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“Yeah, you are,” Cooper says sleepily, his eyes fluttering closed. “I meant what I said earlier.”

My heart slams against my ribs.

“I know you did.”

“I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“I can. It’s going to be incredible.”

“You have a lot of faith in our parenting skills,” he teases.

“I mean, how hard can it be? We don’t have a very big act to follow.” I might try to make light of the situation, but the reality of it is less than amusing.

“We’ve got this. Together, we’ve got this.”

“Yeah,” I agree, holding him close as his breathing evens out and he falls back to sleep.

I lie there for ages, listening to him snore softly, constantly on alert in case one of the boys needs us or Ryker has a nightmare.

It’s got to be at least two hours later when I hear light footsteps padding closer.

My heart lurches when I open my eyes and find a dark figure looming over me.

Ryker.

“You okay, bud?” I ask, using Cooper’s nickname for him.

He sniffles but doesn’t say anything.

Guessing what he wants, I tap the side of the bed next to me.

It takes a second, but then he curls up into it.

“You’re safe now, Ryker. Cooper and I won’t let anything happen to you,” I whisper.

Only a few moments later, he’s also asleep.

At some point, with both of them sleeping soundly on either side of me, I also drift off. And when I wake the next morning because someone is wriggling, I discover it isn’t just the three of us. Somehow, Huxley managed to also squeeze himself onto the bed at some point in the night.

I look at both of them still peacefully sleeping, and something settles inside me.

“I know life changes when you have kids, but I wasn’t expecting to be trapped in bed on day one,” Cooper whispers, making me snort a laugh.

“Could be worse,” I whisper back as he entwines our fingers.

“It certainly could. Are you ready to take them home?”

“You know what? I really am. I think we’re going to be an incredible little family.”

Cooper smiles at me. “Yeah, me too.”

It takes another thirty minutes for the boys to wake up, and when they do, I’m relieved to see some of the shadows that were haunting their eyes yesterday have faded. Hopefully, with time, almost all of them will disappear.

We get up, get dressed, and head out for breakfast. We tell the boys what’s happening at home, keeping them involved at every step, and a couple of hours later, we walk them to the airport with a suitcase each.

Cooper arranged to have most of their stuff shipped, but we packed the most vital things for the first few days of life in LA.

“Are you both sure about this?” Cooper asks before we board our plane.