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“That’s because it was a tactical failure,” Avi replied smoothly.
“Da-da-da,” West babbled, abandoning the rubble of blocks to climb into Asa’s lap.
He hoisted the baby up so West could rest his head on Asa’s shoulder.
They’d long since given up trying to help the boys differentiate between parents and uncles. It didn’t matter. They were all raising them together.
The scent of lavender and baby powder had Asa squeezing West just a little tighter.
It was weird how much he liked the way Oscar and West smelled. It was clearly an evolutionary thing, some biological fail-safe that allowed even Avi and Asa to look at these two helpless creatures and feel territorial. Protective.
Possessive, even.
He looked around at the others, ensuring they weren’t watching before pressing his nose to West’s hair and inhaling deeply.
Yeah, he’d die for these kids. He’d go full scorched earth, even.
When he glanced over, Felix was watching him with those insanely feline, honey eyes.
Unlike Zane, it took a lot to turn Felix on. He needed to be touched, coaxed into anything like that slowly. He was a tactile creature by nature, but Asa adoring Felix’s biological babies definitely seemed to spark something inside him.
“Okay,” Felix murmured, his gaze locked on Asa’s.
“Okay?” Zane asked, confusion etched between his brows.
Felix shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. “We can…swap teams…if you want.”
Avi’s gaze followed Felix’s, landing on his brother snuggling with West.
He smirked knowingly.
Asa watched as Avi’s hand fell to Zane’s hip, squeezing softly. “What do you think, Zaney?”
Even from this distance, Asa could see his husband’s pupils were already fully blown at the thought. “Yeah, as long as I can play with Lix first.”
Asa laughed. “Nobody would ever say no to that, Lois. Literally nobody.”
“Okay, bedtime for the boys,” Felix declared.
Avi clicked off the television, and Zane clumsily sat up, giving Felix a sloppy back hug before letting Avi pull him to his feet.
Asa handed West to his father, then scooped up Oscar, who was just about to chuck a block out of the playpen.
Bedtime had become a well-oiled machine. It usually consisted of two people prepping the bottles and nursery, two giving baths. All of them would then wrestle the boys into their nighttime pull-ups, pajamas, and weighted sleep sacks before Avi or Zane attempted to read them a bedtime story, complete with voice acting.
The boys were just getting to an age where they would slow down long enough to listen instead of zooming around the playroom on their chubby baby legs.
Tonight, they’d already gotten baths after Thomas and Aiden had delivered them back to the house covered in chocolate ice cream without any explanation whatsoever. They were also already in their bedtime clothes, crossing two more things off their bedtime to-do list.
Once in the playroom, the boys toddled to the felt Christmas tree on the wall while Zane turned on the noise machine. Felix refilled the Brezza, and Asa made sure their cribs had everything they needed for the night—pillows, blankets, their two well-worn stuffed rabbits.
There were two cribs in the nursery, but it didn’t matter. They would no longer sleep apart.
In the beginning, they’d listened to the experts who said that it was unsafe for them to sleep together, with each other or their parents. But now, at eighteen months, they were getting a little lax in their protocols.
Sometimes, they just needed sleep. Besides, they had cameras that monitored their breathing. How unsafe could it be? It probably wasn’t a good idea to encourage that level of codependence at such a young age, but West was inconsolable without Oscar there to cuddle him.
Besides, who were Asa and Avi to say what was truly codependency and what was just brotherly love?
