Ethan hadn’t said anything when he saw the princess décor I filled the bedroom designated for Bella that day she first moved in, but I’d seen the look. Once the renovations had been done, I hadn’t been able to help myself. Normally I would’ve asked him what was going through his head, but with his hormones fluctuating and his situation with his mother, I figured it best to wait.

I was still livid at his mother for things playing out the way they had, but the selfish side of me was happy that he was here with me every night. Technically, he had his own bedroom in the loft, but that didn’t keep him from sleeping with me at least part of most nights. He was being careful around Bella and I got that. She should be the most important thing in his life.

Ryan was far from a stranger to the loft and was there more often than he was at his apartment. Part of me considered buying him some gaming shit to entice him to increase that time even further, but my one serious look online at the stuff had me closing my computer in frustration. Who knew there were so many stupid options?

We needed to sit down and hash that shit out soon. I wanted them both here, every night. Done. Ryan going home and Ethan returning to his bedroom wasn’t working well for me, but I was trying to be understanding of their needs because, frankly, their needs came first.

“Is it time yet?” My sweet girl’s voice pulled me from my thoughts.

Today was the day.

Bella was decked out in her princess tutu, the one I had gotten for her. It was already significantly less glitter-filled, but still adorable on her. My couch, however, was extra glitterifed, as she called it, thanks to way the glitter pretty much fell with every movement. I saw now why the reviews were so craptastic, but it was totally worth it. She loved that thing.

“Almost, Bella. Are you as excited as I am?” I gave her a hug, twirling her in the air, adding to the glitterification of the loft.

We’d told Bella about her new sibling shortly after the incident with Ethan’s mother. The last thing we wanted was for Bella to find out about the baby from anyone other than us.

“I’m so excited to see the babies.” She was practically bouncing.

“There is only one baby, Bella. And I bet she is going to be beautiful like you.”

Ryan walked in the door using the key I gave him—thank goodness. He’d been knocking more often than not, so I’d given him a key.

“Hey beautiful.” He swept her into a hug. “Ready to meet your brother?”

Ryan and I disagreed as to the baby’s gender. I referred to the baby as a she and Ryan referred to them as a him. One of us was right.

“I’m ready to meet them both, but Dad’s still getting dressed.” She pouted. How could something like a pout be so stinking adorable? “I’m going to get him.” And off she skipped, because in her words, “Princesses do not run.”

“Them?” Ryan asked as he leaned in for a kiss, one I greedily accepted.

“She referred to the baby as plural to me, so I don’t know.” I shrugged my shoulders. It wasn’t the first time she did it and I hoped she wasn’t going to be disappointed when she only saw one set of hands and feet at the ultrasound, or anatomy scan, apparently the new lingo.

And when did they start calling ultrasounds something so freaking creepy?

“She will see soon enough.” Ryan tilted his head to the door where Ethan and Bella were emerging hand in hand.

We were out the door and on our way within minutes, all of us super excited. We’d come a long way, from Ethan in denial to going to see our baby, all of us together. I just hoped we would all be able to go in the room to see the scan.

We arrived, and Ryan and I took Bella to the play area of the waiting room where there was a princess castle almost as tall as she was as Ethan checked in. There were plenty of other cool things there as well, but she only saw the castle.

He came back to us with a clipboard full of papers and a very long face.

“Nurse Ratched at intake says I need to have all these filled out before the scan.” He plopped into the chair beside Ryan.

“Didn’t they have you do them before your first visit?” I asked, still not happy about missing the first visits, but he wasn’t ready then. He was ready now and I planned to embrace the positive as far as that went.

“They do every visit.” He sighed.

“Then fill them out?” Ryan asked almost as if it were a question, one I too had.

“I have. As much as I can anyway.” He never lifted his eyes to meet either Ryan’s or mine.

“Then what is their beef?” And it better have been legit because I was about to go have words with the horrible person who had him looking so distraught.

“They want the history of the alpha.”

“And you don’t know who that is, scientifically speaking.” I clarified, just to make sure my agitation hadn’t gotten the best of me.

“That.”

Ryan took his hand. He might think he was shit with people, but he always knew what our omega needed and did it without thought.

“Well then, we will just tell the nurse. Done,” Ryan said. Ethan looked at him as if he were nuts. He wasn’t.

I glanced to make sure Bella was still playing. She didn’t need to hear any of this. She deserved her world to be all sunshine and roses for once.

“Ryan is right. We just tell her we are the fathers and you can just give her both our histories and call it done.” We could address any red flags that came up.

We’d have to discuss the birth certificate later. I was cool with Ryan being on it but that needed to be a group decision. No matter whose name was on the paper I was going to be the little one’s dad, so it didn’t matter.

“You think I can do that?” Ethan looked to the nurse and back, as if he were about to do something truly naughty.

“Sure. We are the father.” Ryan squeezed his hand.

“Eff biology.” I agreed.

We sat there filling out the forms, making two columns for each question. Turned out almost all of the answers were the same anyway. I felt bad he had been carrying that burden—or was it shame? I still hadn’t discerned which, but he sat visibly taller when we were done, which coincided with when the nurse called us back.

She gave us a look when we all followed her back, but never said a word. They probably had people do all kinds of crazy things at these ultrasounds.

The nurse led us straight to the room where we were going to be seeing our baby, but only let Ethan in at first to “get ready.”

Ethan changed and lay on an exam table covering in a small sheet staring up at the monitor on the wall. He looked nervous as fuck. Larry and I stood on either side of the table closest to his head, so we wouldn’t be in the way, and Bella settled into the spare seat.

“Knock, knock,” a man called through the door.

“Come in,” Bella answered for us.

The tech walked in, jolly as could be. I mused how he would make the perfect Santa if his beard were just a tiny bit longer. The rest of him was identical to the Coke Santa from those retro ads they hung up in diners and such.

“Good afternoon. I’m Greg and I’m going to give you a little look at your sweet baby.”

We introduced ourselves and he had the equipment in place and ready to go faster than I anticipated. This was it. I was going to get to see our baby.

I held my breath as he placed the wand on Ethan’s belly the first time, not knowing what to expect.

“Ahh, here we are.” The screen was beeping, and Greg kept clicking as he moved the wand.

“Looks like we—wait—what’s this?”

That didn’t sound good, but his face was all smiles, so I had no idea how to read it. Since nobody spoke, I chose to do the same as the man scanned across Ethan’s entire lower abdomen. The last thing I wanted to do was distract the man, even if it was killing me not to ask all the questions.

“Hot damn!” Greg exclaimed, in the most unprofessional manner ever. “I need to call the doctor in for this because I can’t tell you anything because—policy.” He held up two fingers, pointed to Ethan’s belly, and held up two fingers again with a wink before placing the wand back in its holder and taking out his phone, calling the doctor.

Two. We were having twins. I bent over to kiss Ethan because all I wanted to do was celebrate, but I was too late, he was already kissing Ryan. This was good. So very good.

There was a rapt knock on the door, followed by the emergence of a woman in a doctor’s coat.

“I’m Doctor Fields and Greg here says he has something to show me.”

We all nodded, not wanting him to get in trouble.

“I’m sure you have no idea what.” She gave Greg a knowing look with a smile as he brought the wand back to Ethan’s belly and showed one baby and then the next. “Congratulations Ethan. You are having a boy and a girl.”

“Doctor.” Greg spoke sternly. “I haven’t asked if they want to know.”

We’d discussed it and I said it didn’t matter to me. Ryan was a for sure yes. That left it up to Ethan’s yes, which thankfully he gave because we were going to find out one way or another thanks to the lovely doctor.

“Oh we want to know.” Ryan piped up, and she stuck out her tongue at Greg. Most unprofessional staff ever, which almost made up for the military style intake desk.

“A brother and a sister?” Bella sounded almost disappointed instead of saying ‘I told you so’ like I had expected. “I wanted sisters to dress up.” Because Bella was Bella.

We all cracked up before Greg continued the scan, this time annotated in real time by the doctor. Twenty fingers, twenty toes, four hands, four feet and all evenly divided between two babies. Two perfectly developing babies, according to the results.

Life was good.