Chapter 13 #2
Erik’s instructions aren’t laminated and bound, but they are in a three-ring binder with dividers and sheet protectors.
“I was close,” he mutters to Bianca as Adam shows them, one more time, exactly how to warm up the twins’ bottles in the bottle warmer (insert bottles, press button, wait until the machine beeps, remove bottles).
Bianca’s got one of the boys, Logan, in her arms while Erik is changing the other, Nathan, before they leave.
“They only need one more feed tonight before they go to bed,” Adam says for the third time, “and they’ve been pretty good at sleeping through the night, at least for the last week or so. We just changed them, so they should be good diaper-wise until it’s time for bed.”
Erik takes a deep breath to cut in. “Which is at . . .”
“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 dozen just one more goodbyes 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 the time 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.
“And domestic is a good thing?” she asks, leading him down the hallway back toward the living room.
He shrugs, even though she can’t see it. “Domestic is a neutral thing. You just always look good.”
“Xavier, we said . . .” She trails off, warning in her voice.
“I know what we said,” he says, scoffing, “but shit, that’s not something I can lie about, boss.”
“You don’t have to lie to me.”
“Right, of course,” he covers, because hasn’t he been lying this whole time? A lie of omission, at least.
“Have you been lying to me, Xavier Byrne?”
“What would I even have to lie about?” He doesn’t quite answer the question.
“Fair enough,” she concedes, collapsing down to the couch cushions and curling into the corner of the massive sectional.
“Besides,” he starts rambling, not even sure why he’s still talking, “there’s literally no reason to lie. There’s no one around here who knows the truth.”
“You never really made friends here, did you?” she says, as he joins her on the couch, shoving himself into the opposite corner.
“No time. I spent the summers on digs to keep my foot in the door in that field and during the school year, it’s just . . . too busy. You were really the only one who . . .”
“Who . . .” She prompts him to finish.
“Who forced her way in,” he says, letting his eyes dance playfully at her, beyond relieved that he dodged that bullet.
“Forced. Seriously? That’s how you’re going to play it?”
“Okay, maybe I thought you were the smartest person I’d ever met and I wanted to keep you around so I could mooch off your academic success . . . maybe.”
One day he’s going to say something he can’t play off or take back and he’s going to be in for it.
“Or maybe I was the only one who’d put up with your shit?”
“And maybe I was the only one who’d put up with yours?”
“Touché,” she says and then she pauses for a second before saying, “I told Miranda about what we’re doing.”
“Did you?” he asks, raising his eyebrows, not mad, but kind of surprised.
“Well, not everything we’ve been doing,” she says with a soft smile that makes his heart stutter, “but that this part isn’t real.” She twirls the ring around her finger, but her words are enough to make his chest ache again.
“And what did she say?” he asks, shifting closer, and he’s pretty sure she did too.
“She thinks we’re crazy.”
“She’s probably right,” he says, running a hand through his hair to keep himself from reaching out to stop her hand from twisting the ring and tangle it with his instead. “Does she have any other thoughts?”
She bites her lip again, just like earlier, and shit, that bottom lip, pouty and soft, might be the end of his self-control. “None that matter.”
“I bet she liked it when you told her that.”
“I didn’t say that to her, exactly.”
“But I bet she told you to call it off and you didn’t, so . . .” He tries desperately to find some way to redirect this conversation to safer ground, one that isn’t about their fake relationship.
“She didn’t actually.”
That stuns him and he leans forward to make sure he didn’t mishear her. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Bianca?” he says, his tongue darting out to wet his suddenly dry lips, swallowing against a very dry throat.
“Yeah?”
“You know how we said we weren’t gonna .
. . that we wouldn’t . . .” He trails off, not even able to verbalize it, because if he says the words, he’s probably going to launch himself across the couch and pull her into his lap and .
. . when did they get so close together?
His knee is nearly touching hers, and if he shifts his weight just a little bit, she might slide off her cushion onto his and then . . .
She sits back, eyes wide, and nods, her hands gripping her thighs, which he can’t look at now because all he wants to do is replace her hands with his. “Right, yeah, we . . . need a distraction. What about . . . a movie?”
She’s up off the couch and away from him, the space beside him suddenly empty.
“A movie . . .” he manages to choke out, “yeah, that should . . . yeah, should get us through. Wait, is that a VHS player?”
“Oh my God, of course, you haven’t seen their collection.”
“Their collection?”
Across the room, there are massive cabinets framing the huge TV that is hung on the wall.
She swings open the cabinet doors and there, from almost floor to ceiling, are the pillars of his childhood.
Large, almost bubbly white boxes made of plastic, the colorful spines listing the movie title, nostalgically familiar, igniting memories that he hadn’t even realized he’d stored away.
“Holy shit.”
“Right? Some of them are from when Erik was a kid, but they’ve tracked down a ton more.”
“Is that Oliver none of that confession is about him. He loves her and he thinks he’s about to die, so he just tells her, as simply and as earnestly as he can. It’s beautiful.”
“I feel like I’m getting access to some kind of secret cheat code.”
“Love how genuine affection is considered cheating.”
“No, I mean . . .”
“I know what you meant,” she says softly. “But really, it’s not much of a secret. That’s all anyone wants, right? For someone to love them genuinely and honestly?”
“Bianca, I . . .” He starts, and his stupid fucking mouth, he’s just gonna fucking say it and he’ll regret it for the rest of his life, he knows it. Her eyes are wide and . . . is that panic he sees? Or . . . something else, excitement? Fuck it, might as well just . . . “I—”
“We’re home!” Erik says, bursting through the door, pulling two suitcases behind him.
“Shh!” Adam hushes him.
“Uh,” Bianca says, staring at them, her eyes flickering to Xavier for a second before focusing back on her friends, “what are you guys doing here?”