Seven

 

 

Thankfully, Ren had taken Brett over to Finlay's house to get his side fixed, again, so I had time to think about what he’d said.

 

I was hurt that he hadn’t taken the time to explain it to me. I was angry that he’d done it. I was also relieved, and it was the relief that was taking over and overshadowing everything else. He hadn’t just used me, I’d actually meant something to him. Then the words he’d thrown at me went through my mind. Throwing the box of Chocolate Fingers that I’d been furiously munching on onto the table, I went to walk out of the door, and then changed my mind and grabbed the last one out of the box before I stormed next door.

 

Finlay hadn’t bothered closing the front door of his house after Brett had been carried over, so I just marched in and went to the office that I knew he’d be working on him in.

 

“Would it kill people not to go near my ass?” Tom snapped as I approached. “It’s been through enough. I mean, can you imagine how painful it is? Every time I bend the hole pulls. Every time I move, it pulls. I can’t even sit or, or…” he trailed off as he tried to think of more, just as I walked around the corner into the room.

 

“Shit?” Colette suggested.

 

“Mom,” he whined from his position on the floor. “You’re not helping!”

 

None of them had seen me yet, so I got to observe as Brett lay on the table with his arm over his eyes while Finlay worked on his side.

 

“Did you get to explain it to Sabine, honey?” his mom asked as she stroked his foot trying to soothe him. Brett was really ticklish on his feet so he kept twitching.

 

“A bit,” he mumbled from under his arm. The only reason I knew that that was what he’d said was because I was watching his lips as he did it. It really hadn’t sounded like that, though. From the way Colette gaped at him and Finlay took a step back, I figured that they hadn’t heard the real words.

 

“Oh nice,” Tom snapped. “You just go ahead and do that. I can’t take a shit because I have a bright pink bandage with paw prints on it across my ass.”

 

Dropping his arm, Brett looked at Tom like he was insane. “I said a bit. What’s that got to do with taking a shit?”

 

"You said you were taking a shit!" Tom argued back, holding his injured bottom cheek and lifting his head slightly. "We all heard it."

 

“To be fair to Tom, honey, I thought you said that too,” Colette explained as she went back to stroking his feet and Finlay went back to fixing the damage.

 

Sighing, Brett went to put his arm over his face just as he saw me standing in the doorway.

 

“Hello,” I walked in and up to the table. I really wasn’t good with injuries and blood, but I wanted to see what had happened to him. The raw wound wasn’t at all what I expected though, and it hit me that he’d actually been shot. A bullet had gone into him.

 

“Don’t cry, baby,” Brett drawled from the table. I hadn’t even realized that I’d been crying until he said it.

 

“You got hurt,” I whispered.

 

I leaned over the table to hug him, needing the reassurance that he was okay regardless of how I felt about our situation right now.

 

“Um, if you could just give me a couple of minutes, I’ll be out of your hair,” Finlay’s mumbled voice came from under my armpit. I hadn’t realized that just as I was bending, he’d bent too to do the last stitch on Brett. Now he had a face full of arm pit, or oxster as my Grandmother had called them.

 

Moving away from the table, I watched as Fin had finished his work, armpit free. Then he opened a box and pulled out a neon pink bandage with paw prints on it.

 

“Sorry, it’s all I have today,” he explained as Brett scowled at him.

 

“I’ve got it on my ass,” Tom grouched. “As if having a second ass hole isn’t bad enough, now it’s padded with the fucking Pepto Bismol version of Marley and Me.”

 

“Are you in a lot of pain?” I asked Brett as I helped him up off the table once Fin had finished.

 

“I am!” Tom snapped as he tried to get up off the floor. Every bend of his back or leg as he got to his knees and then tried to push himself up was met with a moan or a squeal. If the Mahjong Club ladies walked past again they’d think that there was some sort of a BDSM porn thing going on inside the house.

 

“Would you stop,” Brett growled to Tom before turning to me. “No, I’m okay. I’m not a pussy like this shit stain,” he gestured at Tom who gave an audible gasp in outrage.

 

As a group, we walked toward the door and were just out of it and standing in the front garden when Tom started ranting, unable to hold it in any more.

 

“I’ll have you know…” he hissed, “I took it in the ass like a champ, a champ! And each time it’s needed to be redone I’ve taken that like a champ too. So, no, no pussy here!”

 

My grandmother would have been in tears laughing at the look of horror on the club ladies faces by the time Tom was done. As it was, I was laughing so hard I was struggling to breathe and Brett was eyeballing the rolling sea that was just the other side of the road. Colette was looking at her nails and then moved onto inspecting the ends of her hair. I was pretty sure that she had a long list of distractions and excuses with these guys as her kids.

 

Once she realized that the talk about Tom’s ass had stopped, she reached over and grabbed his arm. “We’ll be going now. This one needs a nap. Thank you Fin for fixing him, again. We’d be lost without you.”

 

“Don’t you mean his ass would be lost without him?” Cole shouted from where he was hanging out of the open door to my house.

 

“Jesus Christ,” Fin croaked as he walked back into his own home and slammed the door.

 

Turning around, I saw the back of the Mahjong ladies as they hurried up the road whispering furiously again. Poor Fin was going to have one heck of a reputation now.

 

Finally, being left alone with Brett, I took his hand and led him out of the gate, taking a left so that we went in the opposite direction to the ladies and down to the quayside.

 

We didn't really talk much apart from when I was pointing something out to him. Once we got to the quay, I found a bench that was out of the way of the icy wind and that was actually dry. Sitting down, I watched as Brett tenderly lowered himself to the seat, his side obviously giving him more pain than he was letting on.

 

As soon as his rump touched the wood he started talking. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. When I saw those photos, especially the one where they were behind you when you were getting coffee, I felt sick knowing how easily they could have taken you away from me for good. I tried to keep you safe, but obviously I couldn’t.” Taking a deep breath, he stared out across the quay and then let out a growl as he got up and started pacing. “I failed. I couldn’t keep you safe while I was with you, so when Coleman said this was the only way, I took it. I never touched those women, I swear. They’re actually in a relationship with each other, not that that would have ever crossed my mind to do,” he was panicking as he tried to justify himself, and I felt sorry for him being so tied in knots.

 

“I know you didn’t. I didn’t know that you did it because of that, I thought it was real. Why didn’t you tell me? And why did you throw my,” I looked around to make sure no one else was around, “virginity back in my face?”

 

Angrily raking his hands through his hair, he turned in my direction and I saw how glassy his eyes were, like he was trying not to cry.

 

“That gift meant, still means, everything to me. It tore me apart saying it, but I had to keep you safe. I can’t live without you, Sabine.”

 

Leaning forward, I pressed our foreheads together and sighed. It was complicated, it wasn’t going to be easy, but the second that he’d explained it back at the house, in his really bizarre way, I knew that I was going to be willing to work at it. His words just now had answered the worst of my hurt, so I could take the first step.

 

“Do you still want to be with me?” I whispered the words as quietly as I could, dreading the ‘no’ that he could possibly give me.

 

“Yes!” His tone brooked for no arguments or doubts and the determined set of his jaw backed it up. “There is no one that I want more. No one that I’d rather have. You are it for me.” Placing his hand on my stomach, he continued, “You and our baby are it for me.”

 

Throwing my arms around him, I started sobbing with relief. There was still a lot ahead of us, and we were still in danger as I doubted that the man this morning was the man causing all of the problems that the Townsends had, but I could do it.

 

He was it for me too.

 

Brett

 

After our talk, we’d spent some time just walking around Appledore discussing thing. This was another first for me, spending time together just exchanging childhood stories and taking time away from life to spend together. I also couldn’t remember the last time I went overseas and got to switch off to work and shit going on within the company. Taking in the quaint coastal village, I’d made myself a promise to come here with Sabine and the baby for at least a couple of months every year.

 

Last night, I’d gotten into bed with her, but I’d just held her all night. There was no fooling around, nothing; just the two of us whispering and talking about the baby. I knew that I’d hurt her, so I wanted to earn her trust back and lay the foundations for something solid for us before going back to the way we’d been. It didn’t mean that it had been easy, but I wanted to do things right for Sabine.

 

Today, we’d gone to the City of Bath. There was something magical about the place that I couldn’t put my finger on. Maybe it was the huge cathedral that dominated the skyline or the Roman Baths that were hot when it was freezing. Maybe it was the history attached to the City that Tom had filled us in on as he read from his book while we walked around. After a couple of hours of it, we threatened to shove it up his ass, knowing how sensitive he was about it at the moment. He’d stopped and sulked as he waddled after that.

 

We’d gone to the Jane Austen Museum and I’d gotten to see two pregnant women and an expectant father demolish more cake than I’d ever seen anyone eat in one sitting in my life, and we’d been hungry boys growing up. Cole just had to outdo them, though, and get hit by ‘manning sickness’ aka male morning sickness, once he’d finished. It had taken him half an hour of loud retching to get rid of the half of a cake that he’d eaten.

 

Now, we were on our way home. For some reason, Cole, Tom and Gramps were in the car that was leading us home. I’d tried to argue it, knowing full well that they’d get us lost or killed, but everyone else was too tired and Coleman’s guys wanted to follow at the back of the line of cars, for security reasons, while he drove our vehicle back. Luke and Isla hadn’t even argued when the twins had demanded that they went in the car with Tom. I could have sworn their eyes flashed red as they said it, so fuck knows what state he’d arrive in.

 

Just as I thought that, the car started to swerve from side to side and I could see them all frantically waving their arms around. Coleman, who was driving our vehicle, flashed his lights and indicated with his hand that they pull over.

 

“Could it be a rattler?” Grams asked from the back of the car.

 

“We don’t have them in this country,” Sabine murmured, watching as the car in front finally started to pull over.

 

I left Sabine and Grams hashing out what could be wrong and got out of the vehicle as soon as Coleman had put the brake on. I’d just gotten to the trunk of their car when the doors burst open and the most awful smell hit me. Then, Cole, Gramps and Tom fell out onto the asphalt, gagging and wiping their streaming eyes.

 

“Holy Jesus,” Tom gasped out.

 

“Jesus Christ, Gramps,” I wheezed, moving back from the car to get away from the noxious cloud leaving it. “You need to stop. This shit isn’t funny!”

 

I could hear Coleman gagging behind me as the cloud reached him too. “Why does he always do this?” He choked out.

 

“It wasn’t me,” Gramps muttered as he took in deep lungsful of air. “It was the twins. Something happened to them. They’re broken or something.” Every word was punctuated by a gag or a breath in of air.

 

Pulling my sweater up over my face, I approached the back of the car and peaked around the door to look at the twins. Two little angelic faces looked back at me with big grins. I couldn’t figure out where the stench was coming from until a wet fart noise came from underneath Kali and then Dewi’s face went a dark shade of red. Jumping back and covering my face, just in case, I stayed like that until I was sure I wasn’t going to get covered. Lowering my hands, I looked back at the twins and saw a brown cloud shaped mark on Kali’s side.

 

“Oh my God, they had a blow out,” Luke groaned beside me. When he’d actually walked up beside me, I didn’t know, but these were his kids, his issue. I was about to walk away when he said the words that would just make this the most awesome situation ever. “We don’t have any diapers or clean clothes. We used the last in Bath.”

 

“I’m out,” Tom yelled and turned toward the other cars.

 

“Me too!” Gramps started to follow behind.

 

“Uh, sorry, there’s no space in the cars. You’ll have to stay in this one,” Coleman moved so that he blocked their paths to the other vehicles.

 

“But I don’t want to,” Gramps whined, actually whined, and stomped his foot.

 

Not saying another word, we all turned and got back into the cars and waited for twats one, two and three to brave the brown Carrie situation going on in their own vehicle.

 

“Your family has too many incidents with shit, farts and their asses,” Coleman informed me grimly, and I had to agree.

 

After watching them pull a Kleenex apart and stuffing it up their nostrils, followed by Tom and Cole taking off their sweaters and tying them around their faces, they finally got in and we got back on the road.

 

“Oh look, it’s twatito bandito,” Grams snorted as Gramps opened the window and sat with his head out of it like a dog.

 

We continued like that for around two miles, when we were joined by a police car signaling Cole to pull over to the side of the road.

 

Getting back out of the car, Coleman and I got there just as the Police officer reached Cole’s window.

 

“Awrite mate. Do you know why we…oh bloody hell!” He jumped back and brought his arm across his nose to hide from the stench. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or not, but I could have sworn that it had gotten worse since I’d last smelt it.

 

“Yeah,” Cole sighed as he got out of the car and breathed deeply. “That’s why we look like the bandits Sesame Street forgot and why he looks like the oldest Yeller you’ve ever seen with his head out of the window,” he gestured his thumb in the direction of Gramps.

 

“Today’s episode was brought to you by the letters s-h-i and t,” Gramps added weekly, ending it with a gag as the next explosion sounded from one of the twins behind him. Tom had his forehead resting on the ledge of the door, window wide open, and was taking gulps of clean air as the twins farted and babbled away.

 

Shaking his head and waving a hand in front of his face, the officer told Cole that as the driver, he couldn’t cover his face like he had as it was against the law. He ended it with a quick warning as the next farting explosion filled the car, before legging it back to his car.

 

When we finally got home, Isla and Luke took them straight to the bathroom to wash them down and Mom took their clothes out to the garbage can, sealed in a bag. No amount of washing would have saved them. As it was, they were going to have to buy the rental company new seats to replace the ones that the twins had ruined today and it was undecided if the smell would ever leave the vehicle.

 

As we waited, it was decided that none of us had the energy to cook, so we would have fish and chips which Tom, Cole and Ren would go and collect from the shop. They got back with it all just as a pair of shiny, shit free twins and their parents came back down.

 

“When you said chips, I thought you meant chips,” Tom said around a mouthful of the potato goodness in his mouth. “Why don’t they call them what they are?”

 

“The only language that makes sense when you talk of that food is French. They call them pommes frites, which means fried potatoes. Why would they be called chips or French fries?”

 

“Okay, what about the word jumper? Every time I hear that, I think of a suicidal person,” he argued back.

 

“Well, doesn’t sweater sound like someone with perspiration problems?” Sabine raised her eyebrow, daring Tom to dispute it.

 

After thinking so hard that people in Australia would see the smoke signals coming out of his ears with the burning, he finally came up with a comeback. “What’s an aubergine?” He’d seen it at the supermarket the day before and it had been a huge source of confusion for him since.

 

“Why an eggplant? There are no eggs in it,” she retorted, not missing a beat.

 

“Oh, oh, I have one – why call it a boot? It’s not a shoe, it’s part of your car.”

 

“I will grant you that one,” she nodded.

 

“And, and,” Tom was really getting into this now. “Why do you add letters to words? What’s with all of the u’s and aluminium?”

 

“Actually, we’re both wrong on that one,” Cole spoke up. “The original word was alumium after it was discovered in 1812.”

 

The entire room, including the twins and Crystal, stopped talking and stared at Cole who just shrugged and went back to rubbing his stomach. He’d eaten almost two portions of fish and chips, and I don’t care what people say about the size of British portions being tiny - those fish and chips were huge.

 

When the silence dragged on, he sighed and looked up and shook his phone at us.

 

“Thank fuck for that,” Maya whispered loudly. “The world can now breathe a collective sigh of relief. Lint licker over there having a brain would only equal trouble.”

 

“Hey,” he snapped. “I have a brain.”

 

“Of course, you do, baby,” Ebru reached over and rubbed his stomach as she said it. The noise that came out of him as she did it was almost like a purr.

 

“Back to the British-American debate,” Tom brought all of our attentions back to him. “So, the extra letters. Why?”

 

“I have no idea,” Sabine shrugged. “But you remove letters. Like caramel.”

 

“Cara what?” Tom looked confused. “See, there you go adding letters again. It’s carmel.”

 

“Actually, the British are right here,” Cole muttered looking at the screen of his phone. “Caramel was originally named by the French. Carmel is what we call it. Well I’ll be damned, there’s an entire site dedicated to this shit.”

 

Knowing that if we didn’t move the conversation along quickly that Cole would be reading us all of the words and it would end up in a heated debate, I changed the subject.

 

“What are the plans for tomorrow?”

 

“I wanted to take you to Lyme Regis, to the Jurassic Coast, at some point. I know you all want to go to London too, though, so it depends on which one you would like to do first,” Sabine looked at the group and waited for them to make up their minds.

 

“Wait, there’s a Jurassic Coast?” Tom and Cole looked at each other and back again. They loved the Jurassic Park movies and had dragged us to more dinosaur exhibitions that we could count. “As in seriously Jurassic?”

 

“Yes,” Sabine replied slowly. “As in – dinosaurs. This is what Jurassic is, no?”

 

I tuned out the arguing that followed as the women tried to get us to go to London first and then the Jurassic place later on in the week. Picking up my phone, I did a Google search on what I wanted in London and placed the order. I had to do this right. The place said the item would be ready the day after tomorrow, so that was that.

 

Coleman had grabbed me earlier and had told me that our uninvited guest from the other morning had finally spilled and that he had been hired by an American to get as close to Sabine as possible. He knew that he was working on his own though, and Coleman and his men had reviewed all security footage which had proven his claim, so I was breathing a little easier. Yes, there was still someone after my family, but now I could actually see Sabine and keep her safe. Plus, we were surrounded by a team of security experts, so I felt more relaxed than I had in a long time and I wanted to do this now. I needed to do it now.

 

“Actually, with the twin’s stomachs, I think we should hold off on a trip tomorrow just to give them a little bit longer to settle,” Isla saved me from announcing the decision to the group. I knew if I’d suddenly stepped in and said no to going to London tomorrow, that they’d have a million questions why and then the whole thing would be ruined. After a chorus of understanding noises, she asked Tom, Gramps and Cole, “What happened, anyway?”

 

“They got hungry,” Tom explained. “I still had the bags of munchies that Ebru had been carrying around, so I gave them something to eat. It was like maybe five-minutes later that they just shit everywhere!”

 

“What did you feed them?” Luke asked.

 

“Um, let me think. Oh, the breadsticks and then some strawberries. You said not to give them kiwi’s because they were allergic, and there wasn’t any of that in there…”

 

“You gave them strawberries?” Isla gasped. “I told you they were allergic to Kiwi’s and strawberries!”

 

“Nuh uh, you did not,” Tom shook his head adamantly. “You said okay to strawberries and no to kiwi’s. You heard it, right?” He looked over at the two other occupants of the car who were looking blank. They obviously hadn’t been paying attention at all, so everything being said was news to them.

 

“I said strawberries and Kiwi’s,” Isla stood up and put her hands on her hips, glaring at Tom.

 

I’ll give him credit, the guy tried to get up off the floor so he could adopt the same fighting stance, but squealed when he tried. This was how it had been all day; I’m sure that the people of the City of Bath would remember us for a long time thanks to this special snowflake.

 

“You did not,” he argued from his place on the floor after rolling back onto his front.

 

“Well, you brought it on yourself,” she sniffed as she sat back down again. Luke was sitting glaring at Tom, as was Ebru.

 

“You fed them my strawberries,” Ebru hissed. Obviously, this was worse than feeding them to kids who were allergic to them. “I was looking forward to those.”

 

Realizing he’d be screwed taking on a pregnant woman, Tom just sniffed and buried his head back in the neck pillow, before pulling back and looking at it funnily.

 

“Does this smell…off to anyone else?” He asked the group. We all looked at Gramps whose mouth was twitching as he stared at the wall. He’d decided that wooden toilet seats were barbaric and had taken Tom’s neck roll into the toilet with him that morning to ‘cushion the shitter’. That would account for it smelling off, in fact, it would probably glow in the dark when the lights were off.

 

“So,” Sabine’s voice sounded a bit wary, which was understandable with the angry pregnant woman and the angry mother of the shit twins still glaring at Tom. “We go to London the day after tomorrow?”

 

After everyone had either murmured their agreement or nodded their heads, she relaxed next to me on the couch. Wrapping my arm around her shoulders, I pulled her closer and breathed in the smell of her hair. I would admit (to myself only) that I’d taken her pillow from the Houston house back to the ranch with me just so that I could smell her. It had worn off after a week and now just smelt like a pillow that needed washed, but it still had her on it so I hadn’t changed it. Now, the instant calmness that swept over me as I breathed her in was crazy.

 

Putting my hand on her stomach over where I figured the baby was, I closed my eyes and thought about the trip to London. I wasn’t going to fuck this up. In fact, I was going to make sure she knew exactly how I felt about her…that’s if my family didn’t fuck it up for me.