Strong • W2S

XLII

Chapter Forty-Two

We were only up three times during the night, Harry once and I was up twice and I guess that's a pretty good sleep for me now. In the morning I felt surprisingly well rested, Harry went off to his shoot with the boys after Ethan made them late by blabbering to me about a new girl he'd met a few days ago.

Amy came over early this morning, she'd taken the day off of work to spend some time with me and the bay since I'd rarely seen her lately. Since I was currently on maternity leave and would be for the next few months, she was keeping me updated on all of the office gossip and pretty much just everything that had been happening in the time I've been away so far.
Talia and Freya weren't able to join us, they were both extremely busy and that was understandable considering Freya streamed constantly and Talia had her music, streaming and videos to film as well. Layla was planning on making an appearance late this afternoon after her midwife appointment and since I was feeling pretty good today I went to Tesco with the help of Amy and her fabulous car and got in a massive food shop.
When we arrived back home and I'd put all of the food away, gave Olivia her bottle and settled it, I quickly texted the groupchat inviting everyone over for dinner since I had enough food in the house to feed a small village. It was a warm day outside as well so a perfect excuse to sit out in the garden with a few friends and enjoy the weather while it lasted because we all know how unpredictable the Uk weather could be. They all texted back quicker than I'd expected since I knew they were busy with filming their video, all except from Vik and Jj would be joining us later that evening— god knows what Vik was doing but Jj had training so that was a pretty good excuse.

The boys had ended up finishing earlier than expected meaning I had a garden full of hungry people, a screaming baby who just wouldn't settle for anyone and food that could possibly burn at any given second... I was very stressed but thank god for Layla! She walked in the front door with Cal just at the right time and immediately took over cooking with Amy whilst I took Olivia from Harry and let him relax with his friends and few beers, he deserved this little break after everything he'd helped with recently.

Olivia soon settled so I lay her in the shade with Harry whilst I dished up dinner with the help of the girls.
For the whole night all we did was sit around, talking and laughing, catching up properly with each other and in general just enjoying our time together as a family because that's exactly what we were— a family.
It was different hanging out this time, usually when we all hung out together we'd go out to a club or something but look at us! We've grown... in the three weeks that we hadn't spent any time together as a group.

"Maybe we're just getting old." Amy joked gazing into the fire as she snuggled up closer to Tobi.
"Nah that's just Josh." Simon replied laughing as he sipped on his beer, all the boys were quite tispy and so were the girls except from me... like I said, grown.
"That's a violation! I'm three days older than you!" We all laughed as I watched Roxy running around the garden with her ball. She was such a playful puppy but could be an arsehole when she wanted to be, when I'd first introduced her to Olivia I was scared incase she wouldn't take the change very well but thankfully it was the complete opposite of what I'd originally expected. For being a tiny little dog, she was very protective of the baby. I was glad that she was used to being around everyone or else I feared she'd attack them for holding the baby or even being near her but like I said, she was used to everyone and knew they meant no harm.
"Well I'm gonna head up guys before I get woken up by a screaming newborn in about two hours, thank you for coming— I really needed this." With a smile I stood up from the chair I was sharing with Harry, grabbed my water and began walking around giving everyone a quick hug.
"I'll pop over and see you Friday after work if you aren't busy." Amy told me as we pulled away from our embrace which poor Tobi got squashed in.
"Thanks for finally letting me breathe guys!" Tobi let out a huge breath followed by a chuckle.
"God you're so dramatic sometimes Tobs, right I'll see you all later— oh and Amy that sounds good, just give me a text whenever you get the chance. I love you all!" I walked away from the group and into the house, I didn't know how long they'd stay for but I also didn't mind considering that in the next ten minutes I'd hopefully be fast asleep.