A long lane at night

2.8. COME INTO MY WORLD Part 2

It was almost seven when I finally pulled up in front of the pizza parlour to collect dad Allan's order.

'He does realise there's only eight of us, not a hundred, right?' Nate asked in horror when he saw the number of boxes I was trying to load in my car, much with everything else that was already there.

'Have you met my father?' I asked, a bit too annoyed.

'Point taken,' Nate said. 'Sunbeam, get a couple of towels, put them on my leg, and let me carry some of these boxes.'

'But you're stopping at your flat.'

'I have enough faith that you can finish the drive without dropping anything, Jack.'

I do as he says and it's actually super helpful. I check to see the boxes won't stand in the way of the rear-view mirror on his door and we're good to go.

The drive back to the upstate town was a much lighter one, with Nate and I talking amenities about comics and videogames and we enjoy this new "completeness" of our relationship. The best part is that it really doesn't feel like we have any adjusting to do. This is still just Nate and I, and it will always be just Nate and I. I pulled up behind his car like I did yesterday and he carefully stepped out the door and placed the boxes leaning on the seat, the towel now protecting the whole seat. For extra measure, my paranoid of a gorgeous fiancé threw the seat belt over the boxes.

'Now, come on over to my window and give me a good-bye kiss,' I said.

'I'll be there in less than an hour, Jack.'

'So, come to my window and give me a "see you soon" kiss. And make it a good one because I had to ask for it twice already.'

He really made it a good one.

'Kiss me like that again and I'll spend the night with my body attached to yours,' I said.

'Is that a promise.'

'You can bet your delicious ass it is.'

'With a prize like that, how can we go wrong? Now go, Sunbeam. I'll be there in an hour or so.'

When I parked in front of ... hey, it's home again! ... the house, I sent a quick text to my brothers so they could help me unload the car. It goes without saying that those two lazy creatures took all the pizza boxes and disappeared to the back of the house and didn't come back.

One step into the living room already told me this was the house where a baby lived. There was a large and comfortable bassinet next to the smaller couch and the kitchen counter already had more appliances to prepare her bottles. I dropped the food in the fridge and on the counter (Will and Chad will probably tackle them before the pizzas get ready anyway) and I make my way upstairs to my old room. My king-size bed now had a cot attached to it and, somehow, it looks like they had always been the same single piece. The inside of the cot is filled with comfortable and firm pillows and a pair of blankets. Dad Brian had told me over text that they had converted the last room into a nursery and, after dropping my things and a few of Nate's on the bed, I go check the place.

My jaw dropped when I enter the room. It has been painted in a very light shade of yellow and the main wall, where the cot was, had this rainbow-and-birds panel. The mobile hanging over the cot had lots of fluffy birds and butterflies.

The room was complete with a wardrobe, a changing table, a baby tub and, on one of the corners with a lamp next to it, the most comfortable nursing chair I have ever seen in my life. The nursery in the city flat was great, but somehow it didn't compare, not in the slightest, to how at peace I felt here. But I won't allow myself to waddle in a bad feeling of regret for not including my dads. I will focus on the here and now. Alice is surrounded by people who love her and who want to see her grow into the best version of herself she possibly can. That. That right there is the thought that I'm allowing to dominate my mind this moment. I don't know how long I stayed there, but it was Will's voice coming from behind me that brought me back to reality.

'Dad and Pop really outdid themselves this time. This has to be the best of them we've ever seen, they were perfect.'

I turned round to see the twins standing at the open door, taking in the room that, only this morning, looked absolutely nothing like this.

'Come here, boys,' I said while stretching my arms to them. They come to me and we all hug each other.

'Let's take a moment to appreciate our blessings, huh?' I said.

'And let's also take this chance to take a vow to make that baby girl downstairs as blessed as we have been', Will said. The three of us, the Altridge-Leech brothers, stayed arm in arm admiring the recent work of our dads, until the two of them took us by surprise and engulfed us from behind.

'You three are the true blessings in this family, boys,' dad Brian said with a teary voice.

'And before you ask,' dad Allan's voice was full of emotion as well, 'it's obvious there are cameras in all the places where Alice will stay. They don't have sound, but the electronic nannies do. We just need to get the camera app up and running on your phone, Jack.'

'Hey, Jack,' Chad called, 'come see our room.'

I followed them into the second largest bedroom of the house, because our dads wouldn't give up their dream room even in a million years. Will and Chad never wanted to have separate bedrooms, even though the house was big enough for it; they have always insisted to share. The bedroom was this high-tech place where they were following in dad Allan's steps to work with content creation. They preferred the technical aspects of the work, however. Will was a master of lighting and Chad had a real knack for editing and special effects.

Their room looked different, now. Instead of the obviously separated two halves of the room, they now had their beds so close to one another it looked like those couple bedrooms from last century's TV shows, only with a single night stand between them. Their PC desks were also placed side by side. All that because one of the corners of the room had been entirely dedicated to Alice. There was yet another bassinet here, and a round allergy-free colourful carpet with a great assortment of all kinds of fluffy animals. The lighting of this corner seemed to be working individually from the rest of the room, it was no doubt Will's doing.

'We thought,' Chad said, 'why do they get to have all the fun? We're the only uncles here, we have a job to do!'

I couldn't thank them enough, so I only hugged them again.

'Thank you all,' I said, a huge lump on my throat. 'On my behalf and on my daughter's, I can't express how thankful I am. I was really crazy to think I could do this alone. Thank you so much for showing me the light without shaming me.'

'Oh, sweetie,' dad Brian said in his most sarcastic tone. 'Who said anything about "without"?'

I know they will never truly shame me for it, but the teasing days are far from over. In fact, they haven't even begun yet.