Bear hangs up the phone, glaring down at the silverware in his hand before he drops it into the open drawer.

We’re older now. The both of us. The lines around his eyes are pronounced, and he’s got streaks of gray in his hair that Ty gives him so much grief over. He doesn’t move as quickly as he used to, and I still think he’s too thin, but he’s still got that fire in his eyes, his mind still moving almost quicker than I can keep up with.

To me, he’s perfect.

He always has been.

“Trouble in paradise?” I ask lightly.

He looks up at me and scowls. “Your nephew asked if he could give Lily pot for her birthday. Pot, Otter. Marijuana. Because apparently she asked for it.”

“This isn’t going to go well, is it?”

“You’re damn right it’s not,” Bear says, eyes flashing. “There’s going to be some words. You can bet your ass on that.”

“Or,” I tell him, “You can go do your guy’s day with Creed, and I’ll do lunch with the kids and get as much info on it as possible and then promise not to say anything but then tell you everything as soon as we get home.”

He grins at me, and even now, after all these years, my heart trips a little at the sight. “God, I love you,” he says. “So devious. We’re pretty much the best parents who ever existed.”

I roll my eyes as I step forward, placing my hands on the counter on either side of him, boxing him in. He tilts his head back to look up at me, a mischievous look on his face. He leans up and kisses my jaw once. Then again.

“I have a better idea,” he says, chest bumping mine. “We tell the kids to get the hell out of the house, and then you take me upstairs, and we get naked.”

I kiss him fiercely, because I can, his tongue brushing against mine.

“I read that your libido is supposed to be one of the first things to go when you get older,” a disgusted voice says from behind us. “I wish that was the case in this house. Old people should not be allowed to eat each other’s faces in front of impressionable youths.”

Bear and I both sigh at the same time into each other’s mouths.

We’ve had a lot of practice doing that.

“You hear that?” Bear says, murmuring against my lips. “We’re old people.”

“And apparently eating each other’s faces,” I whisper back. “Maybe we need to have the sex talk with them again, because I don’t know if we did it right.”