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“Woah! That’s a lot of chocolate you have there champ.” Harvey exclaimed looking down at his incredibly messy five year old who had been tasked with breaking the chocolate bars up into a bowl ready for melting.
It was Mike’s birthday and William had announced earlier in the week that they should make him a cake to celebrate. Harvey, who was chronically incapable of saying no to anything his son suggested, had snuck away from work early to pick William up from school and help him bake a cake as a surprise for Mike when he got home. William had decided that chocolate fudge cake was the way to go and so they had stopped by the store on the way home to get all of the necessary ingredients. Once home Harvey had helped William mix everything together and get the two cakes into the oven, all that was left now was assembly and decoration, and for that they needed an ungodly amount of cream and melted chocolate.
“Yeah, well daddy likes chocolate so we need to use as much as possible!” William replied excitedly.
Harvey smiled down at him, how could he refuse those big blue eyes. “The recipe says we need two cups so why don’t we measure that out for now and then we can save some of the chocolate buttons to go on top?”
“But we need to put the candles on top,” William said seriously.
“I think we can make space for both, don’t you?” Harvey chuckled.
Just as he spoke the timer on the oven went off signalling that their cakes were ready to come out. Harvey grabbed the oven gloves and opened up the door to the oven and a puff of steam erupted in his face causing William to giggle uncontrollably and his dad wafted the gloves in front of his face in an attempt to see into the oven properly.
“Hey champ, these look great!” Harvey said as he pulled the first cake out and placed it down on the counter out of reach of William's curious fingers. “No touching yet, it’s still hot.”
“Aww” William replied, “but it looks so yummy.”
“I think it will look even more yummy once we’ve covered it in all of this frosting,” Harvey responded playfully. He turned back around to turn off the oven but before he could manage it there was a crash from the other side of the room.
“Oopsie”
William was staring down at the bowl which had only seconds before been full of whipped cream ready for mixing. The Harvey of old would have been angry with the mess and, had the culprit been anyone other than his five year old, he probably would have scorned at their incompetence but his son had a way of looking at him which made Harvey’s heart melt, that boy had had him wrapped around his little finger since day one.
“That is a bit of an oopsie isn’t it?” Harvey ran over to make sure that nothing else had taken a tumble.
“Sorry daddy I was just trying to reach the chocolate buttons and it fell” William looked forlorn at his mistake.
“It’s ok champ”, Harvey gave him his biggest smile and squeezed his shoulder kindly. “No harm done, we’ve got plenty more in the fridge.” He reached down to pick up the upturned bowl and as much of its contents as he could manage. “Now, why don’t you pick out the decorations whilst I get this cleaned up?” He handed William the remaining bags of chocolates and bopped him on the nose for good measure.
“Eww daddy, you put cream on me!” William giggled.
“Did I?” Harvey replied, feigning shock. “You’ll just have to lick it off then.”
He watched as William stuck out his tongue and contorted his face in an attempt to lick the cream off the end of his nose. He always made the funniest faces and Harvey could help but grin cheesily at him.
“I can’t reach it!” William exclaimed frustratedly.
“What about…this bit?” Harvey dipped his finger back on the bowl of cream before adding another dab to William’s cheek.
William giggled as the cold cream touched his skin, he stuck his tongue out again, this time managing to get at least some of the cream into his mouth.
“Your turn!” William shouted excitedly before dipping his whole hand into the bowl and planting it squarely onto the centre of Harvay’s face. Harvey was only stunned for a second before he erupted into laughter at the cheekiness of his son. He licked his lips to get what he could of the cream off causing William to collapse again intp a fit of hysterical laughter.
Harvey always loved making William laugh, he’d been worried at first that Mike would be the funny one and he'd end up being 'Mr serious' of the family but there seemed to be no end to the amount of things that made William laugh and Harvey found that this particular aspect of parenting had come to him more naturally than expected.
Suddenly there was a noise from the hall and they both looked up in surprise, Mike had come home earlier than expected. William looked at Harvey for instructions, the cake wasn’t done and they’d wanted it to be ready and waiting when Mike got home.
“You stay here and keep quiet for a minute, I’ll distract daddy, ok?” Harvey whispered in his ear.
William nodded, his expression serious, this was now a top secret mission and he would play his part to the best of his abilities.
Harvey left the kitchen and snuck down the hallway to find Mike. He managed to sneak up behind him, partially helped by the earbuds that Mike had stuffed into his ears.
“Jesus!” Mike jumped when Harvey wrapped his arms around Mike and placed his hands over his eyes. “Harvey, what are you doing home? Where’s William?”
“He’s here too, don’t worry I didn’t abandon my duties. I just picked him up a little earlier than planned," Harvey replied, struggling to keep his hands in place as Mike attempted to turn around.
“Harvey!” Mike laughed, “what are you doing? Won’t you let me turn around?”
“Nope.” Harvey replied, he began guiding Mike down the hallway towards the main living space.
Mike was utterly confused, not only by the way he had been ambushed only seconds after entering his front door but by the way his husband was acting, they were up to something. He could smell something baking as they rounded the corner into the kitchen and made a final attempt to wriggle free of Harvey’s grasp. He briefly succeeded in freeing his face but was swiftly pulled round so that he had his back to the kitchen.
“Not so fast Mr” Harvey said teasingly, continuing to drag Mike past the chaos of the kitchen behind him and through to their bedroom.
“Harvey, you know you have cream on your nose right?” Mike laughed, still completely bemused by the whole situation.
Harvey saw William giggle from behind Mike’s shoulder, the kid was doing a very good job of keeping quiet but his shoulders were bobbing up and down in hysterics. Harvey removed one hand from Mike’s jacket and held it up to his lips signalling for William to remain silent.
Once safely out of the kitchen and into the corridor Harvey pushed Mike swiftly into their bedroom and finally let him go. “Stay here,” he said firmly.
“Harvey, aren’t you going to tell me what’s going on?” Mike asked, he was still laughing at the cream on Harvey’s face.
“Not yet, thank would ruin the surprise”
“And does this surprise happen to involve cream?” Mike took his thumb and wiped the remaining cream from Harvey’s face before licking it off gently. “Or chocolate?” He continued slowly bringing his lips to meet Harvey’s. “Because you taste like both.”
“Hmm, you’ll just have to wait and see,” Harvey teased. “But right now, my skills are required elsewhere.” He leant in and kissed Mike again. “Your son is a very demanding boss.” He gave Mike one final kiss and turned to leave.
“I wonder where he gets that from!” Mike shouted after him sarcastically.
Harvey returned to the Kitchen to find William counting out the candles for the top of the cake.
“How many have you got there champ?” Harvey asked, joining his son by the counter.
“Erm…” William was concentrating hard using his fingers to add up the numbers. “Twenty three?” he questioned.
Harvey quickly added up the number of candles on the counter.
“Yeah you got it, good job!” he bent down to give William a kiss on the top of his head. “How many do you want to put on the cake?”
“How old is daddy?” William asked, looking up at his dad.
“How old do you think he is?” Harvey could have fun with this later.
“Erm…” William frowned, clearly thinking very hard. “Fifty two?”
Harvey laughed, “I’m going to tell daddy you said that” he chuckled and ruffled a hand through William’s hair. This was met by a stern stare from William Harvey wasn't going to get away without telling him.
“Seventy two?” he asked cheekily.
“Try going the other way,” Harvey laughed again.
William thought about it, using his fingers to count again. Harvey could almost see the cogs in his head turning as he tried to do the math. He smiled, letting William come up with a number on his own.
“Thirty two!” he eventually said excitedly.
“That’s more like it” Harvey smiled, he thought Mike would be pretty pleased to still be thought of as thirty two so he wasn’t going to argue again. “Great counting champ!” His maths skills were certainly better than his age guessing skills. “Now let's get you cleaned up a bit so that we can decorate this cake”. He lifted William up from the stool he’d been sitting on and carried him over to the sink to help him wash his hands.
Hands washed and faces free of cream, Harvey started to heat the newly prepared cream on the stove whilst William watched intently from the island behind.
“Right, cream is ready” Harvey announced as he turned to place the hot pan down on the mat. “This is super hot though champ so no touching ok?”
“Ok” William replied chirpily.
“Do you want to help me add the chocolate?” Harvey asked.
“Yes please!!”
Harvey smiled again, having a child had really reminded him to find the excitement in the smallest of things. Life was so much more interesting when he viewed it through the eyes of his William.
“Ok, can you grab the bowl of chocolate there and tip it in gently, I’ll mix everything together and then we can put it on the cake” Harvey instructed.
William did a great job of adding the chocolate slowly to the cream, Harvey keeping a close eye to make sure he didn’t touch anything hot. Once everything was mixed together they were left with a gooey chocolate frosting which Harvey helped William to spoon onto the cake. They sandwiched the two layers together and then William spread the rest out of the top of the cake carefully with a spatula. They added the chocolate buttons and squeezed in as many candles as they could before standing back to admire their handiwork.
“Looks great champ, what do you think?” Harvey asked. He was particularly impressed with their creation. He’d never been much of a baker but it’s surprising what you can accomplish with a bit of encouragement from a charmingly cute five year old.
“Perfect” William grinned up at him.
“Shall we take it through to daddy?”
William nodded excitedly so Harvey grabbed the matches from the drawer ready to light the candles. He watched as William ran ahead into their bedroom whilst he followed behind, carefully holding the cake and trying to make sure that no candles were extinguished en route.
“Happy Birthday to you” Harvey started to sing as entered the bedroom and William immediately joined in.
“Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to Daddy! Happy birthday to you”. They sang in unison.
William had climbed up on the bed so he was sitting next to a smiling Mike. Harvey sat on Mike’s other side and carefully held the cake out in front of him so that Mike could grab it.
“Wow! Thank you” Mike said, “this looks amazing!”
“Make a wish Daddy! You need to make a wish!” William chimed in, he was practically bouncing up and down with excitement.
Mike did what he was told, closed his eyes and made a wish before blowing out all of the candles.
“What did you wish for?” Willam asked as soon as Mike was finished.
Mike leant down to whisper in Williams ear. Harvey watched as the expression on his son’s face went from intrigue to confusion.
“That’s a rubbish wish Daddy!” he announced. “You’re supposed to wish for something cool! Like a helicopter, or chocolate or…or… a real life brontosaurus!”
This made Mike laugh. “I’ll save those ideas for next time buddy” he chuckled.
“Do you know what I wish for?” Harvey stood up as he spoke. The other pair looked at him expectantly. “For you two to get yourselves dressed so that we can go out and enjoy some yummy food.” He'd booked a table at Mike’s favourite restaurant for dinner, not the fanciest they’d ever been to but it was a small family Italian spot which Mike had fallen in love with a few years ago and had quickly become their go to for any occasions when William was joining them. Of course Harvey still loved the nights they would spend, just the two of them, indulging in the finer things life had to offer, but his boys loved this place and so he loved it too.
William only looked slightly disappointed, his Dad's were not doing very well in the wish department this evening. “Can we have some cake first?” he asked.
Harvey was about to say no but he looked down at the faces in front of him, two sets of big blue eyes looking up longingly putting on their best pleading expressions. How could he refuse?
----
Harvey was clearing up the last of the baking dishes when he felt a pair of arms snake around his waist. He turned to face Mike, and pulled him backwards so that they were both leaning against the kitchen island, Harvey’s hands interlocked behind Mike’s head.
“Is he asleep?” Harvey asked.
“Yeah, went out like a light,” Mike replied. “All that baking must have worn him out.” He leaned in to capture Harvey’s lips with his own, kissing him gently. “Thank you” he said, “not just for the cake, but for everything today.”
“You're welcome,” Harvey smiled back. “You know, you never told me what you wished for earlier”.
“You know you’re not supposed to tell anyone or it won’t come true”. Mike replied mocking the serious tone in his voice.
Harvey put in his best sad puppy impression and it didn’t take Mike long to relent.
“Ok, I suppose I already told William” Mike continued. “I wished that the three of us would always be as happy as I was in that moment.”
Harvey smiled, that was very Mike.
“Ah that’s a shame,” He tilted his head slightly, his mouth forming into a smug smile. “I was hoping you were going to say you’d wished for front row tickets to the Nets game next week followed by a meal at the new Brazilian restaurant you’ve been wanting to try.” He said slyly, waiting for a suitable reaction from Mike.
“You're not serious?” Mike replied, astonished. “That place is booked up like a year in advance!”
“I mean, if you don’t want to go, then I can always call up and cancel”. Harvey shrugged, pulling away slightly.
He watched as Mike opened and closed his mouth twice, unable to find a witty response. Harvey smirked back, mission accomplished.
“Happy Birthday” Harvey said softly, leaning in to kiss his husband again. He didn't say it out loud but his wish would have been exactly the same as Mike's.