Always | Protector 3.3 (#Wattys2018)

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Jerome

       Nolan suddenly roughly closed his laptop shut before throwing it beside him on the couch. He then huffed and leaned back in the couch before saying, "I can't wait for this term to be over," he said. "Only two weeks of classes left."

       "And then your exams," I said.

       Nolan groaned. "Don't remind me. I'm just happy the creative writing professors never give final exams. At least, the ones I've had so far never gave them. Only a final portfolio or project of some sort."

       "Yeah, I would rather do a portfolio than an exam, so you're lucky," I said.

       "I'm not lucky," Nolan said. "I feel like dropping out of university."

       I furrowed my eyebrows. "Why? Nolan, come on, you're half way done. Don't drop out now."

       "I'm not halfway done," Nolan said. "I may have finished two years, but I didn't take too many classes to begin with. I still have a long way to go, so I might as well drop out now."

       "You're not dropping out," I said. "I'm not going to let you."

       "You can't force me to do anything."

       "Nolan, seriously, I don't want you dropping out when you've already made it so far," I said. "Dropping out after the first year is understandable because that's when people realize university isn't for them, but you really want to get a degree in creative writing."

       Nolan sighed. "I know I do. Things have just gotten a lot more tough since we adopted Kingsley. I mean, I love him and anything and I wouldn't give him up for anything, but I've been feeling a lot tired throughout the classes. Now I know why Mae wanted to wait until after university to have a baby, and lucky they did because they had twins."

       "Well, just think," I said. "You're not going to be taking summer courses, so that will give you a lot more time to spend with Kingsley and get used to always being tired."

      "Yeah, true," Nolan said. "Remind me why we decided to become parents almost immediately after getting married."

       "What happened to being the smart one?" I asked. "Almost immediately? We were married for over a year when we adopted Kingsley."

       "Oh, right."

       "And didn't your parents have you, Alan, and Orchid almost immediately after they got married?" 

       "No. Only five months."

       "Five months is a lot shorter than over a year."

       "Uh, well, my mom was pregnant with us when she got married, so that doesn't count."

       "I feel like a lot of things don't count with you."

       Nolan just shrugged as Kingsley started crying on the baby monitor, so Nolan got up to go get Kingsley. He just needed a break from whatever assignment he was working on, so taking care of Kingsley would help out.

       Most people would think raising a baby would be too stressful for Nolan. It wasn't. Nolan grew up with a large family, so raising a baby was so familiar to him. Nolan was one of the best dads I had ever seen and he rarely got stressed with Kingsley. The only stressful part was him getting even less sleep at night than he normally did.

       I knew Kingsley was going to be hungry, so I got up and headed to the kitchen to make some formula milk. My sister and her husband was lucky they didn't have to make some formula milk every time one of the twins were hungry.

       I was really loving referring Mae as my sister. She always has felt like one to me and now that my dad and her mom got married, we were actually brother and sister. Step-siblings, but siblings nonetheless.

       The best part was that Elise has to stop asking Mae if she was going to divorce Ryder so she and I could get married. I thought she would have stopped after I told her I was gay and I had a boyfriend, but she didn't. She didn't even stop when Nolan and I got married. We had to wait for my dad and her mom to get married.

       When Nolan came back to the living room with Kingsley, I handed him the bottle so he could feed Kingsley since most of the time, Nolan refused to let me hold our son once he was holding him.

       I didn't mind.

       Much.

       Nolan made up for it for being such an attractive human being.

       "How much do you want to bet that he's going to look just like me?" I asked. "He got most of my genes."

       "You are so weird," Nolan said.

       "I'm being serious."

       "Well, if you're being serious, then I'm worried about how low your IQ is."

       "Sassy Nolan is not my favourite Nolan."

       "Sassy Nolan s your favourite Nolan, admit it."

       It was true. Sassy Nolan was my favourite Nolan because everyone wouldn't expect him to be so sassy. He looked too cute and precious to be sassy, and that was what made it even better.

       "Actually, you know what my favourite Nolan is?" I asked. "The one in bed."

       Nolan rolled his eyes. "Oh, shut up."

       "I will not shut up, thank you very much. I will not be silenced whatsoever."

       "You know what Jerome isn't my favourite? The one that overreacts."

       I snorted. "Nolan, come on, you overreact all the time. You're the melodramatic one in this marriage."

       Nolan opened his mouth to object, but then he closed it and shrugged. "Yeah, that's kind of true."

       "Kind of?"

       "Okay, very true. Us Princes overreact to everything. It's our thing."

       "Like you getting mad at me because I called Stitch an ugly rodent once."

       "You're an ugly rodent."

       "Okay, I won't bring that up again," I said. "Dang, you've been getting a lot more sassy recently. I love it. Sassy Nolan really is my favourite Nolan."

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Same, Jerome. Same.

ugh this author's note seems too short for me. i'm back after over a year of writing this chapter because i'm going through a lot of books to get rid of certain gifs. if you've been following me for a while, you probably know which gifs oof.