Chapter Three
I plucked Everleigh out of the air as she jumped at me. The kid could proper clear the floor. I swear she’s an undercover ninja. I could see her future career in MI5.
“Hey, Noodle.”
“Don’t eat the chicken. Daddy said Grandad don’t cook it right,” she said, getting straight to the point. “Chicken that don’t cook right makes you hurt, right?” It was hurl. I told her when I was sick once bad chicken made you hurl, but I was glad she’d mixed it up, Oakley would only yell.
“That’s right. Bad chicken makes your belly hurt.”
“Hey, girly,” Abby said, taking her from me. Everleigh started telling Abby about the chicken too so I took the opportunity to say hi to my mum, who was waiting by the front door – on granddaughter duty.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Mum said, hugging me.
“Hey. How’s it going?”
“Good. I’m so happy everyone can be together again. It’s been too long. Abby,” she said, pushing past me. “How are you? It’s been a while.”
I tried not to think about why she wasn’t at my mum and Miles’ for dinner last week. It seemed that while I just wanted to knock her up and have a family, she just wanted to be young and go out again. I thought we were on the same page. When we got married I thought – because she’d said – that we were going to start thinking about trying to have a baby. Usually I was quite good at finding the real message between what a woman said and what she actually fucking meant, but clearly I had mistaken ‘I can’t wait to have a family with you’ for ‘Sod off, I want my freedom.’
I followed them into the back garden, saying happy birthday to Miles before I grabbed my first beer of many.
“Hey, man,” I said as Brad walked into the back garden. Holly was just behind him, almost hiding. I nodded my head. “Holly.”
“Where’s the beer?” Brad asked, heading over to the cooler by the barbecue that I pointed out after giving me a nod.
“Hi. Thank you again for inviting me,” Holly said, biting the inside of her mouth.
I shrugged. “No worries. Let me introduce you to my sister. Oakley!” Holly flinched, not realising I was about to shout, even though Oakley was at the other end of the garden.
Instead of my sister my niece ran over and stood in front of Holly, checking her out with a little scowl. “Do you like purple?” Everleigh asked her.
“Um, Holly muttered at the random question and then smiled, bending down a little. “I love purple, it’s my absolute favourite.”
“Mine too.” Everleigh beamed and skipped off, and Holly had been accepted. “She’s cute. Your niece Everleigh, right?”
“Yeah, and yeah she is. She likes you.”
She smiled. “You can tell from that?”
“You like purple and if she didn’t like you she would have held onto my hand and glared at ya.”
Holly laughed. “Alright.”
“Hi,” Oakley said, finally getting to us. “You’re Holly, right?”
“Yeah, hi. Thanks for letting me come.”
Oakley waved her hand. “Of course. You want something to drink? My mum’s making cocktails, can’t guarantee they’ll be nice, though.”
“Holly’s not a big drinker,” I said.
“Okay,” Oakley replied slowly. “Well we have non-alcoholic stuff too. Come with me and we’ll find you something.” They walked off, leaving me alone, chatting as they made their way into the conservatory that looked like a brewery. How fucking much alcohol did they buy?
“How come Holly’s here?” Abby asked, doing Everleigh’s ninja thing and just appearing in front of me.
I frowned. “Because her brother’s here. I said she could come rather than hanging out at her parents’ house alone. Plus I thought she would get on well with Oakley, and I was right.” Jesus it wasn’t liked I’d asked her on a date.
“Right,” she replied. “Are you going to introduce me too?”
Shrugging, I nodded my head and walked into the conservatory after them. Abby’s mood swings were beginning to piss me off. In the car over she was okay, minus the head band thing, when we arrived she was lovey wife but now she was acting pissy.
“Holly,” I said, “this is my wife. Abby this is Brad’s sister.”
Abby stepped forward. “Nice to meet you, Holly.”
“You too.” They shook hands and Holly took the cocktail from Oakley’s hand, thanking her.
“Drinking today?”
She shook her head. “It’s a non-alcoholic cocktail.”
“You don’t drink?” Abby asked as she poured herself a glass of red wine.
“Not much.”
“How do you survive Uni without alcohol?”
Holly laughed. “I have no idea. Did you go too?”
“Yeah, to study teaching and English literature and language. What’re you studying?”
“Children’s nursing,” she replied. I felt like a dick for not asking her the other night.
“Wow, that’s great,” Abby replied. I was glad they had something in common because if they hadn’t Abby probably wouldn’t have tried that hard to get along with her. She could be kind of selfish like that. She wouldn’t necessarily ignore Holly but she wouldn’t have tried to make friends or anything.
Holly smiled shyly and I realised the men were outside, cooking the meat on the barbecue with a cooler of beer beside them and I was inside chatting to the women who were drinking girly drinks. I shook my head and backed away. “I’ll be outside.” They were too busy gossiping to notice I’d left. Rude.
I walked to the man area and grabbed a beer. “Tell me there’s Jack Daniels in that?” I said to Cole.
“Just coke,” he replied and I raised my eyebrow. “Well since my wife is now on her third cocktail I’m guessing I’ve been nominated the designated responsible parent for today.”
“She’s getting drunk?” I frowned. She never got drunk, drunk. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, Jasper.”
I didn’t like it. Oakley didn’t drink until she got drunk, just tipsy. The last time she was drunk was when that bastard sperm donor we were supposed to call Dad sent her a letter. It was almost two years ago. She got in such a state Mum and Miles took Everleigh for the night so she could calm herself down. I hated seeing her like that. I wanted to kill him even more than I normally did.
“Seriously, Jasper, she’s fine. It’s Miles’ birthday and she wants a few drinks. She’s twenty-four, old enough to have a few cocktails.”
My shoulders relaxed. If Cole wasn’t worried then I wasn’t going to. He knew her better than I did now and he was a total worrier when it came to my sister. If he was cool and not concerned then everything was fine.
He smiled sadly, understanding exactly why I freaked out. Oakley had dealt with a lot but as strong as she was it would always be there. Therapy couldn’t take away the memories of what those bastards did to her when she was just a few years older than Everleigh.
“So everything okay between you and Abby now?” he asked, flipping over the burgers.
I shrugged. “I guess. Women drive you crazy, right?” He laughed and shook his head. I could tell that was just for my benefit, Oakley didn’t drive him as insane as Abby drove me but he didn’t want to disagree. I wanted to pull my damn hair out – if it didn’t look so good I would have. What the hell was going on with my wife? I knew I was going to have to do the mature thing that Oakley suggested and talk to her but ninety per cent of the time talking to a woman left you no less confused. I think they enjoyed it. They loved messing with our heads; it was like a damn hobby or something.
“You up for going out tomorrow?” Cole asked.
Was he trying to keep my busy? “Can’t. Doing something with Abby. Sunday, though?”
He nodded. “Sure.”
“Jasper, refill the cooler, please?” Miles said, handing me a bucket of water and balancing Everleigh in his other arm. Miles was her hero, she worshiped him. Apart from Cole’s dad he was the only other grandad she had. There was no way anyone wanted that bastard rotting in prison was going to ever have anything to do with her. She didn’t even know about him and we had to keep it that way.
I took the cooler from him and curtseyed, earning me an eye roll.
“So when am I getting my second grandchild?” Mum asked me, smiling like a psycho as I walked into the house to get some more beers.
I shrugged. A baby seemed so fucking far away now. I wanted to be a father and have a tiny person call me daddy. Whenever Everleigh called Cole Daddy it put a smile on my face, she worshiped her dad – I wanted that too.
“Dunno, ask your daughter,” I replied, trying to pretend I didn’t want one yet and she would have to wait for Cole and Oakley.
My baby sister rolled her eyes. “We’re not trying for another one until Everleigh’s settled in school full-time.” That meant she had about another six or seven months before they even thought about doing the nasty again. I turned my nose up.
“What?” Cole whined, walking through the door and pouting at my sister. “Not now?”
She laughed and threw her wadded up napkin at him. “Sorry but you’ve gotta wait at least another year and a half for baby number two. Unless, of course, you want to give birth?” He smirked and then his mucky paws were all over her.
Mum pouted at me and Abby, more effectively than Cole. “Come on, you two, I’m not getting any younger.”
I wrapped my arm around my wife. “We’re happy the way things are for now,” I said, not wanting to put Abby in an awkward position if I said I wanted tons of them but she was more focused on her career.
She smiled up at me, and I felt like she’d jammed a knife into my heart. She believed what I said, even though we’d had a few conversations where I said I was ready, and so did she. What the fuck was wrong with women? How could you go from being ready one month to suddenly wanting to focus on other things? The last time she said she was excited to have a baby of our own was less than six weeks ago. What had changed so drastically in six weeks?
“We’ll give you another grandchild one day, Sarah, but we’re just enjoying being together right now.” Just enjoying being together? When the hell were we just together? If we hadn’t committed to Miles’ birthday she would probably be out with her colleagues and I would be at home. We hadn’t enjoyed just being together in months.
I wanted to tell her she was being unfair but I didn’t want to get in the way of what she wanted. If she wanted to wait another five years for kids while she concentrated on teaching that was fine, but she shouldn’t have told me otherwise.
My smile – which probably looked like a pissed off grimace – fooled everyone but my nosey sister. “Uncle Jasper,” Everleigh screamed, and I wanted to thank her for interrupting right when I could sense Oakley asking for my help with something in the kitchen. “Come and push me and Leona make daisy chains, you said you would!”
I held my hands up. “Alright, diva, I’m coming.” How the fuck do you make daisy chains? I filled the cooler with beer and we headed back outside. “You have far too much attitude for a three-year-old.”
“I’m almost four,” she replied as if that made all the difference. Everleigh growing up sucked. I had no idea what I would do on my days off when she was at school. Me and Oakley rotated our shifts at The Centre so we could look after Everleigh. I loved spending time with her and September was going to suck.
After handing Miles the refilled cooler, I let Everleigh lead me to the corner of Cole and Oakley’s perfectly cut lawn where Leona and Holly were sitting cross-legged on the grass. I frowned. “They’ve not left you to be babysitter?”
She smiled up at me. “No, I like hanging with them.”
“You can join the adults when you want.”
“Really, it’s fine. I love spending time with kids.”
I sat down and prepared to bullshit my way through making a necklace out of flowers. “You know how to do this?”
“Daisy chains? Everyone knows how to make daisy chains.”
“Uncle Jasper don’t,” Everleigh said and sighed. Oh sorry!
“Wow, really?”
“I’m a man.”
Everleigh giggled. “Remember when you wore mummy’s dress? You looked like a girl.”
“Yes, thank you, Everleigh.” I grimaced as I watched Holly try not to laugh. “Hey, I’m comfortable with my masculinity, that’s how I’m able to put on a dress and not have it shrink the boys,” I replied, giving myself a mental high five at changing my balls to the boys before I’d started saying it.
“Of course,” Holly said sarcastically. “Perhaps the stories I’ve heard about you were less about a broken heart and more about hiding in a closet.”
My mouth dropped open. Sweet, shy, innocent little Holly made a joke like that – and a good one. If it wasn’t aimed at me I would have laughed. Still I slept around because I hated cheating whoreish women but loved sex.
“There’s nothing PG I can think of to reply so just imagine.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Will do. Ready to make a daisy chain girls?” Leona and Everleigh nodded. I was sure Leona knew already but she looked up at Holly like she wanted to be her. “Okay, take your daisy and with your nail make a small slit in the stem. Everleigh, do you want me to help you?”
I looked on at them, picking grass because I would rather boil my own head than make a daisy chain. Holly was great with kids; she would be an awesome nurse and instantly make sick kids feel better.
“How come you’re so good with children?” I asked. “You don’t have younger brothers or sisters, right?”
“No, but I have a lot of younger cousins.”
“You want kids when you’re older?”
She beamed and looked prettier, even with the dark eye make-up. “Definitely.”
Why couldn’t Abby be that sure? She had already taken back wanting them and had postponed our family. What the hell was I going to do if she decided in a couple years that she wanted to wait another couple years?
“You do,” she said overly confidently. Did it show that much? I didn’t really care, having children was so important to me now. A few years ago I would have laughed if someone told me I would end up desperate to be a dad.
“Yeah, I do.”
“When do you think you will?”
I shrugged. “I would tomorrow but apparently that’s not an option now.” It was a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. Pissing never satisfied, mind changing, evil, heart breaking women!