chance connection |2| [zarry]

twohundredseventeen

"Are you excited for the birthday?" Zain asks over breakfast, cutting his waffles — Harry had gone all out — and watching Freddie eat strawberries happily.

"Yea," Freddie nods, popping another strawberry in his mouth. "There's gonna be a bouncy castle, Kathie said, and three different cakes and puppies! It's gonna be great!"

"That sounds fun," Zain nods, wondering if rich people had been this excessive back when he'd been in school. Probably, he thinks, reaching out to brush a bit of hair from Freddie's forehead. "But if you don't like, like if they're being mean, it it's fine if you wanna come home, yea? You can always tell your dad."

"I know," Freddie says. "And daddy's coming and if they are mean to me, I'll tell him. He already said."

"That's good," Zain smiles, leaning across to kiss Freddie's cheek. "But I bet you'll have loads of fun, huh? Puppies and a bouncy castle. And cake!"

"I know," Freddie grins. "Where's mummy?"

"Running," Zain says, wrinkling his nose. "Where's your dad?"

"He needs alone time," Freddie answers. "He said he was gonna spend all day with me and my friends, he needs peace and quiet for a moment."

"Understandable," Zain grins, amused.

Freddie is unbothered, used to Louis and Zain needing time to themselves sometimes as well. Zain wonders if he's realised yet that they never seem to need alone time when they were alone with him, that it always happened when there was someone else to look after Freddie.

"What are we gonna do until you leave for Kathie's birthday, then, hm?"

"Dunno," Freddie shrugs. "I guess we can paint. I'll play football with the others later."

"Painting it is," Zain nods, starting to clear the table. "Come help with clean up, please."

🌱

"This is worse than looking for Freddie's school," Zain groans, going through the NHS site on pregnancy again as if it would help, then checking the different midwife sites, again. Most of them barely had an online presence. "Why does having children involve so much bureaucracy?"

When he looks up, Harry isn't even looking at his laptop, grinning at Zain instead.

"What?" Zain asks, scratching his nose. "Did Freddie get paint on me?"

"No," Harry smiles. "I just like that you're actually invested in this."

"Er, yea, babe," Zain says, rolling his eyes. "Why do you keep thinking I'm an arsehole."

"I don't," Harry says quickly. "But I read loads of mummy blogs — don't roll your eyes — where they say their husbands only got involved when they started to actually see that there was a baby."

"What kind of mummy blogs are your reading?" Zain asks, still rolling his eyes slightly at the word. Harry had already gone way overboard. "You sure it wasn't my husband is an arse blogs?"

Harry rolls his eyes, shaking his head. "Just wanted you to know I appreciate it."

"You shouldn't compliment me for the bare minimum," Zain yawns, scratching his beard. "I'll get even lazier. I think I've narrowed it down to two. Do we like. Try them both? What were your final choices?"