Includes EIGHT short stories and novellas never before in audio or print.
The Christmas tree sparkled brightly in the corner, and Sebastian and Aria were near it, playing with their toys. I rubbed my temples, trying to remember what I was supposed to be doing next, but I couldn’t focus.
My twins were sitting underneath the Christmas tree, only a couple of days before New Year’s Eve, and I was happy.
If I’d thought of this moment when I’d been younger, I couldn’t have ever imagined this form of happiness. I had spent my most recent years, before getting married, thinking I didn’t deserve joy. That I was never going to have it again.
And now it seemed as though maybe I had it. I still wasn’t sure I deserved it, but I was never going to let it go.
“Daddy!” Aria said, waving her block in the air. I smiled, my heart growing in size once again, and went to sit cross-legged beside them. Sebastian immediately tumbled into my lap, bringing his stackables with him. Aria sat in front of me, showing off her toys.
“Look at you both! I don’t think I could ever do this good a job. This looks outstanding. You’re doing a good job.”
Aria smiled up at me. “Daddy, help. Please.”
They spoke in more than just one or two words at a time, but sometimes they were in such twin-speak that getting out of it to talk to me wasn’t high on their priorities. Tabby was usually better at getting them to speak in anything other than that twin-speak. But that was my wife for you, ordered and talented.
“Okay, let me help you with this. Although, pretty sure your Uncle Wes would be better at it.”
“Your daddy is just as good as I am at this,” my brother Wes said as he walked into the living room. He turned to me, a grimace on his face. “And, my wife should be here soon to help with the bathtub.”
I groaned and moved another block to the top of the tower to help Sebastian. “You can’t work on it?”
Wes walked forward, shaking his head. “Oh, I could do it, but you want me to work on plumbing and not my wife, who’s a master plumber? No, that’s not going to happen. I’m a builder, an organizer. I don’t do plumbing. Not when my wife will beat me with that pipe wrench just for stepping on her toes.”
I snorted. “Well, hell.”
“Hell,” Aria said, and I groaned as Wes laughed.
“You are not helping,” I said, and kissed the top of my daughter’s head as she moved closer. “Don’t say that word. That’s daddy’s word.”
“Daddy says hell?” Sebastian asked, and Wes started cracking up.
Maya walked into the living room and shook her head. “Okay, why are all of my brothers idiots?” Maya asked, laughing.
Aria clapped her hands. “Idiot.”
“Hey, stop teaching the twins new words,” I chided. Tabby was going to kill me when she got home.
Maya just laughed. “I’m pretty sure my husbands have taught my kids all the bad words. I am innocent here.”
“Whatever you say, sis,” Wes said, laughing, clearly not believing Maya just like I wasn’t.
My sister moved forward, a smile on her face. “Okay, I have Tabby’s bag packed, and the kids’ bags packed.”
I frowned. “I already packed the kids’ things,” I said.
“You did, and I added extra things because I’m going to be the one with your kiddos, so I wanted to make sure I had everything.”
I sighed. “I’m not going to be gone for that long.”
“We’re not going to see you until next year,” she teased. “You never know.”
“You make my head hurt,” I said, before I set Sebastian down next to his sister and stood up again. “Thank you both.”
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