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I shove him so hard he almost falls off the bed because fuck him for vocalizing a very real fear of mine.
Don't get me wrong, everything I just said rings true butfucking hell. He tried on a baby sling the other day and I actually had to leave the room.
My friends’ mocking laughter is interrupted by the mission trio filing into the room, crowding the bed too. “What're we laughing at?”
Ben side-eyes me with a smirk. “Nothing.”
Jackson eyes me suspiciously as he stretches out behind me, dropping a kiss on my shoulder and winding an arm around my waist. Nick scoops up Amelia easily and settles her on his lap, kissing away the tears lingering on her cheeks, an action that apparently only makes her tears fall faster. Cass perches on the end of the bed, wrapping his hand around his sister's ankle and squeezing.
And we just… sit. Quietly. Squashed together. Limbs tangled. The heavy knowledge that everything is about to change hanging over us.
“I feel like the band is breaking up.”
Kate flicks Ben on the forehead. “Don't say that.”
“We're still gonna see each other all the time,” Cass adds, directing his words at his sister, shaking her a little. “No one's dying.”
“Well,” Ben starts, and I swear I hear the words before they even leave his mouth, “Nick might be. Old age is really creeping up on him.”
A pillow hits him in the face before he even has the chance to dodge it. He screams, literally screams, as Nick pins him underneath one strong leg and proceeds to dig his knuckles into his chest, rubbing hard. “Stop!” Ben wriggles beneath him, pulling on his leg hair. “You have brittle bones! You might break something!”
Wild laughter fills my bedroom as Ben shrieks and squirms, and we only laugh harder when Nick finally relents and our young friend sits up, hair all over the place and an adorably angry scowl pulling at his features. “Jesus, Grandpa. You could've broken a hip.”
A flick of Nick's foot is all it takes to send Ben flying off the bed, the yelped sound that escapes him and the heavy thud of him hitting the floor setting us off again.
“Uh, guys!” A yell from downstairs interrupts our antics. Thunderous footsteps sound before Grace appears in the doorway, her eyes wide and downright terrified. It's immediate, how the look on her face causes us all to sober up, Jackson springing to his feet and rushing to his sister. Grace swallows hard.
“I think Lux's water just broke.”
57
LUNA
He is perfect.
The little human staring up at me is completely and utterly perfect. The dark crop of hair on his tiny head, the long lashes framing big brown eyes that, if you didn't already know, tell you exactly who his mother is, those chubby fucking thighs that do weird things to my heart. For such a small thing, he's so fucking warm, like a hot water bottle cradled in my arms.
“He looks like Lux,” Jackson murmurs quietly, stroking a finger down one chubby cheek.
That’s undeniable. The baby is the spitting image of his mother. But there’s something there, something that’s undeniably someone else. “He looks like you.”
Jackson beams.
He's smitten with his new nephew, completely fucking smitten. Every single thing about the kid fascinates him. Right now, it's the way he's wrapping his tiny fingers around Jackson's thumb, gnawing on it and gurgling happily.
It's been two weeks and the novelty of baby cuteness has yet to wear off. Even when he's screaming his head off and keeping everyone awake and shitting and pissing everywhere. You get mad for a moment and then he does something adorable and you forget he vomited on your favorite shirt. I don't think any of us have ever been so unbothered while so sleep deprived because the kid is too fucking sweet.
Lux has taken to it all like a duck to water. Ironically, the only one who wasn't freaking out after her water broke was her. Grace looked terrified, Eliza looked like she was about to vomit, Lottie was yelling because she had Lux's bodily fluids all over her shoes, and Jackson... God, I don't even want to remember what Jackson was like because honestly, it hurt to watch.
But through it all, Lux was calm. Stoic, almost. She handled it like a fucking badass and an ungodly amount of hours later, she held her little boy for the first time and cried her fucking eyes out.
For a whole fortnight, she’s refused to leave his side but today, at the more than a little insistent prompting from her brother, she left us in charge of the kid. She was reluctant—if there’s anything she hates more than taking her eyes off her kid, it’s accepting help—but the allure of a bath and her bed was too strong.
“Hi, Alex,” Jackson coos softly, rubbing his nephew's plump little tummy. “You did so good today.”
I snicker quietly. “I still can't believe she actually called him Alexander.”
We thought she was joking, at first. We all had a littleha-hamoment before we caught Lux's deadpan expression and realized she was serious.
