Work Text:
February 2011
Will was setting the table in the dining room when he heard the front door open, the familiar sounds of the West Village spilling into the brownstone behind his husband. He smiled. Mike had been working late the past week, so he’d been arriving home minutes before dinner instead of an hour before. He heard Mike kick his shoes off in the foyer, drop his briefcase on the bench beneath the coat rack, and pad into the kitchen, but didn’t turn in his direction so as not to deny himself the sweet surprise of—
Long arms wrapped around him from behind, and Will was enveloped in the heavenly scent of the sandalwood and jasmine cologne he’d bought Mike two birthdays ago.
“Smells amazing in here,” Mike murmured into his ear, planting kisses along the side of Will’s neck. “Pasta night?”
“Pasta night,” Will affirmed. “I think I’ve finally perfected my vodka sauce.”
“Not sure how much more perfect it could get, but I believe you.”
Will laughed and turned around in Mike’s arms to face him, wrapping his arms around Mike’s neck. “Hi. You’re cold.”
“Hi. I’m better now.” Mike leaned in and kissed him softly. “How was the muse today?”
“Silent.” Will rolled his eyes. “It’s fine. I did a couple sketches, prepped some canvases, but none of my ideas are quite cohering yet. The one I finished last week really took it out of me.”
“You need time to recharge. That’s totally normal.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Still frustrating, though.” Will sighed. “How was work?”
Mike mimed gagging.
“So, better than usual?”
“Ha ha.” Mike followed Will back into the kitchen and hopped on the island, legs dangling off the edge, while Will searched the drawers for their corkscrew. “You know the nightmare author I’ve been complaining to you about for weeks? Turns out she’s a Schwarzman. Like, as in Stephen A.”
Will pulled a bottle of pinot grigio from the fridge and slid it across the counter. “Isn’t that the guy who said Obama’s new tax rates are as bad as World War II?”
Mike picked up the corkscrew and went to work, talking the whole way. “Yes. Specifically Hitler’s invasion of Poland. For the life of me I couldn’t understand why my boss wasn’t dropping her, but it all makes sense now. No wonder she can’t handle minor dev edits. I doubt anybody’s said ‘no’ to her in her entire life.”
“Hey, it could be worse. At least you’re not her editor.”
“Thank god. We’d kill each other. I feel terrible for Marcia, though. She’s been put through the wringer.” With a triumphant yank, Mike dislodged the cork and presented the bottle to Will proudly. He was rewarded with Will stepping between his legs and pushing up on his tiptoes to give him another quick kiss.
“What would I do without my big, strong Paladin?” he murmured, trailing a hand down Mike’s chest. A shiver jolted Mike’s entire body, and Will smirked. “God, you’re so easy.”
“Wiiiiill,” Mike whined. “I’m just a man.”
“Uh huh. You’re my man.” Will kissed him again, and this time Mike squeezed his legs around Will to trap him in place. He brought his hands up to hold Will’s cheeks. The kiss was longer, deeper, and it was all Mike could do not to flip Will around and bend him over on the island counter. But they were no longer the sole occupants of the brownstone.
Speaking of…
Mike pulled back for a second. “Where’s Rosie?”
“Her room, I think, but I haven’t seen her all afternoon. I was at the grocery store when she came home, so I missed her.”
Rose was thirteen now and in eighth grade. Her dads had been letting her walk home by herself for the past year and a half. The building was only a few blocks away, and as of a year and a half ago, she became the proud owner of an LG Cosmos cell phone. It came with a slide-out keyboard that she could use to text her dads, her cousins, and her best friend, Cece. It could not access the internet and only had the trial version of Tetris. Rosie covered the blue case with Keroppi stickers and sealed them with clear nail polish. Knowing that she could call them at any time made them both (Mike especially) feel more comfortable letting her traverse the city on her own.
When Will came home, he’d seen her faded green Converse on the shoe rack, covered in doodles and inside jokes scrawled in pen by both her and Cece, but it wasn’t like her to not at least say hello when she heard him come in. Maybe she was just really absorbed with her homework. She often went into the same zone of hyper-focus Mike entered when he was writing, where the entire rest of the world ceased to exist and all that mattered was whatever sat directly in front of her.
Maybe she just had her headphones on.
“I’ll get her.” Mike pushed off the island and started for the stairs. He leaned over the banister. “Rosie, dinner!”
As he tilted his head, awaiting a response, his fingers automatically worked at his tie to loosen it. Will bit his lip as he watched them deftly dismantle the knot.
“ROSIE!” Mike called again. “Food’s getting cold. Time to come down.”
Silence from the top of the stairs.
Mike and Will exchanged glances, and a mutual understanding flickered between them. They started up the stairs together.
Their daughter’s door was shut tight. Mike knocked gently with two knuckles. “Rosie?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Will raised an eyebrow at Mike. Rosie was always hungry.
“What’s going on, bug?” Will asked. He paused, and when she didn’t answer, he continued, “Can we come in?”
A minute elapsed before they heard a weak “Yeah.”
Will let out a soft breath, then turned the knob.
Their daughter was huddled in bed, buried beneath the sheets with her back to the door. Will could only make out a few errant curls poking through.
At the sound of the door, Rosie peeked over the edge of her comforter, exposing only her eyes. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Will said, giving her a small smile. “Can I come sit?”
Instead of answering, Rosie pulled the blankets over her head again.
Will and Mike exchanged another look. Before either of them could speak, a muffled voice asked, “Can I stay home from school tomorrow?”
Mike blinked. “Are you sick?”
Silence.
“…No,” came the muffled admission.
Will sighed. “Sweetheart, you know you can’t stay home without a reason. Did something happen at school?”
Rose had to switch elementary schools in first grade due to severe bullying. It had been a period of true hell for their family, and Will desperately hoped this wasn’t the case again.
Rose flung the sheets back suddenly, throwing her arms over the comforter. “I had a fight with Cece and I don’t think we’re friends anymore and I just don’t want to go to school, okay?” Her eyes welled with tears, and Will was moving before he could even think about it, perching on the edge of the mattress.
“Whoa, hey, what happened with Cece?” Mike joined them, sitting on the carpet beside Rose’s mattress and leaning his back against the bed frame.
Cece and Rose had been inseparable since second grade, after Rose switched schools and was placed in the same class as her. She was a sweet girl. Significantly less boisterous than their daughter, but just as stubborn, creative, and adventurous. Mike once spent a summer teaching them both how to swordfight in the backyard, and though he never admitted it in front of them, Cece was much better than Rosie.
Both sets of Cece’s grandparents had lived in the same neighborhood of the Bronx for decades, and her parents both grew up there. They’d had her older brother there, then moved downtown into a tiny three-bedroom in the Village to have Cece. They were deeply religious. Will befriended Cece’s mother quickly (as he effortlessly did with most of the moms at school), and she was so charmed by him that she was able to overcome, as Cece would later put it, a lifetime’s crust of homophobia. Cece’s father was more suspicious of the situation, but he rarely participated in childcare anyway, so they were mostly only interacting with Ruth. And Ruth loved them.
Cece usually came over at least three times a week, and Rosie usually went to Cece’s every weekend. Just last summer, it had seemed like they were closer than ever, given that Mike and Will barely saw their own daughter. Relishing in the freedom afforded to her by having a phone, Rosie would leave to meet Cece at some ungodly hour of the morning, then the two girls would come crashing through the front door at 8pm starving and laughing. Will and Mike were usually finishing up dinner at this point, so they’d heat up some leftovers for them and clean the kitchen while the girls shoveled food into their mouths and talked about their plans for the next day.
Now that he thought about it, Will realized Cece hadn’t been to the brownstone in a while. Maybe the last time was right around the holidays. New Year’s?
“She has a boyfriend,” Rose spat. “Josh. They started dating at the end of last semester, and it’s like nobody else in the world exists to her. Everything’s always about Josh. She only ever wants to hang out with him now. She never has time for me anymore.”
Will stroked where he thought her shin might be, through the blankets. “Is that what your fight was about?”
Rosie nodded, avoiding eye contact. “We were gonna do our anti-Valentine’s day this weekend. She promised me she wouldn’t flake. She promised. But yesterday, she told me Josh made surprise plans for her that night, so she can’t come anymore.”
Every February, the girls had an anti-Valentine’s day sleepover at the brownstone. They gorged themselves on candy and played board games and watched horror movies in the living room. Earlier that day, Will had picked up a carton of cherry garcia ice cream at Rosie’s request; she hated it, but it was Cece’s favorite flavor.
“I’d get it if it was actually on Valentine’s day, but it’s not. And she also has plans with him on the real holiday, so it’s not like she won’t get to see him at all. We’ve been planning this for weeks.” Her tears began to fall. “W-we were s’posed to watch Jennifer’s Body.”
Mike raised his eyebrows. “Jennifer’s Body?”
Will nudged Mike with his foot and subtly shook his head. Later, he mouthed. “Did you try talking to her about it?” he asked.
Rosie nodded miserably. “I told her she didn’t have to sleep over, even, and she could just go see him after, but she said he wanted to spend the entire day with her. And the whole time we were talking, he was texting her, so she kept checking her phone and ignoring me, and I… I said it was pathetic that she’d rather text stupid Josh instead of actually listening to her best friend, and… she got so mad, Daddy.” More tears squeezed out through the corners of her eyes. “She said… she said a real friend would be happy for her. She said Josh isn’t stupid, he’s like, smart and kind or whatever, and… and that it’s not her fault I don’t like boys.”
The words hit Will like a slap in the face. A wave of dizziness passed over him, and for a moment all he could hear was his blood roaring in his ears and rain pounding down on a garage roof.
Then he felt a hand wrap around his ankle and squeeze. Multiple times, in a series of quick pulses that it took him a second to realize were morse code.
.. -- ... --- ... --- .-. .-. -.--
Im so sorry
Will let out a shuddering breath. He couldn’t look at Mike right now or they’d both lose it completely, and that wouldn’t help Rosie at all.
“Oh, baby,” he sighed. He scooted closer to her on the bed and opened his arms. “Come here.”
Rose launched herself forward. Will held her tightly as she dissolved into sobs.
“I know what I said about Josh was mean,” she cried. “But he’s the only person she cares about anymore. It’s like I don’t even exist.”
Will risked a look at Mike over Rosie’s shoulder. He still held onto Will’s ankle and was pressing his free hand to his mouth, all the color drained from his face. The haunted look in his eyes broke Will’s heart.
Will mouthed: We need you.
Mike was up in an instant, settling on the other side of Rosie and wrapping his arms around them both in a tight embrace. He pressed a few quick, firm kisses to the top of her head. “You have every right to be upset, both about how she’s been treating you and what she said. She should never have said that to you, okay? Never.” His voice wavered dangerously, and he cleared his throat before continuing. “You were just trying to get your friend back. You didn’t deserve that, at all.”
Rosie pulled back from the hug enough to stare at both of them, her eyes swollen and rimmed with red. “Papa… Daddy…” Her voice broke on another sob. “What do I do? How do I fix it?”
“It’s not on you to fix this,” Will said firmly, stroking her back. “Has she reached out to you at all since your fight?”
“She texted me. A lot. But I didn’t read them yet, so I don’t know if she’s trying to apologize or just yell at me more.”
“I don’t think she would do that.” Mike wrapped an arm around her waist, and Rosie leaned her head on his shoulder. “Cece wouldn’t go out of her way to hurt you on purpose. Sometimes… sometimes in the heat of the moment people lash out and say things that they don’t actually mean, because inside they’re hurt or confused about things that have nothing to do with you. It doesn’t mean what she said was right, or that you’re not allowed to be hurt by it. Just… when you’re feeling a little better, a little calmer, it might be worth hearing her out. You two have been friends for so long. I know how much you both care about each other.”
Rosie nodded against him. “She’s my best friend,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to lose her, but it feels like she’s already gone.”
Mike and Will made eye contact over their daughter’s head, and neither were surprised to see the tears in the other’s eyes.
“Just give yourself some time,” Will finally said. “I know you’re hurting right now, and that’s more than okay. And it’s okay to take some space away from her, too. But if or when you feel ready, I’m sure she’ll want to talk, and I think you do deserve that. You deserve an explanation, and an apology. At least think about giving her a chance to give you those things.”
“Okay.”
“And… about what she said to you,” Will said carefully. “About you not liking boys…”
Rosie sniffled and stared at her lap, saying nothing.
“I just wanted to tell you that whether you do or you don’t, today doesn’t have to be the day when you have all the answers. You don’t need to have it figured out yet, and you absolutely don’t need to share anything about it with us, or Cece, or anyone. Not until you’re ready. You don’t owe us that, and we aren’t asking you for it. You get to do everything on your own time, okay?”
Rosie looked up at him, lips parted as if she were about to speak, but all that came out was a tiny whimper. She threw her arms around Will again, burying her face in the crook of his neck. He could feel her tears dampening his skin. He pressed a kiss to her temple, blinking back his own tears. “I know, baby. I know. We’re here. We’ve got you.”
“Always,” Mike said, his voice cracking. Will reached for him, pulling him into the embrace. The three of them held each other for a long time.
Finally, Mike pulled back, wiping his eyes quickly. “Okay. Well. I don’t know about you, but crying always makes me hungry.” He placed a hand on Rosie’s back, and she let out a wet laugh. “You ready for dinner, bug? Your father’s outdone himself. You don’t want to miss it.”
“Yeah,” she said softly, “okay.”
“We’ll give you a few minutes, yeah?” Will rubbed her shoulder. “I need to finish up the pasta anyway. Come down whenever you’re ready.”
Rosie nodded, wiping her eyes.
They were at the door when Rosie said, “Um. Daddy? Papa?”
“Yes, darling?” Mike replied.
“Just… thank you.” She finally managed a tiny smile. “I love you.”
“We love you too, sweet girl,” Will replied in an instant. “So much.”
“More than anything,” Mike added.
Will had barely closed the door behind him before Mike was tackling him in a vicelike hug. One hand came up to cradle the back of Will’s head, the other splayed flat against Will’s back. Will brought his arms around Mike’s waist and squeezed back just as tightly, resting his forehead on Mike’s shoulder.
“Will, I—”
Will shook his head. “Not here,” he whispered, tilting his head in the direction of their bedroom. He took Mike’s hand and led him down the hall.
In their bedroom, Mike sat down hard on the edge of the mattress and buried his head in his hands. “Fuck,” he groaned. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. What are we going to do?”
Will dropped down next to him. His body felt so heavy. “I think we just did it.”
“She shouldn’t have to go through this. Nobody should. It’s just so… it’s cruel.” He turned to Will, his face twisted in anguish. “Will, I’m so sorry. You know that, right? I’m so, so fucking sorry.”
Will wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry. “Mike,” he said kindly, “you have apologized a thousand times. I forgave you somewhere around the fortieth time.”
“And I’ll apologize a thousand more. A million more.” Mike grasped Will’s hand between both of his and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “I can’t believe I ever said something so awful to you. I was such a stupid little punk back then.”
Will brushed a few errant curls out of Mike’s face. “You were a closeted child in a small town in Indiana.”
“So were you,” Mike countered. “And all you ever were was kind. Even when people didn’t deserve it.” His eyes flitted to the side. “And I was just… an asshole. All the time.”
“Not all the time.” Mike raised an eyebrow, and Will chuckled. “Really. You weren’t.” He cupped Mike’s jaw, stroking over his cheek with his thumb. “I wouldn’t have been so in love with you if you were.”
Mike leaned into Will’s touch, his eyes fluttering shut, and let out a shaky breath. “I am sorry, though. For that, and for California, and for what I said in the pizza place—”
“I know, baby. I know. I forgive you. How could I not?” Will leaned forward and rested his forehead on Mike’s. “You more than make up for it every single day.”
“It’s the least you deserve.” Mike pulled back so he could look into Will’s eyes again. “Especially since it is my fault you don’t like girls.”
“Oh my god. Mike.”
“Am I wrong?”
“I was gay before we met, Mike.”
His eyes twinkled with a bit of his usual mischief. “And we know that for sure?”
Will rolled his eyes, but he tilted his head to rest on Mike’s shoulder. They sat in silence together for a moment. Will fiddled with Mike’s fingers in his lap.
“I just…” Mike spoke again. “I wish I could fix this for her. I wish I could take it away.”
Will squeezed his hand. “Me too. But we talked to her, and we’re going to be there for her, and that’s all we can do right now. She and Cece will have to figure it out themselves.” He glanced up at Mike. “Just like we did.”
A few tears finally escaped Mike’s eyes, but a small smile graced his lips. “I love you,” he breathed. “So, so much.”
“I love you,” Will whispered back.
He didn’t realize he was also crying until he felt Mike’s thumbs brushing at his cheekbones. “God,” Will said with a weak laugh. “We’re so sappy.”
“I like us sappy.” Mike kissed him softly, and when they broke apart, the dumb, megawatt smile on his face made Will’s entire body glow.
“What?” Will murmured.
“Oh, nothing. Just so damn glad we’re not thirteen anymore.”
“You’re telling me.” Will pinched at the fabric of Mike’s work shirt. “While we’re here, do you want to just change now before dinner?”
“You just want to see me topless.”
“I want you to be comfortable. Seeing you topless is just a bonus.”
“Wow. So selfless of you.” Mike pushed off the bed and ambled over to the dresser. He pulled out a worn Death Cab for Cutie shirt that almost definitely belonged to Will and a pair of sweats. “I just don’t know what got into Cece,” he mused as he changed. “At least with me, it made more sense, because I was already an argumentative little shit, but Cece’s actually a nice girl. I could never imagine she’d say something like that to anyone, especially not to Rosie.”
Will hummed. “I could never imagine she’d date a boy.”
“Wait, you think she’s…”
“I mean, I don’t know anything. It’s just a feeling I get, sometimes.” He shrugged. “But I also couldn’t imagine realizing something like this when your parents are that… God-fearing. If she really is… she’ll have a long road of processing and reckoning ahead of her. Just think about it. How terrifying would that be for a child? No wonder she’s trying so hard to convince herself that she’s in love with some guy named Josh.”
Mike groaned. “Stop complicating my binary thinking with your bottomless well of empathy.”
“My mistake. It won’t happen again.”
Mike snorted. “Well, they’re both way smarter than us, so hopefully it takes them less time to figure this out.”
“Oh, I can almost guarantee this will be over, like, tonight.” Will smirked. “Weren’t you on my doorstep within an hour?”
“Give or take. In the rain, too.” Mike glanced out the window at the decidedly not rainy weather, then sighed dramatically. “Kids these days will never know the rush of biking across an entire town in the rain to apologize to your future husband.”
“Maybe that’s for the best.” Will rose from the bed and headed for the door. “I’m going to finish up dinner. You coming?”
“My Sorcerer, I would follow you to the ends of the earth.”
Will’s eyes softened. Few people could say this and actually mean it. But Mike had followed Will right to the end of it all, to the chasms of fire splitting open their town, to the nightmarish world of the Upside Down, to the arid and desolate Abyss. And it all led here: their warm, safe home, their beautiful daughter, their shared life. Even when things were hard, like today, he never lost sight of the fact that they’d gotten so unbelievably lucky.
Rosie came down while Will was in the middle of stirring the pasta into the sauce. Mike leaned against the counter next to him, alternating between sipping from a glass of wine and regaling him with a story about a pigeon that had crossed the street with him on the way to work that morning.
“It literally waited at the crosswalk with me until the light changed. It was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen.”
“The most bizarre thing you’ve ever seen? Really?” Will laughed. “Personally, I’ve seen stranger things.” [A/N: the crowd boos and throws tomatoes at me]
Mike huffed. “You know what I mean.” He spotted Rosie coming down the stairs. She’d changed into sweatpants and a Fiona Apple t-shirt, and had tucked her curls beneath a green paisley bandana. He grinned. “Hi, honey. Feeling better?”
She gave him a tiny smile. “Yeah.”
Will turned off the burner. “Alright, I think we’re set!” Mike reached for the handle of the saucepan, but Will bumped him out of the way with his hip. “I’ve got it, babe. Go sit. Rosie, there’s that lemonade you like in the fridge.”
“Oh my god. The sparkling rose elderflower flavor?”
“Do you have another favorite lemonade I’m not aware of?” Will winked at her. She beamed and scurried over to the fridge.
By the time they finished eating, Rosie had almost returned to her normal self. She giggled at Mike’s stupid jokes, in some cases helping him make them even stupider, and gushed to Will about her art class. At her school, art was required for the first two years of middle school, but optional in eighth grade. Rosie chose to enroll because the eighth graders got to make stained glass artwork, and she was dying to get her hands on a soldering iron. Despite all of Will’s probing, he couldn’t get her to reveal what her design was. She just kept saying it was a surprise.
“Jesus, Will.” Mike leaned back in his chair with an exaggerated huff. “You were right. I think you did perfect this recipe. And also, I may never need to eat again.”
“I always tell you not to go for thirds. You never listen.”
“That’s true,” Rosie agreed.
“Hey! Whose side are you on?”
“The side of truth and justice.”
“Which, as we know, is always mine.” Will batted his eyelashes, and the three of them burst into laughter.
Just then, the doorbell rang.
Mike and Will locked eyes.
Will was barely able to hold back a smile. He raised an eyebrow— I told you so.
Mike tilted his head to the side slightly, lips quirking upward at the corner of his mouth, admitting defeat.
Rosie groaned. “You guys are doing the thing again.”
Will blinked innocently, as if they didn’t have this conversation almost daily. “What thing, sweetheart?”
“You know what thing!” But she was laughing, even as she complained. “That annoying thing where you have an entire conversation in front of me because you know I don’t speak your weird gay soulmate eye language or whatever!”
“Rose Joy Maldonado, you know homophobia isn’t tolerated in this household,” Mike mock-scolded, pushing himself up from the table with a grunt. “I’ll get it. It’s probably a canvasser.”
“It’s not even an election year,” Rose called after him.
“Local politics, Rosie,” he retorted. “Do they teach you anything at that school?” He heard her and Will’s distant laughter, along with the clinks of them clearing the table, and opened the door with a soft smile lingering on his face.
The first thing he noticed: it was snowing.
The second thing he noticed: 13-year-old Cecilia Baptiste, his daughter’s best friend, shivering at the top of their front steps in a hoodie and jeans. She wasn’t wearing a hat, and snowflakes stuck in her cloud of tight dark curls.
“Cece,” Mike said, in what he hoped was a tone of surprise. “What are you doing here? It’s freezing.”
“Um, hi, Mr. Maldonado, is Rose home?” She picked at the already-raw skin at the corner of her thumb as she spoke. “I really need to talk to her.”
Mike looked at her. Really looked. The skin around her eyes was swollen, and her lips were chapped and cracking in one place, where he knew she chewed when she was nervous or upset. She stared up at him with wide, plaintive brown eyes. All the air seemed to leave his lungs at once. Even though it was the middle of winter, and even though it was New York City, and even though she’d walked just five blocks, Mike felt like he was staring back in time at himself at thirteen. Scared, sad, buried so deep in self-denial and unable to understand how and why he kept hurting the person closest to him in the world.
“I’ll ask her if she’s up for it,” he finally said, “but you should come inside in the meantime. You’ll freeze to death out there.”
“Okay,” she murmured. “Thank you.”
Mike pulled the door open further and stepped back to let her in. Cece stood awkwardly in the foyer, still hugging her chest for warmth. The snowflakes in her hair were rapidly melting into shining beads of water.
“Do your parents know you’re here?” he asked.
“Um, no. I… I told them I was going to my boyfriend’s place.” Her voice got smaller as she spoke, and she stared at the puddle forming around her shoes.
Mike sighed. “Okay, well, at least I don’t need to call them. Hang tight, I’ll go talk to her, okay?”
“Okay.”
Mike returned to the kitchen. Rosie was in the middle of washing the dishes, and Will was packing up the leftover pasta for her to take to school the next day. “In Between Days” was playing on the tiny kitchen radio, and they were both humming along.
“Rosie,” Mike said gently, and she glanced over her shoulder. “There’s somebody here to see you.”
Rosie went pale. “I— Um—” She looked down at the sink, then back at Mike helplessly. “I’m washing the dishes.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of them later.” He looked over at Will, who was quietly stacking Tupperware in the fridge. “Unless you want me to tell her you don’t feel like talking today.”
Rosie swallowed. She looked between her dads. “What do you think I should do?” she asked quietly.
Will smiled softly. “We can’t decide that for you, sweetheart. It’s up to you.”
Rosie closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then let it out. “Okay. Um. I think… I want to talk to her.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Mike said. “Daddy and I can go upstairs to give you some privacy.”
“Okay.” Her eyes glimmered. “Thank you.”
“Of course, darling.”
Rosie pulled off her dish gloves and laid them on the edge of the sink. She started for the foyer, but froze at the archway between the kitchen and the hall.
Will took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. “My brave girl. Just be true to your heart, and everything will work itself out. I promise.”
Mike came up behind her and squeezed her shoulder. “And whatever happens, we’re here, okay? We’ll always be here.”
Rosie nodded, too overcome to speak, and then started forward on her own.
Mike and Will looked at each other. At the same time, they both stretched their necks out, straining to hear.
“Hi,” Rosie said cautiously.
“Hi,” Cece replied. “Um. Thanks… for not kicking me out.”
“Yeah.”
Silence.
“Uh, do you wanna… like… come in? We can talk in the living room.”
“Sure.”
Will and Mike jumped backwards from the archway and hid around the fridge until they heard the girls’ footsteps pass the kitchen, then snuck out and up the stairs.
Back in their bedroom, Will wiped his forehead. “Close call.”
“Worth it.”
“So.” Will flopped onto the mattress. “What should we do with our forced exile?”
Mike smirked. “I have a couple ideas.”
Forty minutes later, Rosie burst into her dads’ room to find them cuddling in bed, eyes locked on their TV and the Project Runway rerun playing on it. Will noted the grin on her face and paused the show. “How’d it go?”
“We made up!” Rosie climbed onto the bed, and her dads instantly scooted aside to make room for her between them. “She apologized for what she said. You were right, Papa. She said stuff’s been weird at home, and it’s been making her confused about things… I didn’t really get that part, but she didn’t seem to want to explain yet, so I didn’t make her. She also said balancing Josh and her other friends and school has been harder than she thought, and she didn’t want to admit it, so when I called her on it she blew up. And I said sorry for calling Josh stupid, even though I still think he is. I didn’t say that part though.”
Mike snorted. Will nudged his foot under the blankets. “And how do you feel about it?”
“Good, I think. She said she’s going to tell Josh we already had plans this weekend, so we can still do anti-Valentine’s. And she said we can hang out in groups more, with our other friends, so I don’t feel like a third wheel or anything.” She beamed. “She told me she really missed me, and that she’d never let a boy come between us again.”
“I like the sound of that.” Mike tossed his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, shaking her playfully. She giggled and nestled into his side. “You’re just like Daddy, you know that? I’m so proud of you, sweetheart.”
“Thank you for being there for me.” She craned her neck to look at Will. “Both of you. You’re the best dads in the world.”
“True,” Mike boasted, causing Rosie to laugh harder. “But it’s nice to hear you admit it.”
Will took her hand and squeezed. “I love you, Rosie.”
“I love you too, Daddy.”
Mike kissed the top of her head. “Love you, bug.”
“Love you, Papa.” Rosie fumbled around for the remote, then pressed play on the episode and settled back in between her fathers.
Will met Mike’s gaze over her head, eyes soft and warm and so, so loving. I’m so proud of you, he mouthed.
Mike’s eyes welled up, but he smiled and hoped Will could see every atom of his devotion within it. I love you, he mouthed in return. So much.