Chapter 65

Chapter 65
Lincoln

By the middle of April, I’m tired in a way that doesn’t leave my bones anymore, because it’s made a home there and started paying rent.
That sounds dramatic as hell, and maybe it is, but four kids under one roof will make a man honest whether he feels like it or not.
I’m up before daylight with our daughter tucked against my chest and our son making offended little goat noises from the bassinet beside the couch. Raleigh passed out forty minutes ago after the last feeding, one hand still curled around the edge of the blanket like sleep had to drag her under by force, so I told her to leave the next round to me and meant it. The older twins are still asleep upstairs, which feels like a miracle nobody in this house should question too closely.
The living room glows blue from the baby monitor and the soft light over the stove. I warm a bottle one-handed, bounce our daughter with the other, and look around at the wreckage of real life spread over every available surface. There’s a burp cloth slung over the recliner, Maddison’s sparkly sneaker abandoned by the fireplace, Maddox’s plastic dinosaur under the coffee table, and three folded baskets of laundry Raleigh never got put away because babies don’t care about a person’s intentions.
I love every inch of it. That still catches me off guard some days. I spent so many years measuring life by impact, by speed, by whether I could keep enough plates spinning to avoid watching one shatter, and now the best part of my day usually happens before sunrise, with a bottle in one hand and spit-up drying on my T-shirt.
Our daughter finishes first and drifts back off against me. Our son takes his bottle like he’s trying to win a contest nobody told the rest of us about. By the time I get him settled, my coffee’s gone lukewarm on the end table, and the first gray light has started pushing against the windows.
Raleigh shuffles into the room in one of my T-shirts and socks, her hair piled on top of her head, her face still sleep-soft and a little puffy in the way that makes me want to kiss her stupid.
“Why are you out here?” she whispers.
“Because I’m a hero.”
She blinks. “That’s disgusting.”
“I know.” I grin at her over the top of my mug. “You get any sleep?”
“Enough to feel like I could probably pass for a person in decent lighting.”
“That’s huge, baby.”
She comes around the couch and leans down to kiss me. It’s quick, because both babies are asleep and this house punishes intimacy on sight, but it still settles low in my chest.
Then she straightens, looks at our son, then our daughter, and lets out one of those tiny, tired laughs that always sounds like disbelief and joy got mixed up together.
“We made a lot of people,” she says.
“We got carried away.”
“Obviously.”
Upstairs, a door opens and closes, then little feet hit the hallway. Maddison calls for Mama, Maddox calls for cereal, and just like that the quiet part of morning is over.
By seven fifteen, I’m in uniform with one boot half laced while Maddison argues that pigtails make her look like a baby and Maddox insists his green plate tastes better than the blue one. Raleigh’s at the counter, bouncing our son against one hip while our daughter sleeps in the swing. Her coffee’s gone cold twice already. Mine never made it past the first cup.
This is the part that should feel impossible. It doesn’t.
Hard, sure. Loud as hell, definitely. But not impossible. We’ve got systems now. Maddison gets the pink cup because the pink cup apparently makes milk taste prettier. Maddox gets the blue plate because a man should know his priorities. I pour cereal, kiss foreheads, find a missing shoe under the dining table, and trade Raleigh a fresh cup of coffee for the baby before I head out the door.
“Text me if you need anything,” I tell her.
She gives me a look over our son’s head. “Lincoln, I always need something.”
“Fair.”
Her mouth tips. “Go save people, firefighter.”
“I’d rather stay here.”
“That’s because you’re smart.” She shifts closer so I can kiss her again, and this one lands slower. “Now go.”
The drive to the station feels different now because the panic lane is finally gone. We’re not waking up every day waiting for the next hit from Park Mews or the next ugly surprise tied to it, and that leaves room for the rest of life to get louder.
At the station, Case calls me whipped before I’ve even got my bag in my locker.
“You got baby spit on your shoulder, Jones.”
I look down. He’s right. There’s a pale streak on the black fabric.
“Means somebody loves me,” I tell him.
“It means your house is unsanitary.”
“Also true.”
He laughs and tosses me a rag. “You sleeping at all?”
“Depends on your definition of sleep.”
That earns me a bark of laughter from the bay. The guys bust my ass for a while, but it isn’t mean. It’s the kind of razzing that only comes from people who know exactly what your life looks like and like you enough to mock it anyway.
During cleanup after a routine medical assist, my phone buzzes with a family group text. Aspen started it, which means nobody’s making it out alive.

Aspen: I need final headcounts for the birthday thing before Dad decides buying enough meat for a football team is “playing it safe.”
Boston: It is playing it safe.
Aspen: You’re not helping.
Dallas: I’m bringing whatever Cheyenne tells me to bring so nobody should look at me.
Cheyenne: Smart man.
Brooklyn: We’ll be there even if the boys don’t cooperate and Lily doesn’t quit trying to eat crayons. I couldn’t miss you and the guys' birthdays if I wanted to.
Jackson: She doesn’t eat crayons. And way to make it sound like an obligation.
Brooklyn: She licked one yesterday. And it is an obligation, one I’m glad to attend.
Jackson: That’s not eating. And yeah, sure. Sounds very believable.

I grin at the screen before typing back.

Lincoln: We’re in, but if anybody judges the amount of chaos we carry through the door, I’ll leave with all four kids, your favorite side dish and enjoy my birthday from my bed.

Maddison sends a voice memo from Raleigh’s phone ten seconds later, mostly static and toddler breathing with one clear sentence in the middle.

Maddison: Daddy, I’m wearin sparkles for your birthday.

My whole chest goes soft. That’s the thing nobody explains about this stage. Pressure doesn’t disappear once things get good. It just changes shape. Now the pressure sits in calendars and grocery runs and making sure the diaper bag’s stocked and knowing I’ve got a twenty-four-hour shift on the same week Raleigh’s trying to figure out if the twins will both nap long enough for her to shower without an audience. It sits in wanting to show up for Jax and Brooklyn’s wedding stuff, for Bos and Aspen with Lydia, Miles, and Ollie, for Dallas and Cheyenne with another baby on the way, for Dad and Ashlynn because they’ve earned more than occasional gratitude tossed at them like spare change.
But gratitude sits there too.
That’s the difference.
The old pressure used to feel like a hand on the back of my neck. This kind feels like weight in my arms, weight I asked for, weight I’d fight somebody over.
I don’t figure that out until later, when we’re back at the station after dinner, and Case asks me if I ever miss how easy life used to be before wife and kids and all the rest.
I’m wiping down the table when he says it, casually, like he’s asking about the weather.
I laugh before I can help it. “Easy,” I repeat. “You ever met my family?”
He snorts. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do.” I toss the rag into the sink and lean back against the counter. “And no. I don’t miss it.”
He studies me a second. “Not even the sleep?”
“Especially not that.”
That gets a longer look. So I tell him the truth. “I met my wife my senior year in High School. We had our first set of twins in the fall after we graduated, and got married the following year. And back then I had more time but much less peace. Now I’m tired all the time, and I still wouldn’t trade it.”
Because what I’ve got waiting on me at home isn’t a performance. It isn’t some picture-perfect thing people use to sell cereal, clean counters, and matching pajamas. It’s louder than that and messier than that and way better than that.
It’s Raleigh meeting me at the door with one baby in her arms and another cry coming from upstairs. It’s Maddox showing me a paper he colored mostly green because green means Hulk and Hulk means strong. It’s Maddison kissing my cheek with lip balm all over her mouth because she wants to match Mommy. It’s my wife falling asleep halfway through a show with her foot thrown across my lap because that’s how close she has to be by the end of the day.
When I get home, the house is dim except for the lamp over the couch and the kitchen light Raleigh left on for me.
She’s there waiting, not because I asked her to be or because she’s trying to prove anything, but because this is what we do. The babies are both down. Maddison and Maddox are asleep upstairs after apparently requiring three drinks of water, one extra hug each, and a heated debate about whether birthdays should include sparklers indoors. Raleigh looks wrung out and beautiful and mine.
I sit beside her and drop my head back against the cushions.
“You alive?” she asks.
“Technically.”
She smiles and tucks her feet under her. “Good. I’d hate to have to fill out paperwork.”
I turn my head and look at her for a second. Really look.
There are circles under her eyes, a softness in her mouth, and a quiet confidence she carries now even when she’s tired enough to forget what day it is. This woman has holds our house together through twin newborns, older kid feelings, bottles, dishes, school pickup, laundry, birthdays, wedding prep for family, and whatever fresh nonsense the day drags in, and she still somehow looks at me like I’m the steadiest thing in her life.
That does something to me every single time. I slide my hand over her knee. “Thanks for today.”
Her brows lift. “For what part?”
“All of it.”
That soft look moves across her face, the one she gets when I say something that lands deeper than I meant to show.
“You don’t have to thank me for our life,” she says.
“Still going to.”
She leans over and kisses me, slower than the morning kiss, softer too. “Then you’re welcome.”
I laugh under my breath and pull her closer till she settles against my side. Pressure and gratitude.
They still sit next to each other.
The bills still need paying.
The schedule still needs balancing.
The babies still wake.
The older twins still require enough energy to power a small city.
My job still asks things of me that can’t be half done.
But when I sit there with my wife tucked into me and our whole loud house breathing around us, none of it feels like something crushing down. It feels like something worth carrying.