Eventually, Honey and Moot settle down and become a family. By then, I’m knee-deep in giant baby madness. Casper, or Cap as I get to calling him, loves his mama. For the first year of his life, I can’t leave the room without him losing his shit. The twins view Cap as their enemy. He isn’t fond of them either. He only wants me. All the time.
“I can’t believe I’m jealous of a baby,” Hayes says one night while we sleep with Cap between us.
“He’s a baby. He’s barely crawling. The world is a big place, and he needs security.”
Hayes grins slightly in the dark room. “I’d want to climb all over you if I could.”
“Right back at you, big guy.”
Cap is a perfect form of birth control until he turns one and learns to walk. Suddenly, he’s Mister Independent. He chases his siblings. He chases Nightmare and Dreamy. Best of all, he chases after his daddy. Cap runs himself into exhaustion and begins crashing early each night.
“We’re free!” I cry the first night Cap sleeps without hours of cuddling.
Hayes yanks off his shirt and shivers. “What’s fucking like? I have vague memories of liking it.”
I nearly injure myself in the rush to the bed. Hayes isn’t much more coordinated. Too long without sex has left us rusty. I don’t know what to do with my hands. He nearly dislocates my hip, trying to find his way inside me. We’ve become clumsy virgins. By the next night, we’re aces again. Practice makes perfect after all.
Cap has my big mouth and Hayes’s trust issues. He never wants to play with anyone outside his family. He’s wary of his cousins and watches them the same way Hayes watches twitchy people in his territory.
“Anti-social runs in the family,” Hayes says, gesturing toward Cricket and Chipper who always keep their distance from outsiders.
The twins warm up to Cap when he begins smiling at them. That’s all it takes. They crave applause, and he finds them hilarious. Once he’s mobile, the twins become triplets. Everywhere they go, he wants to go too. Cricket teaches him to throw a fit on command. Chipper teaches him to do the pouty face that turns Hayes to mush.
My man has no resistance to the children’s trickery. All he can do is force me to play the bad guy. I throw the blame on the po-po when I can, but most days I’m cool with being the scary parent. There’s no denying Hayes makes a very sexy softie.
Disney World becomes a bi-yearly event for the family. As the kids get older, the trips become more relaxed. Balthazar and Lizzy Anne join us on each trip. Occasionally, Honey, Moot, and their brood come along too. My favorite moments are when Hayes, the kids, and I watch fireworks. No matter how big the kids get, they ooh and ahh like when they were little. Hayes also never fails to laugh at how no matter how old I get I always ooh and ahh too.
While Casper might be the official heir to the Hayes organization, he’s as laidback as his brother. By the time she’s a teenager, Cricket causes fear in White Horse. Her favorite hobby is showing up unannounced at work sites to scare the lazier employees.
None of the kids show any interest in going to college. They take a few business and accounting classes at the community college. Otherwise, they learn everything they need to know from Hayes. He expands his main office to give each kid their own space. Doling out more and more work to them, he’s officially retired by the time Cap turns eighteen. Even as his kids become the public face of the Hayes organization, my sexy man will always be the Junkyard Dog calling the shots behind the curtain.