Epilogue
COLIN
Getting the babies home takes a freaking army.
We’re not even five minutes into it, and I already feel like I’ve survived a tactical deployment.
Two car seats, two diaper bags, two backup diaper bags (because Dean insisted), extra wipes, formula, the breast pump, snacks for Thalassa, and the portable white noise machine that Tic swears by even though it sounds like a haunted humidifier.
And that’s just to get to the parking lot.
The nurses are sweet but clearly trying to shuffle us out of the room like we’re loitering in a VIP suite.
Fair. Tic checks every strap on every carrier three times.
Dean does a final scan of the discharge paperwork like he’s auditing the Constitution.
I double back twice to make sure we didn’t leave Thalassa’s lip balm.
Thalassa?
She’s the calmest one here. Sitting in the wheelchair with both girls bundled up against her chest, looking like a goddess and a little high on whatever post-birth hormones are still coursing through her system.
She smiles the whole way out, like this is just a normal day.
Like she didn’t push two humans out of her body less than forty-eight hours ago.
The woman is a fucking miracle.
I trail behind her as we wheel out to the car, loading the last of our over-prepared luggage into the SUV. The nurses wave goodbye, and someone tells us to get sleep “while we can.”
Too late. I haven’t slept since the labor started.
But somehow, I don’t even feel it. Not really. I’m too wired. Too full of whatever this is—terror, awe, love, all mixed together and poured into my bloodstream like rocket fuel. Way better than Red Bull.
Once we get home, it’s like the babies know they’re supposed to be here.
I swear I’m not making that up. They settle almost immediately.
Aurelia fusses once when Dean moves her bassinet too fast, but Calla sleeps like she’s been here for months.
Thalassa feeds them in the glider we moved into the nursery, her hair braided back, her face peaceful in a way I haven’t seen since before the final trimester hit her like a freight train.
Tic disappears and returns with fresh water, extra pillows, and a warm blanket. Dean checks the thermostat twice. I just hover like a glorified emotional support tech bro.
It’s not glamorous. But it’s perfect. For the first time, I believe we can actually do this.
Then night falls.
And everything changes.
I thought I was prepared for the birth. I was wrong. Watching her go through it—watching her fight, sweat, cry out, push —and knowing I couldn’t do a damn thing except hold her hand and murmur encouragement…it did something to me.
Broke something open.
I’ve always loved her. I knew that already. But now? Now it’s something worse. Or maybe something better.
It’s consuming. I can’t stop checking on her.
Every time she shifts in her sleep, I sit up straighter. Every time she sighs, I worry it’s pain. I keep wandering into the nursery, just to make sure the babies are still breathing, that the monitors are working, that the temperature’s right, that nothing’s wrong.
It’s not logical. I know it’s not logical. But logic left the building the moment she looked at me with tears in her eyes and whispered, “They’re here.”
Around two in the morning, I walk past the kitchen and find Tic sitting in the dark. He’s at the table, hands steepled, staring into a baby monitor like it’s a live feed from a combat zone. His shoulders are stiff. His eyes are bloodshot.
“Hey,” I say softly, stepping inside. “Didn’t think I’d find you off-duty.”
He doesn’t look up. “I heard Aurelia grunt.”
“She hiccupped,” I say. “I was there.”
He finally glances my way. “She’s loud.”
“She’s perfect.”
“She’s small.”
“They’re both small,” I say, pulling out a chair. “That’s what babies are.”
He doesn’t answer. Just keeps staring at the screen.
I sit with him in silence for a while.
Tic’s never been the type to ramble, and I’ve never needed noise to fill a room. We’ve always communicated best in fragments. Glances. Shared beats. Muted sarcasm. But this silence is heavier than most.
So I say the thing I didn’t say in the hospital. “The birth scared the shit out of me.”
He doesn’t respond, but his jaw tightens.
“I’ve seen heart surgeries. Code red systems going down mid-launch. The kind of tech disasters that end careers. But nothing—not one damn thing—compared to watching her go through that.”
His hands clench slightly.
“I didn’t breathe until both girls screamed,” I add. “Not properly.”
Tic nods once. “I know.” Of course he does.
“I keep checking on her,” I admit. “Like if I take my eyes off her, she’ll disappear. I know it’s irrational. I know she’s fine. But?—”
“It’s not irrational,” he says, voice clipped. “It’s memory.”
I nod. He doesn’t have to say more.
I’m not sure how he survived it, honestly. Loving Serena, losing her, having to face all of this again with someone new. Thalassa is nothing like her, but still—the fear lingers. Maybe more so for him than any of us. He knew what was at stake from the beginning.
“I get it now,” I say. “As best I can.”
Tic raises an eyebrow. “Get what?”
“What it cost you. What it costs you to let yourself love again.”
That pulls him up short. He looks at me for the first time. Really looks. Then he nods slowly. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“And you’re still doing it.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Because she’s worth it.”
“She is,” I agree. “But so are you.”
Tic goes still.
I press on. “You can’t watch over everyone all the time. You’ll burn out. And we need you too much for that.”
He exhales, the sound heavy with exhaustion. “I know.”
“Then sleep,” I say. “I’ll take the next shift. Dean’s out cold, Thalassa’s finally resting. You can get a few hours.”
He looks like he wants to argue. But he’s too tired to do it convincingly. Finally, he nods. But then he hesitates. “There’s something else,” he says, reaching into the pocket of his hoodie.
I frown. “You hiding snacks in there again?”
He pulls out a small, square box.
Black velvet. Familiar. My pulse kicks. “This isn’t what I think it is, is it?”
“I’m not proposing,” he answers dryly. “Not yet.”
“Yet,” I echo, but I open the box anyway. Inside is a ring. Simple. Unpolished. Matte steel, engraved with a date. Our date. The day the twins were born.
“You want us to wear rings?” I ask, stunned.
“Symbolically,” he says. “A kind of vow. For all of us. We can’t get married legally, not all four of us. But we can wear something. A promise.”
I swallow. “Dean know?”
“Not yet.”
I nod, turning the ring in the light. “You want us to match.”
Tic’s voice is soft. “I want it to mean something.”
“It already does,” I say. “But yeah…this makes it real.”
He meets my eyes. “You in?”
I close the box gently. “Always.”
After Tic heads off to bed—with no small amount of lingering hesitation—I stay in the kitchen for a few more minutes, watching the steam rise off my tea and letting my pulse even out.
The whole house is quiet again. Not just still, but deeply, hollowly quiet.
The kind that creeps in when every light has been turned off except one, and you’re the only soul still awake.
But I don’t mind. This is the only kind of silence that’s ever felt…earned.
Eventually, I slip upstairs. The nursery is dim, but I can hear the faint white noise loop, the occasional sleepy hiccup from Calla, and one of Aurelia’s signature squeaky yawns. I step inside like I’ve been trained in covert ops, moving with absurd stealth.
I check their swaddles. Their breathing. The monitor battery. I lean down and kiss each tiny forehead. They smell like milk and sleep and something warm and new.
Then I step into the master bedroom.
Thalassa’s curled on her side, one hand under her pillow, the other resting instinctively where her belly used to be. Her body hasn’t fully reshaped itself yet, and she hasn’t changed out of the baggy sleep shirt she pulled on earlier. But to me?
She’s never looked more beautiful. She looks like safety. Like home.
I lie beside her, careful not to wake her, and for a long time, I just watch her breathe. My hand inches across the space between us and finds hers in the dark. Her fingers curl automatically around mine.
I don’t know how to be anyone’s father. But I’m going to try.
And I’ll figure it out the way I’ve figured out everything else—on my feet, in real time, with a thousand tiny mistakes and one loud heart.
Sometime near dawn, I dream that the babies cry and I can’t get to them in time.
In the dream, I run barefoot through the house, all the doors too far apart, my feet slipping on the wood. When I reach them, the cribs are empty.
I wake with a gasp. But when I sit up, they’re fine. Both of them, just a room away, sleeping like nothing in the world could touch them.
Thalassa stirs next to me. “You okay?” she mumbles.
“Bad dream.”
She yawns and slides closer. “They’re okay?”
“They’re perfect.”
She presses her forehead to my shoulder. “I’m so tired.”
“Me too.”
“We did it.”
“You did.”
And in that moment—tangled up in her warmth, her voice, the weight of our daughters resting in the quiet—I feel it again. It’s real. All it.
I have never been happier in my life.
The End
Dear precious reader, thank you for reading Filthy Rich Daddies!
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