“Thank you.”
“Anytime.” Matteo grins. “I’ll send this to my dad and he can send it to yours. Unless you want to exchange?—”
“Nice fucking try,” Uncle Lev snaps, cutting him off with a sneer.
“Fuck!” Cesar shouts proudly.
“Uncle Lev,” I gasp. “Small ears are present!”
Matteo cracks up, poorly trying to smother the sound with his hand. “Don’t worry, Anya. He’s not the first person to drop the F-bomb around the little mimic. He knows five words consistently. Mama, dada, milk, socks, and fuck.”
“Saw-ocks,” Cesar echoes, grinning happily.
“Socks?” I ask, eyebrows drawing in.
“He’s obsessed with them. We had to start buying the ones with grippy stuff on the bottom because he started walking and kept slipping when he would try to run.”
The mental image of baby Cesar trying to speed run in his tiny slippery socks makes my heart ache.
“You know so much about them.”I’m so jealous that it hurts.
“I see them every day,” Matteo replies with a shrug. “They’ve each thrown up on me and cried themselves to sleep in my arms more than once. I’m their favorite, right, Cesar?”
The baby shakes his head, laughing. “No.”
“Oh yeah,” Matteo groans loudly. “He likes that word a lot now too.”
I giggle, knowing that Cesar likely doesn’t know what he’s just denied.
“Way to go, little guy.” Matteo huffs, pretending to glare at Cesar. “You’ve made me look like a liar. That wasn’t very nice.”
Oblivious to what he’s being softly scolded for, he smacks his lips together to make a smallpopbefore blowing a raspberry in response.
Matteo rolls his eyes, but chuckles. “Cute.”
He is cute, adorable even. “He looks like you,” I tell Matteo quietly.
Happiness practically vibrates off him as my comment lands. “You think so? Everyone says he looks like Apollo but that’sbecause Apollo and Jade are so similar. He has Dmitri’s nose, though. And his smile, I think.”
“Does he smile a lot?”
“Cesar?” Matteo tilts his head. “Or Dmitri?”
Both.
I don’t answer, pretending to be distracted by Isobella instead.
Matteo doesn’t press, choosing to change the topic instead. “I could send you updates about them, you know? And pictures.”
A deep rumble leaves my uncle. “You motherfuc?—”
“Lev,” Father cuts him off.
“You’re not seriously considering?—”
“We’ll discuss it later,” he interrupts again, leaving no room for argument. The fact that Lev is more upset than my dad is promising. I’d like to take him up on his offer. More pictures and updates would be nice.
“Well, this isn’t awkward at all,” Matteo quips, looking between the two men with an almost goofy grin.
