We led the boys to the grizzly bear exhibit. Tomas got excited when he saw one and yelled, “Bear!”
“No.”
Holly knelt in front of Mikko. “Do you want me to lift you up to seehim?”
Mikko flung himself at her. “No.”
Smiling, she scooped him up and straightened to stand. “Do you see the bear over there?” She pointed at the bear who was lying by the pond, checking out hisreflection.
“No,” Mikko yelled, pointing at theanimal.
“What an adorable family,” a woman next to us, with chin length gray hair, said. Her gaze dropped to Holly’s belly. “Are you having twins again—or just one thistime?”
A light blush hit Holly’s cheeks. “We’re not a family,” she blurted. “We’re just babysitting theboys.”
The woman chuckled. “Well, you’re certainly not babysitting the baby, areyou?”
“No, he’s definitely ours,” Hollysaid.
“Then you’re a family. Even if you two aren’t married, you’re still a family.” To me she said, “I hope you realize how lucky you are, youngman.”
“I do.” Okay, lucky wasn’t exactly how I would describe our situation. None of this had beenplanned.
But since Holly had given me a chance to prove I wasn’t a mess-up like my old man, Iwaslucky if that was what the womanmeant.
I leaned down and lightly pressed my lips against Holly’s to show her just how lucky I felt. It was just the brushing of lips, but it was enough to ignite a fire low in mybelly.
Not the kind of fire that usually led to sex. This was different—I just had no idea what itmeant.
Tomas spotted the nearby bench and hoisted himself onto it. I picked him up and pretended he was a plane. But the moment I stopped making the airplane noises, he squirmed to be putdown.
I lowered him to the ground and threw Holly aWhat-now?look.
“Please tell me this gets easier once it’s your own kid?” Holly said to no one inparticular.
The woman chuckled again and patted Holly’s stomach. “Don’t worry, you get better at it with practice. I had four kids before I finally got itright.”
She laughed at Holly’s horrified expression—which no doubt matched my own. “I was kidding. I mean, not the part about four kids. I had five actually. But everyone starts off feeling like they have no idea what they’re doing. That’s probably why we give birth to helpless newborns instead oftoddlers.”
Two hours later, we dropped off two very sleepytwins.
“Congratulations,” Jyri said, holding on to Mikko. The boy’s eyes were closed, his head resting on his father’s shoulder. “You’re now officially a member ofHDF.”
Kari rolled her eyes. “Good luck with that,” she said to Holly. “You’re going to be at the team barbecue next Saturday, right? It’s a great chance for you to meet the wives andgirlfriends.”
Holly slid me a look that had so muchmeaning.
Oops. All right. That was the PG version of what I was really thinking. Along with me calculating if I had earned enough brownie points yet to make up for my royal fuckup.
“We’ll be there,” I told Kari with a confidentsmile.
Holly didn’t look soconfident.
19
Holly
“Instead of your apartment,”Josh said as we walked along the path to my car after dropping the twins off, “how about we go tomine?”
