“Julian, did you remember to put your math homework back into your homework folder before you put it away?” I asked when he came out to let me inspect his teeth. Pierre merely looked over at the two of us with a quirked brow before giving his attention back to his tablet, where he was researching a new vendor for almond flour. After three months of my living in Pierre’s place, we’d rapidly settled into a new normal.

“Yes, everything is in my backpack and my backpack is by the front door,” Julian said proudly as he flung his alarms around my waist and hugged my hips. I ruffled his thick brown hair, idly wondering if Julian would like me to take the little guy to get a trim tomorrow or the next day. By the time that Julian was settled into bed, I was already fighting back the yawns.

I went back out to the living room and lowered myself down onto the couch beside Pierre. “Did you remember to have one of your employees come in tomorrow afternoon so that we don’t miss this appointment? And after that is Julian’s school play.”

“Merde. It’s just an ultrasound. I don’t see what the big deal is, the doctor said that everything was going fine and we had nothing to worry about. Honestly, I think you need to relax about this, sweetie. I know this is your first one, but I have done this before. I promise, I really do know what to expect. And, of course, I made sure I’d be free to attend the play. That’s why I put the reminder in my calendar.”

“Pierre, the doctor told you that three months ago. You can’t keep putting off and rescheduling your doctor appointments. Most people have an ultrasound in the fourth or fifth month, and you’re already halfway through your seventh now. I know that you have a busy business and a crazy schedule, but I need you to just take an hour and commit to attending this appointment with me.”

He looked at me with a fond smile as he set his tablet down onto the coffee table before turning and climbing onto my lap. He tugged at my beard, and tickled my chin before he spoke.

“Wait, I know why this is so important to you. You want to know whether we’re having a boy or a girl, don’t you?”

Not even bothering to deny it, I grinned unapologetically. “Tom and I need to know whether we’re putting together a pink or blue nursery. It’s really quite practical, when you think about it.”

Pierre giggled uncharacteristically. “Well, if Tom needs to know—then that’s a horse of a different color, now isn’t it?”

“So, you’ll really go this time? You won’t miss it again or make me reschedule it at the last minute?” I hated to press, but my busy omega here had already missed five appointments.

He figured that if he took his prenatal vitamins he was good to go. The only reason that he’d even gotten away with it this long was because Tom had made him allow Colin to give him a quick exam when we’d gone to their house for dinner last month.

Talk about an awkward evening. There was nothing like having your closest friends give your omega an intimate exam to ruin a night out.

“I promise that I will go, now can we drop it and talk about fun things instead?” Pierre pouted.

“What kind of fun things?” I asked with a knowing smirk.

“Oh, I don’t know... Things like which position that you’d like to try tonight, and whose tongue is going where… you know, fun things.”

Pierre let out a squeal of laughter as I slid my arms under his knees and stood up, carrying him as I made a beeline for the bedroom. The man had a point, there were much more fun things to talk about right now than tomorrow’s doctor appointment.

* * *

I watched excitedly as the image of our child filled the screen. The whooshing sound of the baby’s rapid heartbeat came out over the speakers, bringing tears to my eyes just the same as it had the first time I’d heard it at our first visit three months ago.

“Okay, daddies. Let’s see if this little one wants to be accommodating today,” Dr. Greene said pleasantly after she’d finished making different measurements and busily tapping on her keyboard. She adjusted the positioning of the wand that was sending the information from Pierre’s womb to the picture we were looking at on the ultrasound screen.

“You guys do want to know, right?” she asked suddenly, her eyes looking back and forth between us. Pierre got that mischievous look in his eye like he was about to screw with me, but I just swooped down and planted a quick kiss over his mouth before he could speak. Then I pulled back, and nodded.

When Dr. Greene looked to Pierre for confirmation, he simply waved a hand. “It makes no matter to me, I’m going to lose sleep over the adorable little demon either way. But my alpha here has a burning desire to prepare a perfectly coordinated nursery,” Pierre said with a smirk.

I shrugged. I didn’t give a shit what the doctor thought. I didn’t need to prove my masculinity to anybody. If I wanted to decorate a fucking nursery, I’d do it. “Don’t call our baby a little demon, and I don’t think it’s a crime to wonder if the room needs to be pink or blue,” I said defensively.”

Dr. Greene laughed. “Pink or blue are your only options? Think outside the box, hon. What about purple, green, or yellow?”

“Now that’s an interesting idea, I hadn’t thought of purple, but I can definitely see a mint green or a buttercup yellow in that space.”

Before Pierre could tease me, Dr. Greene tapped the screen and pointed. “There you go, you’re having a boy. Congratulations.”

I leaned in and squinted at the screen. “Are you sure? I don’t see any boy parts there, are you sure you’re not seeing his thumb.”

Pierre and Dr. Greene both started laughing, before the older lady commented, “Trust me, sweetie. They don’t come out with an adult size. Everything is proportional, and your baby is still pretty small.”

Pierre added his own two cents. “Besides, keep that shit to yourself. No size shaming our son.” Dr. Greene snorted and turned off the machine. By the time she had all the gel cleaned off Pierre’s belly, and had thrown her gloves away, she was turning to pull a couple of photos from a small printer that I hadn’t seen in her workstation. She passed them to me, so that Pierre could get dressed.

After Dr. Greene had slipped out of the room, Pierre began to quickly dress so that we could get on to our next event.

* * *

Milo and Rafe had saved two seats for us right beside them, since our two little guys were both in the play. The rest of our extended family of friends filled the rows around and behind us. We really had become quite the large group these days.

I looked over at Chun and Liam, sitting there with Ollie and Tyler. A few short months ago, I would’ve been sitting with them, as the adopted fifth member of their close-knit family.

I put my arm around Pierre and rested my head against his, grateful for the family that fate had chosen to drop into my lap. I’d always dreamed of having what my brother had with Liam, but I’d never dared hope that the reality would be even half as fantastic as it had turned out to be.

The kids were all completely adorable, as they acted out a little play about the different countries of the world. Julian was naturally representing the French contingent, and I trained my phone directly on him so that I could watch it again later. He’d practiced for weeks for his role of Napoleon, and made quite an adorable little dictator, if I said so myself.

Tom had been involved with the costumes for the play. He’d been a member of the PTA here when Allie attended the school. Although Allie had moved on to middle school this year, Tom was keeping a foot in the door since his twins would be starting kindergarten here in the fall. The school was just happy to have a volunteer, even if Tom didn’t actually have a student enrolled.

Tom had naturally bypassed any possible objections from the other parents by blithely stating that Milo wasn’t capable of costume design, so Tom was here on his behalf, given his role of Artie’s godfather. I don’t know how legitimate his reasoning was, but there weren’t many people who would even attempt to stand up against the force of nature that was our Tom.

I noticed Pierre staring at me with a soft smile toward the end of the play, but didn’t really think too much about it. He leaned over then and whispered into my ear.

“Tom promised the kids that we’d all go for ice cream after the play, should we be those assholes who worry about ruining our kid’s dinner? Or should we just go and let him have his fun?”

I was a bit taken aback that Pierre had consulted me on even a minor parenting decision, until I thought about it for a second and slowly realized that he had indeed completely absorbed me into his and Julian’s life over the past few months. We truly were functioning as a family these days.

After I’d stopped to clap for Julian’s performance while the next kid came on stage and Julian exited, I leaned back and whispered my answer into Pierre’s ear.

“Sometimes it’s more important to let them spoil their dinner and have a happy memory, don’t you think? So, yeah, let’s do it. That sounds like a great way to cap off today, and celebrate Julian’s last day of first grade.”

A couple hours later, as we sat around our pulled together tables at the ice cream parlor, I noticed Pierre giving me that same soft smile again. This time I tipped my chin and looked up at him from under my lashes with a flirtatious grin.

“You might want to watch those sweet smiles, Vegas. People are going to think you’re soft on me.”

Pierre immediately began to blurt out an info-dump of random thoughts, completely oblivious to the way that our friends were avidly glued to our conversation.

“I just realized today that it’s been at least two months since we’ve needed an evening babysitter. If we didn’t both work so early in the morning, we probably wouldn’t even need someone then. You’re a better dad to Julian than most fathers I know.”

He shook his head as though confused by my devotion to our son, and began to check off a list of items on his fingers.

“You pick him up every day after school, you arrange all of the play dates, and you even remember to pack little notes into his lunches. You help him with his homework, you make sure he brushes his teeth and combs his hair and washes every nook and cranny when he takes a bath.”

“Pierre,” I interrupted. “I don’t do anything for Julian that he doesn’t need or deserve from a dad. Of course, I do all that. I wouldn’t be much of a dad if I didn’t.”

As if hearing our conversation, Julian yelled over from the other end of the table where he was sitting sharing a chair and a banana split with his best friend Artie.

“Papa, can Artie spend the night tonight? We don’t have any school tomorrow since school’s over, so can we have a sleepover? If Daddy says yes, can we? Please, Papa?”

Before I could answer, Pierre turned back to me with stunned eyes. “Did you hear what he just called you? Like I was saying, you’re already his dad. I don’t know how that happened, but is that proposal still on offer? Because if you’re gonna be the Papa to both of our sons, I think you should probably put a ring on it one of these days.”

Without hesitation, I reached down into my pocket and pulled out my wallet. Tucked in behind my driver’s license was the simple white gold ring that I’d purchased two months ago. I pulled it out, and tossed my wallet down on the table as I pushed my chair back and dropped to one knee.

The entire table went silent, and I’m pretty sure I heard Tom suck in a loud breath as I took Pierre’s shaky hand into my own. “Pierre Julian Duchamp, would you do me the honor of being my husband? Will you let me be your alpha, and help you raise our boys and any others that fate surprises us with in the future?”

“Damn straight I will,” Pierre said without hesitation. “Now hurry up and get that ring on my finger before Tom starts trying to appraise it.”

I slid the ring onto Pierre’s long, slim finger, then leaned forward for a soft kiss to seal the deal. I pulled back and got back into my chair while our friends loudly congratulated us.

“You know, since our romance started in Vegas—maybe we could just leave Julian with Milo or Tom for the weekend and elope?” I suggested hopefully to Pierre.

“Request denied… Absolutely not, I forbid it,” Tom said imperiously from across the table. “I don’t care if it’s this weekend or next month or even a year from now, Liam and I will be in charge of giving you guys the wedding you deserve.”

I got distracted from Tom by Julian running around from the other end of the table to throw his skinny arms around my neck. “Artie says that since you’re marrying my daddy that means that you’re really going to be my Papa forever?”

“That’s exactly what it means, little man. I’ll be proud to be your Papa.” I blinked back the rush of tears that were threatening to fall, as I hugged this precious child and thanked my lucky stars that I got to have him in my life.

The sentimental moment was broken when Julian spoke loudly in my ear. “Papa, you never answered me before. Can Artie come over for a sleepover tonight?”

The other adults were laughing, at least the ones aside from Tom and Liam, who were already apparently planning our wedding. Milo spoke up, his voice carrying over the din. “How about we have Julian come home with us tonight, and you guys take the night to celebrate your engagement privately? I might even be persuaded to make them my famous blueberry pancakes in the morning.”

Pierre quickly agreed to this suggestion that I was also completely on board with. I heard something scrape along the floor as Julian ran back to go sit with Artie, and looked down to see another one of those lethal fucking arrows laying on the floor between Pierre and me. As I bent down and picked it up, I turned the shaft around in my hand curiously.

I had just been kneeling on that exact spot on the floor a few minutes ago, and there hadn’t been anything there. There was no way that I would have missed it I looked around the small dining area, but aside from our big group, the shop was practically empty, except for Amor, who was sitting by himself at a table in the corner, messily eating a bowl of what looked like bubblegum ice cream.

Pierre glanced down at the arrow in my hand, his brows drawing together in concern as he took it and quietly put it into his trusty satchel. One of these days, we really needed to get to the bottom of these arrows.