Page 103 of Breakaway Daddies

“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it. “For letting us be a part of it. Ofyou.”

She looks at me, and for a moment, the noise of the restaurant fades. Her smile softens, and there’s something in her eyes—affection, maybe, or understanding—that I haven’t seen there in a long time.

“I realized a little too late,” she says quietly, “that I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

That hits hard. Shemeansit. I can feel it in her voice, in the way her hand finds my thigh under the table and gives a small squeeze.

Then she shifts, straightening a little. “Also…” she says, raising her glass again like she’s making a toast. “Heads up. I went to the doctor.”

Bruno instantly sits up straighter. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s great,” she says with a grin. “So great, in fact, that I found out…”

She lets the pause hang just long enough to get dramatic.

“I’m having twins.”

There’s a moment of stunned silence, like all three of us are trying to do the math and failing, and then the table erupts.

“Twins?” Thomas yells, eyes going wide. “We gettwobabies?”

Bruno whoops, practically falling out of his chair in excitement. “We’re gonna need so many more hats!”

I’m laughing, but there’s something tight in my chest too, something so full of awe and disbelief that I can barely speak.

Two. Two lives. Two chances to be the kind of man I’ve never been before someone who shows up, who stays, who gives a damn even when it’s hard.

They all lean in, pressing kisses to her cheeks, her hands, her forehead. Bruno kisses her temple, and Thomas plants one right on her nose, making her scrunch it up with a giggle.

I lean over last, brushing my lips to hers, slow, careful, reverent, because this feels bigger than us. It feels like the start of something monumental.

When I pull back, I rest my forehead against hers, eyes closed.

“Twins,” I whisper, and she nods.

“Twins,” she repeats.

I reach for her hand under the table and squeeze, trying to keep from floating clean off this planet with how full I feel. With how much this is.

She squeezes back. That’s all it takes.

After dessert, some ridiculous flaming chocolate thing Thomas declared “a tastebud baptism,” we stumble out into the cool night, still buzzing with laughter and sugar and too much alcohol.

Jinx loops her arm through mine, heels clicking against the pavement. Bruno and Thomas trail behind, debating baby name themes again. Thomas is insisting on space names. Bruno is still stuck on “no pasta.”

Jinx tugs my arm gently. “Hey. Let’s walk a bit?”

I nod, and the four of us drift away from the restaurant’s lights and into the quieter streets, the night stretching wide around us. Eventually, we find a patch of open sky behind the park. No streetlamps. Just stars. And us.

“God,” Jinx murmurs, tilting her head back. “I forgot how clear it gets out here.”

“Want a blanket?” Bruno offers, already pulling one from the trunk of the car like he knew this would happen. Jinx flashes him a grateful smile.

We settle onto the grass, her between me and Bruno, Thomas stretched out dramatically like he’s waiting for the universe to notice him.

“There’s Lyra,” Jinx says after a minute, pointing upward. “Right there, with Vega. That one’s easy to spot.”

Bruno hums, his voice quiet and thoughtful. “The harp. For music and love.”

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