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This was real.
The realest.
“I appreciate you letting me crash here,” Avi said softly. “I don’t want to wake up your other parents just yet. I needed a place to wallow for a while first.”
He sat on the floor of the nursery, his back to the wall, watching his sons in the dim glow of their animal-shaped nightlights. The room was drenched in shadow, but Avi could see well enough without an actual lamp.
Though they’d been woken up at two in the morning by their father for purely selfish reasons, the twins were in good spirits. He’d sprung them from their weighted sleep sacks and the confines of their crib, letting them roam their space freely as he sulked.
Oscar shrieked, wobbling like a Weeble Wobble then steadying himself before pulling back and slapping his brother in the face hard enough to knock him off his feet.
Avi’s eyes went wide, waiting for his other son to start wailing.
Instead, West erupted into a fit of giggles, even as he struggled to return to his feet.
“Bongus, that’s not funny,” Avi chastised, frowning in a way that made them both laugh. “No matter how much your brother thinks it might be.”
To West, he said, “I get it, Bingus. The masochistic tendencies start early in this family, but try to rein it in just a little bit longer or your baba is definitely gonna blame it on me.”
“No,” West said, his face and tone stern, just like Felix or Zane’s would be. He looked from his father to his brother. “No. No. No.”
He shook his head and wiggled his finger for good measure.
Oscar gave another giggle at his brother’s words. “No. No. No,” he agreed, then shoved his brother hard once more, knocking him onto his diapered butt, causing them both to collapse into peals of laughter.
Avi picked up Oscar, pretending to shake him, his little limbs wiggling in the air.
“Bongus, show some restraint, man.”
Both West and Oscar squealed with delight, West bullying his way into Avi’s lap to get his own pretend shake from his father. Avi complied, then set them both down on their shaky legs.
“I came here for some sympathy snuggles, not Baby Fight Club,” he told Oscar. “I know you’re eager to defend your title, but save it for the ring. Only Mulvaney-sanctioned violence is permitted in this family, and there’s only one Mulvaney who can sanction it. Your grandfather.”
Right.
Thomas.
His father.
Who he’d spoken to less than an hour ago.
Avi gave a heavy sigh, remembering why he was there in the first place. “I know you won’t get this yet, because you’re still, like, ankle biters, but having a kill stolen right out from under you really sucks.”
West and Oscar ignored him, concentrating as they toddled around the sprawling nursery. His chest ached as he watched them go.
It was weird to be so proud of two human beings for doing something so basic, but he was. He was convinced his kids were the smartest, cutest, sweetest, funniest kids on the whole planet, maybe even in the whole galaxy.
Logically, he knew it wasn’t true, but logic had never really been important to Avi.
The walking was a fairly new development. Up until yesterday, they would only walk a few steps before reverting to crawling. It wasn’t that they couldn’t walk—they’d mastered that about a week or so ago. It was that they couldn’t walk fast enough to suit them, so they reverted to what worked for them.
Crawling.
His sons valued speed and efficiency. He admired that about them.
West lumbered slowly back over to Avi, his stance reminding him of a sumo wrestler. He wore a black onesie with white cats all over it, one of Felix’s latest designs for his kids’ collection.
Oscar had the same design but in reverse—white onesie, black cats.
