“Seven,” Bianca finishes for her friend. “I love you both so much, but I used to watch Alec all the time when he was an infant. I’m good and I’ve got an extra set of hands. Go, please, before you never get out the door.”
A half hour, more instructions, and half a dozenjust one moregoodbyes for the babies (mostly for their dads) and Erik and Adam are in the car, driving away from their West Hollywood duplex.
And as soon as the door closes behind them, the babies start bawling. Right, that’s why Adam was warming up the bottles.
“Shit,” Bianca curses, lifting one – Logan, Xavier thinks – into her arms. “Can you grab Nate?”
“Uh . . .” He hesitates, not remembering the last time he held a baby.
“Just lift him under his arms and hold him against your chest. He can support his own head.”
He follows her lead, and while it feels like Nathan might squirm right out of his hands and fall the nearly six feet down to the ground, he carefully rests him against his chest, a hand naturally falling to the tiny back to keep him close. Nathan doesn’t stop crying exactly, but it’s more a whimper now, a snotty, wet whimper that leaves behind a spot on his t-shirt.
Bianca wrinkles her nose as she grabs a bottle and motions him to sit down.
Xavier tries to shrug with the baby in his arms and fails, but he says, “Way worse things have happened to way nicer shirts.”
“Here,” she says, handing him the bottle, “just prop him up in the crook of your arm . . . and yep, just like that.”
Nathan knew exactly what to do once that bottle was near his face; he latched on, tears completely gone as he focused on eating like a champ.
“You’re a natural,” Bianca says, grabbing a bottle for Logan and sitting beside him on the couch.
“Eh, probably more biology than anything else,” he deflects. He’s just . . . not gonna think about what this feels like, not going to let himself indulge in a fantasy about something he’s not even really sure he actually wants, let alone if it’s what she wants. She seemed noncommittal about kids when they talked about her nephew, and he kind of feels the same way. But . . . doesn’t that mean they’re even more of a perfect fit than he thought?
He looks over to her as she’s humming at Logan softly while he demolishes his bottle, and it happens again – something in his chest, traitorous and aching, clicks into place.
Shit.
Does he want this, one day?
Yes, but only with her.
A kid with her wild curls and maybe her eyes and yeah, definitely her smile.
The same one she’s giving him right now as their eyes meet.
“See? We’ve got this,” she says.
“Yeah,” he says, “yeah, we do.”
The babies are absolute angels after that, which he knows is complete fool’s gold and in no way indicative of what actually having infant twins is like on the day to day. Still, it’s exhausting. He feels like he has to keep his eyes on both of them at all times, even though neither one of them is actually mobile yet. By thetime they’re ready for a diaper change and bed, Xavier’s more exhausted than . . . maybe he’s ever been, at least mentally.
Not even working on his thesis had him this drained.
“It’s because it’s out of your skill set,” Bianca explains when he says as much.
Logan’s already settled down into his crib and she’s changing Nathan, leaning away as she removes the dirty diaper. When they’re both sure they’re not about to be sprayed directly in the face, which apparently Alec did to her a few times before she learned to get out of the line of fire, she continues, “If someone asked you to write a quick speech on the justice of repatriation, you’d be able to do it, no sweat.”
“Maybe,” he agrees.
Then, with the ease of someone who’s done it . . . at least way more often than he has, Nathan’s diaper is off and he’s wiped clean. Ointment and powder is applied before a new diaper is on and secure, his pajama onesie buttoned up for the night.
“You look good like that.” He can’t help voicing his thoughts.
“Don’t you start,” she says, as she settles Nathan into the crib with his brother.
“You do, very domestic,” he whispers, half teasing now as they turn on the monitor like Erik showed them, turn off the light and leave the room, hoping bedtime will be as simple as that.
