"You know," Sebastian said, leaning back exhausted against the pillows piled on the couch, "I didn't think I could love you more than when I saw you holding Lucy for the first time."

Logan turned back from the door towards him, carefully cradling their baby's head against his shoulder as she slept contentedly. "Oh?"

"Yeah." Sebastian grinned at him. "But I think your masterful handling of my parents might be edging it out right there. I don't think I could have managed one more second of so-called advice before I started screaming at them to get out."

"What do you mean?" Logan said innocently. "You look very tired. I think you probably could use a nap."

Sebastian laughed. "I mean, I probably could." He wasn't sure how many naps he'd had since the baby had been born a couple of days ago, but it seemed like every thirty seconds he was waking up again, so it had most likely been a lot. "But you have been the master of the smooth lie all afternoon. It's very sexy." He tried to flutter his eyelashes seductively at Logan, but it was hard when they felt so heavy on his face. Had anyone ever shut down his parents' supposedly well-meaning intrusions as fast as that before? It didn't matter if they had, Logan had still been very impressive. Sebastian didn't want to think about how long it would be before they actually managed to get their shit together and get out of town in the way Logan had described, but it had been a beautifully plausible lie.

"What lies?" Logan chuckled. Baby Lucy shifted against his shoulder and he ran his hand along her back without looking, as though it was as natural as breathing.

"You know." Sebastian wrinkled his nose. "Pretending like we've been planning for years so there's nothing my parents can interfere with." Logan sat down on the edge of the couch, passing Lucy to Sebastian who pressed his cheek to her soft, milk-scented head and blinked back the tears that were suddenly threatening to spill from his eyes.

"Hey, babe," Logan said softly. He touched Sebastian's chin, lifting his head to meet Logan's eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Hormones," Sebastian mumbled. He pulled Lucy closer, taking comfort in the soft curl of her impossibly tiny body. "That's all."

Logan just looked at him, his gaze soft, loving, and unrelenting. It was like being interrogated by the world's gentlest torturer.

Sebastian sighed. "I guess I just thought things would change after the baby was born, you know?" He rocked Lucy tenderly. "I mean, they have. Obviously. But I guess some part of me thought that the second the baby was here I could move on to the next stage in my life. Like we were going to drive home from the hospital to a totally different house in a totally different place." He laughed ruefully. "Sorry. It's stupid, I know."

"You've been pretty busy these last few weeks," Logan said, putting his hand over Sebastian's.

Sebastian flushed and looked away. "Is that a nice way of saying I've been a jerk?"

"Hey, you grew a baby," Logan pointed out. "I haven't done nearly as much as that."

Eyes narrowing, Sebastian looked him over closely. "I hear a 'but' there."

Logan shrugged. "I've been doing some research. Depends on what you want, but we can move any time you feel like it."

"What?" Sebastian jerked his hand away from Logan's. "For real?"

"Just a little," Logan said modestly, which – once he'd produced his volumes of real estate listings, school district analyses, and job postings – turned out to be the biggest lie of the afternoon.

"When did you have time to do all of this?" Sebastian said after what felt like hours of staring at the neatly organized files on Logan's laptop, just clicking through in astonishment.

Logan looked up from where he was feeding the baby, the bottle still in his hand. "Just here and there." His voice was light, as though anyone could have tossed off this amount of work in an afternoon or two.

"Firstly, you're a liar," Sebastian said, shaking his head in amazement. "Secondly, I think I was wrong earlier."

"Yeah?" Logan raised an eyebrow.

"This might actually be the hottest thing you've ever done," Sebastian informed him. Logan chirruped gently to Lucy, rocking her as she fed, his sleeves pushed up to the elbow to display the bulge of his forearm wrapped delicately around their little girl. It was a pretty spectacular sight from where Sebastian was looking. The kind of thing that made all of his earlier worries about Logan's commitment seem silly.

It still wasn't nearly as sexy as how much work Logan had put into trying to get Sebastian's life back on the track that he'd always imagined.

"You don't have to decide right away," Logan said earnestly. "There's lots of choice. I wanted to cover all the possibilities. And I still have all my alerts up, so there'll be more if you don't like any of these..." He looked more nervous than he had the first time the nurse had put the baby in his arms, which was saying a lot.

Sebastian laughed. "It's going to take me ages to read all of these, let alone decide," he assured Logan. "But it looks pretty perfect from where I'm standing."

"Only the best for you," Logan said, his face breaking into a grin.

"If you say so." The laptop was still open on the table in front of Sebastian, but how could he waste time looking at the text in front of him when he could be watching his perfect family. Lucy finished her bottle with a squeak, burped gently and appeared to fall asleep right on Logan's chest, while her father gazed down at her with love in his deep, dark eyes. Sebastian suppressed the coo that rose to his lips.

Did he deserve it? Who knew. But somehow or other, the best was exactly what Sebastian had been given and he was just going to have to wrap his brain around it.

Fortunately, it looked like he was going to have a lot of time in which to try.