Three

 

There was nothing better than a Sunday roast. I’d eaten in some of the best restaurants in the world, but give me a pub roast or fish and chips any day.

 

For the last two months, I’d been keeping Fin company at his veterinary practice or at Longleat and I loved it. He was six years older than me, but we’d been friends since the first time I accidentally ran over his toe with on my first bike ride. We were probably closer to siblings than I’d ever been with my brothers, too.

 

“You sure you’re okay?” He asked for the millionth time. He was doing an ultrasound on an Orangutan to see if she was pregnant. The pregnancy test that they’d run had been inconclusive and the safari park needed to know if she was or wasn’t, so here we were.

 

After this, we were heading to the City of Bath to have lunch at the Jane Austen Centre. After that, we were going to tour around where she had stayed and gotten inspiration for Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.

 

I loved the Regency Tea Room at the center and had been thinking about the cream tea that I’d had there the last time I’d visited, when the thought of clotted cream started to make me feel sick. I still wanted it, but every time I thought about it I had to take deep breaths to try and stave off the nausea.

 

“I’m hungry, but I feel sick.” It came out as a whine and Fin glanced at me before going back to the screen in front of him.

 

“Seems to be happening quite often just now,” he murmured, giving me another side glance and then looking down at my stomach.

 

He was right, maybe I should go to the doctor?

 

Something hitting me in the center of the forehead and landing at my feet got my attention. Picking it up, I held a stick object that was covered in packaging.

 

“ClearBlue preg…” So many thoughts hit me at once.

 

Firstly, it was so clever that they had digital tests. What next – a Siri compatible one?

 

Secondly, when had I last had my last period?

 

Thirdly, were we still going to Bath for our day out?

 

I want to say I fainted like a Hollywood heroine, but I as the ground rushed up to meet me I had a feeling I just looked like a sack of potatoes.

 

Brett

 

Watching Cole in the swimming pool with Luke and Isla’s twins, Dewi and Kali, I tried to look as if I didn’t have the weight of the world on my shoulders. Thankfully, the screaming of the twins as they jumped in and Cole caught them was making me smile - leave it up to frigging Luke to have twins that could walk and had no fear of the swimming pool by the age of one.

 

I watched as Dewi jumped at Cole screaming and giggling her beautiful little head off. She looked so happy and didn’t have a care in the world as she went, and I wanted to have this so badly with Sabine.

 

Luke was standing beside the pool with Kali in front of him waiting for his turn to jump.

 

“Poop,” his squeaky little baby voice shouted out as Luke reached down for his daughter.

 

Luke was too focused on getting Dewi out of the pool, though, so he did what every parent did. “Uh huh. Okay buddy!”

 

“Poop!” He squealed again, jumping up and down excitedly, clapping his hands.

 

I could have sworn I saw a scowl and a bit of redness pass over his face, but I blinked and it was gone. Probably wind.

 

“Okay little man, you ready to go?” Luke took the couple of steps back to where he’d been initially. Kali was nodding his head so hard that he looked like one of those bobble head dolls. Dammit, they were so damn cute. “Right, on three, okay?” Again, he nodded. He probably didn’t understand what the hell Luke was saying to him, but maybe he did? “One, two, thr… Wait, did you say poop?”

 

Luke’s hands frantically grabbed out at Kali as he launched himself into the air in Cole’s direction. Almost like it was in slow motion, the poop that Kali had been talking about came out of the side of his shorts and began its descent…towards Cole. The dick head was none the wiser, he was so focused on the adorable little person that was also headed in his direction. The projectile finally caught his attention, though, and in a split second he slammed his mouth shut and put his hands up in front of his face.

 

Like that would save him.

 

 

 

Luke and I were resting back against the counter while the twins, who were wrapped up in these seriously awesome towel cape things, played happily on the floor.

 

We’d been here for the last ten minutes, enough time to have gotten comfortable and a cup of coffee, watching as the twunt continued to cough, whine and wash his hands with whatever product he’d found next.

 

“I think I should feel bad,” Luke murmured as Cole checked the label on the carpet cleaner before spraying it on his hands.

 

I was used to this shit happening to him. It had happened from day one, so I just shrugged knowing that it would be something else by the end of tomorrow.

 

“I mean, the shit was one thing, but that kid is like a rock.” He took another sip and my eyes flicked to the rock in question. It was true, he might be a normal sized one-year-old, but he weighed a fucking ton.

 

“I wanted more babies,” Cole croaked from the sink. “Now the only babies I’m having will be my own balls.” He didn’t even look up from his scrubbing as he said it.

 

I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing; something that I hadn’t done in what felt like forever. Luke’s control broke and he only just managed to put his mug on the counter before he fell to his knees. The reel of the moment played on repeat through my head and I had to grab onto the edge behind me to stop myself joining Luke on the tiled floor.

 

“Oh, nice!” Cole’s high-pitched voice broke through the pressure in my head, which was at a record high I was laughing that hard. “Fuckers!”

 

The last bit was meant to be a yell, but his nuts were admittedly crushed so his voice came out in a shrill squeaky croak. That was it, I couldn’t take anymore and joined Luke in a heap.

 

“What the hell is going on in here?” Mom demanded from the doorway beside us. “And why are you spraying bathroom cleaner on your poor…is that the ribs I was saving for tomorrow?”

 

My head snapped up from the tiles, and low and behold he’d shoved a frozen rack of ribs down his pants.

 

I fell over just as Luke let out a barely audible whine. He’d officially passed the point of being able to actually laugh and now it was just air.

 

“It’s not my fault?” Cole squeaked.

 

“What happened to your voice?” Mom asked, glaring at the now ruined ribs. “And you should be ashamed of yourself teaching the kids to do perverted,” she hissed the word in one of those loud as hell mom whispers that everyone in the room heard, “to meat.”

 

“It’s my meat that needs replaced. That…that…that…” his squeaks trailed off as he gestured frantically toward Kali who was looking up at him like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, “assaulted me. No, it shit blitzed me and then broke me.” He finished pointing at his crotch, well, the rack of ribs.

 

“Cole Townsend, do we need to have the talk again?” Mom put her hands on her hips and glared at him.

 

“There was a fly-by-shitting, Mom.”

 

I started laughing even harder as he described it. There really had been. Kali had only been in those adorable little trainer shorts which were loose on the side, so gravity had taken over and the torpedo had ejected out the side of them and had travelled in Cole’s direction. If he hadn’t closed his mouth and put his hands up in front of his face, it would have been a different story altogether.

 

As it was, not sure if it was Kali or not, when the shitpedo had hit Cole’s hands, he’d automatically grabbed around the object. Just as he’d realized, he’d screamed and jumped for some reason and Kali’s body had hit him right on ground zero. I wasn’t a science genius, but the force of Kali’s jump added onto gravity and the tenderness of a guy’s dick and balls…that had to hurt.

 

We’d just managed to pull ourselves up using the countertops when Cole hit the part of his recount where he described the feeling of a baby turd squeezing through his fingers. Now that had me gagging. Jesus Christ, did the asshole have to be so damn descriptive?

 

“It won’t come off,” he started scrubbing at his hands again which, by this point, were red raw. “What the hell do you feed those kids?” He shot over his shoulder at Luke who was trying to gulp in breaths of oxygen.

 

Sighing, Mom walked over to the cupboard where she kept all of the medical stuff and walked back over with the peroxide. Cole was too busy whining and scrubbing to notice what she was doing until it was too late. She unscrewed the bottle, reached over and pulled his hands out from under the water.

 

“Mom, no. I can still see the shiiiiiiii…OH FUCK ME!”

 

We could see white fizzing on his hands as he ran toward the back door waving them around. Not at all phased by his screaming, the twins sat on the floor laughing and clapping like it was the best thing they’d ever seen. I was inclined to agree and was now laughing that hard that I was scared shitless that I was about to piss my pants.

 

“Well, his hands are clean now,” Mom announced, screwing the cap back onto the top of the bottle.

 

The twin’s laughter was broken by the sound of a body going into the water of the pool. Looking at each other, Luke and I winced waiting for the drama queen to start up again.

 

“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. I’m in shit soup. It’s in my hair. Oh my god, it’s in my eyes. It’s in my mouth.” For a guy who sounded like Minnie Mouse, he could really project his voice when he was covered in shit.

 

“Well, those ribs are definitely off the menu now,” Mom grumbled, making her way over to the twins for a cuddle.

 

“Wait, you’d have still served them if he hadn’t jumped in Turd Placid with them still in his pants?” All of the meals I’d eaten, thousands of plates of food that she’d made us, flashed through my head. What else had happened to it that I didn’t know about?

 

Shrugging, she picked up the twins and carried them toward the room full of baby crap that they had for all of the kids. It was turning into a success commercial for a fertility clinic in my family.

 

“What color Porsche does he want?” I asked Luke, desperately trying to clear my mind of the horrible images going through them of the food I’d eaten here and the possible mishaps. I was gonna get that kid the best car in the history of cars when he was old enough.

 

Without even thinking, Luke gasped out, “Black!”

 

Nodding my head, I turned to walk to the toilet not sure I could hold on any longer. I’d buy that kid the world out of gratitude for the literal shit show that I’d just witnessed. And I was even more adamant now that I was going to have at least one kid as awesome as Luke and Isla’s. I just needed to make sure that the threat to Sabine was gone for good first.