Page 65 of That Defining Moment

“Yeah,” Stephen said. “Like brains wise.”

Colin lurched out of his chair so fast that his tea sloshed onto the table, startling Lysander into following his wide-eyed gaze.

Lysander hadn’t seen him move like that in weeks. His father had been good about conserving his energy, but Cassian had just brought the blade down mere millimetres from his fingers in a great hacking motion. Colin moved across the kitchen just as Cassian raised the knife high for another pass.

“Sweetheart.” Colin arrived at Cassian’s elbow and laid his hand over Cassian’s on the knife handle, stilling it mid-chop. “That’s not how you do this.”

Cassian blinked up at him. “I’m helping.”

“You are, and you’re doing beautifully, but you don’t need to raise the knife that high.” Colin eased the knife free of Cassian’s grip. He set it on the chopping board, then took Cassian’s hands in both of his and turned them over, running his thumbs across Cassian’s palms as if checking for nicks.

Lysander watched his father’s gaze catch on the scars.

Colin’s breath hitched. His thumbs stilled on the insides of Cassian’s wrists, resting over the pale, raised lines that circled the skin there. He kept his expression neutral, even as he swept his thumb across one of the scars, before he let Cassian’s hands go.

“Come upstairs with me,” Colin said. He pressed himself against Cassian’s side, one arm looping through Cassian’s elbow. “Tala will be waking up from her nap, and she gets ever so cross if there isn’t someone there when she opens her eyes. You can help me get her up.”

“I would love that,” Cassian whispered reverently.

Colin patted his arm and steered him towards the door. The two of them disappeared into the hallway together, his father leaning into Cassian’s side more than he’d ever admit, Cassian matching his pace without being asked.

✦ ✧ ✦

Diwa’s arm appeared through the kitchen doorway first. Just his arm, bent at the elbow, holding Tala at chest height so that the gathered family got the full benefit of her before they saw her accompanying human conveyor.

Pink tights. A soft grey cardigan with a hand-knitted koala face over the left breast, its ears protruding from the fabric, and on her head, a knitted hat with two round koala ears at its peak, pulled down so low that it nearly swallowed her eyebrows.

Tala blinked at the room, and Cassian gasped so loudly that Ryland flinched.

“Oh,” Cassian breathed, both hands flying to his mouth. “Oh, she’s a koala.”

He was already clapping, a rapid, delighted patter that drew Tala’s unfocused gaze towards him. Diwa stepped through the doorway behind his daughter, and Colin, who had clearly been waiting in the hallway for exactly this moment, followed at his shoulder, beaming so hard that ten years fell off his face.

“Bonpoint,” Colin announced to the room, as though naming the designer of a couture gown on a red carpet. “The cardigan’s hand-knitted. Feel the ears, Sander. Go on. Feel them.”

Lysander reached over and rubbed one of the koala ears between his thumb and forefinger. It was, he had to admit, incredibly soft.

“Right,” Colin said, and produced a second hat from behind his back. This one was brown, with two round bear ears at the peak. He crossed to Stephen, lifted Max out of his lap with a grunt of effort that he immediately tried to disguise, and fitted the hat onto his grandson’s head with both hands, adjusting the angle twice before stepping back to assess the result.

Max’s face crumpled beneath the brim, his lower lip jutting forward. Colin ignored this entirely.

“There’s my little Maxie-bear,” Colin murmured, smoothing the hat down over the dark tufts of hair at Max’s temples. “There he is. Oh, you’re gorgeous. You’re the most gorgeous boy in London.”

“He looks furious, Daddy,” Lysander said.

Colin paid him no mind. He gathered Max against his chest and turned so the room could admire both babies in their respective animal hats, side by side. Tala in Diwa’s arms, round-eyed and oblivious in her koala ensemble. Max against Colin’s shoulder, seething beneath his bear ears.

Cassian was taking photos on his mobile, crouching and tilting for angles, narrating his process to nobody in particular. “This one’s for Hamish. And this one’s for me. And this one’s for the lamb and cat video lady on YouTube, because I think she’d appreciate it. Colin, can we get lamb and cat outfits too?”

“Yes, of course,” was Colin’s immediate answer.

Hamish’s arm settled around Lysander’s shoulders and pulled him in closer.

His father fussed with Max’s hat and murmured nonsense into his grandson’s ear while Diwa stood beside him with Tala tucked to his chest, his free hand resting at the small of Colin’s back as though it had always belonged there. Stephen had given up pretending not to be emotional and was wiping his eyes on the sleeve of Ryland’s hoodie.

His family was all together again, filling a kitchen in Notting Hill, ridiculous and whole.

Serving bowls and clay pots crowded the table in a spread that left no visible tablecloth between them. Chicken adobo in its dark, vinegar-bright sauce. A platter of lumpia arranged in tight golden rows. Garlic fried rice steaming from a ceramic dish. Green beans glossed with oyster sauce. A bowl of pickled atsara that Cassian eyed with deep suspicion before Lysander spooned some onto his plate and told him to try it.