Eight

 

 

When we’d all woken up this morning, I hadn’t wanted to get out of bed. I’d spent another night holding Sabine and even though my dick was aching, I had loved every second of it. I’d even gotten to hold her hair out of her face when she was sick, something which had scared the shit out of me because she hadn’t done that since I’d been with her. Apparently, it was all okay though, and that the morning sickness reared its ugly head periodically.

 

I’d been ready to take her to hospital in case it was food poisoning or something worse, but the women had calmed me down and explained that it was ‘normal’. Normal my ass - that amount of puking first thing in the morning wasn’t ‘normal’. I had watched her closely all morning, but then she’d suddenly jumped up and decided that we all needed to go for a pub lunch.

 

This time, I was driving, not Cole. I’ll grudgingly admit that I almost fucked up and drove on the wrong side of the road a couple of times too. This opposite road shit just didn’t come naturally after you’d spent your entire life driving on the other side.

 

When she’d told us where we were going, no one had believed that a place would be called that, but low and behold, we were now sitting in a pub in a place called ‘Westward Ho!’. It even had an exclamation mark as part of its name.

 

Once we had ordered and had all gotten comfortable at the table, Tom immediately started talking about the names of places and roads in the U.K.

 

“Look at this Welsh one and try and pronounce it,” Maya chuckled, handing her phone to Tom and Cole, who was sitting beside him.

 

“Llllll…Lanfair….pwllgwyn…there’s no freaking way that that’s a legit town name,” he growled.

 

“It is,” both Maya and Sabine replied at the same time.

 

“How the shit are you meant to pronounce that?” Cole asked passing the phone around all of us.

 

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch? Nope, I had nothing!

 

After throwing out a few more road and place names, our food arrived. We’d decided on their daily special of the seafood platter as a starter and five of them were placed along the table while the kids had chunks of apple and carrots.

 

Looking around, I could see that our choice was the popular one in the bar with pretty much every table loaded up with the platter too. We’d obviously chosen well.

 

We all reached over and loaded up our plates apart from Cole, who sat staring at the plates like they were poisonous snakes.

 

“Why you not eating?” Tom asked around a mouthful of food. It was disgusting, I could see the partially chewed smoked salmon and fuck knows what else all rolling around inside his mouth.

 

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Mom told him off, glaring. It was one of her rules - proper table manners. No if’s, and’s or but’s.

 

“But, Mom,” Tom continued to talk with his mouth full of seafood. “I’m masticating!”

 

“Jesus,” Gramps hissed and pushed his chair away from Tom. “We’re in a bar you dirty bastard. And there are kids right there! Keep your hands above the table.”

 

Cole ignored the argument going on beside him and continued to stare at the food, looking disgusted. I stopped chewing and looked down at my own plate of the stuff, hoping that if he’d seen anything wrong that he’d have told us before we tucked in.

 

“What is it?” Ebru finally asked, bringing even Gramp’s and Tom’s attention back to him as Cole covered his mouth.

 

“I can’t eat that!” He was sounding nauseous and panicked as he shook his head.

 

“Why not?” Mom asked, passing him a glass of iced water. The guy looked like he was gonna throw up all over the place.

 

“Because!” He looked nervously over at the kids who were babbling away and shoving apples in their mouths.

 

“Because what?” Mom pushed.

 

“Just because, okay,” he hissed as he reached for the water and took a big gulp of it.

 

“Does it look off?” I asked worriedly seeing as how my pregnant woman was currently eating a plateful of the shit.

 

“No, it’s not that,” he muttered, looking back over at the kids again.

 

“For the love of everything holy, will you just spit it out!” Gramps snarled. He was hangry and this was holding him up because if Cole was going to say he saw something crawling over the food or that it didn’t look right, there was no way anyone wanted a mouthful as they heard that news.

 

We all started to ask him what the hell was wrong when he finally snapped. “Because it’s like the entire cast of the Little Mermaid. You’re eating pretty much all of the characters, okay?” He started pointing out pieces of seafood as he explained his problem further. “There’s Flounder, there’s Sebastian,” he pointed at the lobster. “Oh, and that’s probably Ariel herself!” Unfortunately, out of frustration, he pretty much bellowed it, so every patron in the pub, and their kids, heard it.

 

Suddenly the chorus of kids screaming and crying because they were eating the Little Mermaid characters filled the room, ours included.

 

“Guk ne fuck,” Tom whined around a huge mouthful of the food before spitting it out on his plate. “Sebastian! Flounder!” He said before gagging and then went running in the direction of the restrooms.

 

Sighing, I sat back and wondered for the billionth time why they had decided to torture me by hijacking my trip here.

 

Looking over at Sabine to gauge her response to the recent family fuck up, I saw her staring down at her plate looking guilty, before taking a forkful and shoving it in her mouth. Well, at least he hadn’t put her off seafood for life too.

 

The next day, London…

 

I’d broken off from the group and, using the maps app on my phone, had found the shop I’d placed the order with. It was now sitting in my pocket, safe and sound.

 

Now to decide what to do with it.

 

We’d agreed that we’d meet at Buckingham Palace, so I took a slow wander toward it, enjoying the sights around me. As I walked toward the Palace, I couldn’t help slowing and staring at it. Obviously, everyone has seen it in photographs or on the news, but seeing it in real life was something else.

 

After queuing up and paying the fee to get in, I walked toward the shop. I knew from the text that I’d gotten before I arrived that most of the family were in there, but more importantly, that’s where Sabine was.

 

Walking around the corner, I saw her and the other ladies watching Grams who was talking to some old chick. Getting a bit closer, I realized it was actually an argument - in the middle of Buckingham Palace.

 

“Well I never!” The old lady gasped, putting her hand up to the scarf around her neck.

 

Turning my back on the arguing duo, I looked over Sabine to make sure she wasn’t feeling sick or looking like she was going to run for freedom. Nothing could have tuned out what was going on behind me, though.

 

“Oh, I’ll just bet you have,” Gram snapped. “You’re nothing but a hoochie patoochie mama.”

 

“Please tell me she’s not doing the head and hand movements too,” I begged Sabine who looked a perfect mixture of amused and horrified at the same time.

 

“The circular head one?” I nodded. “Yes, she’s still doing it with her palm held up in the woman’s face.”

 

“Jesus,” I muttered.

 

That wasn’t the worst thing, though. Again, if I’d known that what was about to happen was going to happen, I’d have left them at home. Or divorced them.

 

I should really get a lawyer.

 

HURST TOWNSEND

AKA GRAMPS

 

It was an impressive house, I’d give the Queen that. Following behind the tour guide, I switched off and took shit in. Maybe a bit too much gold? That chair over there though, Linda would love it! It was high backed and had a ton of padding under the red velvet. I wonder where they got it from?

 

“Over here is the throne that the Queen sits on for official duties and photographs,” the tour dude said, pointing at the chair I’d just been looking at. Oh, Linda would definitely love that big sucker too.

 

I was just about to ask where I could buy one, when I saw the crest on the wall.

 

“Cole, check it out. That should be above your door at home, it’s got a unicorn on it!”

 

He followed where I was pointing and just shook his head. The guy was bored to shit, but the women had made us come here and had then gone to the shop while we got stuck with this boring shit head. Story of my life, this is what always happened at times like this. Unless it was the White House, Linda was the one banned from that place, not me.

 

Finally, making it around the entire fucking place, he brought us to a staircase with the most awesome bannister I’d ever seen in my life. Age be fucked, I was gonna own that railing.

 

Nudging Cole, I pointed over at it. He immediately knew what I was gonna do because he was shaking his head faster than should have been humanly possible.

 

Laughing at the waste of movement, I walked up to it, turned around and placed my leg over it and let go.

 

“Hell yes,” I shouted half way down. They must really polish this sucker because the one at home took way longer to get down. I didn’t even get splinters from this one. “Lindee look, watch meeeeeeee,” I waved at her on my way down. She was staring through the tiny glass window of the shop with her arms full. Getting to the bottom, I jumped off and turned around to take a bow.

 

Standing back up again, I came face to face with a pissed off policeman.

 

“Would you kindly come with us, Sir,” he gestured to the three others standing beside him.

 

“English bobbies! Holy shit, I need my photo taken with y’all.” I could just see it on the wall at home. “Cole, Tom, Jack – take a picture!” I yelled up at them, but they all had their backs turned to me and were looking at the wall like it was a Picasso.

 

Thinking back to where I’d hang it, I wasn’t paying attention when one of them got a pair of cuffs out of the holder on his vest.

 

“Okay, Sir. You’re under arrest for…”

 

Oh shit, Linda was gonna kill me. Chancing a glance over at the glass window, I saw her looking over at a wall and when the assistant came over and pointed at me, I clearly saw her shrug her shoulders and say something. I was also pretty fucking sure I’d seen her say, “I’ve no idea who he is,” before going back to picking shit up.

 

Turning around to look at the boys, who were still walking around and faking interest in the shit around them, I realized I was on my own. Sighing, I held out my hands and watched as they secured the cuffs around my wrists.

 

“So, funny story…” I started as they led me toward a door with a signing saying Private on it.

 

The whole time I was waiting for at least one of my family to come to my rescue. Would it have killed them to say they were my carers or something? I’d done it for them plenty of times in the past. Betraying bastards!

 

 

BRETT

Eight hours and one Police caution later…

 

“No, I’m not talking to you,” Gramps huffed as Gram sat down next to him. “You left me in the Tower of London with no food, no clothes and a big black bird that was eyeing me like I was his next meal.” Mom handed out plates of spaghetti to us all and sat down next to Dad to watch the show in front of us – my grandparents. “That man tried to have sex with me,” Gramps added indignantly.

 

“Shut up, you old fool,” Grams said calmly as she twisted the pasta around her fork. “He was frisking you just like when you get stopped and patted down in the States. You were taken to the Police room in the Palace, which was really nice. You also had ‘coffee and biscuits’ according to the officer that I spoke to. In fact, you ate all of their biscuits.”

 

Huffing again, he muttered about chocolatey covered goodness cookies as he shoveled a fork full of the noodles and sauce into his mouth.

 

We were all eating in silence and thinking over the day we’d had when Gram made a noise and we all looked up. She had dropped sauce on her chest, and was muttering about thankfully not dropping it on the white shirt that she was wearing. Getting her finger, she swiped it up, put it in her mouth and continued eating. Looking over at Gramps, I saw the look on his face as he watched all of this and licked his lips.

 

Warily, I picked up my fork knowing I should look away from the old crusties in front of me, but it was like a freak show – you just couldn’t look away. A quick glance at the rest of the room showed that I wasn’t the only one with the problem.

 

Almost like it was planned, a noodle then fell off her fork and onto the same spot that the sauce had.

 

Just as she moved to pick it up and eat it, Gramps made a noise again.

 

“Jesus,” he groaned. “It’s like the most amazing porn ever. I’m getting all excited here.”

 

There was a mass exodus as we all tried to get out. Tom was gagging and limping, but Cole had just opened the window and was bent out of it throwing up into the plants outside.

 

“You deal with them,” Mom snapped at Dad as he tried to push past her. “They’re yours, so you stay with them, you freaky bastard.”

 

“But, I don’t want them!” Dad whined and pushed harder.

 

Giving him a shove back, we closed the door and Ren and I held onto the handle so that he couldn’t open it.

 

Dad started yelling through the door at the same time as he tried to frantically get out. “No, stop! Oh God, stop. You’re too old for that.”

 

I’d almost started to feel sorry for the guy and was loosening my grip on the handle, when we heard a voice that we’d forgotten was in there.

 

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” Cole gagged. “I can’t…stop it,” he shrieked. There was a thud and a couple of seconds later someone started to hammer at the front door frantically.

 

Opening it slowly, Cole walked in with a couple of leaves in his hair and mud and crap all over his jeans.

 

“You’re all dead,” he growled as he launched himself at us.

 

 

Somehow, after the horror of the night before, I slept without having any nightmares. After spending another hour apologizing to Sabine for my family, but hugely grateful that this one didn’t involve shit for once, she put my mind at ease and promptly passed out. The pregnancy was taking its toll and she could pretty much sleep constantly now.

 

The morning was puke free too, well from Sabine. Cole on the other hand was still suffering from morning sickness, the pussy. Call me a cynic, but come the fuck on - men don’t get that shit. He was just being a drama queen. Listening to him barf in the bathroom was a great wakeup call and killed my morning wood better than sticking it in iced water would have.

 

Rolling over, I watched as Sabine woke up, grinning at the cute little noises she made as she scrunched her nose up and stretched at the same time. The movement tightened her top across her stomach and I saw the little bump that was our baby. Putting my hand on it, it hit me that I really had no idea what the fuck happened during a pregnancy apart from the baby growing.

 

“When will it kick?” I asked as I rubbed the bump. I wasn’t blind to the fact that her tits had grown too, a lot, and that the top was tight across them, but Jesus I was trying to be a gentleman here.

 

“Well, I’m at sixteen-weeks now,” she replied and reached for the What to Expect When You’re Expecting book beside her. “Uh,” she flipped through the pages. “Ah, here. Normally, at around twenty-weeks you can just feel it kicking, but most typically don’t feel it until around twenty-four weeks.”

 

“Oh,” I was disappointed. I hadn’t been there for a scan or for any of the appointments and I wanted to be part of it. I wanted to see the baby moving or hear its heart beating. I wanted to be a part of everything.

 

“I have an appointment this afternoon,” she said quietly, like she was unsure. “Would you like to come?”

 

My head snapped up and I jumped out of bed. “What time? We have to get ready!” Running out of the room, I hammered on the door where Cole was still bringing his sphincter out of his mouth. “Hurry up!” I yelled, before running back into the room. “Okay, what do I have to do?”

 

Sabine was still in bed laughing her ass off at me. “Nothing,” she snorted. “It’s not until twelve-thirty. We have three hours.”

 

“Three hours?” I could wait that long couldn’t I?

 

Turns out I was wrong. After getting Cole out of the bathroom, I jumped in and got ready before pulling Sabine in and putting her under the shower. By the time she was dressed, I was fit to be tied.

 

“We have to leave. We only have,” I looked at my watch, “holy shit, an hour and a half. Let’s go!”

 

I got her out of the door and in the car alone, which had involved getting Coleman to bring the car around and then locking my family in the house as we left. There was no way they were joining us on this.

 

Looking at the window where they were all standing glaring out at us, I gave them a smug smile and a wave as we pulled away.

 

Coleman’s men were under strict orders not to let any of them know where we were going, too. This was our time with our baby and no way was I going to let them ruin it.

 

 

Hearing the baby’s heartbeat was the most amazing thing that I’d ever experienced in my life, until I saw my baby on the screen during the scan that was.

 

There was this perfect little human being growing inside Sabine. I could see their heart beating, their fingers, their legs and…” Oh Jesus, they have a nose!” I croaked. You could see its nose.

 

The sonographer burst out laughing and replied, “Yes, there’s a nose. In fact, there are all of the body parts.” Picking up the file beside her, she scanned through some of the papers and frowned. “Huh, it says here that you should be sixteen plus three,” looking back at her measurements on the screen she shook her head. “I’m measuring eighteen plus four?”

 

What the hell were all these numbers and pluses? “What the shit does that mean?” I asked looking back at the screen in a panic. “Is that bad? Should they be a minus?”

 

She started laughing again with Sabine joining her this time, getting a glare from me in return. I’d never been faced with this shit in my life so I had no clue what they were talking about.

 

“No, this is good. It just means that the gestation date is further along than we thought.”

 

“The what?” I looked between the women confused. It sounded like some sort of alien type shit to me.

 

“Gestation,” Sabine said slowly. “That’s how long the baby has been growing for,” she explained and then turned back to the sonographer. “Could it be that the baby is just big? Look at its father!” She gestured back to me and I couldn’t stop myself from standing up straight and puffing out my chest with pride. Yeah, I was a big guy!

 

“Yes, it could be that too,” she nodded. “But the overall development of your baby puts it at eighteen plus four. That would mean that your due date is,” she played with a wheel beside her. “October thirty-first.”

 

“Oh shit,” I took a step back and grabbed a handful of hair with each hand. “Does this mean that our kids going to be like Damian in that movie?” I made a stabbing motion with one of my hands. I knew what I meant, and fucking hell, having a baby at Halloween could only mean that, right?

 

Both women gave me a look like I was the one with issues, and then turned back to the screen.

 

“Would you like me to move onto 3D scanning?” She asked, almost bouncing in her seat. “That means we could get a close up of baby’s,” she pointed at her crotch and gave Sabine a pleading look. “I know some people don’t want to know, but I love finding out and telling parents-to-be.”

 

Looking at her closely, it dawned on me that she looked quite young, younger in fact than I’d initially thought.

 

“How old are you?” I asked suspiciously. I mean, she was close to my baby and my woman. What if she slipped with the scanning wand thingy?

 

“Twenty-three,” she replied as she switched to 3D after getting the nod from Sabine.

 

“Are we finding out?” I asked her. I hadn’t expected this. I wasn’t prepared. Would she find devil horns? It’s amazing how irrational a sane man can become when he was faced with shit that he knew nothing about. This was Cole’s department, not mine!

 

“I really want to,” She murmured looking up at me. “Can we please?”

 

A seat hit the back of my knees and I realized that the sonographer had seen how pale I’d gotten and had pulled the one from the other side of the room over for me. I was grateful for it because at that exact moment, both of my legs gave out at once and I plonked down onto it.

 

Waiting for my answer, which was a weak nod, she walked back around the bed and began the scan. It was the strangest thing seeing an orange-yellow screen with this little Gremlin alien looking thing. At first, I thought she’d gotten it totally wrong and was looking at a kidney or something, but then I started to make out eyes, a nose, a tiny little lip… Feeling that I was crying, I tried as discretely as I could to wipe my eyes.

 

The sonographer went over everything and pointed out different things to us just as the baby made a waving movement with its hand.

 

“It’s waving at me,” even I could hear the wonder in my voice, and I’m sure I looked like a dribbling window licker, but I didn’t care. “Our baby is advanced,” I stated proudly, looking down at Sabine. All of the love that I knew I felt for her already just came rushing forward and I leaned down and gave her a kiss.

 

It was brief, it was nothing that Hollywood would produce movies based on in years to come, but it conveyed all the feelings that I had. I knew that was true when I pulled back and looked down at her again and saw her staring up at me with tears in her eyes.

 

“Okay, folks,” the sonographer broke the moment. “Are we definitely finding out?” She turned and looked at us with a huge grin. We both nodded back at her making her grin even wider. “Here goes, my lovelies!” There was some clicking and we saw more of our baby as she moved the wand lower. I don’t know how she made it out, but obviously what she was looking at made sense to her, because she squealed and filled us in. “Well, we have a boy. That is definitely a little peeny weeny!”

 

“Can you give us a minute?” I asked her. I had a sudden feeling of urgency, I had to have this moment with her right now.

 

I caught the Sonographer’s eye and moved my hand so she could see what I had and why I was asking her to leave so abruptly.

 

“Oh yes,” she nodded and moved the wand so that the baby’s face was now on the screen. Picking up Sabine’s right hand, she told her, “Hold this right here so you can see baby while I’m outside. Shout me when you’re done.” And with that she hurried out of the room leaving a confused Sabine with a sweating me.

 

“Luke, what’s going on?” She sounded worried and I wanted to kick myself. She was safe though, that was the priority.

 

“Sabine,” I started and then walked around the bed to get closer to the screen with my son, holy shit my son, on it. “I’m sorry, so fucking sorry I can’t put it into words. But you’re safe, and from now on I’ll keep you safer than safe. Nothing will ever get to you.” I grabbed her left hand, pulling it across her body to me. “I love you more than I can say. In fact, I’ve loved you since the second I met you. The last three months have been hell and I’ve missed you so much; hell, I even slept with your pillow!” She looked at me like I’d grown a second head when I said that, but I just shrugged because I wasn’t ashamed of my feelings. “I can’t imagine spending any more of my life without you and I don’t want to even spend a minute without you,” I continued rambling. I knew what I wanted to get to, it was just finding the words to fucking get there. “What I’m saying is, and badly,” I cringed. “Will you marry me?”

 

She lay there absorbing everything I’d said until she got to the actual proposal and her eyes widened in shock. They almost popped out of her head when I lifted my hand and held the ring up. I knew she had her grandmother’s wedding ring and loved it, but she’d never wear it because it was in gold and Sabine didn’t wear that. I’d found a white gold version of it in an antique shop in London, it hadn’t even been hard to find so I’d taken it as a sign.

 

Well, at least I had taken it as a sign. The longer she stared at it, the more I sweated and started to doubt my choice as I waited for an answer.

 

“Yes,” the word finally came out so quietly that I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.

 

“Yes?”

 

Nodding her head rapidly, she held her hand out and made a noise of impatience. Slipping the ring on her finger and seeing that it fit her perfectly, all of the tension left me and a feeling of everything being right replaced it. The relief almost had me collapsing at the side of the table.

 

Her hand moved quickly after it as she grabbed the neckline of my shirt and pulled me so that we were face to face. “But, if you ever, ever, throw me away again, ever keep me out of the loop again, I will cut your balls off and paint them into Christmas decorations. Comprendre?”

 

I tried to hold the groan back when she spoke that single French word, I really did, but I failed miserably causing her to glare at me.

 

“Yes, I promise,” I nodded, giving her an innocent grin in return.

 

There was a timid knock at the door and the young sonographer poked her head around it with a grin. “I might be getting into a tidge bit of trouble if I let this go on any longer. Are we all done?”

 

Looking back down at Sabine and seeing her grinning over at the girl and holding her hand up, I looked back at the screen at my son and said the first thing that came to mind.

 

“Ren’s gonna have a shit fit when he finds out.”

 

Her excited nod showed exactly why we got along so well. She was looking forward to rubbing it in his face too.