Page 54 of Doctor Daddies

“You think he’ll hear us out on this?” I mutter.

Ross shakes his head. “He’s not going to want to,” he concedes. “But he can’t keep his distance forever. He loves Lewis, by the sounds of it, and he doesn’t want to miss out on being a part of his life. And if that means putting up with us as the fathers to his nephew…” He shrugs. “He’s going to have to find a way to live with it.”

All of us fall quiet for a moment as we consider the matter at hand. Of course, none of us wants to hurt Matt any more than wealready have, and God knows the damage has already been done with all the secrets we’ve concealed from him over the years, the lies that Millie crafted to make sure that he didn’t know who the father of his nephew was. But there is something to be said about coming clean, the feeling of divesting yourself of all the things you’ve hidden. It might not be easy, but sometimes, going after what you know you need isn’t easy.

And when it comes to Millie, there’s little I’m not willing to sacrifice to make it happen.

“And what happens after that?” Ross wonders aloud. “I mean, if he’s somehow okay with it?—”

“Shit, don’t make me think that far in advance.” James laughs, breaking some of the tension between us.

“But I mean, if she says yes, and if Matt can live with it…if it all comes together,” Ross continues, “could we share her? The three of us, I mean? Do you think we could really pull something like that off without getting jealous or having it turn into some huge fucking mess?”

I pause for a moment, considering my answer. It’s a fair question. God knows that we have worked hard to maintain our friendship through all these years. But dating the same woman, pouring all our love into the same person, that’s an entirely different thing.

“Between Lewis and the babies and work and everything else,” James reasons. “It’s not like we’re going to have a whole lot of time, right? All three of us, we’ll pretty much add up to one decent boyfriend for her, if we play our cards right.”

I smirk slightly. Yeah, there it is.

With as busy as our lives are, and as chaotic as they’re going to be in the coming months once the children are born, I know that time is going to be a scarce resource. And the thought of spending it with her, stealing whatever time I can at her side, that’s everything I want right now.

“I don’t care what it takes,” I add. “I don’t care how much time I have her for. As long as I can have her. As long as I can call her mine.”

“Ours,” Ross corrects me, grinning. “She’ll be ours.”

“Yeah, ours,” James echoes, as though he’s just letting the notion settle into him too.

I know there’s still a whole lot that stands between us and actually getting what we want, but now, here, we have taken the first step together.

And I can’t think of anything more exciting than taking the next one.

26

ROSS

“You thinkhe’s going to let us in?” James mutters, as we stand outside Matt’s apartment.

James is shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot as he stares at the door before us.

“No idea,” Cole replies grimly, running a hand through his hair as he tries to ground himself.

I know how they feel—it’s impossible not to get the feeling that we’re making some kind of mistake here, that at any moment, all of this might blow up in our faces and turn this little fantasy we’ve been living in to something we can never go back to again.

It might seem strange, that we’re meeting with Matt first instead of his sister, but I know that Millie won’t even entertain something with us if she thinks it’s going to ruin the relationship she has with her brother.

And shit, who could blame her? She adores him, and it’s clear the two of them have been a huge support system for one another in the years since they lost their parents. No matter what might be taking shape between Millie and the three of us,her sibling connection is the most important thing to her, and I will not be the one who makes her choose between him and us.

So, we have made it our mission to get to him, turning up at his apartment with no warning. If we had called ahead, no doubt he would have done everything in his power to make sure that he wasn’t in, and we can’t let that happen. We have to do this face-to-face, no matter how difficult it might be, no matter how painful it feels to put ourselves in the firing line of a man who seems to loathe us so much.

After a few moments, the door opens—and when Matt sees us standing on the other side, he goes to close it again right in our faces.

“Hey, wait,” James protests, sticking his foot in the door so he can’t slam it quite yet. “We need to talk to you?—”

“I’ve said everything I want to say to you,” Matt snarls, his voice laced with a venom that warns me he’s far from over what went down the other day. He looks between us, disgust etched in every feature, and he shakes his head. “You guys have some fucking nerve turning up here after what you did to my sister,” he snaps. “Get out. I don’t want to see you?—”

“This is important, Matt,” I implore him. “It’s about Millie. And Lewis. And the babies. And we need you to be a part of it.”

He stands there for a moment, eyes narrowing as he looks between us, and it’s clear he doesn’t trust a word that’s coming out of my mouth right now. Shit, can’t say I blame him, after everything we’ve hidden from him. If I were him, I would never want to hear from us again. But if we are going to be family—and the fact that Millie is pregnant with our children means thatthere’s no way to avoid it—then we need to get all this out in the open before it burns us to the ground.