I had just opened the door when I heard Max scream.
“Papa!!!” He came running to me and I let his tiny arms hold my legs. I put my coat on the table and took him to the sofa with me, where we sat to watch cartoons while Phil was in the shower.
A few minutes later he came out, gave me a kiss, stroke Max’s hair and went to the kitchen to start making dinner. I would usually help, but I was so tired I just lay there, staring at the fireplace and thinking.
I had taken us so long to finally realize we were each other’s significant ones. When we did, we weren’t making videos anymore, we were too old for that. Phil had his own show on the radio and I became a journalist for the BBC One.
Because we had lost so many time denying our feelings, we wanted to enjoy as much as we could then. We adopted this beautiful baby boy named Max, who was now 5 years old.
I stopped daydreaming when Max woke up and ran to Phil saying:
“Daddy, daddy, hurry up I’m hungry!” So I finally went to help Phil cooking. We ate while asking each other things about our day, like any normal family would.
Soon, I started washing the dishes while Phil was taking Max to bed. He had his own bed, but in the middle of the night he would always end up sleeping with us.
Despite the water noise, I heard Max ask Phil for a bedtime story. He always would do that. When it was my turn, I would tell him stories about superheroes, but Phil would tell him fairytales. So I heard him:
“Once upon a time, there was a girl called Cinderella…” But Max interrupted him. He said:
“Daddy, why are the stories always about a boy and a girl?” I couldn’t help but smile when I heard that. I finished washing the dishes and went to his tiny blue bedroom and sat on a puffy chair to listen to the story too.
After all those years, I saw Phil’s cheeks blushing. He started over:
“Once upon a time, there were two boys who loved to make videos…”
