Logan — 17
“Munchkin, are you absolutely sure about this?” Logan asked as we slowly drove over the bumpy road that would lead us to Boone and Kait’s cabin.
“Yep. Kait and I worked it all out the other day.”
I sent Rhett a quick look before I turned back toward the plowed path that used to be the long drive that led to my brother’s place. We’d gotten more snow right after the new year, and there was so much on the ground now, we’d stopped counting. Once levels reached close to two feet, it didn’t really matter anymore, it just was. But I was a bit concerned about this entire situation. My parents had left abruptly right after the twins were born, and they were now almost a month old.
Rhett had started sessions with Dr. Lane again, and he was making great progress with his feelings and anxiety. The nightmares had all but stopped again, and that right there was the biggest hurdle in my opinion.
Scarlett was torn though. When the twins first came home, she sensed Rhett was okay and that she needed to watch over the babies. But now she was feeling the pull toward Rhett—exactly like she should—and she was running herself ragged by trying to watch over all three. Rhett, bless him, tried to make sure he was always very near the babies, but sometimes, it just wasn’t possible.
“When exactly did you and Kait work things out? The other day? Because I don’t remember you talking on the phone except to James.”
“We were texting. Relax. I’ve talked to your parents on the phone several times this week. And texted them pictures. You should see the little onesies your mom got the twins. They’re so cute. Abi’s says ‘Papa’s Princess’ and Ash’s says ‘Daddy’s Cowboy.’”
“Wait. What are you talking about? How do you know this?” I glanced at Rhett again and then turned back to look at the road. The lights from Boone’s cabin came into view, and not only were my parents’ vehicles out front, but so was the Land Rover I knew James drove. “Your dads are here.”
“Yes, I know. Kait invited them as well.”
“Rhett, what’s going on?” I asked as I pulled beside the Land Rover and parked. My husband simply smiled at me as he pushed the button to open the liftgate for Scarlett as he climbed out of the SUV. Since I was able to see Scarlett prancing at the door, I pushed the button to close the liftgate and climbed out myself. I opened the back door and stared at my husband from across the seat. “We’re going to have a talk later, understood?”
“Sure. But I thought you wanted this? I do, too, you know.”
“Wanted what, Rhett? I thought we were having dinner with my brother and his wife.”
“We are. But your parents are back. They’re joining us. They want to see their grandbabies. All four of them.”
I gasped, thinking about that. Boone’s girls were about to meet the twins for the first time, and it had been three weeks since my parents had seen them. I sighed, admitted defeat, and unclicked Abi’s car seat from the base. Rhett had the diaper bag, so we were all set. All I had to do was follow my husband up the stairs and into the unknown.
“Just so you know, you’re in trouble,” I whispered in Rhett’s ear as he rang the doorbell. He didn’t get a chance to reply because the door was pulled open and we were met by a very eager Boone.
“Thank fuck. All I’ve heard for the past hour was ‘when do the babies get here?’”
Rhett and I both laughed as we entered the cabin and were met by a wall of warmth. And people.
“They’re here! Phoebe, they’re here,” Chloe yelled as she ran right to me. She tried to launch herself at me like she used to, but it was Boone who caught her, not me.
“Chloe, what did we say?”
“Let me down, Daddy. I want Uncle Logan.”
“Excuse us. We’ll be back in a few,” Boone said as he walked off with Chloe in his arms. She was almost too big to carry anymore, which made me realize just how much both of them had grown in the last few years.
“Mommy, where’s Daddy going?” Phoebe asked as she walked up to us. She was usually the rowdier of the two, but for whatever reason, she was quiet and calm tonight.
“He needed to remind your sister about how she had to behave around the babies. Are you ready to see your cousins?” Kait asked as she got down on one knee in front of her youngest. Phoebe nodded, and Rhett and I passed the car seats over to the waiting arms of their grandfathers, my dad and Taylor.
I helped Rhett take his coat off, and after we’d hung them by the door, we went in the direction everyone else had and found them all circled around the car seats that had been set on the coffee table. Scarlett had already plopped down in front of the fireplace in the living room.
“We can get them out, right?” Taylor asked as he removed the cozy covers from both of the seats.
“Of course you can. We’re late because we just fed them, so they should be good for a while,” I told him. James gave me a look suggesting he’d have been more than happy to have done that, but I shrugged.
“Don’t give us that look. We didn’t want to listen to them cry the entire way over, so we fed them,” Rhett told James, who nodded. He pushed his way in and took Abi from Taylor, who was more than happy to hold her if not for his youngest thwarting his plans. Rhett picked our daughter up out of her car seat and walked toward Mom, who was standing with Kait and Phoebe.
“I think Abi needs some girl time, and you held her yesterday, Papa,” Rhett said over his shoulder as he carefully handed Abi to Mom. He had a point. James and Taylor had been at the house yesterday and spent a few hours with the twins while Rhett and I did laundry and cleaned the house.
“Oh my. She’s so beautiful. Joe. Joe, come look. She’s grown so much in three weeks,” Mom said as she walked over to the couch with our daughter in her arms. Kait sat on one side, and Phoebe was on Mom’s other. She held Abi out in front of her so Phoebe could meet her cousin, and the look on her face was priceless.
“Logan, we should…” Rhett stopped whatever he was about to say midsentence and indicated to my left. When I turned and looked, Boone was coming out of the back of the house with a still-tearful Chloe. My first princess calmly walked up to me, and it was my turn to get down on my knee to be at her level.
“I’m sorry, Uncle Logan. I know I can’t jump at you anymore. Not when you have one of the babies in your arms. It could hurt them.”
I pulled Chloe into my arms and gave her a big hug. “It’s okay, princess. Eventually they’ll grow up and you won’t have to be so careful around them anymore. All right?”
“Yes, Uncle Logan. But I’m not your princess anymore. That’s Abi, so you can call me Chloe now,” she said as she pulled out of my arms and walked over to the couch and sat beside her sister.
“We’ve been working on her. Sorry. She’s jealous because before it was still her and her sister and she was your princess. Now you have your own daughter and she thinks…honestly, who knows what she thinks. We’ve spent the past week trying to figure out what was going on.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. She was excited to meet them at first, but now I think it’s sunk in that her Uncle Logan is a daddy now and you have a daughter, too.”
“Oh man. Wow. I’m not sure what to make of that. I feel bad she feels that way though.” I told Boone.
“Yeah. Neither are we. She’ll come around. I think the biggest problem has been because she hasn’t gotten Uncle Logan time recently like she used to. We’re all to blame. We’ve all spoiled her and her sister.”
Boone shook his head at me when I started to argue and say we could work out Uncle Logan time again, but I stopped when he added a glare.
“No. She’s seven and she needs to know now that she has to share and the world doesn’t revolve around her. You two are busy, and I’ll bet the twins still aren’t sleeping through the night.”
Rhett and I both groaned at that thought. Boone laughed.
“That’s what I thought. As the twins get older, as long as the girls aren’t sick, we can spend more time together with all of us,” Boone suggested.
“That’d be great. We really should work on a family dinner thing or something,” Rhett suggested, although he wasn’t looking at me or Boone. No, he was watching closely as Mom helped Phoebe hold Abi. Dad was doing the same with Ash and Chloe. When we were met by the toothless smile of Phoebe, I reached for my phone, thinking we should have been taking pictures.
Rhett tapped me on the shoulder and pointed toward James, who had been taking a video with his phone of the interaction. That would do. I already knew he wouldn’t have to be asked to send it to us. He’d share it with us before dinner even started.
“Logan, you need to get in there so we can get a generation picture,” James told me. I looked to Rhett, but he shook his head and gave me a gentle shove. Mom and Dad were taking the twins back from the girls so we could get a picture.
“Rhett, you need to be in here,” Dad said, but Rhett shook his head again and took a step back.
I sat between my parents as they each held one of my twins and did my best to smile at everyone when they asked. It was Rhett who finally got me to fully smile, but he always could.
“There you go. I mean, do you really want our kids to ask why you’re always so grouchy? You need to smile, pumpkin.”
It was the nickname that did it. Rhett had taken to calling me by my name more than anything, and I missed the endearment he’d given me when we were still figuring things out. Hell, I was ready to spend the rest of my life figuring things out with him. I smiled at Rhett and everyone else that wanted a picture. But when Mom and Dad both placed the twins in my arms and then each pulled one of Boone and Kait’s girls onto their laps, I smiled so big my cheeks hurt.
“Boone, you need to get in there, too,” Kait said as she shoved her husband as hard as she could. Like me, he could be stubborn when he wanted, and he turned and gave his wife a “really? That’s all you’ve got?” look.
“Go on, Boone,” Rhett said as he helped Kait by pushing the back of Boone’s back. My brother finally gave in and joined us on the couch. He took Phoebe from Mom and then squished Mom between us.
“Here, you take Ash and then we’ll all be holding someone,” I told her, and she eagerly took Ash from me. We smiled again and again, and when I was seeing spots from all of the flashes, I started scowling again. I’d had enough.
“Okay. Logan’s finished,” Rhett said, putting his phone in his back pocket. He walked right up to me and plopped down on my knee and started cooing at Abi, who was actually awake.
“She’s quiet. Is she always like that?” Mom asked as she passed Ash off to Taylor’s waiting arms. James and Taylor took off to the kitchen with Ash, following Boone, who had Phoebe on his hip.
“She’s not awake often, actually,” Rhett told Mom. “She still doesn’t eat as much as her brother, but she has plenty of wet diapers and she’s growing, so the doctor said to not worry. Some babies just don’t eat as much.”
“Both Logan and Boone ate like they were starving. Consider yourselves lucky this one doesn’t,” Dad said as he and Chloe got up. Chloe followed the others to the kitchen, but Dad stopped long enough for Rhett to get his attention.
“Hey, Joe. Can I talk to you and Fi for a minute?” Rhett asked.
“Sure, son. What’s on your mind?” Dad asked as he sat back down.
“I wanted to say again how sorry I was. It wasn’t my intention to run you off back to Texas early.”
“Oh, Rhett. You didn’t. We needed to take care of some things, and the sooner, the better. I was wrong to assume you two needed help and instead of asking what you needed or offering to do something, I just did what I thought you needed. For that, I’m sorry,” Mom said as she grabbed Rhett’s hand and gave it a squeeze. She got up and handed Ash to Dad before she turned and looked at us. “Just know that we’re home now, and if you ever need any help, don’t be afraid to ask. Joe and I might not be as young as Cammie, and especially not as young as Taylor, but we’d love to babysit anytime you want some time alone.”
“Thank you. We both really appreciate that. And we will be taking you up on it. We’ll figure something out and make sure everyone has a chance to see the twins as much as they want,” Rhett told her.
“That would be great. Now, come on, gramps. We promised those girls we’d work on their daddy about getting a puppy.”
“We did?” Dad asked, confused. He looked at us before shaking his head and looking at my mom. “I guess we did. Rhett, you’d better take your little girl, and I suppose I’m headed in to talk my youngest into getting his girls a puppy.” Dad sighed but took off to the kitchen, his hand at the small of Mom’s back.
“They’re so in love still, it’s beautiful.”
“They are. That’s something to strive for, don’t you think?” I asked Rhett. When he looked at me, I gave his waist a tug and he leaned in, giving me the kiss I wanted. Neither of us realized that Taylor had come back into the room, but when we heard the shutter of the camera app on his phone, we broke from the kiss.
“That’s going to be a beautiful picture! With Rhett on your lap holding Abi and you holding Ash, it’s perfect,” Taylor told us with a huge smile on his face. When he showed it to us later, he was right. It was perfect, which was why it was going on our mantle at home.