Kari handed Holly the large leather diaper bag, which looked ready to explode from everything stuffed inside. “Thank you for looking after the boys for a few hours,” Kari said, grinning.

Instead of us babysitting Jyri and Kari’s twins at their house, they had met us at the zoo—at Jyri’s suggestion.

“Tomas. Mikko. Do you remember Josh and Holly?” he asked the boys.

Don’t ask me which was which. They looked the same to me. Both had the same blond hair, blue eyes, and I’m-going-to-cause-all-kinds-of-trouble grins. “They’re taking you to see the animals.”

Holly and I had met the boys last night. And let me tell you now, there was a good reason both Jyri and Kari looked exhausted. The twins never stopped moving.

“Hi,” Twin #1 said to me.

“No,” the other one said. Ah, that must have been Mikko. “No” was his favorite word. Correction. It was the only word I’d heard him utter last night.

So that meant Mikko was in the red dinosaur T-shirt, and Tomas was in the matching blue one.

Got it.

“Mikko, you go with Holly so I can help Josh put your car seat in her car.”

“No.”

You might think “no” means no—and for the most part that’s usually true. But with Mikko, it was all in the inflection of his voice. And in this case he wasn’t screaming the word, so his “no” could be loosely translated to, “Okay, Daddy. That sounds like a great idea.”

Jyri successfully handed Mikko off to Holly, then he and I walked over to his SUV.

“Kari and I really appreciate this,” he said. “I can’t remember the last time we had sex.”

Huh? So that was why Holly and I had to meet them here? So he and Kari could go home and have sex?

Nice.

And in case you missed the sarcasm, there was more in that single word than there was animal shit at the zoo.

He fastened the car seats in Holly’s Corolla. Why not my Nissan GT-R? Have you ever tried squeezing a car seat into a two seater?

And don’t even say it. I was not giving up my baby. If you had ever ridden in one, you would understand why.

We returned to the women. Jyri and Kari said good-bye to the twins and told them to have fun. I could have sworn Jyri’s words held a secret message—reminding the boys to be little hell-raisers and make their daddy proud.

Or maybe that was me being paranoid.

“Okay, guys,” I said. “You ready to see the animals?”

“See bear.” Tomas growled like one, then took off running toward the front gate. Not wanting to be left behind, Mikko ran after him.

“You corral them and I’ll get the tickets,” Holly said, before walking away and not giving me a chance to respond.

For little guys, those two sure could move. It took me a minute to capture them. With each holding on to my hands, we walked over to join Holly in line.

Thirty seconds—that was how long they lasted before they got bored of waiting. They released my hands and ran toward the gate again. Holly stepped up to the cashier window to buy the tickets, and I hurried after the boys a second time.

Once I caught up with them, I crouched in front of them. “Hold on you two. Holly’s getting the tickets now.”

“See lion.” Tomas tried to duck past me, but I scooped him up before he got far. He giggled.

“Nice try, dude.” Luckily Mikko decided not to run off, so to stall him, I asked, “What animals do you want to see?”

“No.”

One corner of my mouth jerked up. “Is that a type of animal?”

“No.”

“Ah, so it is a big animal?”

“No.”

“A small one then?”

“No.”

Meanwhile, during this enlightening conversation, Tomas discovered my nose and grabbed it.

“Do you know what that is, Tomas?”

“Lion.”

I laughed. “Not quite. That’s my nose. Can you say nose?”

“Lion,” Tomas said.

“No,” said Mikko.

A pair of never-ending legs wearing jeans and sneakers stepped in front of us. Their owner was pulling the plastic green wagon belonging to the boys—and I peered up at the sexiest mommy-to-be on the planet, now nineteen weeks pregnant. She was wearing a long navy and white striped T-shirt that hugged the form of my growing son.

I grinned at her. “You got the tickets?”

She flashed them at me. “You boys ready to see some animals?”

They didn’t bother to answer. They just toddled off toward the gate again.

“I guess they’re not ready for the wagon yet,” Holly said as we followed after them.

Twenty minutes later, with us running after the twins the entire time, I was ready to call it a day. No wonder Jyri and Kari looked tired when they dropped the boys off. How the heck did they have energy for sex while we had the twins?

But then I glanced at Holly and my cock twitched. Who was I kidding? I would always have energy to fuck her.

The question was—would she want to have sex with me after our son was born? She was almost insatiably horny now while in her second trimester. But what about later?

And what about after our son was born? Yes, I’d still be in her life because of him, but what about her and me?

And did I want there to be an us?

Or would I be no better than my old man?

I pushed the thought away. My father had never tried to be one. I smiled at Mikko and Tomas. Unlike my old man, I was trying at least.

Would my father have babysat the twins to be part of HDF? Hell no.

“What’s next, boys?” I asked them.

“Bear.”

“No.”

Taking Mikko’s “no” to mean “Yes, Josh, I would love to see the bears,” I asked them, “Grizzly bears or polar bears?”

“Bear.”

“No.”

“Okaaay,” I said, and surveyed the map. “Both are in bear country, which is that way.” I pointed to where we needed to go.

And the two Energizer bunnies in the form of two-year-old boys toddled off in that direction.

“Are all two-year-olds this energetic?” Holly asked. “Or are these two a rare genetic breed?”

I laughed. “Can you imagine what they’re like on ice?”

“I’m afraid to.” She flashed me a panicked look before glancing at her belly. “Why do I have a feeling our son won’t be much better?”

“You might be right about that,” I said, before jogging after our two charges.

Thanks to their short legs, they didn’t get far. Holly easily caught up with us while pulling the wagon behind her.

We led the boys to the grizzly bear exhibit. Tomas got excited when he saw one and yelled, “Bear!”

“No.”

Holly knelt in front of Mikko. “Do you want me to lift you up to see him?”

Mikko flung himself at her. “No.”

Smiling, she scooped him up and straightened to stand. “Do you see the bear over there?” She pointed at the bear who was lying by the pond, checking out his reflection.

“No,” Mikko yelled, pointing at the animal.

“What an adorable family,” a woman next to us, with chin length gray hair, said. Her gaze dropped to Holly’s belly. “Are you having twins again—or just one this time?”

A light blush hit Holly’s cheeks. “We’re not a family,” she blurted. “We’re just babysitting the boys.”

The woman chuckled. “Well, you’re certainly not babysitting the baby, are you?”

“No, he’s definitely ours,” Holly said.

“Then you’re a family. Even if you two aren’t married, you’re still a family.” To me she said, “I hope you realize how lucky you are, young man.”

“I do.” Okay, lucky wasn’t exactly how I would describe our situation. None of this had been planned.

But since Holly had given me a chance to prove I wasn’t a mess-up like my old man, I was lucky if that was what the woman meant.

I leaned down and lightly pressed my lips against Holly’s to show her just how lucky I felt. It was just the brushing of lips, but it was enough to ignite a fire low in my belly.

Not the kind of fire that usually led to sex. This was different—I just had no idea what it meant.

Tomas spotted the nearby bench and hoisted himself onto it. I picked him up and pretended he was a plane. But the moment I stopped making the airplane noises, he squirmed to be put down.

I lowered him to the ground and threw Holly a What-now? look.

“Please tell me this gets easier once it’s your own kid?” Holly said to no one in particular.

The woman chuckled again and patted Holly’s stomach. “Don’t worry, you get better at it with practice. I had four kids before I finally got it right.”

She laughed at Holly’s horrified expression—which no doubt matched my own. “I was kidding. I mean, not the part about four kids. I had five actually. But everyone starts off feeling like they have no idea what they’re doing. That’s probably why we give birth to helpless newborns instead of toddlers.”

Two hours later, we dropped off two very sleepy twins.

“Congratulations,” Jyri said, holding on to Mikko. The boy’s eyes were closed, his head resting on his father’s shoulder. “You’re now officially a member of HDF.”

Kari rolled her eyes. “Good luck with that,” she said to Holly. “You’re going to be at the team barbecue next Saturday, right? It’s a great chance for you to meet the wives and girlfriends.”

Holly slid me a look that had so much meaning.

Oops. All right. That was the PG version of what I was really thinking. Along with me calculating if I had earned enough brownie points yet to make up for my royal fuck up.

“We’ll be there,” I told Kari with a confident smile.

Holly didn’t look so confident.