Page 57 of Secret Daddies

“Have you got that paint?” Lee yelled through from the nursery, just as I appeared in the doorway with a can of the yellow we had picked out for this room.

“Yeah, and you don’t have to yell, I’m right here,” I replied. He cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Oh, sorry,” he teased. “You’re just so old, I thought you might be losing your hearing…”

“Very funny,” I replied dryly as I planted the paint pot down by the brushes. “Now, get to work. I bet you’ve never painted a room before in your life, have you, Lee?”

“I’ve never had to,” he replied.

“Well, I have,” Devon cut in. “And I don’t want you guys to make a mess of it because you can’t stop winding each other up, so how about you put a sock in the banter for a second and we get to work?”

“I second that,” Maya chimed in, grinning at the three of us. Lee looked over at her, and the moment he locked eyes with her, I could see him softening.

“Fuck, you look so cute like that,” he murmured. He wasn’t wrong—she was in overalls and a yellow tee that matched the color of the paint, her hair thrown up in a messy bun. Somehow, she looked even sexier to me than when she was all dressed up. There was something about the intimacy of seeing her relaxed that I liked even more.

“Don’t get distracted,” Devon cut in playfully.

Lee groaned. “Okay, but you can’t blame me,” he replied. “When we were dropping off boxes here, she wasn’t wearing any?—”

“Lee, kids next door,” I reminded him, before he could say something completely X-rated while Martha and Matty were in earshot.

“Shit, right. No, not shit. Whatever the non-curse-word version is,” Lee replied, shaking his head. I couldn’t help but laugh. I knew he was trying his best to be exactly the kind of parent this baby was going to need, as well as stepping up for the rest of our little family too—but that didn’t mean he could just switch offthe attitude he’d had for years now like it had never existed in the first place.

“Let’s just get to work, shall we?” I suggested, dipping my paintbrush into the pot and setting to work on the far wall.

Soon, we were all painting as we chatted about what we’d been up to that day. Devon had been auditioning for some indie movie that he wanted to help co-produce, and I had taken Martha and Matty out to the park to play. The two of them were getting on so well—too well, even. I was pretty sure they were conspiring against us even as they hung out in the room next door. The few years of an age gap hardly seemed to register now that they were spending so much time together, and it was a joy to see my little girl welcome her sort-of-brother so excitedly.

“I always wanted to have a little brother,” she had told me matter-of-factly after we’d spent the day with Maya and Matty at their old apartment. “And now I have one.”

“You think you’ll be a good big sister to him? And the baby too?” I’d replied, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. I had decided to tell her about the new baby on the way as soon as I got the chance—I didn’t want it to come as a shock to her, and the more time she had to get used to it, the better. She nodded, as though it should be the most obvious thing in the world.

“Of course I will be,” she’d told me, practically rolling her eyes at the thought that I might doubt her. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face the whole ride home.

She had taken to Maya so well too. And, while she was getting used to having Lee and Devon around, we were taking it slow and not dumping a whole new family on her outright. We still had our own place and, while I could see us moving in with Mayaand Matty and the baby in future, for now, that was how it was going to stay.

It was so good to see my daughter’s life filled with such love, with so many people who cared about her. Of course, I had always adored her, but there had never been a time when I wasn’t worried about what her mother leaving had done to her—wondering if she felt abandoned, or whether she was hurt by knowing her mom didn’t want to be part of her life. Now, she never had to worry about that again. She had an abundance of love and care, and soon she was going to be big sister to two whole little ones. I was still sure that the baby was going to be a girl, but Devon thought it was a boy. Either way, we were going to find out the week after next, and I couldn’t wait.

There was still plenty of work to be done on the nursery, but it was coming together. I had spent most of the day before building a crib—and yes, I’d had to deconstruct and reconstruct it when I realized what a mess I had made of it, but that was all part of the process. Now, it sat in the corner of the room, decked out in gender-neutral yellow just like the walls soon would be.

“Can I help?”

I turned around to see Martha standing in the doorway, Matty just behind her. He was still a little shy with me and the other guys, so he always let her take the lead. I glanced over at Maya, who raised her eyebrows.

“Maybe you could just work in this corner,” she suggested. “Where I can keep an eye on you. It’s tough work, this painting…”

“Here, take this brush, it’s the smallest,” Lee told Martha, gesturing for her to come over. She held her hand out for the handle, and he chuckled as he placed it into her hand.

“You want a hand taping up the edges?” Devon asked Matty, crouching down before him with that face-splitting smile he always got when he was around his son. It reminded me of how I had felt when Martha first came along, that total joy of knowing that you got to watch this little human grow up and turn into the best version of themselves.

“Yes, please,” Matty replied, and Devon set about carefully taping around the baseboards so they didn’t cover them in paint. I paused for a moment to watch him, as Matty helped him line up the pieces and then tack them on. He was a good dad, even though he was new to it. He was patient, and that would get you a long way, especially as they started getting older.

“Daddy, can you lift me up?” Martha asked me, tugging on my sleeve. “I want to paint the top, there, next to the curtain rail…”

“I can try,” I laughed. “But you’re getting big now. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold you up there…”

“Let me get on your shoulders!” she insisted, and I shook my head at her fondly—but then I dropped down to my knees and gestured for her to climb on.

“All aboard!”

---