You And I: Family Time

Troye IX

"Daddy!" Aiden ran across the foyer to hug my legs and I grinned as I bent to hug him back.

"Hey buddy." I whispered. By now, Connor had appeared too, holding Tori's hands as she toddled across the floor in front of him.

"Dada!" She cried and my grin only widened.

"Hi beautiful girl. Come to daddy." I let go of Aiden and held my arms open as she finally reached me and fell into my waiting arms. "How clever are you?"

"She's been practicing all weekend." Connor told me and I looked up at him.

"I can tell." Still holding my daughter, I stood up so I could kiss him. "I missed you this weekend."

"Mm. We missed you too. Wait till you see what Aiden's made for you in the kitchen." He replied, one arm staying around my waist as he guided me towards the kitchen. Aiden skipped ahead in front of us.

"Dada down." Tori instructed me and I put her on the floor, watching proudly as she half-ran over to her brother. "Aiden!" She giggled, catching up to him. Grinning, he took her hand and led her into the kitchen.

"They're so cute." I whispered to Connor and he nodded.

"I know. But I also miss her being so little. She doesn't really need us as much anymore." My heart skipped a beat at his words but I knew this was a conversation to have later.

"Con, promise me we'll talk about this later on?"

"Definitely." The first thing I noticed in the kitchen was how much of a mess there was. Flour and sugar covered every surface and there were chocolate buttons scattered across the counter. A cookbook was buried under a pile of empty packets and egg shells balanced precariously on the edge of the counter too.

"Oh god." I muttered but Connor just laughed.

"He had fun." He said, pointing to where Aiden was carefully pulling a plate out of the refrigerator. When he turned around, I saw that it was piled with cookies of a thousand different colours.

"Daddy, look what we made." He said proudly, holding the plate up to me. Beside him, Tori had sat on the floor, clearly with the intent of covering herself with flour. Connor noticed this and went to pick her up, ignoring her whines of protest.

"They look very good, did you make them by yourself?"

"No. Tori helped too." When I looked to Connor for confirmation he nodded.

"Why do you think she was so clean when you got home? She's just had a bath and now she needs another one." He turned to the giggling toddler in his arms. "Cheeky monkey."

"No papa!" She cried, laughing even more. "No bath."

"Listen to papa, Victoria." I said to her and she pouted at me. Clearly Aiden had been teaching her a thing or two. I turned back to Aiden with a smile. "How about you put them back in the fridge and we'll have them after dinner, okay?"

"Okay." He did as asked and then turned to Connor. "Papa, can Tori and I play until dinner?"

"Sorry buddy, Tori's going to have a bath now. But you can play after, yeah?"

"Okay." His grin faltered a little but he ran off anyway. Seconds later we heard him in the playroom, tipping out all his toys. Connor groaned.

"Great. Another mess to clean up." I laughed and reached for Tori.

"How about I give this little one a bath and you get started on the kitchen? I'll come help when she's clean. We can worry about the playroom later."

"Sure." He handed the giggling little girl to me and I carried her at arms length across the house to the kids' bathroom. "Alright, you little monster, let's get you cleaned up." I said to her, setting her on the floor once I'd locked the door and she couldn't escape.

"Dada, no bath." She pleaded, laughing.

'Uh-uh, little miss. You need a bath to be nice and clean." I turned the water on and turned back to her, kneeling on the floor to help her get undressed. She clearly didn't want to help and did everything she could to stop me. "Victoria..." I warned and she looked up at me, her green eyes wide.

"Sorry dada." Suddenly I was able to undress her easier and in minutes, she was happily splashing in the bath, although I kind of suspected some of the splashes were deliberately directed my way and I ended up almost as soaked as if I was in the bath with her.

Finally, she was clean and dry so I took her to the playroom where she and Aiden soon started up some sort of game involving dinosaurs and cars. I didn't bother asking, instead going into the kitchen where Connor had made some progress on the mess.

"Hey." I got his attention and he looked up. I had to laugh when I noticed a streak of flour across his cheek. "You've got it on you."

"God, it gets everywhere." He groaned, trying to rub it away with his hand but only succeeding in making it worse since his hands were covered in flour too.

"Maybe you should finish cleaning the room before you try cleaning yourself." I suggested, still laughing. He smirked at me and suddenly rushed over to rub flour onto my face. I let out a shriek and jerked away but it was too late.

"Ha. Got you." Connor crowed, dancing away from me. As I watched him, my mind went back to how we used to do things like this back in our apartment in Cambridge on cold winter nights when we didn't want to go out. We'd chase each other around the apartment, teasing each other with flour or some other thing from the kitchen. "Did you get Tori clean?"

"Yeah. She's in the playroom with Aiden. Let's just hope she stays clean." I moved to start working on the kitchen counter, picking up the chocolate drops and dusting them off a bit before putting them away in their container. "I thought girls were supposed to like being clean and tidy."

"That's a little stereotypical, isn't it?"

"Maybe. But I just remember my mom telling me how when my brothers and I used to get muddy in the backyard, Sage would always cry if we got mud on her."

"At least we've got a backyard now that the kids can get muddy in, if they want." Connor sighed, giving up on cleaning for a moment to lean on the counter and watch me.

"Mm. I miss living in an apartment but a house is just more practical. Plus, there's more room to grow our family, if we decide to." I winked at him and he grinned.

"Well, we do technically have two empty bedrooms."

"One's a guest bedroom, remember?"

"It doesn't have to be. Aiden can have it if he wants to, since he's the oldest."

"Or if we end up like both our parents and have one girl and several boys, maybe Tori can have it. That way she won't have to share a bathroom with them."

"That works too. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We need to talk about actually getting more kids before we start thinking about who gets what bedroom."

"Yes, we do." I smiled at him as he turned back to finish cleaning the floor. "We really do."