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Chapter Twenty Seven

"HELP!" Liv yelled out again.

"HOLD ON!"

I'm horrible at making split second decisions and this was like a really hard math problem and I suck at math. I had three people that needed my attention. I couldn't leave Noah or Brooke on the floor and run off to Liv. I chewed my lip.

"Okay," I said quietly. "This can work. Dr. Spork says you can leave them cry it out. I can handle that."

Even though Noah was still crying, I put him in his bassinet. Next I scooped up Brooke, flailing arms and all, and plopped her in the playpen. Then I went to check on Liv. I pushed open the bathroom door; a rush of steam hit me smack in the face.

"What's going on?"

As soon as I saw her, it was like I had stepped back in time two years. Liv was lying in the tub covered in big puffs of white suds.

"What's stuck?" I blurted out.

Liv's eyes were as wide as saucers and her face was completely flushed. She moaned and slipped under water. I walked over and pulled her back up.

"Well, it's not your hair," I said. Liv sighed and pointed. My eyes skim the water down her body. Once I got to the end, I started laughing. Hard.

"That can't be stuck."

"Nick, it's stuck."

"Why did you put that there?"

"I was listening to music and tapping my feet to the beat and then I was popping my big toe in and out of the faucet and then all of a sudden it went in but wouldn't come back out."

She was totally adorable when she was flustered. This was one of those times.

"I thought this only happened in the movies," I said. I scooted down and put my hand on her foot. I wiggled gently and then pulled down.

"OW!"

"You're right, it's stuck."

"I know that. I wouldn't have screamed for you if I wasn't stuck!"

I grinned. "That's too bad. I would have taken a bubble bath with you."

Liv sighed and blew a giant wad of bubbles away from her chin.

I studied the situation. Then I studied the part of the water that weren't bubbly.

"Wipe that smile off your face, Nick. I haven't taken a damn bath since the last time I got stuck and look what happened."

I tried but I couldn't stop it; I laughed. "I'm not going to be a gentleman and turn around when you towel off," I warned.

"We don't have to worry about that if my toe doesn't come out!" Liv said. Her voice was about three octaves higher than normal. She was practically squeaking.

"Okay," I said. I ran my fingers along the toe. Then I snapped my fingers.

"We need lube. Where's your KY?"

Liv looked at me, her eyes widened even more. "What?"

"I need to get your toe all greasy. Then I can pop the sucker out."

Liv's mouth opened then closed. Finally she pointed towards the medicine cabinet. I hopped up. Vitamins, condoms, toothpaste, tweezers, Band-Aids, and a new tube of KY Jelly. I picked it up and studied the bottle. Then I knelt back down.

"This should work well. It's intense for your toe's pleasure," I teased. Liv's eyes narrowed.

"I hate you."

I grinned. "I love you, too."

I began to work; I smeared practically half a bottle around her toe and massaged it with my fingers. Finally I wiped my fingers on a towel and leaned back.

"Okay, try to wiggle," I said. Liv closed her eyes and yanked her foot. Her toe slid out, but not all the way. I sighed. Liv let out a little cry.

"Don't panic," I instructed. I looked at the toe. I looked at her boobs. I looked back at her toe.

"I'm going to turn on the cold water," I finally said.

"What?"

"I'm either going to flush that toe out or it'll get so cold it'll shrivel up and come out," I reasoned.

Liv groaned. I reached for the tap.

"One...two...three!"

I turned on the water. I heard a big gush. Only a few drops slid out from the sides of her toes. Liv let out a yelp.

"Just ten seconds!" I encouraged her. She was wiggling around; I glanced back at her boobs. Yup, it was definitely cold. I had to struggle to resist pinching, licking, nipping, or flicking. I turned back to the toe. It wasn't near as sexy. I put my hand on the top of her foot again and pressed down.

With a sudden gush of water her toe popped out. There were two angry red rings where it had gotten stuck. I massaged it with my fingers. Two soaking wet arms wrapped around my neck.

"You're my hero!"

I smiled. Deja vu was playing heavily through my mind. I tossed my head back and looked in her eyes.

"At your service," I said gently. Liv smiled.

"Towel?"

I was going to give her a hard time, but just then I heard a banging from the living room. I turned, grabbed a towel, handed it to Liv and tucked tail back to the living room. I skidded to a stop.

Somehow, Brooke had managed to tip over the playpen. All of my video games and controllers were scattered around her. She was standing up, holding onto the TV stand, banging on the screen with the Wii remote.

Our terrible twos had started early...almost a year early.

"Brooke!" I said loudly. She turned and looked at me with a smile. Obviously she had forgiven or forgotten me scolding her. She held out the remote.

I was trying to be a disciplinarian, I really was. But she just looked so completely oblivious to the fact that she had done anything wrong that all I could do was sigh and pick her up.

"Do you want to play a game?" I asked. She gnawed on the end of the controller and nodded. I smiled.

"Okay."

I sat her down and kneeled down to pick up all the games she had scattered. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her get into a crawling position. I turned and pointed.

"Stay."

She sat back down.

By the time Liv had gotten dressed and walked (er, hobbled) into the kitchen with Noah for a feeding, I was standing in front of the TV with Brooke in my arms. We were competing in an intense game of Wii bowling. Everytime the pins made the crashing noise she would shake from the top of her head to the bottoms of her toes, shake the remote, and laugh out loud. I was pressing all the buttons, but she was having three-fourths the fun.

"Hey Nick?" Liv called. I turned; she was studying Noah's forehead.

"Yeah?"

"Why's Noah got a red patch in the shape of a square on his noggin?"

Brooke tapped me with the remote.

"Brooke smashed a block at Noah's head for smiling at me," I explained.

Liv sighed. "I feared it was something like that."

Brooke tapped me with the remote again, but I continued to talk. "Then some freaked out lady was screaming my name from the bathroom and..."

Liv blushed. "I'm never taking another bath. I'm instating a shower rule."

I was getting ready to respond when Brooke threw the remote and began to wail. I saw Noah spit out his bottle and begin to cry. That was it.

No more Mr. Nice Dad.

"Okay," I said. Brooke started to twist in my arms. I walked over to the corner, kicked the toy box to the side and sat there facing the wall. As a kid I had spent a lot of time in the corner. I put her down on my lap and wrapped my arms around her.

The whole idea of dad sitting and staring at the wall confused the heck out of her so much that she forgot to keep wailing. She looked up at me.

"No throwing," I said firmly, but calmly. I rememembered that Dr. Spork recommended one minute of time-out for every year. I counted off sixty seconds in my head. By forty-five seconds, Brooke started to squirm, but she wasn't getting off my lap until I hit sixty. Once I did, she rolled onto the ground on all fours and took off towards the couch. She sat beside it and sucked her thumb, staring at me like she had just been through a war.

"I've got to say," Liv said with a smile. "I'm impressed."

I grinned. "What can I say? I'm a natural."

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In the next two days, Liv and I saw more of the one corner of our living room than we saw of each other. Brooklyn had hit the terrible twos at one.

"It's a good thing we had Noah so soon," I said tiredly at the end of the second night. We had just gotten Brooke and Noah to sleep and we were stretched out on the couch, our feet propped up on the coffee table and a bowl of popcorn between us.

"Considering she doesn't let you out of her sight for a minute and screams whenever I kiss you, I'd say that it's a very good thing," Liv said. She leaned her head on my shoulder, kissing the bare skin.

I think we were half-asleep when the phone rang. I answered quickly, terrified of waking up either kid.

"Hey, Nick." It was AJ.

"Hi J. Good to hear from you. How are things going?"

Liv lifted her head. She scooted closer, pressing her ear against the phone.

"Ro's awake. She's in a lot of pain."

"And the babies?"

"It's been a rough few days but I think...I think we're going to be okay. They're just so small. Wait, I'll send you a picture."

The line went dead for a second and then I felt the vibration of a picture message. I opened it up and stared in disbelief.

Small wasn't the right word. I took in the mess of wires; it was more than Noah ever had.

"That's incredible," Liv said breathlessly. I held the phone back up.

"You weren't kidding," I said in astonishment.

"They're barely longer than a ruler," AJ said. "They're going to be in the NICU for a while man."

"Don't worry about how long," I said. "Just keep getting through each day."

"That's what I've been doing."

Liv tugged on my shirt. "Ask him if they've named them yet," she whispered.

"Liv wants to know if you've thought about names," I said.

"We did. Alexis Faith and Jonah Adolph. Ally and Joe for short."

"Those are incredibly normal," I said with a laugh. I could almost feel AJ's grin.

"Yeah, well, they've been through so much already I figured why have them deal with a weird name like Appalachia or Glurk."

"You seriously weren't considering the name Appalachia," I said.

"Apple for short," AJ said. Then he laughed. I could hear Ro in the background mumble something.

"Ro just said she would have divorced me if I would have suggested Glurk."

We talked for a few more minutes. After what had amounted to a week from hell, AJ actually sounded hopeful.

I prayed that by the end of summer we'd all be back on the road and things would be back to normal.

If a Backstreet Boys tour can ever be normal, that is.