The date couldn’t have been going any better. Shepard could have found out he won the damn Powerball and he still wouldn’t have felt the peaks he had when everything simply fell into place between him and Nick. It was magic. Everything about the day had a certain glow to it. As if it were all pulled straight from a fairy tale. Especially when they got to Lover’s Lookout, which was aptly named, Shepard decided. It was totally and effortlessly romantic. It was also empty, so they had it all to themselves. The three of them couldn’t have looked more picturesque if they tried to; Shepard and Nick sitting on the bench, smiles on their faces, knees touching, Emma sleeping on Shepard’s chest after he had asked Nick if he could hold her. At first, Shepard had been nervous to even speak in case he woke her up, but Nick quickly explained how his daughter could sleep through most anything. Shepard found that to be the truth after he couldn’t hold back his laughter when Nick told him the story about the time he ripped his pants while presenting in front of two hundred other medical residents.

“Yeah,” Nick said, dropping his head and shaking it, the smile still obvious in his tone, “Thankfully, I had a sweater with me which I wrapped around my waist faster than I would have done with a life vest on a drowning ship. And I obviously have terrible luck giving presentations.”

Shepard laughed some more, this time being able to contain most of the loud laughs. “Please tell me you hadn’t decided to go comm—“

“Yuuup,” Nick answered before Shepard could even finish. This had Shepard’s eyebrows shooting up.

“Nooo,” Shepard said, secretly wishing he was sitting front row and center for that presentation. Nick was smiling, a slight pink blush coloring his cheeks underneath his light scruff. “Well, at least you bared it all for that class. I hope you got an A.”

“Pfft, A-plus,” Nick said. It was his turn to hold in the laughs. He dropped his head back and looked up at the clear crystal blue sky, not a cloud in sight. Shepard glanced toward him, taking in how sexy his neck looked.

Everything about him is sexy. No wonder he got an A-plus.

“What was the presentation on?”

“The uses of CRISPR in cutting and reassembling genes in order to battle genetic conditions.”

“Cutting jeans, huh?” Shepard couldn’t help it. “That’s some serious foreshadowing,” he said with a chuckle. Emma squirmed on that one but didn’t open her eyes.

“I should have seen it coming,” Nick said, smiling a wide grin, pearly white teeth on full display.

“You know what I never saw coming?” Shepard said, “This.”

“Honestly, neither did I.” Nick was looking at Shepard now. “I mean, I desperately wanted it. I wanted to see you holding my little baby girl, I want to see you falling hard for me, the same way I was doing for you, just from afar.” Nick licked his lips. He shook his head. “I wanted it, but I never thought I’d get it. I never saw it coming.”

“I was so hung up on you, Nick.” Shepard was feeling himself fall into Nick’s gaze. It was like chugging down a bottle filled with truth serum. Everything was bubbling up to the surface. Unfiltered and completely raw. “I wanted you. Bad. I saw you in the hospital, and I would have to turn down a different hall because I had trouble looking at you. I’d lose focus and think about you all day. And then, finally, all my dreams came true when we landed in that on-call room. We had talked before then, you were my attending and so I knew you, but I didn’t know you how I wanted to. Until the on-call room.” Shepard felt his body heat up just thinking about that day. “And then you barely even looked at me after. I see why, because you were clearly going through things. And I get it. And so I had to figure something out. Find someone to get you out of my head. That’s when I met Rick. He was great at first, but I kept thinking about you. Like a boomerang. I couldn’t stop, my thoughts kept circling back around to your face, your voice, your presence. And it’s not until now that I realize how heartbroken I was back then, I was just trying to cover it up with this fake love I found for Rick.”

“And I was such an ass to you.” Nick’s eyes broke their connection, looking down before looking back up at Shepard. His eyes were misty. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how many times I can say it, but I’m going to try to hit the limit. I should have opened up to you from the start. I knew that what we shared was something strong, from that day we first connected. It was something I never felt with anyone, ever before. And I was scared of it. Then I was scared of potentially being a father, then I was scared of actually being a father. There was a lot of fear in my life. All while I had to keep things solid for my patients. Every time I put on that white coat, I tried to separate all my anxieties and fears from my life and leave them outside the hospital.” Nick’s eyes looked bright in the sunlight. “The only problem was one of my biggest fears was inside the hospital with me.”

“The call’s coming from inside the hospital,” Shepard chimed in with a small smile. This had Nick chuckling. He reached his hand out and placed it on Shepard’s thigh. His hand was big, fingers softly gripping the side of Shepard’s thigh, his palm warm on Shepard’s skin.

“Especially after what Anna had done to me. You scared me so damn much. Because I already felt so strongly toward you, that only meant you had all the more power to hurt me.”

“I just want to state for the record: I’d never hurt you.”

“And I believe that. A hundred percent.”

Shepard matched the growing smile that was on Nick’s face. Emma moved slightly against his chest before settling back in. It was a reminder of the small miracle Shepard was holding in his arms. Another reason why he would never be able to hurt Nick. Because that meant he would be hurting Emma as well. That was a hard no, full stop, brakes-screeching kind of thing.

“How have you been dealing with the difference in equipment between Anna and me?” Shepard looked toward Nick, who managed to crack a smile.

“I enjoy driving stick way more than I enjoy fingering the ignition.”

Shepard cocked his head. “Odd analogy, but I get it.”

They both laughed at that. Nick looked like he was totally relaxed, and that made Shepard feel good. They weren’t exactly talking about simple things like the weather and baseball. These were hard-hitting topics that not a lot of people would talk about with someone they weren’t comfortable with.

“I’ve obviously always known I was interested in men, but I grew up wanting to be as damn heteronormative as possible. I felt like I would be a disappointment to my parents and I couldn’t live with that. They had talked about my gay uncle and nice words were never said. I knew they wouldn’t have had an easy time accepting me, so I told myself I was just confused and that I could be fine with women. Nowadays, I’m much better at saying “fuck it” and just going with things because they feel right for me. I’ve learned that I can’t live my life to other people’s expectations or wants. There are bigger things to think about in this world. You’re holding one of those things.” And you are one of those things. “But back then I was even fooling myself. I dated a few girls in high school but never got to any of the bases past first. Then I met Anna and things were easy with her. Not in the romantic way, just easy in the simplest sense of the word. Plus, medical school was going to brutalize me and so easy was good for me back then. I also did start developing feelings for Anna. Strong ones. She was supportive of me in the beginning. I guess she saw me going through medical school and figured I was an investment. I thought I could see the rest of my life with her. I thought that I’d be fine without ever exploring the side of me that held the most truth.” Nick shook his head. “Thankfully, I didn’t stay the rest of my life with her, because looking back on it now, I could see it was all so empty. I’ve felt happier here with you over the past few hours than I ever had throughout my entire relationship with Anna.” Nick huffed a breath. “How sad is that?”

“It’s not sad, especially if you consider that it was all paving the path for this moment. I don’t want to get sappy and cliché, but I really do think that things happen for a reason. If you hadn’t settled with Anna, you never would have gotten Emma.”

Nick nodded at that, his expression turning lighter, his smile growing larger. “You’re right. Who knows, without Anna in my life I could have found someone else, a bad influence. Maybe I wouldn’t have even graduated med school. Maybe I would have never met you.”

“Exactly,” Shepard said. “That’s what I mean. You can’t look back and think your past is sad. It’s beautiful. It’s a huge mural with pieces all fitting together to create a breathtaking image. And it just keeps growing larger and larger, pieces being added with every life event. Sure, some of those pieces come from negative experiences, but if you zoom out, you can see that the entire mural still fits together and creates something beautiful.”

Nick was looking deep into Shepard’s gaze. “You’ve got a lot of wisdom for not even hitting your thirties yet.”

“It could be all the time I spent on Tumblr in college,” Shepard said, smiling, chuckling. Emma moved against his chest again. This time it felt like she was waking up. Her fingers opened and closed around a bundle of Shepard’s shirt, her eyes slowly working themselves open. “Looks like someone is waking up from her nap.”

Nick softly brushed a strand of light brown hair away from Emma’s face. She rubbed her eyes and looked to her dad and started to gurgle for him. Shepard was glad she wasn’t a big crier. He was getting way more comfortable around babies, but he still got nervous when they cried. He handed her back to Nick before she got anymore upset. As soon as she was back in his arms, she settled down.

“What are you doing later today?” Nick asked.

You.

Was what Shepard wanted to say, but that would have felt way too forward. “Nothing. Day is pretty open. Got all my studying for the week finished up yesterday and work isn’t until tomorrow.”

“Spend the day with us,” Nick said, almost as if there wasn’t an option to say no, which Shepard wasn’t going to be saying anyway. “Let’s start walking down and we can take this little party to my place. I can cook us lunch and you can watch Emma while I nap.” Nick was smirking now.

“I’m not all that sure about the last part,” Shepard said with a laugh. He knew Nick was joking, but he also would have been totally cool with actually doing it. He liked helping Nick, in whatever way he could, whether it was through babysitting or lapsitting, Shepard would always be an eager volunteer.

Especially for lapsitting.