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So I should be elated to get my ass up to Vancouver. My career was sizzling. My leg was finally better. When I’d jogged on the treadmill just now, I hadn’t even felt a twinge. Just like the doctors all said. The fractures had healed right up, good as new.
But the babies had just started being able to hold their little heads up on their own and yesterday, Diana rolled over! All on her own. We put her down for tummy time and she started wiggling around like normal, then boom, just like that, she’d flipped herself over on her back!
What cool stuff would I miss during these months of filming?
They’d already started smiling and laughing at us. They were learning and growing and taking in the world around them so quickly. It was freaking phenomenal.
Fuck, the thought of being away from them tore my guts out.
I looked around the kitchen, the main hub where everyone seemed to congregate, but it was empty, so I headed out to the little den where we did tummy time and had the baby swings. Also empty.
Then I checked my watch. Oh yeah, I guess I’d worked out all the way to nap time. Dammit, I should have cut my run short. I’d only get a couple hours with them now before I had to catch my flight.
“Hey, good, I was looking for you.”
I looked up at Janus as he came into the room.
“The kids down?” I asked, hoping I didn’t look as crestfallen as I felt.
“Milo and Hope are getting them settled.”
I nodded, then flopped down on the couch, dejected.
“Hey, so they want me to head into the studio tomorrow for reshoots and I—”
“What?” I straightened. “No, you can’t.”
“Look, I know it’ll be weird, but no one will really put it together that you’re in two places at once—”
“No, that’s not it,” I shook my head.
Janus just stared at me. “Then what are you talking about? It’ll be fine.”
Fuck. I dragged a hand through my hair. This was the last thing I needed. “You don’t get it.” I breathed out hard. Fuck it. I was tired of carrying this alone anyway. “I don’t trust him alone with her and the kids.”
Janus sat down beside me, staring at me like I’d lost it. “Who?”
“Who do you think? Milo.”
He busted out laughing. Then he punched me on the shoulder. Hard. “Stop fucking around.”
I shoved him back and hissed, “I’m fucking serious.”
Then I stood up and went to look around the corner to make sure Milo and Hope were still in the baby’s room. I was fine as long as she was with him, but to leave them alone without either me or Janus in the house? What if Hope took a nap, and it was just Milo with my children? I shook my head. No fucking way.
Janus stood up too, finally sensing I was serious. “What the fuck are you talking about? Milo’s our brother. And he’s been as much their father as you or me.”
But I shook my head. “No, he fucking hasn’t. He’s not trustworthy.”
Janus’s eyes went wide. “What the fuck does that mean?”
I grabbed his elbow and yanked him over by the window where I could keep an eye on the door to the baby’s room so I’d see if it opened. Janus was looking at me like I was nuts. “Look, right after the babies were born, literally in the goddamn hospital room, he told me he’d switched out Hope’s birth control pills. That he’d always wanted us to be a family, so he was the one who—”
Janus knocked my arm away from his elbow. “Stop bullshitting me.”
“I’m not!” I glared at him.
He glared right back. It was like looking in a mirror as we both stood in a silent standoff.
“You aren’t kidding.” And then he broke away and dug his hands through his hair. “Fuck!”
I breathed out, shoulders slumping. “Exactly.”
He spun back to me. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me before now?”
“Are you happy you know now?”
He glared at me. Then he turned to look towards the baby’s room. Then back at me. “It’ll crush her.”
“Exactly.”
“But more now than if we’d told her at the beginning, you fucking asshole.”
I threw my hands up. “She’d just had two babies. On the side of the road, if you’ll remember. Which he’d delivered! What the hell was I supposed to do?”
Janus dragged both hands through his hair again. “Fuck!”
Right then the door to the baby’s room opened. Hope came out first, a bright smile on her face. She was holding Milo’s hand, all but dragging him out with her.
She waved excitedly towards me and Janus as Milo closed the door carefully behind himself. “Come on,” she whispered. “The babies are down. Let’s give Leander a proper goodbye.”
Her grin was the light of my life.
