Six

 

 

Just to complete my humiliation, I was now having the three busted stitches in my side fixed by the guy from the photos. Whom I’d just found out was also her neighbor.

 

“I’ll just finish this one and then pad you up with a dressing,” the guy whose name was Finlay, Finlay, informed me as he worked on my side.

 

After I had passed out, he’d come out of his home after hearing noises and seeing the big group of people in front of Sabine’s house, and I’d been carried inside where he’d looked at the damage done to my wound. I’d been out cold throughout this and had only come back around when he was filling the syringe with local anesthetic beside me. I’d, obviously, had a minor freak out, until Sabine had explained that he knew what he was doing and to stop being a ‘fucking baby’.

 

Not wanting to make matters worse for my dignity, I’d lain there while he got to work with my family watching everything. I could have done without Tom’s occasional snorts and laughing out the word ‘dead’ as he lay face down on Finlay’s floor, though. Yes, admittedly the guy was good looking, and yes, he lived next door. And, yes…movement caught my eye and I couldn’t stop the growl that slipped out as he put his hand on Sabine’s leg as she said something.

 

“Control yourself,” Sabine hissed at me, throwing me the evillest glare that I’d ever seen on her face. Unfortunately, she just looked so fucking cute doing it, that I grinned making her scowl harder.

 

“I’ll wrap it tight when I’m done,” Finlay broke into the tension between me and Sabine. “Don’t take the dressings off for twenty-four-hours, though, just to prevent infection and give it time to heal. It had ripped pretty badly,” he muttered, tying off what I hoped was the last stitch. “Unfortunately, I only have these bandages.”

 

My eyebrows almost met in the middle of my forehead as I looked at the lime green bandage with paw prints, fucking paw prints, on it.

 

“Uh, so, how does this guy know what he’s doing?” Gramps asked from behind me. It was punctuated by one of Tom’s snorts and the word ‘dying’ being gasped out, so I gave Gramps the nod seeing as how he was closest to him. Unfortunately, Gramps forgot, either whether it was intentional or not, and kicked him in the ass…right on the bullet cheek.

 

The scream that filled the small living room seemed to echo off the walls and increase in volume as it echoed around us, making us all cringe. Thankfully, Mom took control of the situation and helped him waddle out of the room.

 

“He’s a vet,” Sabine explained once the noise from the big sniveling bitch stopped as Mom closed the door to the other room.

 

“Thank you for your service,” we all replied automatically. It was just the done thing. Regardless of which allied military you served in, you were entitled to that respect and gratitude. I hated him a bit more for it than I already did, though, and then I felt guilty that I felt that way. The guy had risked his life after all.

 

“Which branch?” Gramps, the nosy bastard, queried. “I knew some British military guys once. Really great men. Could drink anyone under the table too. I was also military when I was younger,” he puffed out his chest as we all stared at him. That was a big fucking lie.

 

Cole snorted, “When? The Civil War?”

 

“No, you weren’t, you big fat lying shit,” Grams snapped at him. “You filled in the paperwork, bought the uniform and forgot to hand the forms in. That doesn’t count.”

 

“It wasn’t my fault,” he replied, glaring at her. “They were shut when I went to hand them in.”

 

“Because it was one in the morning and you were drunk out of your skull…” she shrieked, leaning in toward him. “And, you were wearing the uniform that you bought out of a costume store! It. Doesn’t. Count!” Every word was punctuated with a poke to his chest, hard enough to visibly move that side of his body.

 

The look that came over Gramps’ face should have had us all covering our ears. It was the one he got when he had something dirty to say – which happened a lot. With his eyes half mast, he pointed out loudly, “That’s not what you say when you want to play ‘Hiding the General’.”

 

Grams stopped poking him as a blush turned her face pink. “Yeah,” she agreed loudly. “I do like it when we play Finding My Privates.”

 

We all let out a chorus of strangled noises and gags as both Finlay and Sabine turned slowly in Gramps direction looking confused and disgusted.

 

“Um, I’m a veterinarian,” Finlay explained slowly, as if he was explaining something to a child.

 

Once the meaning of what he was saying registered, I couldn’t help the relief I felt knowing that he hadn’t been in the military. The smugness at the fact had me grinning too. Again, I got a dirty look from Sabine, but it just made me grin harder this time.

 

Finlay went back to finishing off wrapping the bandage around my mid-section, but even the paw prints couldn’t ruin the high I was now feeling.

 

“So, does he get a cone of shame too?” Cole asked as he finished sticking the end of the bandage down. “I’m only asking because, it’s raining like a bitch outside and if he looks up for too long that thing will fill up fast.” The saddest thing about it all was that he was fucking serious too.

 

After a couple minutes of us all staring at Cole not knowing what to say, Mom came in and broke the awkwardness that now had Cole shifting from foot to foot.

 

“I’m so sorry, Finlay. I’ve got another one for you,” she sighed, gesturing towards where Tom was.

 

Just as he left the room, Ebru sat down with a loud huff and shouted, “I’m hangry!”

 

Cole was instantly in soon-to-be-father mode. “Where’s the nearest Taco Bell?” He asked as he went into the maps app on his phone. “I’ll get her five of those to tide her over.”

 

“There’s no Taco Bell here,” Maya, who’d been asleep on the couch, explained with a yawn as she stretched.

 

The gasp of outrage and disgust from Ebru teamed with the look of terror on Cole’s face was hilarious.

 

“You big fat lying bitch!” Ebru hissed. The normally sweet woman had bouts of Satan with her pregnancy hormones, and I would have felt sorry for Cole, but I’d had years of his shit so I felt no pity for him.

 

“Who doesn’t have Taco Bell?” he looked out the window like he’d see the magic taco sign beckoning him, saving his life. “That’s…oh shit.”

 

Ebru sat glaring at him and rubbing her stomach periodically, until Sabine said the words that would save Cole’s life, maybe. “There’s a large store not far from here. We can go and see what they have.”

 

And, so started the next fucked up adventure. Before we left, I’d tried to get Sabine alone, but she’d just snapped ‘later’ and had stormed out of the house with the rest of my family. I really should have spared myself the next dose of humiliation, but because Sabine was going, and I’d do anything to stay close to her, I stupidly joined them.

 

Twenty minutes later in aisle four of Morrisons supermarket….

 

“This must be where Dumbledore is from,” Tom announced loudly to us all as we walked around.

 

“Right? That’s what I said,” Cole replied as he looked into a freezer and picked something up. “What the hell are ‘fish fingers’?” He yelled, looking at the box in his hand with disgust.

 

Looking over his shoulder, I shuddered as I saw that he was reading the packaging right. Who the hell made something called Fish Fingers? That was just sick.

 

“Fish sticks,” Sabine replied patiently picking up three boxes of the things. Yeah, no, I wasn’t going there.

 

Things started to go a bit more smoothly after that, or so I’d thought.

 

“Alright, I’ll go and get the bread,” a voice sounded behind the shelving unit separating our aisle from the one next to us making both Cole and Tom gasp.

 

It was familiar, but I didn’t know where from until the big tit twins yelled, “Hagrid!” and ran around the corner, slipping on the shiny tiled floor.

Following at a slower pace, we arrived just as they apologized and walked away from a little old man, who was himself walking like Tom.

 

“It was meant to be Hagrid, but all we got was Dobby,” Cole muttered.

 

Tom was about to answer when he did a double look to his side at one of the shelves.

 

“Chocolate fingers?” It came out so loudly that the old couple that they’d just harassed, and everyone else, turned and looked at us. “Chocolate fingers and fish fingers? What kind of perverted shit is this?”

 

Not one to be outdone in humiliating the ever-loving shit out of us all, Cole then yelled, “Tampax? They do that here too?”

 

“Of course, they do, you window licker,” Ebru snapped. “Women get their periods in every country. There isn’t one country where it doesn’t happen. Therefore, in every country you’ll find tampons and pads.”

 

“But aren’t they Royal here?” he whined, not realizing that the entire store was now staring at us with their mouths open.

 

“What’s that got to do with it?” Ebru continued to push the cart back toward us from where she’d been looking at a box at the end of the aisle. It was now overflowing with crap. “This isn’t for me,” she gestured to it all with her hand as she stopped in front of us. “It’s for the big tittie baby behind me.”

 

Cole was about to respond when Crystal, who had been sitting in the chair in the cart, stole the show.

 

“Fffffffffffff uck,” she shouted in her adorable little Tinkerbell voice, breaking the word into two, and unknowingly opening up one big can of shit for her daddy.

 

Very slowly, we all looked in Ren’s direction who was now backing away shaking his head.

 

“It wasn’t me!”

 

Maya’s face was turning an interesting shade of red as she glared in the direction of her husband.

 

“Fffffffffffffff uck uck uck ffffffffff…” She sang at the top of her lungs, again.

 

Ren pushed past us to where his baby daughter was sitting giggling away now, and started flapping his hands around like he was trying to put out a fire. Unfortunately, he was fanning it instead.

 

“Shhhh, stop,” he was all but begging her while he kept an eye on his wife who was slowly walking toward him. “Please, stop before your mom kicks my ass.”

 

“Ass!” Crystal chortled, actually chortled. From the grin on her face, you’d think she knew the amount of shit she was landing her daddy in, but she couldn’t. Plus, it was Luke and Isla’s evil spawn that were the geniuses of the baby family. “Fffffffffffff uck ass!”

 

“Oh my God,” Maya screeched. It was one of those times when it was meant to be a whisper, but she failed by at least forty levels on the volume scale.

 

Unfortunately, you could still hear Crystal practicing her new vocabulary over the big old ball sack, Gramps, who was laughing his ass off alongside Tom.

 

“Her…her…” Gramps struggled to get it out as he wheezed, and then went into another round of deafening roars of laughter.

 

Throughout it all, I looked longingly toward the exit and wondered if anyone would notice if I just went back home.

 

“Don’t you dare,” Sabine hissed beside me, grabbing my hand. She was breaking my fingers, but I suddenly didn’t care. She was holding my hand and I was too happy to worry about the state that my fingers ended up in. “You brought them, you suffer!”

 

Following where she was looking, I saw that Maya was still standing glaring at Ren, who was now patting his daughter down like he could find an off button. Gramps and Tom had moved so that they were now leaning against one of the shelving units, laughing.

 

“Her first sentence,” Gramps wheezed. “And she says, ‘fuck ass’!”

 

What happened next was a lesson in karma as the shelving units holding up Gramps and Tom gave way. There was a loud crash as they both hit the floor and ended up surrounded by the various types of chocolate fingers.

 

"My ass," Tom howled. “Oh Jesus, my ass. It’s on fire!” He followed it by rolling around on top of the boxes on the floor and grabbing what he could of his butt.

 

“Fffffffffff uck asssssssss!” Crystal squealed, clapping her hands at a rapid rate at the show in front of her and giggling.

 

Seeing people approaching us, including someone who looked like the manager of the store, and then looking at the women standing beside us who were all glaring and grinding their teeth ready to tear into the two cockmuppets, I commenced begging.

 

“Please take me back!”

 

“You want to talk about that here?” Sabine growled, pointing at the window lickers who were picking themselves up off the floor as a crowd started to gather around us. “Your family have just taken down a display in a supermarket, we’re surrounded by chocolate fingers, you…”

 

I saw my chance to interrupt her rant when she took a breath in. “I meant home. Please take me back home. Please, please…”

 

With a sniff, she turned the cart toward the next aisle and walked away from me with the other women following her, leaving the rest of us to pick up a thousand boxes of the chocolate fingers. Before she passed the mountain of old man, twat and chocolate fingers, though, Sabine of course put as many boxes of the fallen cookies in the cart as she could, daring any of us to say anything with the glare she shot at us. Of course, the boxes came from what was left on the shelf, not the mangled ones on the floor.

 

Waiting until they’d rounded the corner, I turned and lunged for the shit heads.

 

“Twat!” Crystal’s third dirty word entered the world in her cute voice. “Twat ffffffff uck ass!”

 

Looking over at Ren and expecting to find him crossing himself or muttering a prayer, I was shocked to find him grinning goofily at us. “I swear she has an advanced vocabulary for a one-year-old.”

 

No shit!

 

Three hours, £507.22 and four near death experiences on the road later…

 

“Okay,” I snapped after everyone had eaten, blood had been spilled and Crystal had been put down for a nap and had thankfully stopped yelling cuss words. “Go out. Go swimming in the sea. Go to a bar. Go to Azerbaijan, I don’t care. Just get o…” I was rudely interrupted by hammering on the door. “Who the fuck is that?”

 

I was swearing for no good reason, but for the love of all things Holy, I needed to talk to Sabine and every time I tried to get her alone, one of the knuckle-draggers interrupted. Last time it was Cole asking how to turn on a faucet in England, in case it was like toilets flushing in the opposite direction like in Australia. I just wanted time alone to explain everything to her.

 

Sighing, Sabine went to the door, walking around legs and bodies on the floor from where everyone was now relaxing.

 

As she opened the door I heard Luke and Isla’s voices, alongside the excited chitter chattering of the demonic twins.

 

“We’re here!” He shouted, like he’d been missed. “It was hell to find y’all, but we made it.”

 

The twins came tearing into the room, screaming and shouting as one accidentally kicked Tom in the ass and the other jumped on him as he flipped to his front on the floor screaming. It was just unfortunate that they landed on his injured ‘bum’ as Sabine had called it, making him scream even louder.

 

Growling, I plonked myself down on the only available chair in the room and watched as Mom got him up and took him next door for Finlay to sew up again. The whole time, the twins looked for a place to sit and then made themselves comfortable, excitedly carrying on like they hadn’t just seen all of us two days ago.

 

All of the adults in the room sat quietly as we watched Tom and Mom pass in front of the window on their way over to the ‘Vets’ house. That got a snort out of me. Good, he had to deal with the douchemonger’s ass, again.

 

"My ass needs attention," we heard Tom whining from outside.

 

“Again?” Came Finlay’s growl. As we were all still watching out of the window, we didn’t miss the horrified looks of the group of old women who were walking past at the time. They were dressed impeccably and even had hats and brooches on. “Hello Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Perkinson, Mrs. Richmond, Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Montague, Mrs. Able.”

 

No amount of pleasantries fixed what they’d just heard, though, because they just gave a sniff and walked away whispering amongst themselves. I frigging enjoyed every second of it, too.

 

“So, has weaksauce here explained and apologized,” Isla asked, pointing in my direction and making me growl again.

 

“No, he hasn’t,” Grams answered. “I don’t know what the delay is either. I mean, just explain how stupid you are and get on with it.”

 

Coleman, whom I hadn’t seen since we’d arrived so I’d assumed he was dealing with our uninvited, well other uninvited, guest from last night, jumped in.

 

“It was my fault.”

 

The silence that followed it was almost hilarious. It lasted a good two minutes while we waited for him to speak again, but when he didn’t Sabine made a gesture for him to continue which was just met with a confused look from the man.

 

“How was it your fault?” She asked him slowly.

 

“I said to do it,” he replied with a shrug.

 

After more silence, Gram snapped.

 

“Okay, you,” she stood up and pointed at me, “explain it because Mongo over there is lost for words.”

 

The reference to the Blazing Saddles character would have normally gotten a snort out of me, but the look on her face was fucking terrifying. I’d seen her in this mood before and it normally ended with one of us getting hit with a wooden spoon. Now, she might be small, old and cute, but holy shit she hit like a linebacker, so I wasn’t going to risk it. I cracked.

 

“I got threats and photos of Sabine with crosses and shit on them,” I stood up and started waving my hands around as everything came pouring out. Normally, I was the calm and put together one of my fucked-up family, but not now. “It calmed down, then came back and it was bad. So, Coleman said the best way to keep her safe was to send her away and make it look like it was legit. Adam had a couple of female friends who agreed to be seen with me in public and we set up press releases and photo opportunities. I was already at the point of flying over here when he,” I pointed at Coleman, “found out you were pregnant. I would have gotten on the plane right then, but I got shot,” I pointed at my side. “And then all you mouth-breathers wanted to come along too,” I stopped ranting and looked down at the floor as I tried to remember what I’d just said in case I’d forgotten anything. Drawing a blank, I took a deep breath and continued, “And Tom got fingered by security because he took it in the ass.” I looked over at Sabine who was now looking at me like I was an alien for some reason. “But, I loved every second that I had you, and I missed you every second that I was away from you. You’re all that there is for me.” I decided to stop there as I saw her face soften slightly and then go back to looking confused. I really had no idea what I’d just said, apart from the ending, so I prayed that I’d gotten all of the facts out properly.

 

“So,” Gram drawled, making me, Ren and Cole wince. This could only end up painfully. “You tried to pull a Luke?” She made it sound like I’d licked a plug socket.

 

“Hey!” Luke sat scowling. He’d been a dick and had attended events with a psychotic bitch when he and Isla had gotten together, but his had been for seriously dumb reasons, not for her safety.

 

I figured that nodding would be the safest response because, at this point, I wasn’t sure if talking would make things better or worse. Again, there was silence as everyone sat thinking about what I’d said even if I couldn’t remember a word of it.

 

“Are you out of your mind?” Gram shrieked.

 

“It didn’t work out well for this shit-shaker, did it?” Isla hissed, waving her hand at Luke.

 

“Hey!” he whined. “I’m right here.”

 

“I know you are, you big tit. That’s why I said it,” Isla snapped at him. The pussy actually sat sulking after that while all of the women continued to rant and throw around examples, calling us all names. I would have been impressed at their creativity as they came up with different names each time, but I was still too worried and focused on what Sabine was thinking.

 

The thud of the stack of papers and photos that Coleman chucked on the coffee table didn’t stop them, but the photos that actually fell over the edge and fanned themselves out over the floor did. The gasps as they all stood and looked down at them was nothing in comparison to the look of fear on Sabine’s face as she took in what had been done to them.

 

"I missed out on going to the Jane Austen museum," Sabine mumbled, still staring at the photos. “I was ready to go. Had my bag and coat, and then Finlay threw the stick at me.”

 

“What the hell?” it came out much louder than I’d intended to, but he threw a stick at a pregnant woman. My pregnant woman.

 

“I peed on it, and c’est tout,” she shrugged.

 

“I think she’s talking about a pregnancy test,” Ren stage whispered and, once again, I was disappointed that I didn’t have an excuse to throttle the pretty boy Finlay. He’d gotten to be there when she found out that she was pregnant.

 

“I hear that the museum is awesome,” Isla added. “Oh, should we go?”

 

While I tried to figure out what Sabine was talking about, the women started to make plans about going to the City of Bath and visiting the Museum and Roman Baths, doing a complete one-eighty on what we’d been talking about.

 

“She’s going down!” Cole bellowed across the room, which was totally unnecessary because we’d all seen her go white and her eyes roll into the back of her head before she collapsed. Fortunately, I was there to catch her. Unfortunately, the stitches in my side didn’t appreciate the impact and decided to let that be known.

 

Laying her down on the floor and taking the cushion that Tom had been using before Twingate to put under her head, I tried to hide the pain that I was in with my side. Cole, the ever-alert ass fiddler, just had to point it out though.

 

“You’re bleeding,” he mumbled around a mouthful of the chocolate fingers he said he’d never touch.

 

Looking down at the mess on my shirt, I nodded and tried not to pass out again. “No shit!”

 

Then, I failed, and out I went.