Chapter Text
“Hey. Are you okay?”
“I was at the hospital earlier, I was filling out all of those forms, you know, the intake forms, and it dawned on me that you’re still my emergency contact. Well, I was thinking maybe I should change it to Randall.”
“Randall lives across the country. How would he help you in an emergency?”
“What I’m saying is… you are officially released from your emergency contact duties.”
“Hey Kev.”
“Mmm?”
“I am the mother of your children. I will be your emergency contact
for as long as you need me to be.”
.
.
.
Chapter 1
To say that Madison is excited is an understatement. She’s known for a while now that Elijah was thinking of proposing. He hasn’t exactly been quiet about his intentions ever since they made it quietly official between them just before Thanksgiving, and then of course at Thanksgiving itself when his family gushed over her twins, how adorable they looked together as a family, how happy they are for their Eli and how Eli humoured them about a future that they kept teasing with her.
She smiles thinking about it all. About how excited she is about this man’s intentions with her. Of not just seeing a future with her but actually actively wanting it. This is what it means to be loved, right?
Elijah told her he loved her before she did, and she remembers saying it back so quickly it almost gave her whiplash.
True love.
It’s all she’s ever wanted right? All that she’s been waiting for her entire life?
“Hey Maddie, look at this,” Elijah says as he lifts the iPhone up to her eye level so he can show her a YouTube video of a fantasy cosplayer’s costume reveal.
It’s a warmer evening and they’re outside at the back patio of her house, enjoying the quiet. She tries to focus on the video and Elijah’s commentary about how accurate the costume is to the books. But she keeps looking down, distracted. Her eyes snagging on something.
Elijah leans back, his elbows on the armrest of the Adirondack chair and there her eyes linger. To the engraved letter K, the twin to the M on her own.
“I want to be with you, Madison. I want to be with you and our children, the children that we created together in a house together, as a family.”
Madison closes her eyes and breathes in slowly, the image of Kevin begging on his knees to keep their family together burning her eyelids.
The memories follow after. The car ride home from the hospital and their first time together at the house with their babies. The look he gave her when he told her, “I really want you to be my wife.” The endearing way he struggled at taking off his hospital bracelet so he could wrap it around her wrist as he asked her to marry him.
The way she said yes and how she had never felt both as happy and as nervous as she did right then. Gripping him, gripping her. Kissing him, kissing her.
But she knew it. Deep down.
“I can’t marry someone who’s not in love with me.”
She fell in love with Kevin. Breathlessly, passionately. He was everything she never thought was possible and more. And she wanted all of him. So, of course she said yes. It was too easy, and he was just so, so wonderful. But he didn’t fall in love with her. Even after all that they’ve been through. He didn’t. Right?
“Please don’t do this.”
She remembers willing all of her love for him as she let him go, willing him to understand. She felt his agony, his confusion, his shock, and she willed him to forgive her… and to let her go too.
So, how come now beside the man who actually loves her and who sees a future with her and wants to marry her, a part of her still wants to be let go?
And instead be with him?
. . .
“You know your matcha with monk fruit and nut milk order is actually pretty cringe,” Kevin says.
Madison frowns up at him mid-sip. “And your pumpkin cream cold brew isn’t?”
“Not when it’s in season, it’s not.”
Madison glances out the window then back at him.
“It’s mid-Feb, Kev,” she says. “In L.A.”
“I know,” he says, standing up and polishing his drink with an exaggerated gulp. “Still winter, so still in season.”
He grabs her now empty travel mug and walks over to the kitchen to wash both of theirs and even until now he still manoeuvres around the place like he lives there. He knows the exact way she likes how to stack the dishes on the rack, how to fold the tea towels and where the extra roll of paper towel is. His huge, Olympian-swimmer frame engulfing every room he enters.
“I think Nick has a talent for the drums,” she tells him from the couch as she eyes the twins, heavily distracted by the new battery toy their dad bought them for Christmas. “I mean, he pretty much hits everything he sees with those sticks, but apparently, he’s got rhythm. Not that I know what that even sounds like on the drums.”
“Isn’t it something like this?” And Kevin does an impression of an air drummer, his face contorted in mock seriousness as he bops his head to the hum of a Springsteen ballad.
Madison laughs. “Yeah, I’m glad you’re not the one teaching them drums.”
“Yeah well, wait till they’re old enough to hold a guitar.”
Kevin plops himself beside her and stretches his long legs.
“I’m thinking of going back to volunteering,” Madison says after a while.
“Ah yes, teaching crafts at the Van Buren school for special little girls and boys.”
Madison elbows him.
“I mean it,” she says. “Now that the twins are with you on some days, I’m a little more freed up.”
“Poor Elijah must feel left out, you replacing him with a bunch of school kids,” he says.
“Normal, non-celebrity people actually go to work, Kev. Just a reminder in case you forgot.”
“I didn’t.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence between them and Kevin looks like he wants to say something, but Franny beats him to it with a loud squeal, exhilarated by the sound from the button she just punched with her little knuckles.
“I’m thinking Tuesday and Thursday afternoons,” Madison continues, filling up the silence. “You only shoot The Manny on Mondays, right? So, that should work. And obviously the other days, Eli and I can look after them. His work’s been really flexible, which is great.”
Kevin only nods his head at that, and he keeps silent afterwards.
Since their almost-wedding, it’s been just over a year since they’ve been officially co-parenting. Apart from Elijah entering the fray and making everything about their dynamic wildly uncomfortable in some ways, for the most part, it’s been a breeze with Kevin.
Sure, there’s been the odd bouts of disagreements about random visitations and such, but then again, none of it is entirely her fault nor his. They love their children so much and they both want to be as present as they can be, but she knows that she has to create boundaries for the both of them if they’re ever going to do this in the long run. And Madison’s determined to make it work as smoothly as possible. Not just for the kids, but for herself too.
The only lapse of judgment she ever had was to have Kevin turn her garage into a living space because he couldn’t fathom being away from them after their breakup. She hadn’t thought any of it then when he had asked her if he could stay. She was still far too in love with him to truly deny him anything even if she knew just how ridiculous it was to have her baby daddy ex-fiancé live in her garage.
If she’s being completely honest though, she couldn’t find it in her to deny herself of his presence either. Of seeing him every day, of watching trashy TV shows with him on the couch and finding odd pieces of stuff around her house go missing only for her to find it in his den and promptly returned with a flashy apology after.
Looking at him now, comfortably stretched on her couch, a soft look on his face as he reacts to their twins’ shenanigans, has her heart constricting.
Will she ever truly get over him? Isn’t Elijah supposed to be enough?
Isn’t she supposed to be really happy?
. . .
“I think Elijah’s gonna propose to me.”
“Oh. How does that make you feel?”
“Can you handle the truth if I tell you?”
“Yeah…”
“Very excited.”
.
.
.
“How do you think he’s going to do it?”
Kate looks at the forlorn figure of her brother by the dining table, his hand wrapped around a fresh cup of tea, his gaze empty. It reminds her a little of his reaction to the aftermath of that time their mother got lost at their 40th birthday. How, after getting Madison settled into bed after the party, he just sat there outside wondering how everything could’ve gone so wrong in such a short amount of time.
It isn’t a good look on him. Especially after his triumphant return from Pennsylvania just the weekend before. This sudden shift, if Kate’s being honest, has her a little perplexed.
“Are you worried he’s going to outdo your, what was it again, two very romantic proposals?”
Kate means to be sarcastic given the situation, but Kevin’s pained expression gives her pause. She grabs her own cup and takes a seat across from him.
“What’s going on with you, Kev?” she asks, sincerely.
Kevin shakes his head. “I don’t know, I just… I just don’t feel good,” he says.
“About Elijah wanting to propose?”
“About everything,” he says.
“Well, why not?” Kate asks. “You care about Madison, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do.”
“And you know that Elijah makes her happy.”
Kate doesn’t miss the way he rolls his eyes. “I know that,” he replies.
“So, I don’t really see the problem here.”
“It’s just that…”
Kate stares at him, waiting for his response, but instead, Kevin sighs.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “It’s too late anyway.”
Kate frowns. “Too late for what?”
“Nothing.”
Kate decides to take a jab at what she thinks is going on. She says, “I don’t know how many times we’re going to have this conversation, Kev. But do I need to remind you again that at your own wedding day, it was you who couldn’t say I love you to her?”
“I know what I didn’t say,” he says. “I know. You don’t need to keep reminding me.”
“Well, it seems like I have to keep doing it because it’s been almost a year, and it’s still not sticking.”
Kevin finally looks up from his drink and it startles Kate at the pure grief that she sees in his eyes. She swallows. For the first time in their forty-one years together, she’s at a loss.
Kate reaches forward to grab his hand and she feels the pressure as he squeezes. She doesn’t say anything else. She lets him hold her and take comfort in their bond. The one that got them through everything together. Like they always do.
“I don’t want to lose her, Kate,” he finally says.
And as much as Kate wants to tell him that he never will, that they will always share their beautiful twins together and that Madison will never, ever take them away from him and therefore she’ll always be in his life in one way or another, in this moment, it just doesn’t feel right. That there is more to what her brother is saying, something that’s holding him so deeply attached to her best friend that he himself doesn’t even understand yet.
Kate thinks of the word. Four letters. The be all end all.
She squeezes his hand back and she lets herself wonder…
Is her brother finally realising, after all this time, at the brink of losing her to someone else, that he’s in love with Madison all along?
. . .
“Ooh, she’s crazy.”
“Yeah, man. Don’t let me sleep with her.”
.
.
.
“Okay, but can you at least give me one good reason why you can’t find anyone else to go with you?” Madison asks.
Kevin’s looking at her like a hopeful child who just saw their gifts under the Christmas tree. It strikes her how his face is pretty much a copy and paste of Nick’s when he’s on his favourite Blue’s Clues Ride-On toy.
“Honestly?” he says teasingly. Madison looks at him suspiciously, but Kevin just grins. “I think you could use a fun night out.”
Madison feigns offence. “Um, I do have fun night outs, thank you very much.”
“You do, do you?” he says with that stupid grin on his face.
“Yes, I do.”
“Okay, name the last time you actually went out that has nothing to do with your book club meets or a random lame date with Elijah or a babies-and-me after school class.”
Madison pretends to be deep in thought, but she knows that she doesn’t have any ammo against Kevin. Looking up at his grinning face, she knows that he knows too.
“My dates with Elijah aren’t lame,” she says, lying. Madison’s pretty easy to please but she didn’t exactly expect to be taken to a dinosaur-themed restaurant on a Friday night especially when she put in a little bit more effort into dressing up.
“Sure, they’re not,” Kevin says. “So, what do you say?”
It scares her how easily she wants to say yes to an evening out with him. The first for a while since well, ever, really. Looking back, their unconventional relationship really is one for the books.
They started out by being locked together in quarantine at her house, which was fine at the start until they started sleeping together therefore complicating their physical and emotional situation by well, a lot. She’s been heavily pregnant afterwards, then the birth of their twins, then the second wedding proposal and the ensuing preparation amidst the situation between Kevin and Randall, Rebecca’s deteriorating health, and the unavoidable fact that they were getting married for the sake of keeping their family together.
It saddens her to think that they never really had an opportunity to just slow down and enjoy each other’s company as they were. At every turn, they never seem destined to just be. Kevin’s mind always seemed preoccupied, understandably, but even then, she knows that he always put her and their kids first.
“Madison, hey,” Kevin says, a look of concern on his face. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, it's okay. I just thought maybe you’d like to get out for a night or something.”
“No, no,” she says, “I want to. You’re right, I think it’d be nice to get all dressed up and take advantage of the free cocktails. I mean, if you’re okay with that.”
“Yeah, of course,” he says, his wide grin back. “You know I remember this one time when my mom and dad came home from a date and my mom was just hammered. And I mean hammered.”
Madison laughs. “Really, Rebecca?”
“Dad was trying to scold us for ganging up on the babysitter and my mom was just you know, there, and she was definitely not helping,” Kevin says, laughing. “Dad had to practically tackle her out of the room before she said anything more encouraging to us for being naughty.”
Madison remembers that time at her bachelorette party when a rather tipsy Rebecca was having too much fun trying to get the colour of her ex-boyfriend’s nipples right. She imagines that she probably would be triple-parking cocktails left and right too if she was a mother of three six-year-olds. And she’s only a few years and one kid short of that right now.
“Okay, I’m in,” she says to Kevin. “But only if Natasha can look after the kids that evening.”
Kevin nods, his excitement so palpable she thinks that he’s going to swoop her in a for a hug-tackle a la Franny style.
But he stays grinning as he starts rambling on about the suit he’s thinking of wearing and what colour tie he should wear that will match her dress despite her not having picked one yet (or him buying one for her as he always used to do). He does have a quite a memory though, she'll give him that, as he lists down the dresses he had in mind, some of which were actually gifts from him.
And as she listens to him ramble on, Madison can’t deny the swooning sensation she feels in the pit of her stomach.
That feeling of both giddiness and nervousness, like a teenage girl in the presence of her crush. That feeling that, even around Elijah, she can’t seem to manufacture the intensity of no matter how hard she tries.
Butterflies.
Lots and lots of butterflies.