It Takes Two | ✓

Epilogue

Gabe heard the door open and shut and looked up from his laptop to see Trist and Adam round the corner into the living room, sweaty and breathing heavily from their run.

Georgia abandoned the toys she'd been arranging on the rug and ran up to Adam. Her tiny hands fisted at her sides as she stood up as tall as her five year old body would allow.

Adam grinned. "Hey, Georgie."

Georgia held her palms out in front of her and pulled them away from one another, the sign for 'big'.

"Big?" Adam put his palm flat above Georgia's head as though to measure her height. "Hmm, actually, maybe you have grown a little."

Georgia lifted her chin, proud.

"Okay, now you're the second smallest person I've ever seen. The smallest was Gabe, when I first met him."

"You were smaller than me," Gabe said, but he was smiling as well.

"Was I, though?" Adam ruffled Georgia's hair and she scowled at him and marched back to her toys.

Gabe had been worried when Adam and Georgia had first met and the first thing Adam had done was tease her about being small. Young children could get upset over the smallest things, and Georgia, being non-verbal, could be particularly volatile.

But that hadn't happened. They had a lovingly antagonistic relationship in which Georgia would try to prove that she was big and Adam would tell her she was small, but it never led to tears or tantrums. If anything, it had helped to make her a little less of a reluctant eater at mealtimes.

Trist walked over and bent down to kiss the top of Gabe's head. "Did Larry call yet?"

Gabe shook his head. "You know I would have told you right away if he had."

Georgia's mum loved her but knew she'd never be able to take care of her and her biological father didn't care about anything but not having to pay child support. They'd met her mum. She liked them. They'd been caring for Georgia for nearly half a year now. There was no reason the adoption shouldn't go ahead, but they couldn't relax until they got the call.

"So, Gabe," Adam said. "Yoga, Saturday?"

Gabe had forgotten about that. His gaze wandered to Georgia, who was arranging her toys in size order. "Uh, I don't know..."

"She'll be fine without you for a couple of hours," Trist assured him.

Gabe smiled at him. "I know. You're a great dad."

"I don't know about great, but I'd say at least passable," Trist said. "Besides, Sophie and Bee are coming over as well. Sophie wants to get some child practise in before her twins are born and Bee wants to see how Georgia does at pair matching card games. She thinks Georgia might have a particularly good visual memory and that's why she picks up signs so quickly."

"I look forward to losing a hundred games of Match Two a day to a five year old after it becomes her new obsession."

"Hey, that's probably great for your cognitive function," Adam said. He pointed at Gabe. "So that's a yes to yoga, right?"

Gabe leant his head back and groaned. "Fine, yes, okay."

Adam grinned. "Great. Okay, well, I'd better keep going before my heartrate returns completely to baseline. Bye!"

Gabe shook his head as he heard the front door shut behind Adam. "He's so annoyingly healthy."

"And dragging us all there with him. That bas—" Trist glanced at Georgia. "—Bad person."

At the first few notes of Gabe's ringtone, Gabe grabbed for his phone. Larry's name was on the screen. He exchanged a look with Trist. "This is it, isn't it?"

Trist nodded. "One way or the other."

Gabe took a deep breath and pressed the answer call button as Trist leant in close to listen in. "Hello, Gabriel speaking."

"Hey, Gabe. How are you?" Larry said.

"That depends on what you have to tell me, Larry."

"Is Trist there as well?"

"I'm here," Trist said.

"Well, congratulations to both of you," Larry said. "You're going to be fathers."

"Oh, God," Gabe breathed as Trist's arms wrapped him in a tight hug. "Thank you."

"I'll be over in a few hours to go over paperwork and procedure and all of that boring stuff, but for now just go and hug your daughter. I'm so happy for the three of you."

"Thank you," Gabe said again, his voice shaking slightly. He'd been so afraid that somebody would take Georgia from them, and now nobody ever would.

Gabe hung up the phone and followed Trist over to where Georgia was playing on the rug.

Trist knelt down next to her. "Hey, Georgie, we have something to tell you."

Georgia looked up, her brown eyes as serious as ever. She swirled her hands and ended with the fingertips of each hand pressed together, the sign for 'family'.

Trist smiled and mirrored the sign. "That's right, Georgie. Family."

THE END