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“My main question, Mr. Secretary, and I think the question on a lot of people’s minds, is if the President was not able to pass his Build Back Better Agenda in 2021, what gives you the confidence to believe that he’ll get it done this time around?”
Pete’s fairly certain he’s answered several variations of this question in just about every interview, but he’ll give that it is a fair question. As he briefly glances out his bedroom window from his apartment to catch the traffic below, he takes a breath to respond to Nicole Wallace, but it catches as the sudden cry from one of his babies—Gus, he thinks?—echoes throughout the apartment.
Repeatedly.
Oh, please not while he’s on a live interview with MSNBC.
He’s been working from home for just a few days, figuring that if anything was urgent he could just head over to the office that was only blessedly ten minutes away. He missed his kids, and he wanted to give Chasten a bit of a break. It had been working out pretty well, too. He didn’t mind having a baby in one arm while he was in meetings, and the meeting attendees certainly didn’t mind, either. But they mainly kept the door closed for interviews as Chasten tried his best to keep the kids calm in the living room while Pete worked from the bedroom. However it seems that Gus has other ideas today.
“What gives me confidence,” he starts in his usual spiel, “is that we know that these are good policies, and the American people—”
Yeah , he’s pretty sure the crying is from Gus. Penelope’s cries are generally longer rather than the short bursts they’ve grown accustomed to from their son.
“—agree with us on this. These are policies that are going to make everyone better off. Whether we’re talking about fighting inflation: lowering the cost of insulin, lowering the cost of gas at the pump—”
He really hopes MSNBC isn’t picking up the cries getting dramatically higher. His fingers find their way to playing with his wedding ring, a nervous habit as he wonders what could possibly be bothering his six-month-old son so much right at this moment.
“Lowering the cost of being in the workforce by getting people childcare that they can afford. Getting people, you know, free pre-k, the child tax credit, things we have to do for our climate—you name it. These are really important policies that… are going to make…” He can’t help but trail off as Chasten suddenly pushes into the room with an overwhelmed look on his face.
And an obviously very fussy Gus in his arms.
“I changed his diaper,” Chasten says to Pete without preamble, not bothering to look at Nicole’s very pleasantly surprised face through the camera, “he doesn’t want to eat, he’s not in the mood to play, you’re the only thing I can think of. So he,” he continues as he gently transfers the unhappy child into Pete’s arms, “is all yours.”
Not paying one bit of attention to the sounds of MSNBC’s producers’ distant amused laughs, Pete settles Gus in his arms, the baby’s small head resting on his bicep and the cries already softening as Gus looks up at Pete’s new yet familiar face. Pete can’t help but smile down at his son before looking up at Chasten once more. “You got Pen?” he asks his husband. Buddy has also trailed in, already settled on their bed out of frame.
“Yeah, she’s happy bouncing in her swing.”
“Oh, good,” Pete replies, lightly bouncing Gus in his arms, an instinctual movement at this point.
“Yeah. Well, I’ll leave you two to it.” Chasten puts a hand on Pete’s shoulder and gives a brief wave at Nicole through the camera, as if noticing her and the fact that Pete’s in the middle of a live interview for the first time. “Nice to see you, Nicole,” before leaning in to dryly whisper, “Good luck,” in Pete’s ear and pats him on the shoulder. He heads back out of the room as quickly as he came in, shutting the door behind him.
On the other side of the camera, Nicole Wallace waits with the biggest, amused grin, chuckling along with her producers. Pete finally looks back up at the camera with a similarly amused smile and breaks the silence with a deadpanned, “I have a child.” He looks down at a now miraculously quieted and content Gus and back up at Nicole again, as if to demonstrate his point.
Nicole finally breaks and bursts out laughing. “We can see that! In fact, you have twins!”
“I do indeed,” Pete replies, the smile at the simple fact refusing to leave his face.
“Oh my god, you guys just made my day,” Nicole goes on. “I don’t think this has ever happened before on my show, even during the height of the pandemic.”
“Yeah, when I’m doing interviews, Chasten usually tries his best to keep the kids and the dogs entertained, but apparently, someone ,” Pete intones, sarcastically nodding to the baby in his arms, “has a very strong opinion on all the good things that are in the Build Back Better package. Right, sweet boy? You gonna help out?” Pete asks to Gus directly, voice completely serious.
Gus shows off the most endearing gummy smile at his dad speaking to him directly, and Pete’s heart nearly bursts.
“And right as we’re talking about childcare, too,” Nicole mentions, completely in awe of the scene before her.
“Yep, and of course the one time when I’m doing a nationally televised live interview, they just have to interrupt. Yes, they just have to interrupt, don’t you?” Pete again asks Gus, his voice becoming progressively higher in pitch but softer in tone, as his smile grows wider looking at his son looking up at him. “Yeah, I know. Hi!” Gus grabs ahold of one of Pete’s fingers and he fears his smile may just stretch all the way to his ears.
As a journalist, Nicole usually tries her best to remain objective, but that all gets thrown out the window as she puts a hand over her heart at hearing who will one day be the President of the United States speaking endearingly to his young son live on air on her program. “Alright, should we get back into it?”
“Sure. Where was I? Yes, all of these things are going to make a lot of Americans better off, and for that reason, we believe it’s going to pass…”
The rest of the interview went smoothly, with some thoughtful coos from Gus at a few points (“Yes, I agree, lovie! See? I’m not the only one who believes we need to upgrade our infrastructure.”). He only trailed off into his soft spoken version of baby talk at one other point when Gus was looking particularly cute nestled into his chest and he couldn’t help but fall completely in love with him all over again, much to Nicole’s and the rest of MSNBC’s amusement.
“Thank you so much for being with us today, Secretary Pete, we really appreciate your time. And thank you to little Gus for contributing both very good points and some much needed laughter for all of us today.”
“My pleasure. Good to be with you.” He waits until they cut to commercial to finally relax, Gus still wide awake but very happy to be held.
“Well, thank you,” Nicole says, “for making me go viral on Twitter.”
“Oh, just all in a day’s work,” Pete laughs, gently bouncing his sweet baby boy in his arms.
“How old are they now? Six months?”
“Six months, yeah,” Pete confirms.
“Well give them some cuddles from me and all my producers who you can’t see but thoroughly got a kick out of this segment. And give Chasten my love, too.”
“Thanks Nicole, thanks for having us.”
“It was truly my pleasure, Secretary Pete. Have a great day.”
Yeah, Nicole definitely voted for him.
Pete leans back in his chair and looks down at Gus, never able to get enough of those chubby cheeks. “Thanks for your help, sweet boy.” Gus just tries to grab Pete’s AirPod from his ear as Pete gently brings his tiny hand back down with a “nope, can’t have that,” before placing the earbuds on his desk. He presses several quick kisses to Gus’s forehead and tenderly gets up. Buddy jumps up and follows them out the bedroom door and into the living room.
Before Pete can even say anything, Chasten holds up his phone. “You’re already trending on Twitter.”
“Already? That was quick.” He sits down on the couch nearest Penelope happily bouncing away in her swing, his heart melting at the sight.
“Mom saw you,” Chasten says, turning off his phone. “She’s over the moon.”
“I’ll bet,” Pete laughs. He can’t wait to hear about that one. It’ll probably be a routine Christmas dinner story.
“Thank you for taking him,” Chasten continues. “I barely even realized you were doing an interview until I already gave him to you. I’m really sorry about that.” He reaches over and rubs a loving hand over Gus’s head.
“Ah, don’t worry about it. I don’t think she minded. I certainly didn’t.” He wipes a spot of drool from the corner of Gus’s lip without thinking about it.
“No, I don’t think so either. Nicole Wallace is always a safe bet with you.”
Pete lets the corner of his lip coyly rise up. “It’s so funny how sometimes they just want the other parent, you know?”
“‘Funny’ is one word for it, yeah,” Chasten dryly replies. Pete just leans into him, and Chasten lets him.
Pete looks over at Penelope smiling at her dads, and back at Gus doing the same thing in his arms. It hits him for what seems like the thousandth time. “Oh my god, we have twins,” he sighs, still sounding surprised.
Chasten snorts with an “I know. It’s so weird.”
“Drive us insane, but they’re pretty cool, huh?”
“Yeah,” Chasten agrees, watching as Buddy keeps a very careful eye on Penelope’s jumping feet in her swing. Truman, too, but from a very respectful distance near the bookshelf. “They’re pretty cool.” He kisses Pete’s cheek and rests his head on his husband’s shoulder, Gus now holding his index finger and watching with a tight chest as Pete caresses his son’s soft cheek.
It’s pretty cool.