January 23rd 2023

Chapter 23
We Jump In Together

Nowadays, looking at the family's schedule felt like nothing short of choreography. Activities would bring them together where they could and send them all scattered to the winds at other times… That would be one thing if they were all grown and could see to their own displacements, but that wasn't so. Most of their people needed drop-offs and pick-ups, and there were several of those to be done in a very small window. In that respect, getting everyone to school seemed suddenly very tame and straightforward.

Three days a week, when four out of the six would be collected from elementary and preschool, they would be taken to the ranch, for green and red groups. That was as easy as it got, especially as, with several weeks of it now under their belts, the triplets seemed properly settled into this new part of their lives. They looked forward to group days the same way their big sister had done at their age. They knew when it would be a group day morning and they would present themselves to get their hair fixed with their green bandanna in hand, because they'd decided they liked it best on their heads, and they wanted to wear them all day long, even at preschool.

It had been Lucas and Maya's hope that, between preschool, and green group, and their individual activities, the triplets would flourish some, start to find themselves as their own people as well as a unit of three. And they had sort of done that, hadn't they? They were certainly on their way, and their parents could not be prouder.

And they were actually making new friends. They'd always had the turtle kids, who were as much friends as they were family, and the same could almost be said with regards to Lucas' basketball teammates and their children, but this was different, this was Kacey, Remy, and Lucy being put out in the world, without their parents there at every turn, and making connections.

The first of those new names ringing through the Friar house was that of fellow four-year-old and fellow new little fish in Lucy's swim class, Felicity Williams. The joke had become that the two girls had become friends almost without realizing it. They'd met, the quiet one and the bouncy one, and they'd just gravitated to one another, like magnets. It hadn't taken long before their respective parents had gotten in touch, which now also meant the occasional play date between the girls and alternating turns at dropping off and picking up the pair.

If those two had been opposites finding one another, when it came to Remy, it felt a whole lot more like double trouble in the making. More and more lately, she had been finding in herself an… affinity, one toward mischief. Maya would say that it was really only a matter of time, but now here they were, and it so happened that Remy found someone who shared that spirit right at the ranch. His name was Barry Finneran, and he may have been the smallest kid in green group, but he sure did not act like it. He and Remy had not been an immediate match, but the more they'd gotten to see of each other, it had become clearer to them that there was a kid they liked, because they were a lot like them. Then one day, Barry had gone up to Remy and very simply asked, loud enough that Lucas heard him affirm it loud, 'I want to be friends, do you want to be friends?' and Remy had responded with an immediate 'okay!' and the matter had been settled. He'd been part of their unit ever since, for better or for worse. Oh, he wasn't bad, not in the slightest, but both his parents and the Friars knew better, with either of their children, than to assume no… shenanigans were on the horizon.

In the grand tradition of fretting whenever imbalance occurred for the triplets, Maya and Lucas had wondered about Kacey in all this, couldn't help it. Lucy and Remy were making friends, but what about her? Oh, it wasn't as though she didn't interact with the other kids at school, or the ranch, or her skating lessons, and she liked Felicity and Barry, too. But then her parents could see where this would go, where it was bound to go. Her sisters and their respective new friends were getting closer to one another, and the further it went on, Kacey might notice that they were and feel a bit abandoned. They couldn't force these things, they knew. They just wished for something, a third encounter after those of her fellow triplets.

And maybe it was too early to make such claims, but they had this thought like it might have happened, or at least that a path had been traced. It would be a matter of time before they knew for certain.

In what felt like a strange and sweet nod to the past, a new child had joined the preschool, recently relocated to Austin out of San Francisco. When the girl had been introduced, Miss Alma had addressed the children, asking if one of them might be her guide and helper in their class. Kacey's hand had been the first up, shot straight up, and no one expected any less. This was right up her alley. Since then, she had been going around always with the new girl, which often translated into the triplets having a plus one.

"Daddy, what's triplets but four?" she'd asked just the day before when he'd picked her and her sisters up from preschool. It took him a second to gather what she was getting at but then he smiled.

"Quadruplets," he told her, laughing at the look of mixed puzzlement and wonder on not just her face but Lucy and Remy's, too. It had led to them asking for the word with five, and six, and seven, and onward, until he had to bow out, as much for not knowing as for pointing out that it would be way too many babies for one mommy. "Why do you want to know, cub?"

"Just do," she shrugged, showing that smile that was like his, in theory, but still managed a twinge of some Maya-like quality.

He didn't have to be told though, did he? This was about Sammie Kendall. It wasn't as though the two of them were suddenly the very best of friends for life, but Kacey clearly felt enough of a kinship with her by now to want her to feel counted as part of her world. Plus, even though they did not look by any means identical, one could see them together and, only knowing that Kacey had a fraternal triplet sister without having ever seen Lucy, could be forgiven for thinking that Sammie was that sister.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, cub?" Lucas asked as he felt her arms lock around his leg from behind.

"I told Sammie about green group," Kacey informed him.

"You did?" he asked, bringing her around where he could see her. "And she was interested?" he guessed. Kacey nodded. "What about her parents? Did Sammie ask them?" Kacey had no clue there, so she just shrugged. "Right... Well, we can look into that."

"She can't skate, that's why," Kacey nodded, which Lucas took to mean that she had first pitched for the other little blonde to join her in those classes and failed, so this was where they had ended up.

"I will talk to her parents, alright?" Lucas smiled, and Kacey smiled back before dashing away. She returned all of a minute later with the rest of her trio reunited. The twins were guiding Lucy along, the littlest of their unit with that look she'd get in her eyes when she'd been this close to crying. "Hey, what happened?" Lucas asked and crouched to scoop up his bun-bun girl.

"Can Felicity do green group, too?" Remy asked even as Kacey did, like an echo.

"Ah," Lucas understood. Kacey had told them about getting Sammie in the group, and Remy would have been happy because her new friend, Barry, was in there already, and this had made Lucy just a bit frantic because they'd both have their new person there and she wouldn't. "We'll see what Felicity and her family have to say about that? Yeah?" he asked Lucy, stroking her cheek, and she nodded. Yes, this was good.

It was one of those occasions where being the owner of the ranch came in handy. He never said no to late additions to the groups so long as they had the means to look after all of them, and so it was a very brief turnover after speaking to the Kendall and the Williams families to introduce Sammie and Felicity to the ranks of green group the very next Monday.

"Aunties are here!" Remy cried out just as the group was guided out of the archive where they'd had story time with Carson only to spot a pair of familiar brunettes. "Daddy, Daddy?" she whipped around to look at Lucas. That one call - with its variation of 'Mommy, Mommy?' - was well known in their household now as shorthand for 'can I do this thing please?'

"Yeah, go get 'em," Lucas chuckled and motioned to his sisters in law. Remy took off like an arrow and Kacey and Lucy imitated her, completing the Hunters' escort back to the group of small children.

"Hi, guys!" Gracie beamed to them all, waving with both hands even as Nellie ever so 'subtly' moved to her boyfriend's side and straightened up Monitor Bobby's green bandanna.

"What are you guys doing out here?" Lucas had to ask. It wasn't so much that it was uncommon to have them there. Instead, it was that there could be several reasons and he was curious to know which one it was this time around.

"We're going to meet Mom to talk about a few things," Gracie told him while stealing a look toward her twin that read very much like 'remember that's what we're here for and not just for you to get distracted by your boyfriend.' Nellie's response read like 'alright, alright, killjoy,' but with a smirk.

"That important, huh?" Lucas had to point out. Yes, Katy was out there just now, working with the cast and crew of her show, but then she and her daughters would have the whole evening at home, with no night shoots scheduled for this day.

"It is, if we want to get to talk to her without hearing complaints," Nellie informed him.

"Complaints?" Lucas repeated.

"College talk," Gracie told him.

"Possibly out of state college talk," Nellie specified, with a look to Bobby. It might not have been the best time or place to mention this, as suddenly their three little nieces looked up as though they didn't completely understand what was happening, but they knew enough to guess that when they fully understood, they would not like it.

"Got it," Lucas breathed out before focusing again on the seniors as a thought occurred to him and made him smirk. "Your dad?"

"Oh, yeah, he's not into it either," Nellie shook her head. "But it's Haley really. She'll pitch a fit if any of us says anything to suggest we'd leave Texas."

"She's upset, it's normal," Gracie insisted, and Nellie understood, she did. But it was still a lot to handle when they'd rather not. This was a big choice they had to make and wanted to do it right.

"We haven't even decided for sure to go like that," Nellie went on. "I mean there's..." she turned to Bobby, and Lucas knew from what little he'd been able to pick up on, without any confidence being broken, that they were referring in only so many words to Mrs Davis and her recent struggles. "And plus, we'd sort of had this other thought..." she turned to her twin again and got a quiet look of 'keep it down, not yet.' "Anyway, gotta go!" she quickly turned to kiss Bobby – making the kids giggle or call gross – before collecting Gracie by the arm and hurrying off.

"Daddy?" Lucy appeared at his side, big trembling lip trembling and eyes spilling with questions. Lucas sighed. One more thing to explain to them... They loved their aunts so much. They couldn't leave, could they?

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners