crept behind my back and pulled me close within the circle of his arms.
I giggled, and made it easier on him by scooching closer. Andrei used his long legs to rock us gently, while I propped mine up on the open side of the swing. I absently tapped a rhythm on his forearm, and he repeated it on my waist.
"So~ you've finally gotten to meet my family, what did you think?"
"They are very nice, very understanding when I don't understand what they say."
"That's good."
A comfortable silence fell, before I interjected,
"Did my dad--?"
"Talk to me? Yes."
Nervous flutters pattered through my stomach.
"What did he say?"
Andrei frowned, then repeated solemnly,
"That he trusts your judgement, he says you're a good judge of character. He told me to do my best to take care of you."
The flutters eased, a bit surprised at what my Dad said.
"Was that all?"
"Mm, that was the most important part."
I nodded, relaxing further into Andrei's embrace.
Hearing a change in song from the venue to a slower one. they were winding down now, I decided to ask a question that had been bothering me,
"So you met my family this trip, but when am I going to meet yours? Unless, of course, you wanted to wait on that for a bit--"
"You've already met my family."
I turned around to stare at him.
"What? When? Where? How?"
He chuckled.
"My klan. They are my family. My parents died in a boat accident when I was a child, and my klan was my family after that."
I turned around completely to wrap Andrei in a bear hug.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't know."
He wrapped his arms around me in response,
"It has been a long time, it doesn't hurt anymore. It's just sad, sometimes."
He sighed and looked back at the party still going strong,
"When I see you with your family, I think of mine. What I remember having, what I miss," he looked down at me and cupped my cheek, "what I might have."
I gulped, transfixed by the soft tears in his eyes, barely even there.
"Do you remember what you said to me the first time I spoke to you?" I asked in barely a whisper.
"Yes." He whispered back.
"Andrei?"
"Mm-hmm?"
"Do you want to get married?"
"Sammy, moye serdtse," He kissed my forehead and paused there, soft lips and slightly scratchy chin pressed against the skin there, "I have been your husband since I took my coat back from you."
My heart stuttered to a stop, and he continued,
"But I want you to have a human ceremony as well--"
"I don't need a special human ceremony. I don't need all of," I gestured all around me, "this. I just need to know that you belong to me, and that I belong to you. Always."
He took my left hand and placed it over his heart, which I could feel was beating a swift tattoo against his chest,
"Always." He echoed, a solitary tear streaking down from the corner of his eye. I kissed him then, my sweet, wonderful, kind, amazing fiance-husband-selkie-man, and he kissed me back.