Matt closed the door and got in behind the wheel. He turned and grinned over his shoulder at me.
“See? We’ve got this,” he said.
“Now we just have to figure out how to do it without a third adult there to help us.”
He shrugged and turned back around. “We’ve got time.”
I laughed. As he headed toward home, I took the itty-bitty hands beside me and stroked them gently throughout the drive. Three months before, Matt and I had left behind the home where we started and bought our first house. We wanted to make sure we had plenty of space for our babies, and both felt a sudden strong need for a fenced backyard we’d never felt before. I had a feeling there was a puppy in our near future.
But we needed to get the babies settled in first.
I noticed Matt’s expression change in the rearview mirror as we approached the house.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Look.”
I looked over at the house and saw several cars already in the parking lot.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I recognize some of those license plates.”
He came around to get one of the babies, and I got the other, then carefully climbed out of the van. I could hear voices as I climbed the steps and walked into the house. Inside, a crowd exploded in cheers as soon as they saw me. The baby boy in my arms burst into tears, and a guilty look traveled across the faces bunched up in front of me.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. As I comforted Finn and Matt stepped up beside me with Sophia securely cradled in the middle of his chest, I looked at everybody there. That included all of Matt’s brothers, their wives, and their children, his mother, and my parents.
“Welcome home,” Matt’s mother said, rushing forward to hug me.
“We wanted to be here to welcome the babies,” Jordan explained.
“How did you get in here?” I asked.
Matt was eyeing Hannah suspiciously. “Your cousin told me she needed a key to the house because she needed to put something for the baby inside.”
Hannah threw her arms open to encompass all the people there.
“Ta-da,” she said.
I laughed and shook my head.
Everyone took turns holding the babies and presenting us with frozen meals they made so we would have plenty of good food and not have to worry about cooking. I had never felt so loved before.
A few hours later, everyone left. Matt and I dropped down into the matching rocking chairs we’d gotten for spending moments like this with the babies. Each of us held one of our children as we laughed and talked about just how crazy life was. Just a year ago, we didn’t even know each other. Then we decided to fake a life together to make a point.
But now it seemed that point was that we had finally found the love we were supposed to have all along.