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1.
"You really want to take her for the night?" Joe asks, staring wide-eyed at their mom.
They're all standing in the kitchen, Ella in her highchair and engaged in a battle of wills with Nick. There are pretzel sticks all over the floor, some of them crushed where Nick or Joe have stepped on them. There's some Cheerios, too. Thank God for the vacuum cleaner.
Ella knocks over her sippy cup. Nick rights it, waits patiently. She knocks it over again.
"She's totally a pain today," Joe says, "but you can sure steal her away if you want."
"Oh, honey," their mom laughs. "I think your dad and I can handle it."
Nick scoops up Ella and hands her over without waiting for any further prompting. "I know Joe's got an overnight bag packed somewhere, like he was waiting for you to offer."
"That is actually - yeah, that's mostly true," Joe admits, and runs to get it.
Ella sticks her tongue out at Nick. "Seriously," he complains, "why did Frankie have to teach her that?". All while their mother makes no secret of the fact that she is laughing at them in her 'welcome to parenthood' way.
Joe returns with the diaper bag and holds it out. Ella pats their mom's face with sticky fingers while Nick tries not to laugh.
Five minutes later, they're waving from the front steps as the van disappears down the street. "Are we actually alone?" Joe asks, sliding a strong arm around Nick's waist and tugging him close. "For, what, the first time in three months?"
"Three months and two weeks," Nick murmurs, stepping back even more into Joe's embrace. Joe's fingers slip up under the bottom edge of his t-shirt, fingertips skimming along his belly, and Nick laughs. "I love that sex is the first place your mind goes."
"You said it, not me," Joe chuckles, and kisses his neck. "I was actually thinking 'I wonder what Nicholas will want for dinner', and you had to go and porn it up."
"You're the one with his hand under my shirt." Nick arches back, pressing against Joe, reaching up over his head to wind his fingers in Joe's hair, sort of upside-down. "I want your most famous dish for dinner."
"Oh, so fish sticks." Joe nuzzles against the place where Nick's neck meets his shoulder, and he sighs. "And tater tots?" Joe whispers, breath hot against his ear.
Nick turns in his embrace and wraps his arms around Joe's waist. He walks Joe backwards through the foyer and into the living room, pushes him down onto the couch. "We can have a grown-up dinner," he says between kisses, which means they can order pizza, "and watch a grown-up movie," which means one with explosions and swearing.
"Do we even own any grown-up movies?" Joe asks, nipping at the curve of Nick's jaw. "And do you think if I hide Moulin Rouge under the couch, Ella will stop wanting to watch it?"
"She just likes the colors and the singing," Nick laughs. "Trust me, the rest of it is going right over her head. Will you blow me? It's been forever since you had your mouth on my dick."
"Dirty, Nicholas." Joe nuzzles against his neck again, then pushes him away. "After pizza, I'll blow you."
"Ugh. Fine."
Joe grins and wiggles out from underneath him. "It's fun watching you squirm."
"You mean, you get off on being withholding," Nick groans, and pinches Joe's waist in revenge. Joe yelps, and Nick grins and sits up. "Go order the pizza."
They end up making out on the couch (necking like teenagers, Nick thinks, as he mouths at the spot where Joe's pulse beats the strongest under his jaw, and he can feel Joe's hard-on against his thigh) until their food arrives. He's sure he looks a mess when he signs the credit card slip for the guy. Joe grins broadly at him as he drops the boxes onto the coffee table. "I ordered enough for leftovers, Nicky," he announces.
"I see that."
Joe hums while he eats, smiling at Nick every so often, and Nick feels like this could be a scene out of their lives a year ago. Except for the toy piano on the floor next to the couch, the stack of kids' books on the chair, the sippy cups scattered everywhere.
"I wouldn't trade it," he says suddenly to Joe, and Joe freezes with a fresh slice halfway to his mouth.
"The pepperoni and mushroom?"
Nick gestures around the room, including them. "This."
"Oh."
"I love you." It's something he tries to say a lot, has ever since Joe told him just how long it was that he'd been in love with Nick, before Nick even had a clue.
Joe reaches over and squeezes his wrist with oil-slick fingertips. "Love you, too."
2.
Ella's first word is "music".
Of course, it sounds more like "ooooooosic!", and Nick tilts his head at her in confusion while she points at the piano. Joe's eyes go wide and then he starts laughing so hard he falls backwards onto the couch, while Ella stares at him and Nick rolls his eyes so hard it makes his face hurt. "Oh, God," Joe hiccups, clutching at his stomach. "Of course her first word is music!"
"Music, baby, it's music," Nick says to her, ignoring Joe. "With a 'mmmmm' first. Music."
"Music," Ella says again, a little more clearly this time, and tugs on Nick's jeans. "Music." She points once more at the piano and stares up at Nick, her hazel eyes huge and pleading as she pulls at his leg some more.
"Okay, baby," Nick says, picking her up and swinging her over his shoulder while she giggles, her Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt (a present from Demi) bunching up under his arm. Joe's still collapsed on the couch, gasping for breath. "Just ignore Daddy, okay? He should be excited you're talking, not making fun of you like a jerk."
Carefully, he helps Ella to sit cross-legged on top of the grand piano that takes up a quarter of their living room. She claps her hands together happily. "What do you want to hear?" Nick asks her, playing a quick scale, then the beginning of Demi's latest single. "This?"
Ella shakes her head.
Nick thinks for a second, noting out of the corner of his eye that Joe's regained his composure and is sitting up on the couch, watching them. He plays the opening bars of "Lovebug" and watches as Ella claps her hands in delight. He grins. "Aha! You're a sucker for the old stuff. I should have known."
"Music!" she cries, patting her palms on the smooth surface.
Nick continues to play. After a few bars, Joe wanders over and sits next to him on the bench, taking over an embellishment here and there, their hands brushing together occasionally. Nick lets him, pleased to see that Joe's picked up at least this much from their informal (and lazy, even if it does pain him to admit it) piano lessons, knocked out a handful of times over six months they've been in the house.
The doorbell rings, and Ella tries to get herself down from the piano so she can run for it, but Joe scoops her up and hauls her along underneath his arm as she shrieks her displeasure. Nick turns on the bench and watches as they turn the doorknob together.
It's Kevin, with Daniel in his carseat. "Hi, can we come in?"
"Ella just said her first word!" Joe says in reply, flinging his arms up in the air in excitement, and Nick laughs.
"Really?" Kevin says to Ella, looking down at her and smiling. She clutches at Joe's leg and stares back up at him, then lets go of Joe and reaches for Daniel's carrier, wanting to see.
Nick watches as Kevin sets the carseat carefully down on the floor so that Ella can see. "This is your baby cousin Daniel," Kevin is saying.
"Oooh," Ella breathes, forgetting all about how she hadn't been allowed to get down from the piano by herself and forgetting all about music, completely captivated by the baby.
Something rises hot and painful in Nick's chest and settles just above his heart. Suddenly it's impossible to take a full breath. The piano bench turns uncomfortable from one second to the next. But he can't just get up and walk out of the room.
Joe turns and catches his eye, his expression as helpless as Nick feels. Nick bites the inside of his cheek and schools his face into something more appropriate.
Later, when Kevin and Dani have stolen Ella for the night and Joe's firing up the grill out back for their dinner, Nick steps through the patio door and says, "We're still doing the right thing, right?"
"Yes," Joe says firmly. He passes the pepper grinder a few turns over the steaks he's got on a plate, then lays them carefully on the grill. He shuts the lid, then looks at Nick. "You and Ella are all I want, and all I need. I know what you were thinking before, but trust me, one kid is enough."
"It just - it just hit me really hard," Nick sighs, slumping down in one of the deck chairs.
Joe's mouth quirks in a half-smile. "You could be the one to get someone pregnant this time. Man, that would be an even bigger scandal. I was already the playboy," he laughs, leaning over Nick.
Nick tilts his head up so their mouths brush. "You'd be jealous," he teases gently.
"You bet." Joe nips at his lower lip and Nick grabs his hips, pulls Joe onto his lap. "Hold up, cowboy, we've got the whole night. And meat on the grill."
Nick kisses him firmly, keeping his hands tight on Joe's waist, and despite the protestations he'd just made, Joe kisses him back.
3.
It's Ella's first day of kindergarten, and Nick is pretty sure that the reason Joe had buckled himself immediately back into the driver's seat (after walking her to the door) was so that he wouldn't jump out of the car, scoop her up again, and drive back home. Ella is waving to them from the steps, her teacher and a dozen other kids milling around up there as well, and Nick is so proud he feels his heart might burst.
But it better not, because he's got a flight to L.A. in less than three hours, and a week booked in the studio to produce this crazy experimental project that Demi and Selena have decided to do together, and talked him into working on with them. He's still not entirely sure what their plan is. He's not entirely sure if the two of them are even really speaking again, after the last fight, but Demi has some music that she's insisting she can only do with Selena. So Nick is going.
"You gonna be okay for a week without me?" he asks Joe now, and Joe scoffs, pushes at his shoulder. Ella's class is filing into the building; Nick and Joe both wave out the windows and Nick notices they're not the only car of parents still parked at the curb. In the back seat, Elvis and Rover both whine, and Nick twists around to see their noses pressed to the glass, watching the commotion.
"I'll probably just be bored without you," Joe says, still waving. "All of Ella's free time has been claimed by Mom and Dad and Kev and Dani, so - I'll just be home alone a lot. Me and the dogs."
Nick rolls his window back up. "That's kind of okay though, right? I mean - you haven't had a whole lot of time just to yourself in the last five years."
There's no missing Joe's shrug. "Because we had so much time to ourselves before Ella came along." The last of the kids have gone inside and Joe rolls his window up as well. "I want you to go and do this, Nicky," he says, softer than before. "You like the work. And it looks good for us, you know?"
He does know. "Yeah."
It's not that things between him and Joe have changed, because Nick still feels mostly the same way he did back when this had started. Maybe a little less scared of it all the time. But moving back to Jersey had added a new layer to their relationship that Nick hadn't expected: settling. It wasn't an unwelcome feeling, but it meant Nick and Joe both had to work a little harder to keep up their appearance of two single guys who just happened to live together.
"I think Demi might - might know about us, or suspect, or whatever," he interrupts his own thoughts to say. He looks over at Joe as he says it. Joe doesn't appear surprised. "I have to admit - I don't know how much I care that she knows, if she does," he continues, "since she seems to still want to be friends with us and stuff."
Joe checks over his shoulder and then pulls away from the curb. "I'm pretty sure Dem figured it out a long time ago. And by long time ago, I mean, basically right away."
"Really?"
Joe shrugs. "It's not like she said anything. But she stopped trying to hook me up with her friends - stopped tying to hook you up with her friends, too, didn't you notice?"
"Huh." He thinks about it for a second, picking at the frayed hole in the knee of his jeans. "Guess you're right."
"So?" Joe asks.
"What?"
"What are you going to do if she brings it up?"
It's Nick's turn to shrug, knowing that it's a subject Demi won't actually touch. "She's never going to ask outright, Joe; come on. You know that." He reaches to brush his hand over Joe's thigh. "And I'm not going to bring it up. Ever. Are you?"
"Hell, no."
"Then drive, dude, and get me my iced coffee before we go to the airport."
4.
Ella is six when Joe gets it into his head that she should see New York. "Come on," he says to Nick one night as they get ready for bed. "Remember all the time we spent in the city as kids?"
"We were working," Nick replies dryly, but he flashes a smile to show Joe he's not entirely opposed to the idea. It's summer: sticky heat, no school, long days, and neither of them have much going on. Joe is toying with the idea of doing a solo album, which means he's halfheartedly telling people he might be doing one, and Nick is trying not to tell him to make up his mind too often.
Nick gets it, he does; he knows Joe digs the stay-at-home dad thing. But sometimes when they're curled up together in bed late at night, he can't help but ask, "Is this really enough, Joe? You honestly don't want anything more than this?", even though he knows that Joe's ambition was never all that strong in comparison to his own.
Joe had only ever done things because he wanted Nick to be happy, and because he knew how much Nick had wanted them.
"You and the baby are all I could ever want, or need," Joe always replies, and then uses kisses to cut off anything else Nick might try to say.
But the night before the trip, he presses a hand to Joe's chest to keep him at bay. "Really?"
Joe looks at him with a helpless expression. "I don't think I can put it any simpler than that, Nicky. You, me, Ella, forever."
Nick feels like Joe is missing his point, so he gives up, kisses Joe's forehead and cheek and the corner of his mouth, and curls up against him to fall asleep.
They take the train into the city and Joe is just as much a kid about it as Ella is, both their faces pressed to the glass, watching the miles speed by. "I can't believe we didn't do this before now," Joe says, not to anyone in particular.
"Can we see a show, Daddy?"
"Oh, I might have tickets to something, baby," Joe replies, grinning at Nick over Ella's head. "More than one something."
Nick rolls his eyes and reaches out to straighten the ribbon in Ella's hair. "Spoiled rotten," he mutters, and Joe and Ella both just grin at him, identical expressions on their faces.
What they're doing might be a sin, but Nick's gonna count himself the luckiest sinner on Earth, and keep it while he can.
Humidity presses into them as they walk up out of the station onto the street. The sidewalk is crowded with people, and Nick feels Ella clutch tightly at his hand. "You okay, Els?" he asks her.
"A lot of people," she says hesitantly. She looks a little bit afraid.
Nick squeezes her hand. "I know it's scary. Don't worry, we won't let you get lost."
5.
"Bye, sweetie," he says to Ella, kissing her cheek. "Keep an eye on the kids, yeah?
"You bet," she replies, sounding enough like Joe that Nick grins. Her hair falls into her face just like Joe's, too.
"Have a good day at school." Nick smiles at her and she beams back.
"Bye, Uncle Nick! Bye, Uncle Kev!" Then she gathers up her cousins and they all walk towards the school's front door, lunchboxes dangling from hands.
Kevin keeps looking over at him with this weird expression and finally Nick can't take it any more. "What is it, Kev? You want to go walk Andrew to the door? I know it's hard when they're little."
"No, I know Ella can handle it," Kevin says. He's quiet for another minute, running a hand through his hair, already a few early threads of silver at his temples. Then he takes a deep breath and says, "I know about you and Joe, all right? I know. You guys do a really good job of hiding it, and no one just randomly walking in to your life would see it, but I'm your brother. I've known for years."
Kevin's words come out fast, falling one right after the other, like if he doesn't say it quickly he'll never get it all out.
"Shit." Nick's head had started to swim the moment Kevin had started talking. He clutches the steering wheel so hard that his hands hurt and he has to actively think about forcing himself to let go. When he can speak, it's just a whisper. "Mom and Dad?"
"They pretend," Kevin says quietly, looking out the window towards the school. "For Ella's sake, because they couldn't bear it if you and Joe took her away." He pauses. "That's what would happen, right? If Mom and Dad disowned you both, which by the way, they would feel like they had to if you and Joe ever said outright what you're doing. You'd leave."
"I would leave," Nick chokes out, finding it hard to breathe. It feels like a giant hand is gripping his lungs, squeezing tight. "I could never take Ella away from Mom and Dad and you and Dani and the kids like that, it's - I - I would be the one to leave. I would go away. Somewhere."
It's the same argument he and Joe have been having for years: Joe insisting that they would all go, better to be cast apart from the rest of their family together, while Nick shakes his head and refuses to let Ella be separated from her grandparents.
"Let them keep pretending," Kevin says now.
"Kev..."
Kevin pats him awkwardly on the shoulder. "Like I said, Nicky, nobody just walking into your life would know, okay? It's not like you guys have ever been anything less than co-dependent."
"I think I'm going to throw up," Nick confesses.
"As long as it's not on me."
He rolls down the window all the way, letting the warm August breeze rush through the car. He watches groups of kids run up the walk towards the school; it's an exclusive private place, amazing with the kids, and yet another thing he wouldn't want to take Ella away from.
"I can't say I'm surprised you know," he says slowly. "Like, eight years is a long time."
"Eight years?" Kevin's voice is a little strained.
Nick swallows hard. "Since she was born, almost."
"Oh." Kevin's quiet for a moment, then, "That's a long time to keep a secret like that." He pats Nick's shoulder again. "Nick, listen... I don't care, all right? I don't care."
"How can you say that?" Nick whispers.
"Because you're my brothers, I love you, and I know you're not hurting anyone," Kevin says firmly. "Okay, I think we should stop sitting here in the drop-off lane and go run through the drive-through at Starbucks quick before I have to put on a suit for my meeting."
It's obviously his long-winded way of saying he'd like to end the conversation. Nick nods, sitting up straight in the seat again. He starts the car and pulls away from the curb, continuing on, just like always.