Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Sweetie, you’ve got to stop pulling my hair,” Will says for the fifth time, gently prying a pair of tiny hands from their deathgrip on his head. The child they’re attached to blinks at him sadly, looking down at her hands in quiet disbelief as Will shifts her higher on his hip. “I know, I know,” he soothes, as Tess’ lip quivers and she gives him her best puppy eyes, “but we have to be gentle, okay?”

“I am!” she whines - a patent untruth, of course, but Will figures five-year-olds don’t have a huge concept of fact versus fiction, so he gives her a pass.

“Okay,” he hedges, for lack of any other response, and sighs as he settles down on the nearest park bench and sets her bag beside him. Tess immediately squirms around to sit properly in his lap, regarding him with a scrutinizing expression that is all too reminiscent of her father. Will sighs again - he hopes that whatever Jonathan and Steve are off doing today, they’re making the most out of the free childcare. He loves his niece, he really and truly does, but this mood of hers is particularly challenging and he did not get nearly as many hours of sleep last night as is required to deal with it properly. “Here, put your shoes on,” he tells her, pulling them from the bag Jonathan had packed for him this morning and holding them up. Tess scowls at him; for some reason, even at five years old, she still demands to be carried everywhere unless flat-out denied, and is not particularly fond of wearing shoes. Or pants, for that matter, but luckily Steve had fought and won that battle this morning before Will came over to pick her up.

“I don’t wanna,” Tess huffs, crossing her arms, and Will barely suppresses an eye roll. 

“Okay,” he says again, diplomatically, “but you want to go play, right?”

Tess casts a cursory look over her shoulder at the playground, her little eyebrows puckering in careful consideration. “Yes,” she says after a beat, but she sounds unsure.

“Right,” Will continues carefully, already undoing the velcro on her light-up sneakers, “so, if you want to go on the playground, you’ll have to step on the bark chips. But if you step on the bark chips without shoes on, your feet will get hurt, and you don’t want that, right?” Tess turns her head to look at him again, chewing on her lip thoughtfully. “Yeah,” Will says, smirking a little, “that’s what I thought. So, you have to put shoes on before you go play.”

Tess frowns disapprovingly, but does not kick him in the face when he starts putting her shoe on for her, which is a noticeable improvement from the last time Will babysat her. It’s only been three months since he moved to San Francisco, and granted, part of the move was because he wanted to be closer to his brother and said brother’s family, but Jonathan was a little too quick to turn Will into a third primary caregiver. Will is quickly beginning to understand why.

“There you go,” he tells Tess once both shoes are securely velcro-ed on her feet, booping her nose and smiling a little when she breaks out into pleased giggles. “All set.”

“Thank you, Uncle Will,” she tells him seriously, placing both hands on the sides of his face. Apparently, he’s forgiven for the capital offense of protecting her feet from playground debris. She pats his cheek affectionately - a habit she picked up from her grandmother, if Will had to hazard a guess - before hopping off of his lap and bouncing off in the direction of the swingset. 

“Come find me if you need anything!” Will calls after her. She gives no indication that she’s listening, which is probably fine, because it’s not like he’s going to go anywhere. He pulls out his phone, scrolling absently through Instagram and answering Jonathan’s text about how it’s going with a thumbs up and typing out, took her to the park . Jonathan heart reacts to the message, and sends back a selfie of him and Steve seated on the same side of a booth at some bougie cafe like the nauseating and obnoxious couple that they are.

He spends about a half hour scrolling idly, throwing the occasional glance over at where Tess has found a group of boys around her age and seems to be taking control of their group effortlessly. Clearly, she inherited the more confident Harrington traits rather than the Byers’ tendency to take three to five years to warm up to people. 

“Mind if I sit?” a voice asks from somewhere to his left, and Will jolts, clutching his phone to his chest and whipping around to face the source of it. There’s a man hovering beside the bench, a toddler balanced on his hip and a harried expression on his face. The pair of glasses he’s wearing are knocked a little askew, and his curly black hair is tousled haphazardly.

“Shit,” Will says before he can think better of it, and then, eyes landing on the toddler, he claps a hand to his mouth. “Um, I mean- yes, of course,” he says through his fingers, wincing at himself.

Luckily, the guy doesn’t seem all that fazed, simply laughing lightly and settling onto the bench beside him. “Thanks. Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. He sets his bag down on the bench next to Will’s and absently tugs at the toddler’s sleeve, pulling her hand away from her mouth; she’d been sucking her thumb. “Just needed to sit for a second.”

“It’s okay,” Will says quickly, smiling awkwardly. “Sorry I have the nervous system of a jackrabbit.”

The guy laughs outright at that. “No worries.” He gestures to the playground, where Tess is now standing on top of the slide yelling something about world domination and brandishing a stick. “One of those belong to you?”

Will smiles, heart rate finally settling a little as he leans back against the bench. “Yeah. I’m on uncle duty, but it appears I’m not needed.” 

The guy laughs again, a warm sound, and tugs a Go-gurt packet out of his bag to offer to his toddler. “Been there.” The kid makes a face as he holds the Go-gurt up to her face, and he scrunches his nose at her. “Sweetie, c’mon. I thought you were hungry.”

She shakes her head shyly, pushing his hand away. “Uh uh.”

The guy sighs, setting the half-opened Go-gurt down carefully on top of the bag, either not noticing or caring when some yogurt leaks out onto the fabric. “Fine. You want to go play?”

The little girl makes a squeaking noise, shoving her face into his chest and bringing her thumb back up to her mouth. “Uh uh. Wanna stay with you, Daddy,” she implores.

Her dad sighs, leaning back against the bench and placing a hand at her back, glancing apologetically over at Will. “She’s been going through this shy phase,” he says conspiratorially.

Will laughs. “Personally, I’ve been going through a shy phase for almost three decades, so. I get it.”

The guy snorts. “Fair enough.” He peers down at his daughter, who’s still hiding her face in his t-shirt, and smiles a little as he pats the top of her head. “I’m Mike, by the way,” he says to Will.

Will smiles, something warm fluttering in his chest as Mike smooths out his daughter’s pigtails with one hand. “Will,” he says, and then, nodding to the toddler in his lap, “who’s this?”

“You wanna introduce yourself?” Mike asks, tucking his face down beside his daughter’s. She makes a soft noise and curls closer to his chest, but her wide eyes stare up at Will curiously. “You wanna say hi?”

It takes a beat, but she slowly unfurls herself, sitting up a little straighter, and gives Will a tiny wave.

Will smiles and waves back, laughing a little. “Hi,” he says, in the gentlest tone he’s capable of. “I’m Will. What’s your name?”

“Gracie,” she enunciates carefully, still staring up at him, unblinking. 

Mike smirks, arching an eyebrow and squeezing her arm encouragingly. “Impressive,” he says to Will. “That whole process usually takes at least twenty minutes.”

Will smiles, shrugging. “What can I say, I’m incredibly charming,” he says, and Mike huffs an appreciative laugh, giving Will a once-over. Will’s cheeks flush what he’s sure is an embarrassing shade of pink.

He’s trying to come up with something to say to keep the conversation going when a wall of human comes barreling at him. He barely has time to hold up his arms as Tess flings herself into them, a blur of braids and bark chips and muddy shoes. “Uncle Will!” she chirps, as Will catches her and pulls her up into his lap.

“Yes, Tessie,” he greets, as she grabs onto his sleeve. “What’s up?”

“I want ice cream,” she announces plainly, tugging at his shirt imploringly. “Right now.”

Will laughs, shaking his head. “Not right now, hon,” he says, dusting off the knees of her leggings where she’s somehow already managed to stain them with dirt, grass, and what looks like- mustard, somehow. “We can later, I promise. After you have a snack. What happened to your friends?”

She crinkles her nose at him. “They’re not my friends. They’re just some dumb boys I found. They had to leave.”

At this, Mike snorts, and Will glances back at him in shared amusement. “Okay, well, why don’t you try to make some real friends?” He points toward Gracie, who is looking like she’s considering hiding in Mike’s chest again but is bravely soldiering on for the moment. “This is Gracie.”

Tess perks up, tilting her head to the side questioningly. Mike smiles and nudges Gracie, murmuring something softly in her ear. Gracie looks nervous, but she offers Tess the same small wave she’d given Will, and Tess’s face breaks out into a toothy grin.

“Gracie, this is Tess,” Will says, bouncing Tess a little in his lap, and Gracie waves again, smiling a little this time.

“I’m five,” Tess tells her seriously.

Gracie glances up at Mike, who gives her a small nod, then focuses her eyes back on Tess before replying in a soft voice, “I’m three.”

“Good job, sweetheart,” Mike says, nudging her again. “You want to play with Tess?”

Gracie considers this proposal for a moment before nodding slowly, and Tess giggles happily and claps, hopping off of Will’s lap smoothly and offering Gracie a hand. Mike helps Gracie slide onto the ground, and Gracie smiles, pleased, as Tess’s hand closes around her own.

“That was very smooth,” Mike says to Will, settling back against the bench and slinging an arm around the back. “You said she’s your niece?”

Will nods, a little self-conscious at having Mike’s full attention. “Yeah, she’s- she’s my brother’s kid. I just help take care of her sometimes.”

“Ah.” Mike nods. “Well, you’re a natural.”

Will blushes. “Thanks. I’ve definitely put in a lot of practice recently.” At Mike’s eyebrow raise, he smiles sheepishly and explains, “I just moved here a few months ago, so my brother’s family are kinda the only people I know.”

Mike laughs pleasantly, shifting a little to face Will better. Their knees knock together, and Will stares at the point of contact for a moment before remembering that he is a grown man and snapping himself out of it.

In his defense, Mike is attractive - there’s an endearing array of freckles dusting the bridge of his nose and his cheeks, and his features are sharp and well-defined even just from an- artistry perspective. Plus, Will hasn’t been out with anyone since moving to San Francisco, and even before that he’d been going through a bit of a dry spell, so he’s fixating on such things a little more than usual.

That doesn’t mean he’s going to be weird about it, though. “What about you, how long have you lived in the city?” he asks, as Mike casts a glance in the direction of the playground, scanning until he spots Gracie. Will follows her gaze, smiling a little to himself when he sees that she’s sitting with Tess in the sandbox, helping her dig a hole with a plastic shovel. 

“Oh, a while,” Mike says, a little belatedly, turning his full attention back to Will once he’s confirmed that his daughter is alive and well. “Five years, I think? I moved here for work a couple years before Gracie was born.”

Will nods. “You like it here, then?”

Mike grins. “Oh yeah, totally. I lived in Indiana before this, so, you know. Big upgrade.” He gives him another once-over, again making Will turn the approximate shade of a cherry, and asks, “where are you from?”

“Lenora,” Will says, fidgeting a little under Mike’s heavy gaze. “And- I mean, yeah, this is definitely better. Even if most of the places I’ve been lately have been, like, parks and ice cream shops,” he adds, tipping his head in the direction of Tess. Mike’s lips twitch in amusement. “Outside of work, anyway.”

“Where do you work?” Mike asks, either not noticing or bypassing Will’s very brave hint that he could use a guide to show him around this very big scary city, which he tries not to feel disappointed about. 

“Oh, I’m a freelance animator,” Will says, casting an absent glance at the playground. Tess is now pretending to eat some of the sand from the sandbox, and Gracie is giggling maniacally as she watches. Will squints for a moment until he confirms that Tess is not actually eating the sand, then turns back to Mike. “I lived in L.A. for a while, but I didn’t really get any traction, so now I’m mostly just working with smaller productions here, which is a lot more rewarding anyway.”

“Shit, that’s so cool,” Mike says, looking impressed, and Will’s stomach floods with a giddy heat. “Did you like L.A.?”

Will shrugs. “Kind of. It’s nice there, but the work I was doing was definitely not enough to pay the bills, and most of the people I was dealing with were- suboptimal, so.”

Mike snorts. “Suboptimal?”

“Is the polite term, yeah,” Will says, grinning, and a rush of satisfaction washes over him as Mike tosses his head back and laughs unabashedly. “I like being here better so far. Plus I get to be close to my family, so.”

“That’s sweet,” Mike hums, smiling a little, and Will’s heart flutters happily.

Once again, he reminds himself to get a grip - he’s been living here for three months, for God’s sake, and is only just starting to establish a stable life here. He doesn’t need to get roped up in, as his mother used to call it when he was a teenager, boy drama , especially with someone who has a kid and, for all he knows, a very loving and committed co-parent at home.

Still. Mike’s cute. Will’s allowed to think that, probably.

“Daddy!” a voice comes from across the playground, and Gracie comes toddling over to them, clinging to Tess’s sleeve. Mike visibly lights up, leaning over to be more eye level with her as she reaches them and wraps an arm around his leg.

“Yes, sweet girl?” he asks, pressing a kiss to her pigtailed head. 

“Want a snack,” she announces seriously, widening her eyes at him, and Mike laughs, grabbing the Go-gurt from where he’d set it down and offering it to her. 

Tess carefully pries Gracie’s hand off of her sleeve and flounces over to Will, resting her little elbows on his knees. “Uncle Will, can we please have ice cream now?” she begs, pouting and pulling her best puppy dog eyes.

Will laughs, ruffling her hair gently. “You should eat a snack too,” he says. “I thought you were having fun with your new friend?” he asks, nodding to Gracie.

“I am,” Tess huffs. “But I’m hungry . For ice cream.”

“Got it,” Will says seriously, sending Mike an apologetic glance that he dismisses with an easy smile. “Okay, yes, we can walk over there. Can you say bye to your new friend first, though?”

Tess casts a glance over at Gracie, who is licking yogurt off her fingers and regarding them both with wide, curious eyes. Tess considers her for a moment, then smiles and hops over to wrap her in a hug. Gracie squeaks, but wraps her arms around Tess’s back and pats her gently, smearing yogurt all over the back of her already-stained t-shirt.

“Aww,” Mike coos, glancing amusedly at Will and sitting back against the bench. “It was nice to meet you,” he says sincerely, as Will slings Tess’s bag over his shoulder and smiles at him shyly.

“You too,” he coughs, a little stiltedly, flushing pink as he fumbles for a second. Tess releases Gracie and gives Mike a cheerful wave that he happily returns. Will stands and offers her his hand. “We’ll have to come back here next time, yeah?” he says to her, changing another small glance at Mike, surprised and pleased to see that Mike is already looking at him, smiling a little.

“We’re here most Saturdays,” he says conversationally, quirking an eyebrow, and Will sputters a bit and squeaks “good to know!” before Tess drags him away down the sidewalk.

“Hey,” Will says, very calmly and casually, the following Thursday as he sits at the kitchen counter in Jonathan and Steve’s house. Jonathan had invited him over after Steve had allegedly “made entirely too much soup”, and Will doesn’t exactly have much going on at the moment, so he’d agreed. Tess is sitting on the kitchen floor stacking blocks precariously high, and Jonathan is washing dishes while Steve puts away the chicken noodle broth that’s still, somehow, left over even after the additional portion given away.

Jonathan glances over his shoulder at him, raising an eyebrow. “Yes?”

Will chews thoughtfully, twirling his spoon idly back and forth around the edge of his bowl. “Can I watch Tess again on Saturday?”

At this, Steve glances up too, slowly clicking the lid of the Tupperware into place as he squints at him. “You’re volunteering to watch her? For real?”

Will squawks in offense. “I volunteer plenty! That’s literally half the reason I moved here!”

“Uncle Will loves me,” Tess agrees idly, placing another block on top of the tower and watching with narrowed eyes as it teeters precariously.

Will points at her, nodding. “She knows.”

Jonathan turns off the tap and walks around to the other side of the counter, drying his hands on a towel and squinting at him. “Usually you make a bigger deal out of it, though,” he points out, which isn’t not true. “And usually we have to ask.”

“Yeah, well.” Will stabs a softened carrot with his spoon. “I’m feeling charitable.”

“Oh-kay,” Jonathan says slowly, as he and Steve exchange a glance of mild amusement. “Um, we’re going out of town next weekend, but any other time is fine.”

Will drops his spoon with a clatter, lips pulling into a frown. “Wait, where are you going?”

Steve arches an eyebrow at him. “Visiting my mom.”

“But- you can’t leave for a whole weekend ,” Will implores, glancing frantically back at Jonathan. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I think you can survive one weekend by yourself,” Jonathan says, faintly amused. He steps around Steve and scoops Tess up from the floor where she’d been about to place another block on the already wobbling stack. She yelps in protest, and exactly one split second later there’s a clatter as the tower goes tumbling to the ground. 

“But I don’t know anyone,” Will bemoans, “I’m just going to have to sit in my apartment by myself.”

“You’re basically thirty years old, Will,” Jonathan points out, settling Tess on his hip and smoothing out her skirt with one hand. “You can handle it. Besides, it wouldn’t kill you to go out and meet some people.”

“It might,” Will says, just to be contrary. “And you are so rude, twenty-seven is not even close to thirty.”

“Isn’t Lucas around?” Steve offers, because he is much nicer than Will’s terrible, rude, objectively correct older brother. “I thought he was visiting.”

“Not until Thursday,” Will mutters sullenly, picking his spoon back up and dipping it sullenly in the broth.

“So go to a bar or something, I don’t know,” Jonathan says, rolling his eyes as Tess makes grabby hands for the bowl of raspberries sitting out on the counter. He hands it to her, and she immediately shoves five of them in her mouth. “You’ve been here like four months and you’ve barely gone anywhere. You need to make friends.”

“Three months,” Will corrects, “and I have made plenty of friends.”

Steve smirks. “Name one.”

“We made friends at the park,” Tess pipes up, mouth still full of raspberries. Jonathan glances at her, raising an eyebrow. “On Saturday.”

“Is that so?” Jonathan asks, squinting at Will suspiciously. Will glares at Tess - he thought they were supposed to be allies .

“Sort of,” he allows. “I mean- not really. Just some dad and his kid we were talking to.”

Steve glances over his shoulder from where he’d been putting the leftovers in the fridge, grinning wide. “William, do you want to use our daughter as an excuse so that you can see a guy?” he asks, sounding mildly gleefully about it, and Will groans, covering his face with his hands and slumping over onto the counter.

“No.”

“Sure sounds like it,” Jonathan says, though he sounds significantly less amused about it than Steve does. “So you’re not just being charitable, then.”

“I am!” Will defends, lifting his head and scowling at him. “I want to hang out with my niece. At the park. Where I met a guy. It’s a win-win, really.”

Jonathan frowns at him, placing a squirming Tess back on the ground. She immediately and purposefully dashes off into the other room, which Will privately thinks can’t possibly go well, but neither of her dads seem particularly concerned, so he doesn’t say so. “She’s not a prop,” he says disapprovingly, but the corners of his mouth twitch like he’s valiantly suppressing a smile, so Will knows he’s not in real trouble. 

“I know!” he says anyway. “I love her very much. And you were the one who was just telling me I need to meet people, so.”

“I didn’t mean get romantically involved with the first guy you see in the most complicated way possible,” Jonathan says, raising an eyebrow, but his face has officially lost its battle against his smile, so he fails to seem as stern as he’s probably going for. “Do you even know if he’s single? Or if he likes guys?”

Will’s face heats. That sort of question had been far too intense for a first meeting, so the answer is no , but that’s the whole reason he needs to see him again. “Not particularly. But it doesn’t matter, because even if he’s not interested, I could make a friend, which could lead to a whole group of friends, and Tess would also get to hang out with his kid all the time, so.”

Steve grins, sidling up behind Jonathan and slipping an arm around his waist. “I think we should accept the free childcare, babe,” he says, pressing a kiss to Jonathan’s shoulder, and because Jonathan is gross and sappy and is also always significantly less stern than he pretends to be, he relaxes, letting Steve hook his chin over his shoulder and wrap both arms around him.

“Fine,” Jonathan says, rolling his eyes, “two weekends from now, you may borrow Tess for your nefarious purposes.”

Will grins. “You won’t regret this.”

Will is regretting this.

For one thing, they’ve been at the park for an hour now and Tess has already succeeded in throwing two separate tantrums and split open her knee on the sidewalk, and Will had to improvise a large enough bandage out of the six Phineas and Ferb -themed band aids he found at the bottom of her bag. 

Now, he’s sitting alone on the same bench as last time - he hadn’t wanted to risk Mike not spotting him, if he showed up - while Tess dangles upside-down from the monkey bars, long blond hair stretching toward the ground. Will’s ready to run over should she slip and fall on her head, but he’s not terribly concerned; there’s at least three nannies hovering around the edges of the jungle gym, and two of the three have eyes on Tess as well, if only because she’s by far the most vocal kid on the playground.

Will sighs and checks his phone; it’s almost two, and the last time he saw Mike here it was closer to one, so he must have missed his window. He reluctantly starts packing up Tess’s bag, crumpling up the band aid wrappers and shoving them into a side pocket, before a shadow casts over him, and he glances up.

“Hey,” Mike says, a surprised, pleased little smile on his face as he stares down at him with a quirked eyebrow. “It’s you again.”

It’s probably embarrassing, how wide Will grins, all the blood in his body rising to his face at once. “Me again,” he says, a little too breathlessly. “Hi.”

“Uncle duty again?” Mike asks, sitting down beside him without bothering to ask, which is good, because Will was about to offer and he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have been able to do so coherently. Gracie, who’s propped up on his hip with her head resting on his clavicle, opens one eye and gives him a short, shy little wave.

Will waves back, and she giggles, burrowing further into Mike’s side but blinking at him approvingly. “Yeah,” he says to Mike, gesturing to Tess, who’s still doing borderline life-endangering things on the monkey bars. “She’s kind of my best friend at the moment, if I’m being honest, so.”

Mike laughs. “There are worse friends to have,” he says, bouncing Gracie a little on his knee, and she giggles again, lifting her head to stare up at him. “Isn’t that right?” he says to her, and she responds by poking a tiny finger into his cheek. “It’s nice of you to take care of her this much, though,” he adds to Will, before Will gets a chance to melt into the ground at the sight. “You must be a good uncle.”

Will flushes, shrugging one shoulder innocently. “Yeah, I guess I must be.”

Mike smiles at him, the wide kind that makes his eyes crinkle up at the corners, and Will decides that this was the best idea he’s ever had. “You said she’s your brother’s kid, right?”

“Yeah,” Will confirms, trying to be normal about the fact that they’re talking again, for real, and the fact that Mike’s freckles are especially prominent in the sun today. “He and his husband adopted her a few years ago, right after they moved here. I’ve always been close with them but since I moved to the city- well.”

“You’re their free childcare option?” Mike guesses with a grin, absently guiding Gracie’s hand away as she makes a grab for his glasses.

“That might be what they said, verbatim, yeah,” Will replies, matching Mike’s smile. “I don’t mind, though. Well, not all the time, anyway.”

Mike laughs amiably, batting Gracie’s hand away from his glasses for a second time. “I take it you don’t have your own kids, then?”

Will shakes his head. “Nope. I’m not, like, opposed to the idea or anything, it just- hasn’t really come up yet.” 

“Yeah, makes sense,” Mike says, a little absently as Gracie wriggles around in his arms, impatient. “What is it, Bug?” he asks her, poking a finger into her belly, and she whines, squirming around and trying to free herself from his grip.

“Want to go play,” she huffs, grabbing his hand and trying to pry his fingers off of where they’re wrapped around her leg. “My friend is here.”

Mike raises an eyebrow, ignoring her attempts at escape. “What friend?”

Gracie makes a frustrated noise and points to the playground, where Tess is now climbing backward up one of the curly slides. “Friend,” she enunciates, and Mike smiles, nodding in understanding.

“Yeah, you want to play with Tess?” he asks, and Gracie nods, relieved. “Okay.” He helps her slide off his lap, hands hovering around her for a beat afterward, making sure she’s stable. “Be careful.”

She nods solemnly at him, then begins tottering off toward the playground, where Tess pokes her head over the rim of the slide and waves to her.

“She’s so sweet,” Will says absently, bouncing a nervous leg as he watches Mike out of the corner of his eye. 

Mike glances back at him, an easy smile on his face, and bobs his head. “Yeah,” he agrees in a warm voice. “I’m glad she’s starting to come out of her shell a bit, I was getting worried.”

Will raises an eyebrow. “How so?”

“I don’t know,” Mike sighs, leaning back against the bench and chewing on his lip, “I guess plenty of kids are like that, but she’s been in preschool for almost a year now and she still cries every time I drop her off, and from what I’ve gathered she basically won’t leave her teacher’s side while I’m not there. I guess I just worry- like, sure, some kids are just shy, but they make friends eventually , and she just doesn’t seem to want to try. I’m kinda paranoid that I’m doing something wrong somehow.” He blows out a breath, glancing over at Will apologetically. “Sorry. You probably didn’t need to hear all that.”

“It’s okay,” Will says, probably a little too quickly, but Mike’s shoulders relax, so it’s worth it. “She seems to be doing okay now,” he adds, nodding to the playground, where Tess is picking flowers from the grass and putting them in Gracie’s hair.

Mike smiles, relieved. “Yeah. Yeah, looks like it. Maybe she just needs encouragement.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Will murmurs, and Mike’s cheeks go just the tiniest bit pink.

“Absolutely not.”

“Why?” Will whines, propping his feet up on the coffee table and taking another sip of wine. He places his phone in his lap, putting Lucas on speaker as he reaches for the remote and starts idly flipping through Hulu on the TV.

“Well, ignoring the obviously problematic premise,” Lucas says, and Will can practically hear his eye roll through the phone, “I don’t have Daisy with me, so it doesn’t even matter.”

Will frowns, clicking through the description of some depressing looking dramedy and scrolling further down the TV show options. “Why don’t you have Daisy?”

“Because the hotel doesn’t allow dogs,” Lucas says matter-of-factly, “and some people said they didn’t have room in their apartments for me to stay with them, so.”

“I don’t!” Will defends, scowling. “And last time you brought Daisy over she knocked over two of my lamps.”

“That wasn’t her fault,” Lucas replies plainly, as though it could possibly be anyone else’s fault, “and by the way, you’re sending some real mixed signals about this. Why do you want to borrow my dog?”

Will sighs, taking another long sip of wine and hitting play on the next episode of Schitt’s Creek . “I,” he starts, wrinkling his nose - the idea sounds much more stupid when he has to explain it out loud, but in his defense, he’s a little buzzed. “I was gonna take her to the park.”

There’s a long pause, wherein he can feel Lucas judging him from - however miles away he is right now, probably not that many. “To the park,” Lucas repeats after a long minute, sounding resigned. “Sure. Why?”

“Because it’s weird to go to the park by my self ,” Will huffs; this seems perfectly obvious to him. “And Jonathan and Steve are taking Tess to a- music class or something on Saturday, so I can’t take her.”

“Why do you need to go to this park?” 

Will is quiet for a beat, sipping thoughtfully at his wine and watching intently as David starts arguing with Alexis about something onscreen. 

“Will,” Lucas prompts after a beat, sounding mildly concerned now, and Will sighs heavily.

“Okay,” he hedges, wincing preemptively, “so there’s this guy -”

“Oh my God,” Lucas cuts in immediately, exasperated. “Are you serious?”

“Just listen!” Will yelps, sitting up straighter and narrowly avoiding spilling wine all over the couch. “I met this guy and his kid at this park a few weeks ago, and he’s like-” Despite his best efforts, wine sloshes over the rim of his glass and splashes onto his sweatpants, staining the knee red. “Shit. Um- I don’t have another way to contact him, and it’s weird to go to the park by myself, so I have to have a reason.”

He reaches for a napkin from the coffee table and dabs at his sweatpants as Lucas makes a derisive noise into the phone. “That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.”

“Okay, first off,” Will says, scowling, “if you have a better idea for how I can talk to him I’d love to hear it. Second, if you’re not going to be helpful you can go ahead and hang up.”

“Well, I am curious as to why you’ve chosen to pursue this guy,” Lucas admits, “and also why you’re acting like a fucking idiot about it.”

“You would get it if you saw him,” Will says simply, giving up on getting the wine stain out of his pants and dropping the soiled napkin on the coffee table. He chews his lip for a moment, thinking, then brightens. “Okay, wait, new idea.”

“For the love of Christ,” Lucas states plainly, but very noticeably does not hang up or tell him not to continue. 

“You should come with me,” Will proposes, leaning his elbows on his knees and staring imploringly down at his phone as if that will magically make his argument more convincing. “We can, like, get coffee or something and go hang in the park, and then if we see him it won’t be weird.”

“It will definitely be weird,” Lucas says immediately. “That’s- have you gone clinically insane?”

Will rolls his eyes. “Remember Alyssa Winters in tenth grade?” he says pointedly.

“Fuck you,” Lucas says easily. “That’s so- that was different . I was sixteen .”

“You made me infiltrate her friend group for four months just to find out whether she liked you back.” Will points out plainly. 

“I was sixteen! She was intimidating! Girls are hard to read!”

“Uh huh,” Will agrees vaguely. “My point was that I wasted four months of my life so that you could go on, like, three dates with her and then call it off because of basketball , or whatever, so you at least owe me this.”

“I thought your point was that I’ve also done stupid idiotic things around dating.”

“I can have multiple points,” Will says, shrugging. “Whichever gets you to agree faster.”

Lucas sighs for so long that Will starts to worry that he’ll pass out. “Fine. But I’m splitting off the second we see him. I don’t want to be involved in this nonsense.”

“I love you,” Will singsongs, grinning down at his phone.

“Shut up,” Lucas says, and hangs up.

“Okay, do you see him?” Lucas asks, stabbing at the ice in his drink with his straw. He’d made Will pay for coffee and breakfast, which Will supposes is fair enough in this particular instance, though he’s having a hard time resisting pointing out the significant discrepancy between his artist’s income and Lucas’s doctor salary. 

“Nope,” Will sighs dejectedly, scanning the park area for any sign of Mike or Gracie. “We should sit and wait.”

Lucas gives him a long, exasperated look. “For the record, I still think this is idiotic,” he says. “But we should do a lap first before we sit down.”

Will rolls his eyes, trailing after him on the sidewalk surrounding the playground. “For someone who thinks this is idiotic, you sure seem invested.”

“Anything to make you stop whining about your love life,” Lucas replies immediately.

“I don’t whine!” Will yelps indignantly. “I’ve mentioned it, like, maybe three times before this whole thing.”

“We’ve had at least four conversations about how you haven’t met anyone here and your best friend is your niece,” Lucas points out, which isn’t not true, but is also incredibly rude. 

“I don’t think I said it like that ,” he grumbles. “I think I was more expressing a point about how I was feeling a bit down , in a mild sort of way, and-”

“Please don’t make me listen to this rant again,” Lucas groans, bumping Will’s shoulder with his own, harder than is strictly necessary in Will’s opinion. “I get it, you’re lonely, but if you would just take my advice and actually make an effort, you wouldn’t be having this problem.”

“I am making an effort!” Will squeaks in offense, elbowing him back. “What do you think this is?”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “Stalking some random guy is not the same as, like, going out to actual events or social gatherings with the intention of making friends.”

“Well yeah, because that sounds like my version of hell,” Will replies, “and I don’t know why you would-”

“Will?”

Both Will and Lucas stop short as Will glances up to see a familiar figure walking toward them from the other end of the park, pushing a bright blue stroller in front of him. “Is that him?” Lucas says to Will, not as quietly as Will would prefer, and he nods as subtly as he can manage before Mike catches up to them, smiling a little confusedly.

“Hey,” Will says, voice crackling embarrassingly. “It’s you again.”

“Jesus Christ,” Lucas mutters.

Mike is smiling, though, rocking Gracie’s stroller absently back and forth on the sidewalk. “Me again,” he confirms. He’s not wearing his glasses today, but his shoulder-length hair is tied up in a flimsy little ponytail that has absolutely no right to look as cute as it does. Gracie appears to be asleep, a fuzzy blanket with pictures of cartoon ducks on it tucked neatly around her and a stuffed tiger clutched in her little hands. 

Lucas clears his throat, and Will startles, having momentarily forgotten he was there. “Oh, sorry,” he says, placing a hand on Lucas’s shoulder and smiling at Mike. “This is Lucas. Lucas, this is my friend Mike.”

Mike’s eyebrows pull together for a brief moment, but then his expression clears and he smiles, extending a hand to Lucas while the other continues rocking Gracie. “Hey, nice to meet you. How do- um. Are you…?” he glances back and forth between them, lips doing an odd twisting thing, and Lucas seems to realize what he means at the exact same time Will does.

“Oh!” Will squeaks, instantly removing his hand from Lucas’s shoulder while Lucas coughs awkwardly, looking vaguely like he wants to die. “No, no, we’re just friends.”

“Yeah,” Lucas says, sounding a bit strangled, “we go way back.”

“Gotcha,” Mike says, and Will might be imagining it, but it looks like he relaxes a little. “What are you guys up to?”

Lucas clears his throat, and Will can see him giving him a very pointed glare in his peripheral vision. “Um, we were just getting coffee, but I was actually just telling Will that I have to head out, I have a- um. A prior engagement. Super important. I’m already running late.”

Mike’s eyebrows lift, and Will resists the urge to elbow Lucas in the stomach again. “Oh, well, yeah, if you have a prior engagement,” he says, in a tone that says he’s either making fun of them or genuinely a little confused. 

“Yep!” Lucas says in a high pitched voice, “I will just be- on my way, I guess, Will, I’ll see you later!” He claps Will on the back, again slightly harder than is necessary, and promptly spins on his heel and takes off in the opposite direction.

Will watches him go for a minute, a little taken aback, then turns back to Mike, smiling apologetically. “Sorry, he’s… weird,” he explains lamely, making a mental note to berate Lucas later for being such a ridiculously terrible liar. 

“It’s cool,” Mike says, still looking a little bemused. “Um, did you have plans, or…”

There it is , Will thinks, hope sparking in his chest, and he prays he’s not blushing too hard as he replies, “I guess I could sit down for a minute, if you want.”

The smile on Mike’s face at the words is worth all the awkwardness leading up to it. “Sure.”

“So I think I’m in love,” Will announces, a couple nights later as he sits across from Jonathan at some diner that Jonathan insists is the best one in town but is actually just a rich Californian’s idea of what a burger joint should be. 

Jonathan glances up from his meal, eyebrows raised. “Is that so?” he says, not sounding particularly surprised, which is fair enough - Will’s dramatic tendencies, especially where his love life is concerned, have been a well-versed part of their relationship since they came out to each other when Will was fifteen.

“Remember the guy from the park?”

“Oh my God.” Jonathan grins. “Did you hook up with him?”

“No!” Will yelps, cheeks flaming. “No, we’ve just been talking.”

“Oh,” Jonathan says, pulling a face that’s entirely too reminiscent of their sister, “well that’s not as exciting, then.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Look, he’s really cute, okay?”

“You say that every time,” Jonathan points out, picking his burger back up and taking a bite.

“Sorry for having excellent taste in men,” Will huffs, stabbing a fry into the pool of ketchup on his plate with a little too much vehemence. 

“Uh huh,” Jonathan hums noncommittally around a mouthful. “So tell me about him, then.”

Will takes a bite of food, eyeing Jonathan suspiciously over his fork. “He’s cute,” he repeats after a beat of consideration, ignoring Jonathan’s quirked eyebrow in response. “He always looks kind of chaotic, but in, like, an endearing way? And he’s so sweet with his kid.”

Jonathan hums thoughtfully, drumming his fingers against the table. “Yeah, about that,” he says, in a tone that tells Will that he’s about to get an Older Brother Lecture. “Do you really want to be getting involved with someone who has a kid? I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re a great uncle-”

“I’m a phenomenal uncle,” Will corrects.

“Right, sorry,” Jonathan agrees, smiling. “But kids complicate things, you know? If you actually want to date this guy, you have to be pretty sure about it, because if his kid-”

“Gracie,” Will supplies, smiling a little to himself.

“If Gracie gets attached to you, it’s a whole thing.” Jonathan shrugs, reaching over to steal a fry off of Will’s plate, which he has been doing at a consistent rate throughout the meal despite his earlier insistence that he didn’t want to order his own. “Kids that age need stability.”

Will frowns. “I’m stable.”

“Yeah, you are,” Jonathan allows, swallowing and dabbing his face with a napkin, “you’re very reliable when it matters. But if you’re just looking for fun, this probably isn’t the place for it.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Jonathan, come on, you know me. When have I ever been the just for fun type of dater?”

Jonathan squints. “I mean, El has told me some things about your college days-”

“Okay,” Will cuts in, flushing, “I meant, like. Recently .”

Jonathan snorts. “Fine, point taken. Just- be careful.”

“Fatherhood has made you really insufferable, you know that?” Will mutters, and slaps Jonathan’s hand away as he tries to snatch another french fry.

“Jonathan says there’s some guy you won’t shut up about,” El says, her voice tinny through the speakers of Will’s phone as he pins it between his shoulder and ear.

“Well, that’s a little rude,” he huffs, propping the refrigerator door open with his hip as he reaches for the half gallon of milk on the bottom shelf, a loaf of bread tucked under his other arm. He really shouldn’t have waited this long to go grocery shopping, but in his defense, he hates shopping, so. “I didn’t talk about him that much.”

He can practically hear El’s eyeroll. “He said you were being dramatic and gay.”

“That’s just my personality,” Will points out, narrowly avoiding dropping the milk on his foot as he lets the fridge door fall shut and dumps his items into his basket. 

El ignores this. “Tell me about the guy.”

“He’s just someone I met!” Will yelps, hip-checking his cart down the aisle a few paces and pausing in front of the boxed desserts, contemplating. “At the park.”

“At the park,” El repeats skeptically. “What is he, a woodland creature?”

Will snorts. “No. He has a kid. I was taking care of Tess. We chatted.”

“A kid?” El hums thoughtfully. Will gives in and grabs a slice of boxed chocolate cake off the top of the pile. “I thought you didn’t like kids.”

“Who says I don’t like kids? I like kids,” Will sniffs, offended. “I hang out with Tess all the time.”

“Okay, no, I meant- I didn’t think you wanted kids,” El corrects.

Will frowns. “I never said that either. Why is everyone harping on me about this?”

“Well, you’re getting kind of old,” El says, very hypocritically for someone who is his same age , thanks, “and you’ve never brought it up. I thought you would have said something by now if it was something you wanted.”

“Just because I haven’t brought it up doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it,” Will says, which is true. He’d dated a guy for about a year after college who brought it up constantly, always wanting to plan for the future and things along those lines. He’d been big on the whole traditional-relationship-steps thing - marriage, a house, two kids, the works. Will hadn’t wanted that with him, in the end, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want it at all . 

Besides, he’d only been twenty-three then, which at the time had seemed ridiculously young to be thinking about things like that. He knows, logically, that plenty of people do it, but he never felt like the need to start thinking about such things applied to him . 

“Will?” El says in his ear, and Will blinks, realizing belatedly that he’d been staring silently at the pastry section for almost a full minute. “Did you hear me?”

“Um. What?” Will asks, shaking himself out of it and pushing his cart a few more yards. Vegetables. That’s where he was going next.

“I said, have you thought about it more since meeting Park Man?”

“Mike,” Will corrects absently, awkwardly maneuvering his cart around the corner of the aisle and very narrowly avoiding crashing into an elderly woman in the process. She gives him a dirty look, and he grimaces in what he hopes comes across as an apologetic manner. “And- I mean, kind of. I don’t think it would be a problem , and anyway it’s not like we’re even-”

This time he does bump into the person rounding the corner, his shoulder slamming into a solid wall of human and sending him careening backward, releasing his cart and nearly dropping his phone in the process. “Shit!” he yelps, as two packages of yogurt go tumbling to the floor. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean- oh.”

He glances up, finally, to look at the person he’s just essentially body slammed in the middle of the vegetable aisle, and is met with a pair of familiar brown eyes framed by square glasses squinting at him amusedly. “Hi,” Mike says, smirking a little, “nice to see you again.”

Will’s face feels like it’s on fire. “Um. Hi. Sorry, I was-” abruptly, he remembers he’s still on the phone with El. “Uh, one sec.” He presses the phone to his ear, just barely catching the tail end of El asking what on earth has just happened to him. “Gotta call you back, sorry!” he squeaks, and hangs up before she can protest. “My sister,” he says to Mike by way of explanation, “Here, let me-”

“Oh, it’s okay, I got it,” Mike says, but Will’s already dropping to the ground to retrieve the yogurt packages Mike had dropped. He hands them back, and Mike accepts with a small smile. 

“What, uh, brings you here?” Will says, like a complete idiot, and immediately winces at himself.

Mike laughs, though, and places the yogurt in his cart. “Gracie’s at preschool, I’m trying to get as many errands out of the way as possible before she gets done.”

“Ah.” Will bobs his head sagely, trying and failing to think of something to say to salvage the conversation. 

Luckily, Mike is way ahead of him. “Got the day off from uncle duty again?” he asks, glancing back over at him and shoving his glasses up his nose. 

“Yeah,” Will says, with a relieved little laugh. “I’m supposed to do some work later today for this project I’m helping with, but I was trying to have a productive morning first.”

“Is that what the call with your sister was about?” Mike asks, grabbing his cart and pushing it down the aisle. Will falls into step a couple feet behind him, trying very hard not to think about said call with his sister too hard, lest he get distracted by how alluringly domestic this whole thing is starting to feel.

“Uh, no, we were just catching up.” Mike stops to grab a head of romaine from the shelf, and Will remembers he’s also supposed to be shopping. He grabs a bag of baby carrots, mostly just for something to do. “Do you have siblings?”

“Yeah, two sisters.” Mike grabs a plastic bag and starts filling it with broccoli. “My older sister’s in New York, though, and the younger one is still in high school back home.”

They are, apparently, shopping together now, because Will doesn’t stop trailing after Mike through the store, and Mike doesn’t stop talking to him either. By the time they both reach the checkout counter, Mike is laughing earnestly, telling a story about his family back home as Will nods along, a warm feeling spreading through his chest.

“What’s next on the agenda?” Mike asks, as he waits for Will to finish bagging and paying for his groceries at the self-checkout. 

“Honestly, I was probably going to go home, heat up a microwave lunch, and watch TV until my meeting later,” Will admits, hoisting his paper bag into his arms. “As dysfunctional as it sounds.”

Mike laughs. “That sounds nice, actually. Although- uh.” Will glances up at him to find that his cheeks have gone a little pink. “I was planning on making some real food for lunch, so if you wanted to join me- I mean, you can. If you want. My place isn’t far from here.”

Will blinks a couple times, just to make sure he’s not dreaming. “I- yeah, shit, that’d be great,” he scrambles to say, like the incredibly smooth person he is, but Mike’s expression turns pleased and hopeful at the confirmation.

“Yeah?”

Will smiles wide. “Yeah.”

Mike’s place really isn’t far from the store, which is good, because even by the end of the third block of walking, Will’s arms are sore from carrying his bag of frozen foods. Mike lets them into the apartment, chatting amiably about work and pausing only to apologize, “Sorry, I haven’t cleaned up in here in a minute.”

He lets Will in anyway, swooping in to take the bag of groceries from him and store it in the refrigerator. It’s true that the place is kind of messy, Will notes as he shrugs off his coat and drapes it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, but it’s messy in a charming way. Gracie’s toys spread haphazardly across the floor, a half-folded pile of tiny clothes sitting abandoned on the living room sofa, that sort of thing. But the counters are clean, and there’s a rack of freshly washed dishes by the sink, and Mike is methodical about it as he starts unpacking his own bag of groceries and setting some aside for cooking. “I was thinking about pasta,” he says to Will, who nods in appreciation, and pulls out a pot from under the nearest cabinet.

Mike sets about filling up the pot with water and turning on the stove, Will watching him in vague fascination. “You cut your hair,” he notes after a few minutes of silence, for lack of a better conversation starter.

“Oh,” Mike says, glancing over his shoulder at him and touching the side of his head a little self-consciously. “Yeah, it was getting in the way. I’ve been meaning to get it done, but, well.”

“It looks nice,” Will tells him, which is true - he’d noticed it back in the store, the way Mike’s now-short curls just barely frame his face, and has been waiting for an opportunity to comment on it ever since. It doesn’t age him, exactly, but it gives him a more cohesive look, almost, all filled out and adult. 

Mike flushes. “Thank you.”

He finishes with the stove and turns around to place a cutting board on the kitchen island. Will raises an eyebrow, watching as Mike grabs a tomato from the neat little pile of vegetables he’d laid out on the counter and starts dicing it. “So you’re, like, an actual cook,” Will says, trying to hide how impressed he is and failing miserably.

Mike glances up, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I mean, kind of. I got more into it after Gracie was born, ‘cause before then I’d basically been living off of ramen and Taco Bell and I figured if I was gonna do the whole dad thing I should probably be able to actually feed my child, so.” He shrugs. “After that it kind of became an outlet for me. Not that Gracie really appreciates it yet.”

“Well, you’re definitely far above my skill level,” Will says, and Mike laughs. “This is basically professional as far as I’m concerned.”

Mike smirks, slicing up the last chunk of tomato and scooping the freshly chopped pieces into a bowl. “Thanks, I try.”

“What do you do for work? I don’t think I’ve actually asked.”

“Ah.” Mike reaches for a container of salt - like, actual cooking salt, with the tiny little rock chunks - and starts grinding it over the bowl. “I write children’s books, actually? I worked in publishing for a couple years, but before Gracie started preschool I couldn’t afford a nanny so I needed to stay at home with her, and that’s the solution I came up with. Hey, can you pass me that thing of pepper?”

Will hands it over. “Are we talking, like, picture books?”

Mike smiles. “No, more middle-grade. Short chapter books, that kind of thing. Still very much fluff work, but it’s fun. And I get to do readings for kids at bookstores sometimes, which I like.”

“That’s cute,” Will says unthinkingly, and Mike’s face, which has been pretty consistently pink since they walked in the door, gets a shade redder. “It’s sweet how much you do for Gracie.”

“Yeah, well,” Mike scoffs, setting down the pepper and reaching for a bundle of basil, “Have you seen the kid? She’s freaking adorable,” which makes Will laugh, and then, in a more serious tone, “Really, though. It hasn’t been the easiest thing in the world, obviously, and I did have to change a lot about my life, but- those weren’t hard choices to make. She’s my kid.” He pauses where he’s been shredding the basil over the bowl, meeting Will’s eyes sheepishly. “Sorry. I know I talk about her a lot. I don’t have a lot else to talk about, to be honest.”

“It’s okay,” Will says, in what he hopes is an encouraging voice, “I told you, it’s sweet. You can keep talking.”

Mike looks back down at his bowl, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear, seemingly forgetting that there’s no longer any hair to tuck. “I don’t want to bore you.”

“You’re not,” Will insists, “and even if you were, you’re making me lunch, so I’d kind of owe you anyway.” Mike snorts a laugh and goes back to tearing off basil leaves, which Will takes as an opening to ask, “so, it’s always just been the two of you?”

Mike smirks a little, still laser-focused on his cooking. “I was wondering when you were gonna ask that.”

Will flushes. “Oh, I mean, I’m not trying to pry-”

“Nah, it’s fine, I’m just teasing.” Mike stirs the pasta sauce concoction thoughtfully. “I dated her mom for a few months after I moved here, and, uh, to put it gently we were not a good match at all. About a month after we broke up she showed up on my doorstep and told me she was pregnant and that if I didn’t want to keep the baby she was going to put it up for adoption, and I hadn’t really thought about kids up until that point, but I didn’t like the thought of having some kid out there that was mine but not mine , so I said I’d keep her.” He smiles. “That’s the short version, anyway. It was the best decision I’ve ever made.”

“Have you talked to her mom since?” Will asks.

Mike laughs ruefully. “Ha, no. I told her she was welcome to get in touch if she ever changed her mind about wanting to be part of Gracie’s life, but she said she wouldn’t and we’ve been no-contact pretty much since she was born. S’ probably for the best though, I mean-” he turns back to the stove, where Will now notices the pot is dangerously close to boiling over, and turns down the temperature a few degrees. “Kids need stability, and Marie had a lot of good traits, but that definitely was never one of them.”

“Yeah,” Will says, flashing on his conversation with Jonathan last week, “seems like you’re doing a pretty good job without her, though.”

“I’m trying,” Mike says, a little sheepishly, as he carries the pot of boiling pasta to the sink and pours it out into a colander. “Like I said, it’s not easy, but it’s important to me.”

Will has a question he would like to ask, but he’s not sure how to phrase it in a way that won’t be completely obvious. “Nothing wrong with that,” he says, more for stall time than anything else.

Mike laughs. “Yeah, well-” he flips the colander of noodles back into the pot- “you’re the first person besides my stupid friend Dustin I’ve had over in, like, years, so. It’s definitely not a one hundred percent perfect system.”

“I’m honored,” Will replies, and then, because he knows an opening when he sees one, he voices his question; “No girlfriends since Marie, then?”

“Nope,” Mike says, quirking an eyebrow like he has an inkling why Will’s asking, “girlfriends were never my real preference, to be honest.”

Will’s heart may very well beat directly out of his chest and land in the pot of spaghetti. “Ah. Boyfriends, then?”

Mike’s smirk widens a little. He pours the pasta sauce into the pot and gives it a few stirs. “None of those either. It’s not like- I mean, I’m not opposed to the idea or anything. But the few people I’ve gone out with since I had Gracie haven’t, like, been a good fit for this kind of life, you know?”

Will arches an eyebrow. “What’s the criteria for that?”

“Just,” Mike sighs, “people that want kids tend to have a specific idea about how they want that to unfold, you know? And usually being a stepparent isn’t really part of that vision, so once things start getting too real they jump ship. And people that don’t want kids in the first place jump ship as soon as they realize I have one.”

“And there’s never anyone in between?” Will asks, before he can think better of it.

Mike meets his eyes, lips pursed thoughtfully. “Once in a while. Hasn’t worked out yet.”

Will clucks his tongue. “You should really keep an open mind.”

“Yeah,” Mike says softly, smiling a little as he goes back to stirring. “I probably should.”

The rest of the meal goes smoothly, after Mike spoons spaghetti onto two plates and sits down beside Will at the kitchen island. He finds himself telling Mike about his own life, more in depth than he normally would - though, to be fair, Mike set the vulnerability bar pretty high. Mike’s a good listener, chewing thoughtfully and nodding along as Will explains all of his career ups and downs and the move to the Bay.

“Like, I love being close to Jonathan,” he’s saying, as he rinses his plate at the sink despite Mike’s protest that he doesn’t have to help clean up, “and I love my job, but all my college friends were art majors who still think staying in L.A. is going to fast track their careers, so I’m kind of having to start from scratch in the friend department lately.”

“Well, first of all,” Mike says, gently hip-checking him out of the way and placing his own plate under the stream of the faucet, “I revealed my emotionally complicated backstory to you, so we’re friends now.”

This shouldn’t please Will as much as it does, but he feels heat rising to his cheeks anyway. Just friends? he’s tempted to ask, but that might be a little bit too intense for a first pitch. “Good,” he says instead, placing his plate on the drying rack, “because I’d hate to lose the opportunity for more free meals.”

“Ha.” Mike elbows him lightly, something so familiar and teasing in the motion that it gives Will pause. He stills in place, Mike obliviously continuing to wash the dishes as Will watches him.

He wants to kiss him. He wants to kiss him so bad . He’s plenty familiar with the feeling of being crushed out on a guy, and he’d even go as far as to say he’s got a pretty good success rate with acting on it, but this feels different. Every time he’s gone for someone in the past, it’s been because he likes them, wants to be closer, and that’s true of Mike too, of course, but this is the first time he’s wanted more than just the guy himself. He wants a relationship, a proper one- one where he actually does want to keep planning the future of, instead of shying away when someone brings up the possibility. There’s been a strange tug at the center of his gut ever since he walked into the cramped, messy, lived-in apartment that says yes, this is what’s been missing, and the thought of going back to his empty bachelor pad is suddenly almost heartbreaking.

He comes to all of these realizations in the span of about thirty seconds, but he must stand there staring long enough for Mike to notice, because he cocks his head to the side and smiles bemusedly at him. “You okay?”

“Uh, yeah.” Will clears his throat, mentally cursing himself out. He’s never claimed to be a suave person, but he knows how to fake it - he’s had enough practice, now, to know how to flash his best puppy eyes at someone, put on a soft, inviting tone, and flirt with them until he knows he’s won them over. This is harder, though, because he finds he doesn’t want to do that with Mike. He doesn’t want to play games, or try to coerce him into liking him, because- well, Mike’s shown him an admiral level of honesty. It would feel cheap not to offer it back. “I, uh. I should get going soon, I have my meeting.”

“Oh, right.” Mike glances over at the clock as he dries his hands on a dish towel. “Sorry, I didn’t realize how late it got.”

Will shakes his head. “S’ fine. I- I had a nice time.”

Mike meets his eyes, his expression open and gentle. There’s a warmth to him that Will wants to crawl into, and it’s kind of driving him crazy. “Yeah? Me too.”

Will clears his throat again, telling himself to get a grip. He’s not some blushing, inexperienced teenager anymore. He knows how to ask a guy out. This should not be that hard. “Hey, um, before I leave, I just thought it’d be worth asking- I mean. Would you want to go out to dinner with me sometime?” He asks in a rush, definitely not sounding like someone who knows to ask a guy out, but figuring that, hey, at least he got the words out. “Next week, maybe?” he adds, a little meekly.

Immediately, Mike’s eyes crinkle up adorably at the corners with a wide grin. “I- yeah, I’d love that,” he says, in a breathless-soft tone that makes Will’s knees feel a little weak. “You’d really-? I mean, after everything I told you, you’d still want…”

Will nods, a little too quickly. “I would,” he says, “I mean, I do.”

“Okay,” Mike says, still grinning wide - he looks like Gracie, a little, the way her face lights up when she’s pleased. That same little-kid joy. “Okay, um- here,” he fumbles with his jeans pocket for a minute, eventually producing his phone and handing it over. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to get a sitter, but I can text you when I’m free.”

Will saves his contact info to Mike’s phone and hands it back, suddenly feeling shy again. “Whatever works,” he tells him, and then, before he can think better of it, he leans in and presses a quick kiss to Mike’s cheek. “I should go, but…”

“Yeah,” Mike says quickly, voice a little rough around the edges. It’s cute. “Bye, Will. And- thank you.”

“No need,” Will replies, and means it.

Mike ends up being free on Thursday night, which he sends Will a series of concerned texts about - is that a weird night for a date? I’m so out of the loop I don’t even know anymore - and Will repeatedly assures him works perfectly fine. By the time the night rolls around, he’s awash with nerves, spending entirely too long choosing an outfit and fussing with his hair before making the drive over to Mike’s apartment.

He gets there three minutes early, and he doesn’t even get a chance to knock before the door swings open to reveal a curly-haired guy in a DnD t-shirt balancing a pajama-ed Gracie at his side. “Oh, shit, you must be Will!” he crows immediately upon seeing him in a jovial tone, and Will smiles hesitantly, a little unsure of what he’s meant to do. “Saw you through the window. I’m Dustin.”

“Uh, hi,” Will says hesitantly, shuffling a little in the doorway. “Hi, Gracie,” he adds, more genuinely, and she beams, giving him a wave and then executing a series of motions that he’s pretty sure are an attempt to blow him a kiss. He smiles and blows a kiss back, nerves dissipating a little.

“Man, I thought Mike was exaggerating when he described you,” Dustin says, giving Will an approving once-over that vaguely makes Will feel like his face is about to explode from how hard he’s blushing. “I think you’re out of his league.” His eyes fall to Will’s hands, and his grin widens. “Holy shit, and you brought flowers!”

Will grimaces a little, adjusting his sweaty-palmed grip on said flowers and wondering for the millionth time if that was a step too far. “Yeah,” he says, a little helplessly, but Dustin seems perfectly happy about it, so he tries not to stress too hard. “Um- where’s Mike, again?”

“He’s still getting ready,” Dustin says, waving a dismissive hand and hitching Gracie higher on his hip. “He’s so nervous, it’s hilarious.”

“Oh,” Will says dumbly, flushing pink and picking at a petal from the bouquet. His choice of words might have been more along the lines of cute or endearing rather than hilarious , but he hopes that Mike isn’t, like, so nervous that he’s rethinking this whole thing, or something. “Um, okay, so should I just-”

“Oh! Yeah, come in, come in,” Dustin says quickly, stepping aside and smiling apologetically as Will hesitantly follows him into the kitchen. “Mike should just be a couple more minutes, I think he’s freaking out over his shirt options.” He pauses, raises his free hand to cover Gracie’s ears, and leans in conspiratorially. “Honestly, though, I think this is super good for him. He hasn’t been out in forever , much less gotten lai-”

“Dustin, I can hear you,” Mike’s voice rings out from the hall, and he emerges around the corner, fussing with his shortened curls and shooting Dustin a glare. “You’d better not finish that sentence if you want to make it to next week.”

Dustin holds the hand that’s not propping Gracie against him up in surrender, but he does not stop grinning. “Sorry, just being honest.”

“Remember how we discussed having tact and decorum ,” Mike reminds him snidely, and Gracie nods her approval, pressing her pointer finger to her lips in a shushing motion. Dustin rolls his eyes, but Mike doesn’t see it, because his eyes have finally, mortifyingly settled on Will. “Hey,” he says, in a significantly softer voice, a small smile breaking out across his face as he takes him in. 

“Hi,” Will says, sure he looks just as dazed as Mike does right about now. In his defense, it’s hard not to be - Mike’s hair is damp from showering, his curls more pronounced, and he’s swapped out his glasses for contacts, more of his face on display for admiration. His button-up is soft blue and fitted, the top button undone and revealing a patch of skin at his collarbones that makes Will feel a little dizzy.

“Are those for me?” Mike asks, tipping his head to the flowers, and Will blushes, nodding and holding them out to him.

“Figured that I might as well pull out all the stops,” he mumbles sheepishly. “Since- you know.”

“Since you never go anywhere or do anything,” Dustin stage-whispers, attempting to cover Gracie’s ears again, but she shrieks with laughter and bats his hand away. 

Mike cuts him a look. “Have I mentioned lately that you’re a menace?” he huffs, accepting the flowers, waving off Will’s vague protest of “that’s not what I meant” and fishing a vase out from a cabinet under the sink. “I know it’s not,” he says to him, smiling a little. “This is very nice, thank you.”

“‘Course,” Will squeaks, officially giving up on having his face stay a normal shade of pink tonight. 

Mike carefully pulls off the paper wrapped around the bouquet and drops the flowers into the vase, running it under the tap until it’s sufficiently full before setting them on the counter. “Sorry, almost ready,” he says to Will as he brushes past him to grab his jacket off a hook in the hall, rifling through the pockets for a second before locating his wallet and nodding to himself. He snatches up a piece of paper from the counter and shoves it at Dustin, who wrinkles his nose at him but accepts it as Mike rattles off, “emergency numbers, bedtime schedule, et cetera. Don’t burn the house down and call me immediately if something goes wrong, got it?” He holds up an accusatory finger, narrowing his eyes at Dustin. “Immediately.”

“Yes, got it, Jesus,” Dustin huffs, widening his eyes at him, “you know I’ve done this for you before, right?”

“Yeah, well, I’ve also personally witnessed you drink from a keg while standing on your head,” Mike points out, “so forgive me if I’m just a bit wary of you taking care of my precious only child.” He ignores Dustin’s spluttered response and swoops in to press a kiss to the top of Gracie’s head, then her cheek, poking her side and smiling when she giggles happily. “Bye, sweetheart. I love you.”

“Bye Daddy!” she chirps, waving, and blows Will another kiss for good measure. “Bye Will!”

Will laughs, blowing her a kiss back. “Bye, Gracie. I’ll bring your dad home soon, I promise.”

She nods solemnly at him, like she’s entrusting him with a great responsibility, and Mike’s smile is tooth-achingly sweet as he places a hand on Will’s upper arm and squeezes. “Okay, ready,” he says breathlessly. “Lead the way.”

“You look nice,” Will blurts out, less than ten seconds after they’re alone, because he can’t not say it, not when Mike is blushing and nervous and has very clearly put in an effort for Will’s benefit. 

Mike flushes red and tugs self-consciously at his collar. “Thanks,” he says sheepishly. “I figured, you know, it might be nice for you to see me at least once when I’m not covered in kid debris or running on less than five hours of sleep.”

Will smirks, giving him a once-over and quirking an eyebrow, pleased when it makes Mike blush harder. “I don’t know, it’s not such a terrible look,” he says with an innocent shrug.

Mike snorts. “Glad to know that’s what does it for you,” he says wryly, and Will grins as he pulls the passenger door of his car open and gestures for Mike to get in. Mike smiles at him, shy again.

“So does Dustin babysit often?” Will asks as he climbs into the driver’s seat and turns on the engine. “He seems… nice.”

“He is not,” Mike huffs, strapping his seatbelt and propping up one arm on the center console. Will glances down at his hand where it rests beside the gear shift, briefly contemplating covering it with his own, but ultimately decides it’s too early into the date for that and focuses very hard on pulling out of his parking spot without crashing. “He’s definitely not my first choice for childcare, but we’ve been friends forever and he was willing to do it for free, so.” He shifts in his seat a little, glancing over at Will sheepishly. “Besides, it’s not like I have to ask all that often.”

Will hums in agreement, nodding sagely. “Right, because you never go out.”

“Okay,” Mike laughs, swatting at his arm, and Will grins, hoping he isn’t blushing as hard as it feels like he is. “I know I’ve been making myself seem a little pathetic.”

“Not pathetic,” Will assures him firmly, glancing over at him and again resisting the urge to grab his hand. “Just- a little overextended, maybe. So I’m glad we get to do this.”

“Oh,” Mike says, fingers twitching a little over the console. He takes another look at Will, biting down a small smile. “Yeah, me too.”

They sit in comfortable silence until Will pulls into the parking lot by the restaurant, glancing nervously up at the sign in the window. “Don’t know why you made the guy who just moved here pick the restaurant,” he says to Mike as he undoes his seatbelt, “but I hope this is okay.”

Mike smirks back at him. “It’s perfect,” he says sincerely, and Will ducks his head to hide his blush as he clambers out of the car.

Will had been worried, initially, about screwing this up. It’s one thing to worry about saying or doing the wrong thing to scare off a person on their own, but Mike is clearly very protective of his little family, and while Will can tell from a logical standpoint that Mike is interested in him, he can’t help but keep thinking of how Mike had dismissed previous dates as being not the right fit . Will doesn’t think he’s going to get scared off by the kid thing, obviously. If he was, it would have happened the first time Jonathan warned him about it, or when El joined in, or when Mike explained the nuances of the situation to him. But he’s been worrying all week that he’ll somehow give Mike the impression, maybe without even realizing it, that he’s not worthy of a long-term position in his life. And sure, it’s maybe a little silly to be thinking about long-term on their first date, but Will wants this to go right , damnit, and he’d hate to be disqualified before he even gets a chance to prove himself.

The longer the night drags on, though, the clearer it becomes that he doesn’t need to worry about saying the wrong thing. Mike is attentive and invested from the get-go, taking in everything Will says with what seems like genuine interest, and if the way he lights up when Will listens to him talk about his own life is anything to go by, he’s having just as good a time as Will is.

By the time they finish eating and slowly meander back to the car, Will’s chest is warm with a buzzing, happy feeling, and he bounds around to the passenger side to open the door for Mike. “Such a gentleman,” Mike teases.

“I do what I can,” Will says with a grin, leaning against the edge of the door and gesturing for Mike to get in. Mike’s eyes slide over him, and for a minute Will thinks he’s about to be kissed right up against the car like he’s sixteen again, but then Mike breaks into an easy smile and clambers into the passenger seat.

This time, Will does reach out to hold Mike’s hand over the console, fingers loosely intertwining. Mike accepts the motion eagerly, like he’s been waiting for it, and squeezes Will’s hand three times as they pull out into the street again. He feels comfortably tired, the evening soft around them in the darkness of the car, Mike humming faintly along to the radio with his head pressed against the passenger side window. This , Will’s gut whispers to him, just like it had in Mike’s kitchen last week, this is what you want.

The silence stays unbroken until they’re back on Mike’s porch, Mike fumbling in his pocket for his keys and Will watching him with poorly disguised affection.

“Thank you for this,” Mike says softly, as they pause outside the door. He looks almost ethereal in the dim glow of the porch light, all soft lines and warm smiles. “I had fun.”

“Yeah, me too,” Will replies. He’s long since given up on trying to tamp down his own smile. “Think you’d maybe wanna do it again sometime?”

Mike huffs a soft laugh, bobbing his head slowly. “Yeah, I think I could consider it.”

“Good.” Will looks at him for a beat, biting his lip, and Mike looks back, eyes wide and warm and inviting. Will waits a beat, then two, then- there ; Mike’s gaze darts downward to Will’s lips, and Will takes it as his opening to rock forward, slowly and with all the time in the world for a refusal, and softly press their lips together.

Mike releases a quiet breath against Will’s mouth, and Will can feel his smile against his own as he presses back sweetly, raising one hand to cup Will’s cheek. His hands are warm, and his lips are so soft, and he tastes like wine and chocolate and new beginnings, and Will thinks he could simply float away with how happy he is, kissing a beautiful man under a flickering porch light. He’s kissed plenty of men, been in love a few times over, but the magic of a first kiss never really goes away, that giddy sense of anticipation, the possibility of what’s to follow.

Mike hums appreciatively when Will pulls back, one hand resting on his clavicle over the warm expanse of skin there. Will can’t help but release a breathy little giggle as Mike swoops in to kiss him again, close-mouthed and slightly off center, tugging him forward by the front of his shirt. Will giggles again, breaking the kiss a little, and Mike returns his laughter as he cups his face with both hands and continues pressing quick, messy kisses onto his lips. Will wraps his arms around his neck, and Mike stumbles a little, catching himself on the door jamb with one hand and pressing the other against the small of his back. After a long few minutes, the kissing becomes too much to keep up with between fits of warm laughter, and they wind up just standing there, Mike holding Will against him and their noses nuzzling together as they smile into each other’s skin. 

“I like you so much,” Will whispers, as if it’s a secret at this point, and presses one more slow, soft kiss to the corner of Mike’s mouth.

“Mm,” Mike agrees vaguely, fingers tightening in their grip on Will’s shirt, tugging him closer. “I like you too.”

“Well, that works out then,” Will hums, nosing into his cheek. “Does that mean I get a second date?”

“Oh yeah,” Mike agrees with a chuckle, squeezing his waist again. “Big time.”

Will is about to say something else, something about how cute Mike is, maybe, and how kissing him is so nice, and that he’s so glad he moved here, but before he can, the door swings open, and Mike scrambles to right himself as Dustin grins at them from the doorway, Gracie propped on his hip. 

“Well, well, well,” Dustin says, arching an eyebrow. “Your dad must have some charisma after all,” he whispers conspiratorially to Gracie, who giggles, though Will suspects she’s more pleased by being included in something than anything else.

“Thanks, Dustin,” Mike coughs, dropping his hands from Will’s waist and smoothing out his shirt. “We were just-”

“I know what you were just,” Dustin sniffs, and Will flushes, scuffing his shoe along the carpet sheepishly. “But my shift is up, so here.” He swings Gracie around and presents her to Mike, who quickly scoops her up into his arms even as he shoots Dustin a dirty look over the top of her head.

“Daddy!” Gracie coos happily, clapping her little hands as Mike glances down at her, face softening. 

“Hi, Bug,” he hums, kissing the top of her head. “Did you have a good night?”

“Uh huh,” she says distractedly, looking up at Will with wide eyes. “Will,” she says firmly, making grabby hands at him, “up!”

Will’s eyebrows raise, and he half-glances at Mike, who looks equally surprised, if pleased. “Um- okay?” he says, and when Mike gives him a small nod and a smile, he holds out his arms. Gracie giggles happily as Mike hands her over, wrapping her little arms around Will’s neck and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Hi, sweetheart,” Will says, laughing a little and adjusting his grip on her. She presses her cheek to his shoulder, smiling. 

“You’re in high demand,” Dustin says, raising an eyebrow and leaning against the door jamb. 

“Dustin, sometimes you don’t have to talk,” Mike mutters, giving him a look. 

“I know,” Dustin says placidly, waggling his eyebrows. “But it’s in my nature to comment and observe -” 

“Go get your coat,” Mike says firmly, shoving him back into the apartment by the shoulder, and glances over his shoulder at Will as he does so. “Do you want to come in for a sec?”

Will raises an eyebrow, tipping his head toward the child still propped on his hip. “Do I have a choice?”

“Nope,” Gracie affirms solemnly, before bringing her thumb up to her mouth to suck on.

Mike grins. “The queen has spoken.”

Will laughs, poking a finger into Gracie’s thigh and smiling when she giggles and kisses his cheek again. He carries her inside, trailing after Mike into the kitchen, where Dustin is saying something to him while shrugging on his jacket.

“Uh huh,” Mike replies to whatever rant Dustin is on, smiling vaguely as he fills an electric tea kettle with water from the tap. “Sure. Bye, Dustin.”

Dustin rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. See you tomorrow for brunch, right?”

“Yeah, ‘course.”

Dustin swoops in to kiss Gracie’s cheek, ruffling her hair as he does so. “Bye-bye!”

Gracie crinkles her nose at him, but she’s smiling. “Bye-bye,” she echoes, waving at him.

Dustin grins. “Bye, Will,” he adds, waggling his eyebrows. “Good luck with all that ,” he says, gesturing to Mike, who neatly flips him off while Gracie isn’t looking.

“Thanks, Dustin,” Will laughs, and Dustin blows him an obnoxious kiss as he disappears through the front door.

Mike smiles, leaning one hip against the kitchen counter as the kettle starts humming. “She must really like you,” he says, nodding to Gracie. “Looks like you’re gonna have to stick around.”

Will grins, pressing a kiss into Gracie’s bouncy black curls. “I think I could be okay with that.”

“Green please?” Gracie asks, holding her hand out expectantly in Will’s direction. He hands her a green crayon, which she accepts with a tiny fist. “Tank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Will says around a smile, as she begins vigorously scribbling across the piece of paper laid out on the table in front of her. It’s Tuesday, which is Mike’s designated Errand Day, which means that it’s Will and Gracie’s designated Art Day. “What are we drawing now?”

“Grass,” Gracie says, like it’s obvious, “for the unicorns to eat.”

“Ah, of course.” Now that she mentions it, there is a rainbow blob on the corner of her page that looks vaguely unicorn-esque. “And then what?”

“More rainbows.”

“Oh, right, obviously.” Will reaches over absently to tuck one of her curls behind her tiny ear, the same motion he does for Mike about twelve times a day. His hair is getting long again, just enough that it’s constantly falling into his eyes, which Will thinks is cute, but every time he mentions it Mike just huffs and says it’s annoying and he needs to schedule a haircut appointment.

Speaking of which- “Daddy’s home,” Gracie says idly, and sure enough Will hears Mike’s key turning in the lock not even a second later. Will swears she has supersonic hearing sometimes, with the amount of times a day she’ll nonchalantly comment on sounds he’d never thought to notice. Garbage truck outside. Kitty cat in our yard. Dusty’s car is leaving. 

The door swings open to reveal Mike, armed with a bag of groceries and a harried expression. “Hey, sorry I’m late,” he says, a little out of breath, kicking the door closed behind him and toeing off his shoes one at a time. “Traffic.”

Will glances at the clock - he hadn’t even noticed Mike was late, to be honest. His afternoons with Gracie are like that sometimes, so quiet and warm and sweet that he forgets to notice time. “S’ fine. We’re drawing unicorns.”

“Daddy look!” Gracie says, bouncing in her hi-chair and pointing emphatically to her drawing.

“One second, sweetheart,” Mike says, maneuvering the bag of groceries onto the counter and dropping his keys beside it. 

“Do you want help?” Will offers, already hopping out of his chair even as Mike attempts to wave him off with a “no, I got it”. He gently elbows him out of the way and starts unloading the bag, well-versed by now in where Mike keeps things in his kitchen - soon to be their kitchen. Mike smirks and catches him by the wrist, leaning over to press a firm kiss to his mouth. “Hi,” he murmurs against his lips.

“Hi,” Will replies, arms finding their way to wrap around Mike’s waist. “Good day?”

“Mhm.” Mike kisses him again, for good measure, then turns back to the groceries. “Thanks for watching her.”

Will rolls his eyes. “You can stop saying that,” he tells him, not for the first time, and releases his grip on Mike’s hips. “This time next week I’ll be a live-in caretaker, so I think we’re well past acting like I’m doing you a favor.”

Mike focuses intently on his task, which Will has learned by now is what he does when he’s flustered. Which is understandable, really - they’ve been together a year now, and even though Will’s been practically living here for at least half that time, they danced around making it official for a good couple months before either of them actually brought it up. Will, because he was afraid of pushing the rest of the way into Mike’s carefully-guarded life too quickly, and Mike because he hadn’t wanted to pressure Will into accepting the responsibility of all that it entails.

Finally, just when Will was actually starting to worry about whether he should renew his lease or not, Mike had come home one day to find him and Gracie napping on the couch together, and had urgently shaken Will awake to tell him, eyes wide and earnest, “You should live here.”

Will moves in officially this weekend. 

“Hey,” he says, poking a finger into Mike’s arm as he turns to put the carton of eggs away in the freezer. “No nerves. I told you I want this, remember?”

One corner of Mike’s mouth ticks upward. “I’m not nervous. Who said I was nervous?”

“Your little face,” Will teases, leaning in closer and poking at his cheek this time. “You get all wrinkly.”

“I do not,” Mike huffs, which is false, but Will doesn’t feel like fighting him on it. He meets Will’s eyes, expression softening a little. “I’m not nervous,” he promises again, linking their fingers together and raising them up to press a kiss to Will’s knuckles. “S’ just a change.”

“Yeah, you hate those,” Will muses. Mike smirks, kissing his hand again. “I think I can persuade you otherwise, though.”

Mike quirks an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”

“Mhm,” Will confirms with a grin, swooping in to kiss him firmly on the mouth again. “Just you wait.”

“Daddy!” Gracie shouts from her hi-chair, her little legs kicking against the underside of the table. “Stop kissing and look at my drawing!”

Mike laughs, detangling his hand from Will’s and rounding the counter to go give Gracie some attention. Will smiles to himself as he continues unloading the groceries, listening to Gracie explain the backstory of her drawing in that soft little voice of hers. She’s gotten less shy over the past year, which Mike accredits to spending more time with Will and Tess, who occasionally comes over for playdates, and Will accredits to Mike being a better parent than he thinks he is. 

Will finishes putting the groceries away and sidles over to Mike, wrapping both arms around him from behind and pressing a kiss to his shoulder. Mike hums appreciatively and tips his head to rest against Will’s.

Gracie glances up at them, a bright smile stretching across her chubby little face. “Will you stay?” she asks Will with wide, pleading eyes. 

Will glances up at Mike, who quirks an eyebrow at him. “You’re about to live here anyway,” he murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to his temple. “Might as well stay for movie night.”

Will grins and reaches over to ruffle Gracie’s hair. “Yeah, Bug,” he tells her. “I can stay a little longer.”