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It's a Sunday night and it's dark outside. The rain is hitting the windows so hard like their little transparent lives depend on it.
"Charlie, we both know that neither of us are going to out in that weather, so about we grab a couple of blankets, throw on a YouTube video of a fireplace roaring, I'll make us a cup of hot chocolate together and you go and print of the emails we were sent on Friday -" I watched as Charlie's face lit up, and I know it wasn't from the roaring fire video or the blankets and it was not the chocolate that earned me that smile... it was in-fact that I had announced it was time.
"You really want to look through them?" I smiled nodding as his cheeks got round and plump with excitement.
"Yes, I really do Char" He only squealed before running around the corner sofa and leaping into my arms and wrapping his legs around my torso.
"Are you sure, you're not forcing yourself because you know I've been dying to look through them since the moment we got the email?!" I lightly chuckled at his little insecure moment, but I assured him with a passionate and deep kiss, one hand supporting his back and the other hand burrowing into his hair, feeling his luscious curls between my finger-tips.
"No, believe me when I say I've used every light bit of my being not to skim through the emails without you. It's time Char, it's time we find a little soul for us to add onto our little family. I want to start a family with you" Charlie continues to smile with glee as he gives me another deep kiss and letting his legs fall back down to the floor.
"I'll be back in 5 minutes then, don't miss me too much" I smile watching him run towards the living room archway.
"You've not even left the room and I already miss you massively" He chuckles his cute-ass chuckle, the same one he allowed me to hear back in the day when I was teaching him how to play rugby.
"Shut up rugby lad" He cheekily snarks at me. I only smile back remembering the days we bickered back and forth like that with each other.
"My gay nerd" I whispered to myself, I shake my head almost in denial at the fact that the one guy I had a crush on before I knew I was bisexual is actually mines.
I sigh to myself looking around the living area, the corner couch that me and Char picked out together, blue with some sun-yellow cushions thrown about. The insane amount of pictures hanging on the wall, my favourite being on our 'favourite days ever' wall, of which I have the photo of me and Char featuring Nellie proudly frame and centre stage at my eye-level. I can't help but have a glimpse at it every single time I walk past.
So many other photos too, Charlie making a snow angel in my Mum's backyard on the snow. Me getting my cheek licked by Nellie and so many others than can never be replaced.
Moments later I realise I've been reminsing over the past, something I tend to do on a daily basis and get to work. I walk to the cupboard under the stairs, where Harry Potter used to live in his teenage years and grab our blue and yellow blankets. I close the door and throw them over the back of the couch and head straight for the kitchen to make the hot chocolate for me and my Char.
~~~~~~~
I carry both large mugs into the living room just as I see my beautiful man descend the stair case with a small pile of white paper.
"Did you print them all of or just the first half?" He looks at me, smiling.
"Nah, I'd printed them all off, I want to go through them all with you the now" I nodded placing the mugs on the table.
"Let me see them, get yourself comfortable Mon amour" His cheeks crimson at my words, I smirked biting my lip at the same time.
After a few seconds, I place my own ass just next to Charlie's and he throws my blanket over my legs.
"Thank you beautiful, can I see the papers?" He nods handing them straight to me, my fingers graze his slowly and our connect immediately. Looking into his blue eyes I can't help but realise what we're about to do for real, I place the papers on my lap and wrap my left hand around the back of his next and connect our lips together in a passionate and sweet kiss, his hand lays on my bicep as I lean into him slightly.
I pull away, both of us breathless. I placed my forehead on his with my eyes closed.
"I'm sorry, I just had to do that the now..." Charlie chuckles very gently.
"No S word, Nick. You never need to apologise for kissing me spontanously - I'll always welcome you" He reassures me of that fact by gesturing me to look up with his nose pushing mines upwards and connecting our lips once more time, this time his hand going to the back of my neck and tugging slightly at my nape of my neck.
After we eventually... pull away from each other, we looked at each other and we knew...
"Let's look through these and get to bed, how's that for a plan, Char?" He speaks no words but nods frantically.
We both cough like stupid school boys, both sets of cheeks turn red as I sift through the printed selection in front of us.
"What are we wanting to go for again?" Charlie leans his head onto my shoulder, I welcome the sweet gesture and place my own on-top of his.
"We both happily agreed last Monday that neither of us minded... so either" I nod gentle as to not hurt him.
As we look through them, we realise something... very frustrating.
"Nick, how are we going to choose... we are saying yes to all of them... at this stage we're just going to end up taking over the orphanage but not rehoming any of the kids..." Charlie looked at me, I could tell he was upset at this realisation. I wasn't though.
"Wouldn't that be something though, becoming a version of a father for all of these kids..." He smiles at me, he takes the first page from my hands.
"What? Taking over the orphanage and making it a group home instead of a place of kids that need rehomed because we'd take care of them instead...?" I nod, giving Charlie my famous lop-sided smile.
"Yeah, it's an amazing idea baby... but we need to decide one kid for the now!" I sighed knowing he was right. We are still fairly young ourselves, not even 24-25 yet. We can't take on that many kids this early on.
"Okay, how about this as an idea. We will turn all of the beautiful options around and put them on the table and shuffle them. And after they've been shuffled we will choose at random -- and maybe depending on things go with the lucky chosen child, we adopt another child and then another a year or two later after discussing with the first 2 if they'd be okay with it?" He furrows his eyebrows at me with a big smile.
"You mean, like Steph and Lena did on that show?"
"The Fosters? Yes, exactly. I loved that show" Charlie smiled even bigger time, wrapped his hands around my arm and squeezed into me.
"Sounds like an amazing idea. Shall we find out who's going to be the first Spring-Nelson kid in the family?" I nod sitting forward to shuffle the paper the best I could whilst they faced away from us. I put them down and spread the papers wide and far on the table.
"Here's your drink my love, it should be lovely and warm to drink now" He takes the mug from my hand and takes a small sip.
"Awww, that's the stuff..." He takes the biggest happy sigh and leans forward, mug in hand.
"Who chooses?" I sit up with my mug in hand, taking a sip.
"I shuffled baby, you choose our first baby boy or girl?" He eyes brightened up like the 4th of July.
"Okay" He quickly places a kiss on my cheek before hovering his hand above the papers.
He lowers his hand over someone in the far right at the top, picks the piece of paper up and turns it around.
"Aww, it's her. She's lovely" Charlie turns to me, small tears threatening to fall.
"What's wrong my love, why the tears?" I place my hands on the side of his face after placing my drink down and have Charlie face me.
"Nothing is wrong... it's just this girl is literally the perfect choice for us, I was hoping we'd get her first" I smiled taking the piece of paper from his hand.
"Can you see why I say it?" I looked at the little girl on the paper, Charlie's reasons weren't obvious to anyone else, but to me - I noticed them the first time we looked through the options.
"Yes, because she has your hair colour and style and brown eyes" He nods, tears literally rolling down his cheeks, I wipe them away with my thumbs.
"It's almost like she's actually ours, she already has a part from each of us" I nod agreeing with him.
"So, are we choosing this little angel then?" Charlie nods frantically before connecting our lips together and pushes us both back against the couch.
~~~~~~~~~~~
It's a few days later, I emailed the head of the orphanage to arrange a pick-up time. Once we got the go-ahead, Charlie was practically in the car and buckled in and pulling his converse on. He wasted no-time in the matter, He wanted to get there faster than I could move. I do forget, every now and again that he was the champion runner back in high school.
Once I finally got my shoes on and locked the door behind me and got into the car, Charlie was like a baby kangaroo. Couldn't keep still.
The orphanage was around 10 minute drive away, so we just listened to music along the way, our excitement was pretty sky and we knew we couldn't actually have a conversation without over-riding each other in the process.
Getting to the adoption agency was quick and easy, I had barely parked outside the main door when Charlie left the car and waited inpatiently at the door for me. We both agreed that we'd go in together.
I take Charlie's hand into my own and we push a door each open.
"Hi, I'm Mrs Olsson-Jones but you can call me Darcy. How can I help?" I looked to Charlie, he nodded, his own way of giving me the go-ahead to start the process.
"Hi, I'm Nick Nelson and this is my very excited boyfriend Charlie Spring, I spoke to Mrs Olsson-Jones over the phone, but you've got a different voice..." I left my voice trailing from confusion.
"Ahh, no worries. You spoke to my wife over the phone. Please follow me" We nodded and followed her through the back, it was only moments later when another woman of colour walked out of the Manager's Office, she seen her wife and smiled.
"Darcy, my love who are these lovely gentleman?" Darcy as we have learned immediately wrapped her arm around her wife's shoulders.
"This is Mr Nelson and his partner Mr Spring" Tara's eyes lit up.
"Yes, oh it's lovely to meet you both -- a lovely pair indeed. Oh, she's going to love you guys so much. She is so excited and is already packed and ready to go" We all chuckled at the little girls excitement and enthusiasm.
"Please follow me gentleman and we shall get you guys introduced" We nodded, I could feel Charlie's hand getting very warm and tense. I leaned into him subtly.
"You're doing amazing Mon Amour, breathe" He silently followed my words and took a well-needed breathe. His grip loosened a little but still held on tightly.
Tara knocks on a brightly coloured door, it had a rainbow painted across it.
We wait as she opens the door slowly, peaks her face into the room for a moment.
"They're here, you ready to meet them?" We stayed silent. It's only when we heard the sweetest little voice say the words 'Yes, please. I'm so excited', that my heart skipped a beat and I'm sure the tears were about to roll for me now. Charlie's free hand raced to his face.
"Oh my gosh, she sounds so cute, it's too adorable"
Tara moved to the side.
"Gentleman, I am honoured to introduce you to Bree" The little girl, Bree, stood upright and directly in-front of Tara, she looked at us, a smile plastered on her face.
I held Charlie's hand as I got down onto one knee to be at her level. Charlie let go and placed his hand on my shoulder instead, we both instinctively knew we needed each other threw each and every single second of this process.
"Hi Bree, I'm going to be your new daddy and my lovely amazing partner right here is also going to be your daddy" She looked at us both.
"Really? I get 2 Dad's?" I turned to look at Charlie above me and he came down to my level, a smile also on his face.
"Yes, Bree. You're getting 2 dads, is that okay?" No words were spoken but she made our hearts burst with happiness and pride when she ran over to us and engulfed us both in a very tight hug.
"I can't wait, can we go home?" I looked at Tara and Darcy for confirmation.
"Yes, I just need you to sign a release form so we can put it in her records. I've already got the rest of your information in the system" I nodded.
"Can I pick you up Bree?" She nodded lifting her arms around my neck and clung to me. Charlie placed his hand on her back, I may have been holding her in my arms, but she was also smiling like a happy bunny at Charlie.
"Right Bree, daddy has to sign something to get you out of here. Daddy here is going to take you out to the car and get you strapped in and ready for your new adventure. Is that okay?" Charlie held out his arms and Bree smiling immediately transferring from me to Char with ease.
"I'll get you at the car my love" He winks blowing me a kiss.
"Bree seems to already love you both so much" I bite my lip to avoid crying over how much I loved that little girl already.
"I can't wait for this new chapter in me and my partner's life" Both ladies smiled as I signed a form.
"Thank you Mr Nelson, have a good day" I nodded, picking up the pace on foot back to the car.
Once I got inside the car and strapped myself inside, I turned to face my boyfriend and our newly adopted daughter, Bree.
"Right, sweetie. You ready to see your new home and your new room?" She nodded frantically with the biggest smile on the planet.
I put the car into reverse and headed home with my new family.