You And I: Family Time

Connor VIII

Troye was keeping something from me. Something that I badly wanted to know but from the way he smirked at me every time I brought it up, I knew he wasn't going to give up easily. The morning had been wonderful, waking up to my family bringing me breakfast and then relaxing on the patio with Troye and Tori. But now, we were back inside and Troye was in Aiden's room, getting him dressed.

"Troye, you need to at least tell me if I need to get changed." I said, leaning on the door-frame of Aiden's room, half watching them and half watching Tori in her playpen.

"Okay, okay. Get dressed nice." Troye said vaguely, his focus completely on Aiden.

"Nice like shirt and tie? Or nice like a suit?"

"Shirt and tie." He still didn't look at me. I rolled my eyes, knowing it was his way of keeping the secret.

"Alright. Let me know when you want to go." I crossed the apartment to our bedroom to get changed, choosing a pale blue shirt that I knew Troye loved on me. I was just tying a dark blue tie around my neck when Troye came in.

"Good choice." He whispered in my ear, his hands resting on my waist as he stood behind me.

"You still not telling me where we're going?" I tried again.

"Nope. Now, go get your daughter and son and I'll meet you at the car in ten minutes." He pulled away from me completely.

"Tease." I stuck my tongue out at him and he winked as I left the room. In the living room, Aiden was leaning on the fence of Tori's playpen, watching his sister. "Hey buddy, you ready to go?"

"Yeah. Can I carry Tori?"

"Not this time, buddy. We're going to the car." I leaned over the fence to pick up Tori who babbled baby talk at me.

"She's happy, papa." Aiden told me, reaching up to take my free hand.

"She is. Are you happy?" Together, we went over to the elevator, me grabbing my wallet and phone off the kitchen counter on the way.

"Yeah. I'm happy." Aiden skipped beside me and started his usual commentary of The Lion King that he told us every time he'd watched the movie.

In the parking garage, I made sure both kids were secured in their seats before climbing into the passenger seat to wait for Troye. It wasn't long before he appeared, hurrying from the elevator, his attention focused on his phone.

"Okay, we're running just on time, so let's go." He said, climbing into the driver's seat. "Aiden, are you buckled in?" I turned to look at our son to check. He'd recently started a habit of undoing his seat-belt when we weren't looking.

"Yes, daddy." Biting my lip, I looked at Troye with a nod.

"Good." He rested his hand on my knee as he backed out of the parking spot. "Are you ready, birthday-boy?"

"Yep. Let's go."

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"Happy birthday!" We were met with cheers from our friends as Troye pushed open the doors of our favourite restaurant.

"Troye, what did you...?" I asked, turning to my grinning husband.

"They wanted to come. I just told them when." I handed Tori to him so I could hug our friends as they came up to me.

Everyone was there, even Marcus and Niomi, despite the fact that she was due any day now. They'd moved up to New York a few weeks back but everyone else had flown in from interstate to see us.

"Thanks for coming guys, it's so good to see you." I said when we were all sat down.

"Well, we wanted to visit home and check up on how you guys were going. We haven't seen you since Troye was in hospital." Kayla said.

"I'm fine." Troye protested and I nodded.

"Yeah, there's been nothing else since then."

"Doesn't mean we didn't want to see you. Do you know how bad I felt, waking up on the first morning of my honeymoon to hear one of my best friends was in the hospital in a coma?" Joe asked.

"It wasn't your fault, Joe. There was nothing anyone could have done." I reminded him, not wanting to talk about this on my birthday. "Can we change the subject?"

"Sorry. We shouldn't be talking about this today." Zoe apologised.

"Well, tell us, Connor, did you get spoiled today?" Tanya asked.

"I did."

"We made papa breakfast." Aiden announced proudly from his seat beside me.

"Very good. What did you make?" Caspar's wife Gabbie asked.

"Well, daddy made most of it, but I made the toast."

"We made bacon and eggs." Troye supplied.

"And then I got a wake-up call of Aiden jumping on me." I said, making the others laugh.

"Oh, that's always a fun wake up call." Jim said. "Scarlett and Izzy do that all the time to us."

"It's Aiden's favourite thing to do." Troye decided.

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Arriving home, Troye and I had to carry the kids as they'd both fallen asleep in the car. It was almost midnight and we were both exhausted. By the time we'd put the kids in their rooms, we both just flopped onto our bed. Troye rolled onto his side to face me.

"Have you enjoyed your birthday?"

"Definitely." I smiled at him, bringing his hand up to kiss his knuckles. "I wish every day could be like today. I love just relaxing at home with you and the kids."

"Mm. Me too. But unfortunately, that's not how life works." 

"Sadly." I agreed. For a moment, we were silent, just watching each other and enjoying being alone for a while.

"I love you, Connor." He said finally.

"I love you too, Troye. More than anything."

"Are you up for one more birthday surprise?"

"It's barely even my birthday anymore."

"So? Doesn't mean I can't still spoil you." He sat up, pulling me with him. "Come with me." I followed him out to the balcony and stopped short. While we were out, someone had strung fairy lights across the space and cleared the furniture to one side.

"What is this?" I asked. Instead of answering, Troye just wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me close.

"I haven't had a dance with you in months."

"We danced at Joe's wedding."

"Yeah, but that was three months ago." He let go of me briefly to switch on the iPod that I hadn't noticed and soft, slow music filled the air as he held me again. "We used to dance all the time, remember?"

"Always." I had to smile at the memories of when we used to dance in the living room of our apartment in Cambridge. We slowly swayed to the music, me resting my head on Troye's shoulder as we held each other close. "This is the perfect end to a perfect day."

"Just perfect." He pulled back a little so that we could press our lips together softly, moving together as if we were one, they way we should be.