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Carlos Reyes was normally a very tolerant man, especially since becoming a father.
He could handle sleepless nights and baby spit up.
Changing diapers didn’t phase him, finding Cheerios all over the floor after meal times barely caused him to bat an eyelash, and he was rarely disturbed by the amount of stuffed animals that he found laying around the house at the end of the day.
But then he and TK had sent the twins to school and they had started coming home with artwork.
Every. Single. Day.
If it wasn’t a picture that they colored, it was something that they painted, or a weird jumble of construction paper pieces that was supposed to be a house or a dump truck or something.
He had started finding glitter in places he never wanted to see glitter.
And don’t even get him started on the amount of sequins that had fallen out of Olivia’s backpack after a week of talking about mermaids in class.
He had done his best to just roll with it, being a doting father and praising every thing the kids made, hanging it on the fridge with a smile, or tucking a few chosen pieces into his work bag and hanging them in his office.
He had even started convincing the kids that the other members of their family would enjoy their precious works of art as well.
A painting of some ducks for Marjan, what was supposed to be the Eiffel Tower made out of straws for Michelle, a lovely red and blue collage that he thinks may have been the American flag when it started out for Owen.
Hell, he had even saved the best for last, a giant painting covered in glitter for Judd and Grace to hang on their refrigerator as well.
Judd had glared at him for a whole week and Grace had refused to take his calls.
But it had been worth it, because at least the thing wasn’t on his fridge.
He thought he had dodged a lot of bullets though, because the twins were moving on to Pre-K and that meant they would surely be doing more mature things.
Writing, science, actually making pictures of things instead of blobs of color.
Clearly he had been wrong.
“TK!” His husband appeared around the doorframe of Olivia’s room wearing a shit eating grin and Carlos huffed. “What in the hell are these?”
Holding up the brightly colored offending objects he watched as the other man simply smiled.
“They’re feathers Carlos, duh.” Clearly their daughter had gotten her sass from him and not Carlos, much to everyone’s disagreement.
“Where did they come from?” Because if it was Paul playing another prank on him, through his own kids mind you, he was going to have words.
“Olivia said they’re making turkey’s at school.” No, no, no. “Apparently the teacher had a bunch of extra feathers and she said that the kids could bring them home and use them to make a turkey with their parents if they wanted.”
“Her parents, do not want, to make turkeys with her.” Carlos could handle a lot of things, finding three dozen or so feathers on his daughter’s bedroom floor was clearly not one of them.
“Oh come on Los, it’ll be fun.” He shook his head back and forth, his anxiety already creeping in at the thought that they were going to be doing arts and crafts on his precious hardwood floors. “Lachlan brought some home too.”
“No.” He couldn’t do this, he just couldn’t.
Maybe being a parent just wasn’t meant for him.
“What if I promise that we won’t pull out the glitter?” It wasn’t glitter that scared him right now, it was these damn feathers.
Because he knew damn good and well that he was going to be finding them everywhere for months to come.
Thanksgiving was still two weeks away and yet he could almost guarantee that he would be finding these things well into Valentine’s Day.
“They can take their feathers to your dad’s house this weekend.” There, he could easily pawn this kind of stuff off on Owen, the man wasn’t scared of anything. “Michelle can supervise, it’ll be great fun for everyone.”
TK rolled his eyes as he leaned against the doorframe, staring him down with soft eyes.
He knew he was being ridiculous, but dammit did he really not enjoy arts and crafts.
“How about we make a deal?” Carlos raised an eyebrow at his husband because those were never good words when they left TK’s mouth. “We’ll do the arts and crafts at dad’s, together, and we’ll leave the mess for them to clean up.”
“He won’t be mad?” Not that he had ever really seen Owen mad, at least not in a few years.
“Are you kidding me? Arts and crafts are his thing now.” He couldn’t help but chuckle, watching as TK pushed himself off the door and headed toward him. “Retirement has made him soft.”
“I think his grandchildren have made him soft.” Which was most definitely the case and everyone knew it.
There was no one in the world that those two loved more than their G-Dog, and there were no people on this planet who that man loved more than those two kids.
“Do we have a deal?” TK’s fingers brushed over his as he reached down and took the feathers from his hands, smiling at him as he waited.
“Yes.” He could do this, he could handle a simple project with feathers, as long as his father-in-law and his best friend did the cleaning up.
“Good.” There was something in the other man’s voice that made him raise an eyebrow and he watched as TK got a wicked smile on his face. “I’ll save a few of these for later.”
And then he was winking at him and pushing away, leaving the room without another word.
“Later?” He was so confused. “Wait? TK? What does that even mean?”
He found himself following after his husband, one hand still full of feathers as he contemplated what the other man could possibly be referring to.
Surely there was nothing they would ever need feathers for, right?