A few minutes later, Jules was securing Winter into a cocoon-like pouch on my chest. She giggled as she tightened a strap on my side. “Aw. She looks tiny on you.” At 6’3” most people looked tiny next to me. She pulled a strap, making the carrier fit. “Hopefully, she will fall asleep.”
Looked like we would have no problem there. Winter’s cheek landed against my chest as her eyelids grew immediately heavy. Her twin, Woods, was completely passed out in Jules’ pouch. I reached in and rubbed the patch of brown hair on her head. Couldn’t help but smile.
Thirty minutes later, we’d cleared the sink and couch, swept her floors, moved chairs near the fire pit on the deck, and had flash-chilled the cupcakes in the deep freezer.
“I could not have done this without you.” Jules spread a glob of frosting over a cupcake. “Pat usually helps me get ready for game night.”
Speak of the devil. The door opened, and Pat, my brother-in-law, walked in. Jules abandoned her task to greet him at the door.
He leaned forward to quickly kiss her, but held her at arm’slength. “Hold up, baby. There’s grease all over me.” His gaze bounced around the clean-ish house. “I’m so sorry, Jules. I meant to help you with all this.”
“Don’t worry. Jack saved the day.”
“Jack, thanks so much man.”
“No problem. It’s been fun.” Recently, being home meant being alone. Which made house work while streaming nineties boy bands a pleasing alternative.
“You need to go shower so you can pick up Sunny.”
Pat and Jules disappeared down the hall.
When I was alone, I paused my cupcake decorating to look down at Winter. Lightly snoring, eyelids fluttering, her face was smooshed against me, pushing her rose-bud lips into a triangular shape. I swiped my hands against a dish towel and reached in to poke her cheek. A soft chuckle escaped my throat as I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She smelled sweet like berries and clean like she’d just had a bath.
Winter and Woods were something else. When I learned my twin was pregnant with twins, I was excited. But the extent of the love I felt for my nieces had completely blindsided me. And not just the twins—Sunny, too. Even though Jules had adopted Sunny, she might as well have been blood.
When I picked up another cupcake, the floor creaked. Jules was hiding behind the door frame, but held her phone upright, trained on me.
“What the heck are you doing?”
She said nothing.
“Why are you taking a picture of me?”
She came into full view, shamelessly snapping a few more.
“Because this”—she gestured toward me—“this hot guy holding a baby and decorating cupcakes thing is the stuff of women’s domestic dreams.”
“Gross.”
“Calm down. Notmydreams.” She stepped closer. “Here. Do this.” She demonstrated a face.
“It looks like you tasted a lemon.”
She laughed. “I don’t know how to do it—you know, like a smolder face.”
“You’re insane.”
“Just once.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Fine. I got some good ones anyway.” She plopped onto a bar stool and started scrolling. “I’m going to send these to Katelyn.”
My skin prickled. The conversation had taken a bad turn. “No, you aren’t.”
She smiled, thrilled beyond reason. “Nothing—and I mean nothing—says, ‘please have my babies’ more thanthat.” She turned the phone around to show me, and I snatched it out of her hands.
“Very funny.” I shoved it into my back pocket, rolling my eyes.
