Page 66 of Fourplay & Fatalities

He was busy systematically dismantling the wall of plushies Zane had carefully stacked during their elaborate—and if Avi was being honest, time-consuming—bedtime routine.

West grinned at him as he grew closer, his soft, tight curls just long enough to reach his eyebrows.

He was so pretty.

They were so pretty.

Just like Felix.

“Baba,” he said, falling into Avi’s arms.

“Dada,” Avi corrected. “Dada.”

“Baba,” West said stubbornly.

Avi gave him his widest eyes, lowering his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “Listen, kid. I know you’re getting new downloads every night while you sleep, but this one is super important. If your baba hears you calling me baba and not him, then I’m the one who’s going to suffer. He really wants you to call him baba. So, can you remember that? Can you call me dada and him baba? For me?”

West slapped him on the chest.

“Baba.”

Avi sighed, then hugged the baby to his chest, burying his face in his hair.

The products they used on them at bath time smelled like suntan lotion. It reminded Avi of the beach, and it was a little addicting.

West allowed himself to be held for approximately forty seconds before he began to squirm.

The moment Avi released him, he escaped, crawling at top speed for the plushies that were now scattered about like the victims of some unnamed mass casualty.

Oscar, seeing his father alone, started walking toward Avi, holding a small stuffed dragon in his tiny baby hand. When walking grew too burdensome, he, too, resorted to crawling, putting the dragon in his mouth like a puppy.

Once he reached Avi, he offered him the stuffed toy. Avi’s heart did this complicated flip in his chest. “Thanks, buddy.”

“Dada.”

“Good job,” he said, pressing a kiss to the baby’s velvety-soft cheek.

It was hard to believe he had kids.

Someone had let him have babies, tiny little beings that depended on him to keep them alive.

It was wild. He didn’t have to take a test or anything. They just let him take them home from the hospital, no questions asked. It seemed like a flawed design, but who was he to argue?

His boys looked so much like Felix with their wide brown eyes and soft brown hair. The only things they’d inherited from Lola were her pretty brown skin and her distinct Cupid’s bow.

They were perfect.

While they may have gotten their looks from Felix, somehow, they’d gotten their attitudes from Avi and Asa.

At least according to Zane.

Even though they were only a bit over a year old, their personalities were starting to shine through. They were smart. Fierce. And they shared Avi and Asa’s twin tendencies.

They communicated silently, worked as a team to achieve their goals, they refused to sleep in separate cribs, and didn’t even like to be away from each other for even more than a few minutes. Sometimes, when they checked the monitors at night or at nap time, they would find the twins sleeping curled together, holding hands.

Avi knew August loved his kids, but he often talked about them from a purely anthropological standpoint. He was fascinated by everything his children did. They were like his favorite science project.

Avi, on the other hand, couldn’t even fathom what kind of chemical his children had emitted to trick his brain into being so fiercely loyal, so murderously protective.