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Hudson chuckles. “Now he’s gonna get it.”
I nod, bringing the water to my lips. “He’s fucked.”
Abby’s eyes are squeezed shut, her hands fisted at her sides. So she doesn’t see Skyler come up behind her with another water balloon, identical to the one he just broke over her head except that it’s blue instead of green.
My brows fly up, wondering what the hell he’s doing. He says something I can’t make out from here, but whatever it is has her knuckling the water from her eyes and turning to look up at him.
He hands her the jiggly balloon, shrugs, and kneels down.
I’m about to call out to remind him of his headphones, but he’s two steps ahead of me. They’re nowhere in sight. Usually he has them draped around his neck, so they’re readily available when he needs them. He must’ve set them somewhere before he joined in on the water balloon fight.
“Jesus fuc-dge, CORT!” Hudson yells out suddenly. “Stop waterboarding our child.”
Stifling a laugh with my fist, I shake my head as my best friend leaves my side to go wrangle in his husband. Though, knowing their spitfire of a five-year-old daughter, she asked to be hosed down.
Training,she’d call it. A little soldier in the making, just like her dad.
I sip my water, watching Abby and Skyler.
It seems like they’re in a very serious discussion, with Skyler kneeling on the grass, nodding up at Abby, though his gaze is somewhat lowered and unfocused.
Her back’s mostly to me, so I can’t make out her face, but she’s teetering from foot to foot, clearly hesitant about something.
I cock my head, curious.
“What are they doing?” Mel says, sidling up next to me, her baby bump the first thing I see in my periphery. She and Vance are due in just a few short months.
“No idea,” I say softly, screwing the cap back on my bottle.
“Nolan?”
Turning my upper body, I find Mel’s mom standing there with a toddler hiding his face in her neck. “He’s asking for his daddy.”
“Come here, little monkey,” I say, setting the water bottle over on the stone wall, before taking my two-year-old son from his grandma’s arms. Everett reaches for me immediately, hooking his little arms around my neck, curling his legs up around my back, and squeezing me so hard, it brings a frown to my face.
“What’s going on, buddy?” I say, adjusting my hold on him. But he just burrows closer. I glance at my watch—just after two. He’s overdue for a nap. Honestly, I’m surprised he lasted this long. He’s not the most social of creatures, even at just two years old. He gets drained quickly. Much quicker than his big sister ever did around that age.
Mel ruffles his messy dark hair, and he rolls his head on my shoulder, blinking sleepily up at her.
I rub his back, and bounce him a little, knowing he likes that.
Mel’s and my gazes connect over his head, and she smiles. I smile back.
When she offered to be a surrogate for us a few years ago, Skyler and I had not even discussed babies at that point, other than agreeing we wanted to have one. Some day. PreferablyafterSkyler got his degree.
She and Vance had been married a little over a year at that point—it was a quick engagement, but not as quick as mine and Skyler’s—and while they’d planned to have kids of their own, they weren’t too picky as to when.
Obviously, neither Skyler or I wanted to interfere with their plans. Hell, we never even considered asking her to carry our baby. In fact, going the surrogacy route was not even on the table at that point. I figured we’d adopt, if we wanted to give Abby a sibling.
But once Mel offered, it was like…I don’t know, a door opened to a room that we didn’t even think to check.
Skyler immediately jumped on the idea, much to my surprise…and wariness…gushing about little Nolan’s crawling around.
As for me…
I glance down at the cute face craning to look at me, those big brown eyes of his spearing me right in the chest.So serious,I think, taking in his furrowed little brow.
He looks so much like his daddy.
