I looked at Mitch. At Sterling. At the three small humans we had made together, and I thought, clear as anything: This is it. This is the whole thing. Warm yellow and white trim and a porch with a decent view, and Mitch being insufferable about it for the rest of our natural lives, and Sterling pretending to be annoyed and not being, not really, and three children who were going to grow up looking like the men who loved them, and I was already looking forward to every second of it.
Sterling’s hand found mine across the bedspread. Warm. Certain. Not letting go.
Yeah, I thought. This is home.
Chapter Twenty-Five
~ Sterling ~
The yard looked different in afternoon light. Warmer. Less like a tactical position and more like something people lived in, which was a distinction I hadn’t fully appreciated until three hours ago when Jasper announced we were clear to move outside and Caleb, who had not stopped smiling since approximately nine-forty-seven yesterday morning, said the light was better on the porch anyway.
I stood at the edge of the gravel apron with Noah settled against my chest in the sling Caleb had insisted on buying. The sling was gray. Practical. I had objected on principle and then worn it without comment because Noah weighed six pounds nine ounces and my arms were better deployed elsewhere, a calculation I had made in approximately three seconds and would never admit to aloud.
Caleb sat in chair with Mia curled against his chest, her strawberry-blond hair catching the light in a way that made something behind my sternum do a complicated adjustment. Jasper hovered nearby with the focused calm of a man who had delivered three babies and was now conducting a quiet perimeter check of his own making.
Jojo appeared from the direction of the main house with Ethan balanced on his hip. Ethan was sturdy, with Rawley’s gray eyes and Jojo’s capacity for excitement, which was considerable.
Jojo took one look at the three bassinets arranged on the porch and stopped walking. “Three?”
“Yes,” I said.
Jojo’s mouth opened. Closed. His eyes did a full circuit of the porch—Caleb with Mia, me with Noah, Mitch somewhere inside with James—and came back to my face with the expression of aman who had received information his brain was struggling to process.
“Three?” he said again.
“Still yes,” I said.
“That’s—” Jojo stopped. Ethan grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked, which seemed to help. “That’s a lot of baby.”
“It’s exactly the right amount of baby,” Caleb called from the chair, not looking up from Mia’s face.
Jojo nodded like he’d been handed a verdict. “Okay. Yes. That tracks. I’m just—three. At once. That’s—” He stopped again. “I brought bread.”
The bread was excellent. I ate two pieces without planning to and did not examine why.
Macon’s daughter arrived next, sprinting across the yard with the focused determination of a child who had been told to walk and had decided walking was an inefficient use of time. She was small. Dark-haired. Built like Macon in miniature, which meant she moved with the same deliberate motion her father brought to everything, except faster and with considerably more noise.
She skidded to a stop in front of me, looked up at Noah with the assessing stare of someone conducting a tactical evaluation, and announced: “I am extremely responsible.”
Four voices said “No” in polite unison. Mine. Caleb’s from the chair. Mitch’s from the doorway, where he’d appeared with James balanced against his shoulder. Jasper’s, delivered with the calm authority of a neonatal nurse who had seen this scenario play out before.
Macon’s daughter looked betrayed. “I held a hammer.”
“That’s not the same skill set,” I said.
“I could hold him very carefully.”
“Six months,” I said. “Supervised.”
“Three months.”
“Six.”
She considered this. “Four and a half.”
Macon appeared behind her, one hand settling on her shoulder with the quiet weight of a man who had been tracking this negotiation from a distance and was moderately impressed with both participants.
He nodded at me once—the kind of nod that said he understood the math and approved of the outcome—and guided his daughter toward the food table with the patience of a man who had learned that some battles were worth losing on purpose.
