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“They’re finally asleep again” Phil murmured, closing the lounge door behind him and wandering across the room, placing the baby monitor onto the coffee table as he passed. He sat himself down on the floor opposite Melinda, crossing his legs and smiling wearily at her.
Melinda nodded absently in response, concentrating on finishing the tag on her mother’s Christmas gift with neat swirling handwriting, adding two x’s at the end as kisses. She hoped it didn’t look like it had been written at almost 11pm on Christmas Eve.
It had been.
They hadn’t planned for things to be left until the last minute, but as usual with life at the current time, there was always something else that needed to be done instead, something that took priority. Whether it was ensuring Phil’s daughter Lola didn’t miss her swimming classes, taking the twins to their monthly health checks, or babysitting Steve and Maria’s daughter Jemma, their lives seemed to have been taken over by children, and they rarely got a moment to just stop, and breathe.
Nowadays, they rarely got a moment alone.
Melinda popped the cap back onto her pen and dropped it to the floor, before turning the tag over and tucking it under a piece of ribbon, moving the gift so it sat under the tree, the reflection of fairy-lights dancing off the metallic paper.
“Did they wake Lola?” she asked quietly, reaching out for the bag she had hurriedly shoved behind the sofa when they’d first heard the sound of Skye beginning to cry from upstairs.
“No,” he replied with a chuckle, taking the bag from her and emptying the contents out onto the carpet between the two of them, catching a stray bauble that fell from the tree as he accidentally knocked against the branches. “You know how deeply she sleeps.”
Melinda nodded again, smiling to herself. She did know how deeply Lola slept - she slept just as deeply as her dad did.
A collection of things scattered out of the upturned bag in front of them, from fluffy polka-dot socks to a tube of brightly coloured sweets - last minute items Phil had picked up on his final grocery run the afternoon before.
They each took an item from the selection, before Melinda began to unroll the rest of the wrapping paper, cutting it to the required sizes and passing one section back to Phil.
“You know this is all completely over the top?” she asked rhetorically, shaking her head slowly as she glanced at the already huge selection of presents under the tree.
“They’re worth it” he replied absently, frowning at the rogue piece of sellotape he’d managed to get stuck to his hands, instead of on the paper.
Melinda laughed, twirling a piece of silver ribbon so it curled in loops, before tying it onto the small package. She added the newly wrapped socks to the pile of items destined for Lola, before reaching out to Phil, gently peeling the tape off his fingers for him.
“The twins are barely six months old,” she murmured with a small shake of her head, taking the gift from him and finishing it off herself. “I doubt they’ll even realise what’s going on.”
“Oh well” he shrugged, watching as she folded the remaining paper and taped edges with deft fingers. “Lola will love it, and they can at least enjoy the colours and paper…. James especially likes the lights on the tree; he can’t stop staring at them.”
They were quiet for a while, Phil watching her finish the last of the items, placing it under the tree with a tired sigh. She rolled the leftover paper back together, fixing it with a band to stop it unravelling, before leaning it up against the wall behind her.
“Our first Christmas as a family” Melinda hummed to herself, adding the final item onto the pile.
Phil reached out to her, tugging at her hands until she shuffled closer, the two leaning back against the worn cream sofa, knees gently touching.
“It’s strange” he admitted, linking their fingers together and stroking his thumb against her palm in lazy circles. “How different things are now, compared to twelve months ago.”
Melinda yawned, nodding slowly as she lowered her head, resting it against his shoulder.
“It’s good though” she agreed.
One year previously, they’d been dating for almost twelve months, and Phil had been a single parent to Lola. They’d just moved in with one another, and they were slowly working out a way for them to merge their lives together in a way that worked for all three of them.
Then, the shock of their lives had arrived in the form of a positive pregnancy test, and several months on they had not just one, but two new bundles of responsibility to deal with. James and Skye were a perfect combination of the pair of them, and Lola adored being an older sister. Their birth had cemented everything about the future and their family for good.
Phil turned his head slightly, letting his lips linger against her forehead, feeling a stray hair strand tickle his nose in the process..
“Love you Mel,” he whispered, breathing softly across her skin.
Melinda watched the fairy-lights flickering around the fireplace, the soft glow illuminating the photograph of all five of them Phil had decided was a necessity to have adorning the fireplace in their family home. She smiled, lifting her head up so she could look into his eyes properly.
“I love you too.”
They didn’t often proclaim huge declarations of devotion, and nothing more needed to be said. She leaned forwards, pressing her lips against his own in a gentle kiss, before letting her eyes close. The feeling of him smiling beneath her touch filled her with warmth.
They melted together.