Maceo turns his face enough to press a kiss into my wrist before looking back at Luca. “Thank you for waiting until we were all here.”
Rosalie lifts her head from my chest. “Does the baby know that’s his name?”
Luca smiles and reaches over to smooth her hair away from her crown. “Not yet, sweetheart. We’ll keep telling him until he does.”
Samuel tries the name softly, then looks down at Luca’s stomach. “Hi, Elio.”
James shifts closer to Maceo and places one careful hand beside his. “Will Elio sleep in the nest when he comes home?”
“He will,” Luca tells him. “Eventually. At first, he’ll sleep in a crib like you guys did where all of us can hear him.”
The baby moves again beneath Maceo’s palm. Blake covers Luca’s hand while Grayson strokes his thumb over Luca’s ankle, and I bend to kiss the top of Rosalie’s head as the children repeat Elio’s name between them.
By the time the room begins to quiet, the name already sounds as though it has always belonged there.
Rosalie’s breathing begins to slow first. She fights it for several minutes, lifting her head every time someone speaks as though she might miss an important change to the ceremony. Eventually, her cheek settles against my chest and stays there.
Samuel follows soon after, one arm dropping across James while the cushion remains tucked between them. James keeps watching the room, his fingers curled around one corner of the velvet.
“Do the rings come before the promises?” he asks quietly.
“The promises come first,” I tell him. “Then the rings.”
“Why?”
“Because the rings show what we already said.”
He thinks about that with his eyes half closed. “So they don’t make it true.”
“No, buddy. They don’t make it true.”
His eyelids lower before I can say anything else. A few breaths later, his head tips against Samuel’s shoulder.
Nobody reaches for the children to carry them back to their rooms. The nest is large enough, and they’ve settled across the spaces between us as though they planned the arrangement themselves.
Blake looks down at Samuel’s arm stretched across James and gently shifts his elbow away from his brother’s ribs. Grayson helps him settle the blanket over both boys while Maceo movesthe cushion far enough from the edge that it cannot fall during the night.
James stirs but does not wake, and Luca presses closer to Blake as the bed settles again. Maceo finishes adjusting the blanket and settles against my shoulder again. I turn my head toward him, and he briefly presses his temple to mine before closing his eyes.
Blake’s thumb moves across Grayson’s knuckles. “I’m glad we’re doing this tomorrow.”
Grayson looks up at him. “The ceremony?”
“All of it.” Blake glances over the children and then toward Luca. “Standing there together. Saying it where everyone can hear us.”
Luca’s fingers pause against his belly. “It won’t change what happens when we come home.”
“No,” Blake says. “That’s why I want it.”
Tomorrow, we’ll stand together in front of the people who became our community. The ceremony won’t create the bonds or responsibilities already filling this bed. It will let us speak those commitments aloud without placing anyone at the edge of the family.
Grayson squeezes Blake’s hand. “You’ll sit when you need to tomorrow.”
Blake glances at the cane beside the bed. “I will.”
When he shifts against the pillows, Grayson adjusts the one behind his back. Blake accepts the help and settles without interrupting the quiet.
The house settles around us, Rosalie’s crown pressing against my collarbone until I ease it from her hair. Maceo reaches across me to take it, and he places it on the nightstand beside Blake’s cane without waking her.
