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Josh and Maisie bring their newborn daughter home from the hospital on a warm summer Saturday, and the kids next door (who aren’t really kids, at all, anymore) wait until Wednesday before they show up on the doorstep of apartment 4C.
“We didn’t want to bother you guys or the baby too soon,” Robin says brightly when Josh opens the door. Maisie is fast asleep, along with the baby– for what feels like the first time since they got home. Steve– who does not have a baby, as far as Josh knows, but who does have at least six children that he refers to as his– taps Robin on the arm, and her volume drops several notches. Josh doesn’t really care– he’s too focused on the stack of dishes in Robin’s hands, one of which has to be a casserole. “We hope everything’s going okay!”
“It’s great,” Josh says, which is true. Apart from baby Isabella screaming through the night. But he wouldn’t change it for the world. “Please tell me one of these is the french toast casserole.”
Robin and Steve both laugh, and Steve points to the bottom dish.
“We tried to make a variety,” he says.
“God bless you,” Josh says, despite the fact that he doesn’t believe in God and he doubts the kids do, either.
“Let us know if you need anything,” Steve adds as Josh takes the stack of dishes. “We can bring more food, too, so you don’t have to cook.”
“You guys are the best neighbors ever,” Josh says solemnly. The two look at him funny. Which, okay. He can see why they would think they’re bad neighbors. The Interdimensional Portal Incident and the armed mercenaries and the multiple government NDAs– the list goes on. But Josh and Maise have both grown impossibly fond of these kids, they might as well know it.
He puts the food away, then goes to wake Maisie up. She told him that if the neighbors from 4B brought a casserole, to wake her up no matter the circumstances. He really wants to let her sleep. But the casserole.
He wakes her up. She devours half the dish, then immediately goes back to bed.
Maisie’s parents drive down from New York that weekend. Josh is infinitely more stressed about their arrival than Maisie is. In-laws, and all that. They’re staying at a hotel, but they arrive with suitcases dragging behind them.
“There was a funny boy in the lobby,” Maisie’s mother tells them after the appropriate cooing over Isabella. “He had all these scars on his arms.”
“Long hair?” Maisie asks, more than used to her mother’s judgement.
“Yes,” her mother says, like it’s some horrific scandal.
“That’s Eddie,” Maisie says. “He lives next door.”
“Where on earth did those scars come from?” her mother muses, and Maisie and Josh exchange a look. They’re not one hundred percent sure on the details, but they are able to put vicious bats the size of my torso and weird nightmare dimension together and come up with some sort of explanation. Maisie’s not sure how well that would go over with her mother, however.
“Animal attack,” she says instead, and her mother makes a humming noise.
Eddie himself arrives at their apartment a few hours later, dragging a frankly massive package behind him. He’s in a t-shirt, scars on his arms on full display. Maisie sees her mother staring and tries to block the doorway.
“It’s addressed to you guys,” Eddie says. “And very heavy. Figured I’d bring it up for you.”
“You are too sweet,” Maisie says. “It must be the new rocking chair.”
“Want us to put it together for you?” Eddie asks. Which is how Maisie winds up with Eddie, Steve, and Nancy in baby Isabella’s bedroom, setting up a new rocking chair while Josh bounces Isabella on the couch and Maisie’s parents look on with a mix of horror and curiosity.
When they leave– promising to bring more home-cooked meals soon– Maisie’s father turns to her.
“They all live next door?” he asks. “College kids?”
“Yep,” Maisie says. Steve and Eddie aren’t college kids, technically, but her ‘college is the only path to success’ parents don’t need to know that.
“Do they get rowdy?” her father presses.
“You have no idea,” Maisie says. Though, she figures with Isabella crying through the night, it’s their apartment that’s going to be loud for a little bit.
Her parents leave later in the week. Josh lets out a long sigh of relief when they do.
“Oh, they’re not that bad,” Maisie laughs.
Josh’s parents fly in from Los Angeles the next weekend; their visit is significantly less stressful than Maisie’s parents. When they leave, Josh decides it’s time that he and Maisie had a proper night out to celebrate, just the two of them, and he knows just the babysitters for Isabella.
“We would love to,” Nancy says when he asks, beaming.
All four kids show up when the clock hits five, looking like they’re ready for battle. Not actual battle. Josh and Maisie would know. They’ve seen them in actual battle. But when they leave the apartment, they both feel certain that nothing bad will happen.
And they’re right– Isabella is sound asleep when they return. Steve and Robin are posted up in the bedroom like they’re on guard; Nancy and Eddie are doing the same in the living room.
“Any problems?” Maisie asks, a little tipsy.
“None at all,” Eddie replies. Josh tries to pay them, and all four swat his money away.
“It’s literally our pleasure,” Steve says, and as the kids head back to their own apartment, Maisie swears she hears him say to Eddie, “When can we have one of our own?”
She’s pretty sure Eddie replies, “As soon as we can steal one.”
And listen– Maisie is not completely blind, nor is she stupid. She knows that their weird neighbors are bonded from a crazy amount of trauma. She knows that Steve and Eddie are together, and Robin and Nancy are together. She knows that they all love each other very, very much. So she is not that surprised when Steve shows up on their doorstep a few months later and asks, “How did you know?”
Josh is at the store with Isabella. Maisie wordlessly steps aside and lets Steve in.
“I don’t have great parents,” he starts, when they’re both sitting on the couch. “Like, totally, completely absent parents. So I can’t really talk to them about this kind of stuff, and you and Josh are, like, the only married couple I know that doesn’t live in Russia, so–”
“So how did I know,” Maisie says, repeating his words from earlier. “How did I know that Josh was the one?”
“Yeah,” Steve says, breathing out a little sigh of relief, and then he pulls the ring out of his pocket.
It’s a beautiful ring– simple– a dark metal band with a single red stone inlaid in the middle. It fits perfectly with Eddie’s aesthetic, Maisie thinks. She gasps a little when she sees it, and a fond smile crosses Steve’s face.
“I know it’s not– I mean, it’s not legal,” he says. “But I still want to– to do something. Because he means the world to me, and I want to show him that. And I do know that he’s the one. I’ve known that for a long time. But I just want to make sure it’s perfect.”
“Steve,” Maisie says. She’s not that much older than he is, and she can remember when Josh got down on one knee. She remembers it feeling like the most magical moment in the world. Not because of the ring, or the setting, or even the fact that it was a proposal. It was because it was Josh. “He’ll love it. No matter what you do, he’ll love it. Because he loves you.”
Steve’s eyes are a little teary. She puts a hand on his arm.
“You could probably get him a ring pop and he’d say yes,” she tells him, and he lets out a watery laugh.
“Thank you,” he says.
She tells Josh about it when he gets back from the store. Isabella, now four months old and grabbing at things and making so much noise– gurgles a little. Josh’s eyebrows are raised practically to his hairline.
“I literally had that exact conversation with Eddie last week,” Josh says. “When I took the car in to the shop– I totally forgot to tell you.”
“Oh my God,” Maisie says, and then they both burst into laughter.
“I wonder who’ll get there first,” Josh says between fits of giggles. Isabella gurgles again in agreement.
As it turns out, neither Steve nor Eddie gets there first. Robin does.
Maisie sees the ring on Nancy’s finger a few weeks later, when Nancy and Steve come over to babysit. She clocks it almost immediately, and Nancy’s face goes bright red.
“We’re engaged,” she says. Josh, in the other room, drops the shoe he’s trying to wrestle onto his foot. “It’s not like we can actually get married or anything, but she proposed last weekend.”
“Congratulations!” Josh cries, running shoeless into the room to gawk at the jewel. Maisie hands Isabella off to Steve, who takes her and immediately begins cooing at her, and then pulls Nancy into a hug.
“I’m so happy for you,” she says as Nancy hugs her back. She locks eyes with Steve over Nancy’s shoulder and mouths your turn. Steve’s face goes an even brighter red than Nancy’s.
A week later, Maisie and Josh have just sat down on the couch to put something on the television when they hear excited screaming from next door.
“How much do you want to bet that Steve and Eddie just got engaged?” Josh asks as Maisie curls into him, and Maisie laughs.
They make a casserole the next morning, and take it with Isabella over to apartment 4B that afternoon. All four kids are there when Robin opens the door.
“We just wanted to say congratulations on the engagements,” Maisie says as Josh hands Robin the casserole. “And thank you for being such good neighbors.”
“I wouldn’t know about good–” Eddie starts from where he’s got one arm looped around Steve, a ring on his finger that Maisie’s seen before.
“No, you’re not good neighbors,” Josh corrects. “You guys are perfect neighbors.”
There’s a bat with nails driven through it propped against the wall and a sawed-off shotgun on top of the fridge. Josh and Maisie have signed more NDAs and met more weird people than they ever thought possible. Armed mercenaries stormed their building and a portal to Hell opened in their hallway and Steve, Eddie, Robin, and Nancy have faithfully babysat for them every time they’ve needed it. Josh is right, Maisie thinks. They’re the best neighbors anyone could ask for.
“If you have a ceremony, you better invite us,” Maisie jokes. Nancy slips under Robin’s arm; Steve and Eddie grin from the living room.
“Oh, we will,” Robin promises. “You guys are pretty perfect neighbors, too.”
As they go back to their own apartment, Maisie thinks she and Josh do have it all. They’ve got each other, their beautiful baby girl, a good home, and weird, perfect neighbors. It really doesn’t get better than that.