Page 52 of Fourplay & Fatalities

Felix, naturally, had insisted on perfection. Zane, of course, had wanted it to feel like home. Together, they’d made it both.

Asa sat cross-legged with Oscar and West inside the oversized prison yard they called a playpen, their tiny faces glowing with excitement. They sat in their matching Christmas pajamas, both clutching blocks in their chubby baby fists, ready to wreak havoc on Asa’s latest architectural feat.

He studied his creation carefully, then adjusted a corner piece of the brightly colored, towering structure, his fingers deftly setting a long piece atop the precarious arrangement.

He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face as he stared at the two babies, both practically vibrating with unrestrained excitement. They’d finally reached an age where they were beginning to show their own little personalities.

West was quiet, shy, a snugglebug who needed to be held almost around the clock. He wasn’t discriminating either. He would cozy up to almost anyone, which was both endearing and terrifying, two emotions Asa had always believed himself incapable of experiencing.

Oscar was a menace. He was pure chaotic energy, somehow both carefully cunning like Felix and a giant ball of exuberance like Avi. He was always calculating just what he needed to do to get exactly what he wanted from someone.

But he was the first to laugh, the first to blow kisses, the first to curl into his baby brother at night when they went to sleep in the same crib.

It was fascinating.

“Now, boys,” Asa began, his deep voice low and instructive. “The key to a good structure is the support beams. If the beams aren’t strong, if they’re not exactly where they need to be, everything”—he paused dramatically, gesturing to the base of the tower—“collapses. And when that happens…” He tipped the top piece slightly for effect. “Tens of thousands of lives, gone. Just like that.”

West, his head tilted with toddler curiosity, reached out and gave the tower an experimental nudge. It wobbled precariously.

Asa barely had time to blink before Oscar lunged forward with both hands, knocking the blocks down in a glorious cascade of noise and chaos.

Both boys erupted into squeals of laughter, and Asa couldn’t help but chuckle along.

“Good job,” he murmured approvingly, gathering the blocks to start anew. “Never let ‘em know your next move, boys.”

“Stop teaching my children to be psychopaths,” Felix said, his lips tugging up at the corners in a barely-there smile.

“Who has to teach them?” Avi asked. “It’s in their DNA. It’s their birthright.”

“You don’t share DNA with them, baby,” Felix reminded him gently.

“But I’m their dad,” Avi said, his tone so proud that Asa snickered.

“That’s not how genetics work, and you know it,” Felix said, shooting a look over his shoulder at his husband, who just shrugged, unbothered as always.

From the couch, Zane’s soft laugh drew Asa’s attention.

He lay sprawled with his head in Avi’s lap, his limbs hanging off the cushions like a lazy cat. Avi’s fingers threaded through Zane’s dark hair absently, his eyes fixed on the television, where Frosty the Snowman played.

Several empty mugs—once filled with spiked hot chocolate—now sat on the side table, and though they’d all indulged somewhat, Zane looked deliciously dazed, his cheeks flushed with warmth and booze.

He wore a pair of Grinch boxer briefs that covered a disappointing amount of thigh and a black T-shirt that clung to his narrow frame. His tight curls—now long enough to reach his shoulders—were fanned out over Avi’s thigh.

He looked good enough to eat.

Felix sat on the floor just in front of them, using the couch as a backrest, wrapping presents with the intensity of an artist sculpting marble. His nimble fingers worked swiftly, tying ribbons into intricate curls and fussing over each corner until the package was flawless.

He eyed each gift like there would be a competition on Christmas morning, then set it in the “wrapped package zone” to be placed beneath the tree by Asa and Avi later.

While Zane looked cozy in his PJs, Felix looked like a wealthy widow who’d just offed her fourth husband.

He wore red silk pajamas and a matching robe that splayed around him like a cape. His long, dark hair was pulled into a bun on top of his head, but several wavy tendrils had escaped to frame his face.

He looked feminine, feline, almost ethereal.

To an outsider, Felix and Zane’s relationship likely made no sense. They had very little in common, other than being tricked into falling in love with murderous vigilantes. But that didn’t seem to matter.

They operated on some frequency all their own, one Avi and Asa couldn’t quite grasp. Whatever it was, they’d found something in each other neither twin could give them, and Asa had stopped trying to understand it a long time ago.