Giving up on sleep, he pulled on his robe and wandered down the hall.
“I thought we talked about no early morning weight-lifting routines.” He tried to keep his voice light because anger wasn’t going to help anything. “Come to bed? Wait. What are you doing?”
His bid to get Nick to come back to the warm and cozy bed with him died as he actually entered the room and found the weight bench in pieces. Not like Nick had taken a sledgehammer to it or anything so dramatic, but it was disassembled and in a neat stack of parts. Nick was a competitive power lifter, so his home gym setup was intense. Dark, mocha colored walls. Mirrors. Posters Teddy had found from an action movie franchise they enjoyed. But mainly, the room was weights. So many weights. However, now half the racks were empty, and Nick was in his uniform, not workout gear.
“Sorry.” Nick looked up from dropping screws into a plastic bag he’d already labeled. “I was trying to be quiet. But wanted to get this done while I had energy.”
“Done?” Teddy rubbed his eyes, still not following. Maybe this was a dream. Soon there might be dinosaurs or a spaghetti mountain.
“I need to move all this to the basement. Figured if I was fast, I could get to the home improvement store right when they open, then get a coat of primer on these walls before I have to sleep. We can finish tonight.”
“We’re painting? Why?” Heart hammering, his head tilted. Discreetly, he kicked his own heel. Ow. Yeah, not sleeping. But maybe it was a dream. His dream. Their dream.
“The walls are too dark for a kid, especially once my mirrors move to the basement with the weights. And we can’t have it look like we were ready for one kid and not the other. Absolutely we can’t put one of them in the basement, even if it is largely finished.”
“No, we can’t stick a kid next to the washer,” Teddy agreed, coming further into the room and crouching next to Nick. Their house was a pretty standard ranch for this area, three bedrooms plus a decent sized basement. “But we do have one kid room ready. If this particular situation isn’t the right one for us, that’s okay. I’m not going to make you give up your gym.”
“Eh. The basement needs a purpose besides holiday storage for all your wrapping supplies.” Nick managed a rusty laugh. “Once the mirrors go up, it won’t seem so dreary down there at all.”
“Mirrors will help.” Teddy was still struggling to make sense of this surreal conversation. “But you sure you want to do this? You sounded pretty reluctant earlier.”
“I wasn’t reluctant. I was…scared.”
“You? Scared?” Teddy looked him up and down. Scared wasn’t an emotion Nick admitted to very often at all, and sure enough, he was blushing and not meeting Teddy’s gaze.
“Yeah. This got real a lot faster than I’d expected. And there are two of them. And one’s a girl. But then I talked to Beckett, asked him what he knows about girls.”
Teddy had to smile at the idea of big, gruff Nick asking his boss about kids. It wasn’t a terrible idea, though. Beckett did seem intent on single-handedly keeping population numbers for the county steady. “He has a few.”
“He does. And he said…nothing. He knows nothing.”
“Nothing?” No way was Teddy buying that. Beckett was always jovial and talkative. “The guy has more kids than we have seasons around here. And a wife who adores him. Pretty sure he’s got a sister and a whole lot of female coworkers too.”
“I know. But then he said he doesn’t know about any other genders either. Their oldest is nonbinary. That’s had its challenges, but he loves his kid unconditionally. And the middle boy, apparently all he can speak in is video game metaphors, but Beckett loves him too. The younger girl knows more about horses than a lot of vets. And Beckett loves her, even if he’s still not buying that pony. So basically, he said I’m an idiot if I think I know how to parent one gender more than others because really, I don’t know how to parent any of them.”
“True. But if you’re not comfortable—”
“Beckett says all we can really do is try to love the kid. Kids.”
Teddy’s heart swelled. That was what he’d been saying as well, trying to assure Nick that he did have the capacity to love on that level. Nick might not believe, but Teddy did.
“And you think you can do that?”
“I read the profile again, after Beckett and I had a good laugh over everything we don’t know. And I still don’t know if I can parent anyone. Including these two. But they need a place, and I hate the idea of them having to change schools mid-year, especially when they’ve gone through so much already. And so much is still uncertain about the grandmother’s recovery. If Joyce feels that we’re a good fit—”
“I think we can be,” Teddy was quick to agree. Joyce had laid out all the reasons why this was a good match, but it also came down to the fluttering in his gut that said that maybe they were meant to do this, nerves and all.
“Your belief that we can make it work matters.” Still seated on the rubber workout mat, Nick tugged Teddy into his lap.
“I know we can.” Teddy stretched to press a quick kiss to Nick’s mouth.
“Then we’ll make it work.” Nick nodded like this was a done deal, and apparently it was. They were really doing this. Holy crap.
“I love you. So much.” There wasn’t enough vocabulary in the world for everything he was feeling right then. And maybe Nick knew that because he gave him a tender kiss, then laughed, providing the lightness Teddy needed in that moment.
“Love me enough to pick out the paint color?” Nick was notorious for his lack of decor. Left to his own devices, they’d have like three framed photographs and white walls in every room.
“I can do that.” Already his head spun, trying out different themes for the room in his head. “Oh, wow. This is going to be…”
He trailed off because he couldn’t promise great. Or fun. There were no guarantees at all here. His stomach wobbled, his nerves returning full force.
“Something. It’s gonna be something.” Nick gave him a tentative smile. And okay, Teddy might be nervous. Nick clearly was. But they could do this. They would do this.
November
“So this will be your room.”
Nick hung back next to Joyce while Teddy conducted the grand tour for Natalie and James. Both kids had stayed wide eyed and quiet throughout their walk through the house.
“Now that’s a lovely remodel,” Joyce encouraged when no one else said anything. His former weight room had come together as a kid room with remarkable speed, which shouldn’t have surprised Nick because Teddy was involved. As was the rest of the McNally clan.
Beckett had warned against going too feminine until they knew more about Natalie’s tastes. Teddy had taken that advice to heart, opting against frilly bedding in favor of a colorful quilt from his mom. The walls were a soft coral shade. Not pink, but not quite orange either. The walls were accented by some turquoise curtains and a fun beachy rug Rhonda had donated. A cousin had turned up with the white bed and dresser, which were leftover from a kid who was off to college.
Teddy’s one big purchase was a little fanciful—a white bookcase shaped like a house. His mom had brought an armful of books, but there was still plenty of room for Natalie’s things. She was tall for her age with thick brown hair gathered back in a sloppy ponytail that swayed as she pulled her little purple rolling suitcase. James had a matching one in yellow.