Page 74 of It Must Be Fate

Thayer shakes her head and throws an incredulous look our way. “Rogue, how is yourthree-year-oldalready showing signs of jealousy?”

Bellamy sighs, answering for him.

“He’s his father’s son, apparently.” She turns towards Rhodes and grabs his shoulders. “You need to apologize to Ivy, Rhodes. It’s not okay to push people like that.” She leans closer, whispering her next words in his ear so softly that I only just manage to catch them. “If you like Ivy, you have to be nice to her. Otherwise, she won’t like you back.”

She releases him and tips her chin at him to go to her. We all watch as Rhodes seemingly walks in the opposite direction, away from Ivy.

Once he reaches the edge of the tablecloths, he bends and picks a yellow flower from the ground. He turns and goes up to Ivy who’s still clutched against her mother’s chest.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, extending the flower towards her.

Ivy blinks, her wide eyes growing wider. And then her tiny hand reaches out and closes around the stem, taking the flower from Rhodes. She looks at it like it’s her most prized possession and then smiles shyly up at Rhodes.

“Thanks. Let’s play.”

She jumps out of her mum’s lap, grabs Rhodes’s hand, and then they run off.

“Like I said,” Rhys drawls from behind me, shaking Rogue off him. “Keep your son away from my daughter.”

Rogue shrugs. “If he’s decided he wants her, I fear it’s over for her.”

“I’ll make sure it's over forhim.”

They continue bickering, because if death and taxes are the two certainties in life, then the third is that those two can always be counted upon to argue their way through a social gathering.

Phoenix, meanwhile, is paying them no mind. He’s too busy with his daughter.

Astra is sitting balanced on his forearms, which he has crossed over his chest. Her legs are to either side of his torso, kicking happily. The expression on her face is laser focused, her tongue peeking out of her mouth in concentration as she does his makeup.

Suki, Ivy, and Astra each received a children’s first makeup palette for Christmas, something they’d been requesting for months. It’s a cheap, plastic set that features some truly horrific eyeshadow colors such as fuchsia, electric blue and toxic waste green.

Every single one of those colors are making their way onto her dad’s eyelids and even his cheeks, creating a vivid canvas that would make Jackson Pollock proud. Flowery barrettes adorn his short hair in places so precarious they’re in open defiance of all the laws of physics, and gaudy clip-on emerald earrings hang from each earlobe.

To say he looks both completely ridiculous and perennially unbothered is an understatement. He sits there serenely, his eyes closed as he lets his daughter paint his face every color of the rainbow, only speaking to ask if he looks pretty.

“Very pretty, Daddy,” she answers.

“Good.”

It’s interesting to watch Phoenix with Astra and see how contrasting our relationships with our kids are. With four kids already here and a fifth on the way, my time has to be split equally between them.

Phoenix, on the other hand, is entirely, blindly, and unreservedly devoted to his daughter.

I fear for the man who’ll eventually try and take her away from him. He might have to break into their home or something, because Phoenix is unlikely to ever let anyone near her.

“Are you doing Daddy’s makeup?” Six asks, coming to sit by them. Phoenix’s hand searches for her, coming around to rest possessively on her ass as she settles into a cross-legged position at his side.

“Yes,” Astra answers, still so focused she’s hardly blinking. She grabs an eggplant-colored tube from her case. “Gloss. Mummy show Daddy how to do the lips.”

Lazily, Phoenix peels open an eyelid, his stare tracking Sixtine’s mouth as she pouts her lips in demonstration of how to prepare for the application of lipstick.

His gaze darkens, his voice turning husky.

“Mummy has the prettiest lips,” he rasps.

I turn away before I witness something that’ll ruin our friendship. My gaze moves slowly over the other smaller groups that have broken off around our area — Rhys and Cato kicking a football back and forth, Rogue showing Kiza and Hayes how to blow bubbles, Bellamy and Nera sitting with Juno, River, and Riot as the youngest kids sleep, and Thayer playing tag with Rhodes, Ivy and Suki.

I watch them all and take a moment to truly bask in how lucky I am to have built such an amazing found family around me.

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