Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
JP woke up, feeling amazing, loose in his skin. His best morning since he’d been hurt. He grinned, the smile pulling at his cheeks. He was still riding the high of his orgasm. Ian had been patient and loving and despite, JP’s belief that it wasn’t going to happen, it had happened.
He kissed the top of Ian’s head, the man curled up with him, snuggled in.
“What time is it?” Ian sighed softly. “Are the babies still sleeping?”
“Not sure on the time, I just woke up. And the kids aren’t in here with us, so I assume they’re still sleeping.” He considered that a moment. “Or up to something…” He hoped they were still sleeping.
Ian chuckled. “I don’t want to think about what they could possibly be getting up to, but you know Tori as well as I do. She’s much more likely to bounce on us and tell us she’s hungry. If it’s quiet, and there’s trouble, that’s Peter.”
“Our quiet shy boy? If there was trouble he’d be more likely to run the other way, no?”
“Unless that trouble is…oh…taking the vacuum apart.”
His eyes went wide. “Oh, shit.”
“Yes. Or taking the bottom part of his door off the hinges. That was fun…”
JP had to chuckle at that. “So there is stuff he rushes headlong into, same as Tori. Just in a different way.”
“Yes. If it involves a screwdriver or mechanics…” Ian shook his head and stretched. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good right at the moment.” He gave Ian a grin. “Last night was… it was really good, Chou.”
“It was. You tasted…just like I remembered.” Ian kissed his jaw.
“I didn’t think I’d get there, but-- like I said, magic.” He turned his face to kiss Ian properly.
Ian chuckled softly, smiling against his lips. “Yes, well…I was inspired.”
“I’m glad.” He licked at Ian’s lips, traced them with the tip of his tongue.
“Be good, now. I have to make breakfast and be a good father.” Ian’s gaze was happy, though, and that smile was something he felt in his bones. “What is on your schedule today, love?”
“I have to do my PT, but it’s the at-home stuff today. Mike’s coming at ten to help me with that.”
“Excellent. I have to take books back to the library, and it’s ice skating day. So I will have one excited child and one sobbing child.”
“When’s the skating? I can come with you, see if I can’t jolly Petey into having a better attitude about the skating.” He wanted both his kids to enjoy it at least, if not love it like he did.
“It’s from two to three. It takes me at least that long to get everyone’s skates on.” Ian rolled his eyes. “I get Tori ready, get her to the little pod of skaters — have I mentioned she’s informed me she’s starting Hockey Tots in the fall?”
“I think that’s awesome.” He loved how much she loved the game. She was going to play for the PWHL one day, he was sure of it, even without having seen her actually skating yet. “I’ll be done with my physio by eleven-thirty, so I can come with you and help. Maybe convince Petey it could be fun.”
“I’d love that. Tori would too. She’s…well, she’s your girl — fierce, competitive, brave, passionate.” Ian winked at him. “Stubborn, temperamental…”
“Shut up.” He didn’t take it to heart, though. He knew damned well he was a stubborn asshole. Ian was the brightness in their relationship.
A sharp knock came to their door.
“Daddy! It’s skate day! I need breakfast!”
JP decided to field that one. “We’ll be down in a minute, Tori. Why don’t you get all your gear ready?” He turned to Ian. “She can do that on her own, right?”
He nodded. “If she can’t, we literally have—” He peeked at the clock. “—six hours to fix it.”
He chuckled at that. “Okay. I just wanted to make sure I’d said the right thing.” This being a father thing was hard.
“She loves ‘skate day’. I blame you, you know.” Ian winked at him. “My ice baby.”
“I will happily take the blame for that.” He hadn’t even seen her skate, and he was already so proud of her. “Why is Peter so scared?”
“The kids walked out on the ice in their little walkers, both of them immediately fell on their butts.” Ian rolled his eyes. “Tori giggled hysterically. Peter sobbed.”
“Was he badly hurt?”
“Nope. Not a bruise. Not a bit. It was scary.”
JP shook his head. He was going to have to figure this out, because he wanted both his children to know how to skate. Peter didn’t have to become a hockey player, but skating was pure joy, and he wanted that for his son.
Even Ian was a perfectly serviceable ice skater.
One day they’d go together as a family.
He had to get better enough to be able to skate, though, before that happened.
“I guess we should get up and feed them, eh?” He was feeling far too lazy to actually want to, though.
“I should. You want sausage or bacon or ham today?”
“The answer to that is always bacon.”
“Bacon and eggs, it is. I’ll make oats to stave off the hunger pangs.” Ian rolled up out of bed, that sweet naked ass luscious.
He sat up and reached for it before it got out of range. He slid his palm over it, rumbled happily.
“Mmm…Oats for you too, love? Or just proteins.” Ian shot him a naughty grin.
“I can wait for the protein.” If he was in fighting form he’d totally have all the carbs as well, but that would just pack on pounds with as little as he was working out.
“You have it. There are tomatoes for a little color.” Ian slipped on a T-shirt and a pair of soft pants before opening the bedroom door. “Good morning, my hungry babies.”
“Daddy!” Peter held his hands up for a lift and a kiss. “I need to kiss Dad too.”
“Come on then.” JP stayed sitting on the edge of the bed and opened his arms, Peter running to him.
He grabbed his son up carefully, making sure his leg wasn’t bumped, then he sat Peter on his good thigh.
“We are going to have brekkie!” Peter hugged him tight. “Are you hungry?”
“I’m starving! I might have to eat a little boy all up to tide me over until the food is ready.” He bent his head and pretended to eat at Peter’s shoulder, careful to keep his teeth covered by his lips.
Peter squealed for him, arms wrapping around his neck. “So hungry!”
This little boy amazed him. Every day.
He hugged Peter tight. “Maybe I won’t eat all of you. I’m pretty fond.”
“I love you.”
Tori came running in with her helmet, a scarf, her nightgown, and a pair of Spiderman sweatpants. “I’m ready!”
JP burst out laughing, he couldn’t help it. That was such a mishmash of stuff and not all of it what she needed, either.
“I’m gonna skaaaaaate! I’m gonna show them I can hock the pucky!”
JP was going to die. He was nearly crying from laughing so much.
“We have to have breakfast first, eh?”
“Yes! Daddy says hockey puckers hafta eat good foods. Oats and bacons and eggies to make a goal!”
Hockey puckers… he was legitimately going to hurt something he was laughing so hard.
“I don’t want to go to hockey puckers. I stay home with you? Please?” Peter’s eyes went wide.
Oh those were devastating. “I was really looking forward to going with you, Peter. You don’t have to play hockey, but I love the ice, and I’d like to see it with you.”
“We don’t get to hockey pucky yet, brother. One more summers.” Tori rolled her eyes. “One more, then WHAM! Hit it wif da STICKING!”
Dead. He was just dead.
“I sit with you, though? No falling?”
“Falling is fun. You have padding on yous butt.” Tori patted her backside. “Is made for falling on.”
“You can sit with me, Peter. And we won’t fall. It wouldn’t be good for my leg right now.”
And he couldn’t wait to see his baby girl on the ice.
One day this child was going to be famous. He could tell.
“All right, you two. We should go downstairs and help Daddy with breakfast now.” Although he was guessing the best help would be them just sitting and eating.
“Do you need help to your special chair?” Peter was fascinated by it.
“I would like that very much, son.”
Peter took his hand, and he let Peter pull him up, doing 95% of the work himself. Happily, he could now.
Tori was galumphing down the stairs, singing at the top of her lungs about skating and bacon and Peter and…koala bears?
Had they read a book about koala bears recently? He shook his head and sat in the chair lift stair. “Can you plug in the seat belt?”
“I can Dad!”
Peter clicked him in, and then walked down with him, jabbering about how he was going to make a chair too.
If the boy was taking apart vacuum cleaners, JP would totally put odds on Peter being able to make a chair.
Peter held his hand the entire way, then unclipped his seat belt. “Ta-da!”
“Thank you, Peter. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Peter beamed at him, then ran off. “Daddy! I helped!”
“Of course you did, sweetheart.”
JP grabbed his walker and made his way into the kitchen. He was really looking forward to being able to ditch the thing altogether and just walk. The chair lift would be needed for a while longer, but on flat surfaces? He was itching to be able to just go.
The kids were at their places eating oatmeal with blueberries, the radio was playing poppy, happy music, and he could smell bacon.
Not only that, he’d gotten laid last night.
He pulled out a chair but didn’t sit down. “You need help with anything, Chou?”
He got a warm smile as Ian pulled out two little plates and one big plate. “I don’t. Do you want coffee, tea, cocoa?”
“Oh, cocoa sounds good.” He sat grinning at the kids. Peter, eating carefully, while Tori shoved the oatmeal into her mouth like it was a race.
Soon there were five eggs made — three for him, one for each baby. Then bacon on each plate, and a mug of cocoa.
Then Ian grabbed a piece of bread and wrapped it around the bacon, eating it as he wandered around the kitchen.
Was Ian ever still?
“Sit, Chou.”
He got a smile, bacon sandwich in one hand, coffee mug on two fingers, cleaning cloth in his other hand. “Hmm?”
“Put down the rag and come sit with us.”
“Oh, sure.” Ian came and sat at the table. “How’s your breakfast?”
“It’s good, thank you. How is yours?” He nodded to the toast and bacon in Ian’s hand. “You didn’t want any eggs?”
“Nah. This is good. I eat this for breakfast a lot, don’t I babies?”
“Bacon breads!”