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Our little family on the wall right there. In animal form, amongst a bunch of other animal friends that completed the mural.

I picked up James, and he instantly settled, rubbing his tired face across my chest and snuffling.

“Hey, kid. Anyone ever tell you five in the morning is a bit early for all of that?”

He just closed his eyes and accepted the pacifier I popped back in his mouth.

It didn’t matter how many times I stood in this room, holding him, I never got sick of it. It didn’t matter how tired I was, how much he cried, I just loved him like I’d never loved anyone before.

I sat in the rocking chair with him and murmured to him reassuringly, talking nonsense just because I knew my voice comforted him. “So, not much has changed since our last chat two hours ago. Lynx is still snoring. Dax is still drooling. Your mom, well, she’s perfect, but don’t tell her that because she’ll call me a sap. But she is. We’ve got an important day coming up, so it might be a good idea for you to get some sleep now so you can be awake for the opening of Virginia’s Place.” I stared down at his closed eyes and his breathing evening out again. “No response to that, huh?”

We’d worked out over the six months that we’d had him home, that he just liked to be cuddled. Sometimes there was nothing wrong with him other than the fact he wasn’t being held.

Nyah had driven herself crazy, blaming herself for his first few months, convinced he’d be scarred for life. She’d gotten on every mommy forum until she’d been questioning everything and felt like utter shit. That had been the day we’d decided if what James needed was to be held, then we would just hold him. There were four of us. We could hold him twenty-four seven if that’s what he wanted.

Nyah had left all the mommy groups and decided to just trust her own instincts.

James had flourished. He’d grown into the cutest, smartest, most perfect baby, though Nyah said I was biased when I went on about how cool our kid was.

I disagreed. He just was that awesome. He was sitting up and trying to work out the whole crawling business.

Violet’s baby, TK, had just started, and X had been checking in every day, asking if James had started.

He was planning to race them as soon as he was.

I talked in a low, monotone voice telling James all about how proud we were of the women and children’s center we’d built over the last six months, and how proud I was of Nyah and Isabella who’d come up with so many amazing ideas for it. Isabella, with her Gen Z knowledge, had started a whole social media campaign that had gone pretty viral, at least by Saint View standards.

We were expecting a big turnout today, including the press and local members of government, who were all coming to officially help open the center.

“I hope your grandmother would be proud of what we’ve built,” I whispered. “I hope it honors her well.”

I felt Virginia in every room of this house. She’d been such a staple here for almost all of my life, it was impossible not to feel her presence. It had become even stronger since we’d brought James home, and I liked how it felt. I hoped that wherever she was, she was proud of what we were doing in her name.

James was asleep in my arms again, and it was tempting to just stay here, watching him breathe.

The door creaked just a little, and I looked up.

Dax stood in the doorway in nothing but his plaid striped pajama pants. “You okay?” he mouthed. Then made a back-and-forth motion with two fingers, silently asking if I needed to swap out.

I shook my head as I stood and gently lowered James back into his crib. I needn’t have bothered though, because that was one great thing about our boy. He might have screamed like he was being murdered at all hours of the night, but once he was asleep, he was out.

For two hours at least.

I tiptoed across the room anyway, slipping through the doorway and closing the door behind me.

It was mostly dark, only a small round nightlight plugged into the outlet that we kept there so no one fell down the stairs when stumbling from our room to James’s to the kitchen for bottles or sterilized pacifiers.

It lit up just enough of Dax’s abs for me to notice them.

“He okay?” he asked.

I nodded. “What are you doing up? You were drowning in drool when I left.”

He rolled his eyes. “I can’t sleep. Lynx and Nyah are out cold, but I’m too wired about all the things we have to do today. I need to make coffee, then get dressed. I’ve got to pick up those signs that weren’t ready yesterday, and someone needs to let Hayden in with the food—”

I reached out and tucked one finger into the waistband of his pajama pants. I dragged him in closer by them, unashamedly taking a peek down them as I did. “You don’t have to do any of that before the sun rises.”

Dax stared at me. “You really going to start that here? In the hallway?”