Burning Heart // CL16

Thirty Four

October 16th 2023

"Happy Birthday!" Kiraz yells as she walks into my room and I sit bolt upright as I shush her, looking over at the six month old next to me, still fast asleep. "Oh shit! Sorry!" She whispers as she continues to creep into my room with a grin as she holds a cupcake up to me and I see her phone in her other hand, wait no, my phone not hers. I let out a sigh of relief as I motion for her to come over to me, fixing the nursing bra that I was wearing as I sit up, trying not to wake Bee next to me. "Happy Birthday," she whispers as she sits next to me and passes the cupcake to me with a grin as she raises her phone to capture the image of the three of us in bed as I close my eyes and make a wish.

I wish Charles could see us now. See her now, finally being a perfect tiny angel! She was finally sleeping!

"I love you," I tell her quietly as I sit up and cross my legs, pressing a kiss to her cheek and she just nods with a smile.

"I'm so proud of you... you've had one hell of a year with the birth and then actually raising this little angel. It's truly incredible, then the business - it's doing so good! You're just the most boss babe ever," she says, pausing before saying babe as she tries to moderate her language and I smile at her as I rest my head on her shoulder and she ends the video - passing my phone back to me. I had panicked at first, so concerned about her potentially having a video that could be leaked, either by hackers or her on accident which is why the only evidence of me and Bee was on my phone. Although I sent that video and some photos to others of her saying mama last month, it was sent on WhatsApp and they all agreed that they wouldn't download it onto their phones. It wasn't airtight but I was fairly convinced that it was safe with them, my trusted small circle.

She wasn't wrong either - I really had worked hard in the last year and Grin(d) my coffee company was almost ready to launch publicly - in fact it would be in a couple of months and Christian had already assured me that SnapDragon would be purchasing as well as a few of his friends companies. Mercedes were already receiving it and friends like Carlos and Kiraz were already stocked to the brim whether they liked it or not. The Instagram and socials were already and putting out teasers, creating a buzz very successfully and interest was growing as people found out more about the ethos in the company, despite no one knowing that it was my brand. Just random information being put out about the damage that current coffee companies were doing to the planet or communities it came from, all laying the groundwork for how we were hoping to disrupt the market and do it in a positive way.

It had meant a lot of late nights as I had calls with people all around the world but in November, we would finally officially be launching for more public consumption and I had even bought a small cafe in Edinburgh that was going to be like HQ for the product.

I was also doing better at being social now - nicknamed Al by my other mum friends, I was somehow managing to run under the radar a little bit now. There had been a couple of close calls with photographers trying to get stories but I always managed to kill the story by paying them off quickly although it was very stressful, it was worth it for now. For the most part, people didn't seem to realise it was me, I guess I looked more normal? My hair was still a slightly lighter brown than I guess I was known for and also a bit shorter - coming to midway down my shoulder blade rather than to my waist like it had done before, plus my makeup was rarely done. I was also less tanned and I guess in comparison to my posts - I didn't look like that girl so much in real life. If people did know - then they were crazy good actors and let me pretend that it was a secret.

It was important for Ruby to socialise with other babies and so I put that ahead of my primary fear of being found out and was relieved when I found out that no one seemed to notice. Or care.