The Twins' Mom [Taylor Swift x Joe Alwyn AU]

iv

They gazed back at her with wide, inquisitive brown eyes. Though they weren't identical, they looked very much alike. They both had her thick, pin-straight black hair and high cheek bones. They had eyes just like their father and his long, slandered fingers.

Summer let out a squeal and reached for her. Taylor wanted si badly to hold her, but she wasn't sure if she should wait for Joe. Tears stinging her eyes, she took one of Summer's chubby little hands in hers and held it. She had missed them so much, and the guilt she felt for leaving them, for putting them in this situation, sat like a stone in her belly. But she was here now, and she would never leave them again. She would see that they were raised properly.

"She wants you to pick her up."

Taylor turned to see Joe standing several feet behind her, big and burly, in bare feet with his slightly wrinkled shirt untucked and his hands wedged in the pocket of a pair of threadbare jeans. His hair was damp and a little messy, as if he'd towel-dried it and hadn't bothered with a brush.

No one could deny that he was attractive with his pale sad brown eyes and smile. The slight crooked nose was even a little charming. Maybe it was his total lack of self-consciousness that was so appealing right now, but celebrity had never been her thing.

She preferred studios men, professional types. The kind who didn't make a living with glitz and glamour being a celebrity.

"Do you mind?" Taylor asked.

"Of course not. That's what this interview is about." Said Joe.

Taylor lifted Summer out of the seat and seated the infant in her lap. She smelled like baby shampoo and powder. Summer is fixated on the gold chain hanging down the front of her blouse and grabbed for it, so Taylor tucked it under her collar. "She's so big."

"Around fifteen pounds I think, I remember my sister in law saying that they were average size for their age. I'm not sure what they weight when they were born. I think there's a baby booked still packed away somewhere with all the information in it." Joe explained.

They had been just six pounds each, but she couldn't tell him that or that the baby book he referred to had been started by her and given to Ashley and Patrick as a gift when they took the girls home. She had documented her entire pregnancy, when she felt the first kick, when she had her sonogram so the adoptive would feel more involved and they could show the girls when they got older. And although she had included photos of her belly in various stages of development, they were not shots of her face. There was nothing anywhere that identified her as being the both mother.

Winter began to fuss, probably jealous that her sister was getting all the attention. Taylor was debating the logistic of how to extract her from her seat while still holding Summer when, without prompting.

Joe reached for Winter and plucked her out. He lifted her high over his head, making her gasp and giggle and plunked her down in his arms.

Taylor must have looked concerned because he laughed and said. "Don't let her mild manager fool you. She's a mini daredevil."

As Joe sat on the floor across from her and set Winter on his lap, Taylor caught a scent of some sort of a masculine soap.

Summer reached for him and tried to wiggle her way out of Taylor's arms. She hadn't expected the girls to be ease with him, so attached. Not this quickly. And she expected him to be much more inept and disinterested.

"You work with younger babies?" Joe asked.

"Newborns usually. But before the NICU I worked in a pediatric ward." Taylor answered.