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Zayn knocked as he used the key that Liam’s parents had given him to unlock the door. “Hello?” he called out, smiling when he heard babbling.
A moment later, Zayn’s boyfriend Liam appeared around the corner carrying his nearly eighteen-month-old daughter, Nora, in his arms. They’d only been dating for about six months, but already Zayn knew the two of them were his forever, his family. He pressed a kiss to Liam’s lips before turning and brushing his nose over Nora’s cheeks.
“Glad you’re here, babe,” Liam said, handing Nora over and yawning loudly. “I’ve got about ten minutes before I get to the coffee shop.” He ran a hand over his forehead and groaned as he reached for his keys.
“You alright?” Zayn asked, bouncing Nora on his hip. He frowned at the bags under Liam’s eyes and the droop to his shoulders. Ever since Zayn had found out about Nora, he knew that Liam had been working two jobs while going to school and playing football. He got good grades, but Zayn didn’t know when he got to sleep.
“I’m fine,” Liam said, yawning again. “Mum should be home in about an hour. Thanks for watching Nora for me.”
“Anytime, Liam, seriously.” He watched Liam leave and felt like crying at how exhausted his boyfriend looked. Nora whimpered when the door closed, cutting Liam off from her view. “You miss daddy, don’t you?”
“Dada,” Nora agreed, laying her hand on Zayn’s shoulder and sticking her thumb in her mouth.
“We should do something to surprise him.” Zayn carried Nora down the hall to the room she shared with Liam and set her down on the activity mat that Zayn’s parents had bought her for Christmas.
While Nora played, Zayn pulled out a sketchbook. He flipped through the pages, smiling at the numerous sketches of Liam and Nora, stopping on the very first one he’d ever drawn of them, Liam as the superhero SuperDad. He knew Liam thought he wasn’t a good dad because he hardly spent any time with Nora, but everyone else knew he did it to provide for her. Liam was too proud to ask for help, even if Zayn kept encouraging him.
His attention was caught on a notebook sticking out from underneath the comforter on Liam’s bed. Pulling it out, Zayn recognised Liam’s careful numbers and realised it was a budget. As Zayn read through the calculations, he could see why Liam got so stressed and had picked up the extra job at the coffee shop. Unfortunately, with the schedule Liam kept, he would barely make the bills that Zayn saw here. Something had to give, and Zayn was terrified it would be Liam.
“Maybe we don’t ask,” Zayn said to Nora, who picked up her favourite stuffed turtle and brought it over to Zayn, pressing its head to Zayn’s nose and making a smacking sound with her lips. “Oh, is Teddy Turtle giving me kisses?”
While he played with Nora, Zayn made a couple of phone calls and by the time Liam’s mother returned, Zayn’s parents were pulling up behind her. The three walked into the house together, giving Zayn questioning looks. His mum took Nora from Zayn and tickled her belly while Yaser pressed a kiss to the top of her forehead. Nora reached up to rub at Yaser’s stubble and giggled.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why Nora has gathered you all here tonight,” Zayn joked, and Karen shook her head with affection as she headed into the kitchen to get together some snacks and drinks for everyone. Zayn followed his parents with Nora, close behind. They all settled around the small island in the centre of the kitchen.
“I know that Liam’s father is working tonight, but I know he would support what I want to discuss with everyone.”
Zayn thought back to the night when Geoff had given him the key to the Payne residence. “Help him ask for help,” he’d pleaded with Zayn. At the time, Zayn had no clue how to do that, but now he had some idea.
“Is everything alright?” Karen asked, frowning. “You’re not breaking up with Liam, are you?”
Zayn opened and closed his mouth several times at a loss for words at that statement. Nora tilted her head and made fishy lips at Zayn before calling out quietly, “Baba?” The shock of the expression on her lips brought Zayn out of his own moment of confusion.
“No!” he shouted. “Definitely not. And, honestly, if I were, I wouldn’t call a meeting about it,” Zayn pointed out. He turned his attention to Nora. “Did you say ‘baba’? Do you need a bottle, babe?” he asked.
Nora pursed her lips and blew a raspberry at Zayn before reaching towards him with grabby hands. “Baba!”
“Makes sense she’d see you as her father,” Yaser said, smiling fondly as Zayn took Nora from him and the little girl cuddled into his chest.
“But who taught her that?” Zayn asked.
“I did,” Liam spoke up from the kitchen doorway where he leaned, looking like death.
“Shit,” Zayn muttered. “You’re home early!”
Liam dropped his head, and when he looked up again, tears shone in his eyes. “Got sacked,” he admitted, and his entire body trembled. Zayn quickly crossed the room to wrap the arm not holding Nora around him, helping keep him standing as he cried into his shoulder. “I fell asleep at the counter.”
The parents fussed over Liam while Zayn and Nora tried to get as close to him as they could. Nora began to whimper and cry, sensing her father’s distress, and Liam cried harder, saying he was a terrible father for making his daughter cry.
“Nonsense!” Zayn shouted, startling everyone. “Okay, we’re moving this to the living room. Too many bodies, not enough seats and if Liam doesn’t sit down soon, he’s going to fall over.” Zayn glanced at him. “How did you get home?”
“Niall gave me a ride,” Liam said. “Have to go pick up the car later. I’m sorry, mum.” Liam and his parents shared two cars, so they would have to wait until morning when Geoff got off work unless one of Zayn’s parents took him.
Once Liam was settled in the centre of the sofa with a mum on each side of him and Nora in his lap, Zayn started to pace. “Well, this changes my approach a little bit, but my goal is still the same.”
“What’s going on?” Liam asked, glancing around, looking panicked. “Are you breaking up with me?”
“Why does everyone think I’m breaking up with you?” Zayn shouted, throwing his hands in the air. “No, I’m not breaking up with you. That is not something I ever plan on doing, and if, Allah forbid, I ever do, you will be the first to know in a private setting.” Zayn growled and closed his eyes, trying to bring his temper back under control; he knew blowing up would not help anyone.
The room remained uncomfortably quiet until Nora made a squealing sound and slapped at her dad’s cheeks before pressing a smacking kiss to his nose. “No cry,” she said, and Liam smiled at her, brushing their noses together until she giggled.
“No crying, Nora-Dora,” Liam teased, his voice and eyes tired, but the nickname settled her back against his chest. “Okay, continue with whatever brought everyone to my parents’ house behind my back.”
“You make it sound like we’re plotting your murder,” Zayn muttered.
“Or an intervention,” Liam countered. When Zayn didn’t laugh, he looked around. “Is that what this is? I’m not on drugs!” Nora jerked back at Liam’s shout and let out a cry, pushing away from him, which caused Liam’s face to fall even more. “Mum, take her,” he gasped out, and Karen hurried to do that. Nora buried her face in Karen’s neck, and Liam fled from the room, his feet pounding on the stairs.
“I’ll go,” Zayn said, heading to the doorway, stopping when his mum called his name.
“Whatever you need your father and I to do, we’ll do it,” she said, and Yaser nodded.
“Geoff and I, too,” Karen said.
“Liam just needs help,” Zayn said. “He needs to stop working so much. I’m afraid if he keeps it up, something will happen to him. And I just wanted to try and help without making him ask for it, and everything is blowing up in my face.”
He took a deep breath, holding his chin up. He looked at everyone else in the room. “We need to coordinate schedules and take care of Nora to save Liam on daycare.”
“I’ve offered so many times, but Liam refuses because he doesn’t want to burden me,” Karen said. “I would love to spend the days with Nora while he’s at school.”
“I can watch her a couple of days a week as well,” Trisha offered.
“If she doesn’t mind hanging around a gym, she can stay with me while either of you run errands,” Yaser offered, and the women laughed, but Nora clapped her hands.
“We will get it worked out,” Karen said. “Maybe Liam can cut the daycare down to one day a week. That would save a lot of money.”
“And maybe at least one job,” Zayn said, smiling and nodding. He hugged everyone and then hurried up the stairs after Liam.
The door to Liam and Nora’s room stood open, and Zayn approached slowly. He found Liam sitting on the floor, his back against Nora’s cot. He had Teddy wrapped in his arms, face pressed against his shell. “Go ‘way,” he mumbled when Zayn sat down beside him.
“No,” Zayn said. “I’m quite fond of your daughter, so you’re kind of stuck with me.”
“Take her with you. You’d be a better dad than me,” Liam said, lifting his head and leaning it back to stare at the ceiling. Tear tracks coated his face; his voice was silenced by a stuffed-up nose, and he just looked miserable.
“That’s a lie,” Zayn told him. “I could never have taken care of her as you have for the last year and a half. I couldn’t have worked two and three jobs while going to school and playing football. You’ve even managed to get yourself a pretty cool boyfriend.” He nudged Liam, relieved when his lips quirked slightly before falling back into a deep frown. “But you have to stop, Liam. You’re literally seventeen years old and working yourself to death.”
“I have to take care of her. She’s my responsibility. I chose to keep her when Dani wanted to give her up for adoption,” Liam said. It was the first time he’d mentioned Nora’s mother, and Zayn didn’t want to interrupt him. “Maybe she had the right idea.”
“Maybe,” Zayn said. Liam turned to gape at him. “But can you really see yourself letting someone else raise that little girl? See someone else teaching her how to walk and talk.”
Liam snorted. “I’m barely around to do any of that,” he said. “I’m always at work. Working myself to death according to you.”
“So, change it.”
“I can’t. I have to work to send Nora to daycare,” Liam said. “She’s my responsibility.”
“Li, I know you hate asking for help, so this time, you don’t have to, but you cannot refuse it either.” He tried to keep his voice firm, and when Liam opened his mouth to argue, but he kept talking. “Our parents are going to take turns caring for her four days a week while you are at school. Between the four of them, it shouldn’t be a problem.
“On the afternoons that I don’t work and you have football, I’ll pick Nora up from wherever she is and keep her with me until you are done for the day. I spoke with my older sister, and she said she would babysit for half-cost in the evenings whenever she’s needed and available.”
“They can’t-”
“I said, ‘no refusing,’” Zayn reminded. “And I will pay half of any babysitting costs accrued while I’m working.”
“Zee, she isn’t your responsibility,” Liam argued, turning so he was sitting cross-legged and facing Zayn.
“But I want her to be,” Zayn told him. “I’ve wanted her to be since that night you first brought her to my house.”
“You should get to be a kid. You’re only just eighteen,” Liam said, his voice pleading. “You shouldn’t be punished for my mistakes.”
They paused when babbling was heard, and a moment later, Nora came bumbling into the room. Her face lit up when she saw them. “Dada! Baba!” she cried, hurrying towards them and tripping over Teddy where Liam had dropped him.
Liam stopped her from hitting the floor and scooped her up into his arms. She wrapped her arms around him, squeezing tightly and pressing a smacking kiss to his cheek. “Dada,” she sighed and laid her head on his shoulder, her thumb finding her mouth. She blinked sleepily at Zayn, who smiled and reached out to take her other hand and shake it gently.
“She is not a mistake, Liam. She is a blessing that came early. I wouldn’t trade her or you for anything, so just listen to me and let us help you lessen the stress in your life. Please.”
“Zee…”
“If not for me, do it for Nora,” he said, and Liam glanced down at his daughter, the blinking of her eyes slowing with her breathing until she let out a long sigh and drifted to sleep.
“I’d do anything for her,” Liam said. “Even admit that I need help.”
Zayn grinned, leaning in and pressing a kiss to Liam’s cheek. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Liam told him, frowning and then yawning loudly.
“And, now, you and the little princess need to head to bed. We’ll hammer out the schedule tomorrow over breakfast,” Zayn said.
He helped Liam to his feet, taking Nora from him and settling her into her cot. He pulled a blanket over her and tucked Teddy in next to her. Turning, he saw Liam watching him. “I taught her to call you Baba by showing her your photo. That is the right word, yeah? I heard you call your dad that a couple of times.”
“Well, it’s the correct word for ‘dad’, but are you sure you want Nora calling me that?” he asked. “I mean, it’s only been six months.”
Liam cupped Zayn’s cheek in his hand and pressed their foreheads together. “You said you knew you wanted to be with Nora and me that night at your house.”
“Yeah,” Zayn breathed out.
“Well, I had dreams about the three of us as a family from the first time I saw you in maths class. You lent me a pencil and didn’t laugh when I screwed up the name of the pathogen theorem.”
Zayn bit back a smile. “Pythagorean theorem,” he corrected. “It’s a tough word.”
“Almost as tough as ‘help,’” Liam responded, pressing his lips to Zayn’s.