“Also, if you leave now there is a chance Cassie will kill you in your sleep and then you will miss it all, you sure you want to be on her bad side?” I nudge him and then hinge my arm back and forth like I’m wielding a knife, mimicking the sounds of a horror movie soundtrack.

“Okay, yes, you have a point.” He laughs pulling my arm from the air and kissing the inside of my wrist.

“That’s because I’m always right,” I say smugly. “If you think you can’t play any more, that you are going to end up getting yourself hurt, then I will stand by you. But don’t leave because you think you’re being a bad dad, because you aren’t. There is no one else in the world I would have wanted to have a baby with,” I say as I lean forward to lay a light kiss against his lips.

“I love you, Sunshine,” he tells me.

“I love you, too. Now try my pie.” I change the subject as I stand and walk to the kitchen pulling him behind me.

“You’re going to initiate sex right now? In the kitchen? I’m down.” He slides his arms around my waist and kisses along my neck, his stubble tickling the sensitive skin behind my ear.

“No, you pervert!” I say with a giggle. “I made a practice pumpkin pie for the team’s Thanksgiving this year.” I’d been thinking for a couple weeks about the holidays coming up – I don’t feel like I ever had the traditional, huge family Thanksgiving. But for the first time in years, Anders isn’t able to go home for the holidays, and I could see the opportunity for a new tradition being born.

Lyndsey stepped up to help Anders plan a family dinner for anyone on the team not going home, but no matter how many times I ask, she still says there is nothing between the two of them. I call bullshit.

“Anders told you not to bring anything except, I quote, ‘your cute selves and those even cuter kids of yours’. You didn’t have to make a pie.” Liam’s attempt at a southern accent is terrible, but it always makes me laugh. While I cut some pie for the two of us he grabs plates and cutlery for us.

“I am not going to his house for the first time empty-handed, that would just be breaking some cosmic law,” I object to him. Maybe that is something Eleanor did give me: proper guest-host etiquette.

“Two slices please,” Liam asks. I’m not a baker, and I will take it to the grave that this is actually the third pie I made today. On the first try I forgot to preheat the oven so it was cooked at the edges and liquid in the middle.