"Orange juice" Harry had decided. He was out of breath, his heart was pumping furiously, and he needed to cool off. Emma was already in the shower doing the exact same thing.
The walk from the master bedroom of their apartment to the kitchen was one of his favourite routes through the house, and not only because of the fridge at the end. Emma had filled every wall space with family photos, most of them taken by her being the keen photographer that she was. He loved to watch the story that was unfolding in the pictures, from the shots of his wife at the premiere of her first movie, along to the dinner where she met Kate, and then the night they first met.
Emma had been taking snaps of her life for years, but the majority of the ones on the wall came from the time they started dating. There were pics of them together, out at restaurants or enjoying the country. He particularly liked the one from their little adventure in a forest in Washington, where she was cuddling with him by their tent whilst a baby grizzly bear cub was caught walking by in the background. They spent hours marvelling and giggling over that one photo.
There were some more artistic shots on their wedding day, when Emma had handed the camera over to her sister Beth to take all the behind the scenes shots.
She still looks just as ravishing as the day I married her.
The wall of photos was eventually cut off by a doorway into the living room, but more pictures adorned the wall to his right. There were much more family pictures on this side, the most recent photos she had taken. Jamie was much more prominent, appearing in almost every picture they had up there. The girls were up there too, his nieces, his brother and sister in law, the Yorks and the Tindalls. Everyone.
It was no surprise that his wife had a selfie with pretty much all of his family members, she was just that friendly and fun that nobody could resist her. Even Granny, who was so weirded out by the selfie obsession still allowed Emma to get one of the most informal pictures of the Queen that Harry had ever seen.
The lobby was next, and then the family room. Again family photos were still there, but now gifts and ornaments were taking up most of the space on the walls. He always enjoyed looking at the sports photos of him with different national teams, most of them England or Team GB, which Emma had cheekily hung up around a large USA flag.
Everywhere he looked he seemed to see another reason why he'd chosen the woman that he'd married, whether it was her energy or her ferocity, her approachability and friendliness, or her incredibly dry and cheeky sense of humour that was so strange coming from an American. It was all there.
He'd often find himself stopping to stare at the walls, at all the effort that he and his wife had put into making the place their own. He'd lost count of how many times he'd come down this route and forgotten what he was doing or where he was going, but not this time.
"Orange juice" he repeated to himself before his attention was taken completely by an old photo album that had been left out on the table.
The kitchen was perhaps the cleanest place in the apartment, mostly because Emma was obsessed with keeping it tidy. The rest of the home often built up so much clutter over time, but the kitchen was always neat and tidy. His wife had a habit of reorganizing the kitchen drawers whenever she was feeling frustrated, which happened quite often in their lives.
She's so cute about it though. I'd come home and she'd be in the kitchen with all of the drawers pulled out and stacked on the counter, completely empty. She'd look at me innocently as if she wasn't doing anything strange, but I knew her well enough to know she couldn't help herself.
The magnets that adorned the fridge kept his smile going, some of them were more pictures of the family, and some were little figures or letters. Down by his knees several blocky letter magnets were arranged to spell "J-MAN", no doubt put there by his son. That was his latest nickname, among the dozens of others he and Emma thought of whenever their son was around.
The fridge was packed when he opened it, the smell of fresh fruit, meat, snacks and beer wafting past his nose, making it twitch slightly. He took a deep sniff, savouring all of it and feeling like he could gobble it all down. For now juice was enough, he grabbed a carton, twisting the top off as he turned, nudging the fridge door closed with his elbow.
As soon as he turned he stopped, the open carton just inches from his lips. In front of him sat his son James, perched on the edge of the kitchen counter, watching him curiously.
"Hey buddy" Harry smiled at him.
"Dad why is your face so red?" Jamie asked, tilting his head slightly.
Harry checked to see if the fridge door had closed, even if he knew it had. He just needed a moment to think of a response, and hopefully calm his face down. "Well son, your Mum and I were just moving some of your cousins things around in their room. Tough work"
He put the carton of juice down on the counter beside Jamie, then collected two small glasses and proceeded to fill them.
"Yeah, I bet they have all sorts of useless stuff that they brought." his son added thoughtfully, immediately showing his irritation towards the girls.
Harry grinned, mostly because he'd just dodged a bullet. Jamie was now more interested in complaining about his cousins than his Dad's red face mystery.
"Girls certainly like their useless things" He agreed, sitting up on the edge of the counter to join his son.
"If I was staying over for three days, I'd only bring my PXD and some games, but they just bring a bunch of clothes. Boring!" Jamie complained.
Maybe Jamie thought he was making a good point, and it was, the girls had brought way more stuff than was needed for a three day holiday next door. But to Harry, it was more like his son was just complaining about his cousins in general, not just their packing habits.
He handed his son a glass of orange juice, planting his other hand on the counter behind them. "You know your Mum and I are really hoping you'll patch things up with your cousins while they're here Jamie, think you could do that for us champ?"
Jamie arched his head back and stared up at him pleadingly. "Do I have to?"
"It would make your Mum and I very happy, buddy" Harry answered, placing his hand on his son's back as if to encourage a yes out of him.
"Fine" Jamie whined "But if they make me play dress up I quit!"
Harry chuckled, he was sure Emma had a picture of his son somewhere when the girls had put him in an old dress of theirs. "Of course Jamie, no man should have to do that" he smirked at his son and raised his glass, clinking it with Jamie's. "Cheers son"
"Cheers Dad" his son cheerfully replied.
He cherished the father son moments that he got to have with Jamie, all the little things they enjoyed doing together. Even clinking the glasses and saying cheers counted, since Jamie had started doing it with all his drinks ever since he'd seen him and Will clink their glasses of whisky. Of course his son had asked for some whisky to make his own attempts more realistic, but Harry convinced him that juice was the drink of choice when it came to clinking glasses, as if it was some sort of organised sport.
Family is all that matters, not all the other stuff.
"Say champ, what if you had a brother or sister, would you treat them like you treat your cousins?" Harry asked, discreetly putting the idea of adding to their family into Jamie's head.
"No way, if I had a brother or sister they'd be way cooler than Ellex" Jamie replied, that little cheeky grin on his lips that always appeared when he had a little dig at his cousins.
"Ellex, nice" Harry chuckled. Bea and Eugenie had a similar nickname for him and his brother when they were younger, but it had been years since he'd heard it.
"You like it? I made it up – It's a mix of..."
"I know buddy, I know. Very creative" Harry smirked down at him, lovingly ruffling his already disheveled brown hair.
"You think I'll have a little brother or sister someday Dad?" Jamie asked him.
Harry instantly knew that question could be a ticking time bomb. Jamie was still in the dark as to how babies were made, and he knew that whatever his answer was, it could lead to many, many many more questions.
I'll leave that to Emma, she'll do a better job answering that than I could. Though knowing her, she might be leaving it for me to handle.
"I don't know buddy, maybe sometime soon" was Harry's answer. He hoped it was good enough to satisfy his son's curiosity. It was.
"Mhmm" Jamie replied, glancing thoughtfully at some of the pictures stuck to the fridge in front of them. "I'd be a good big brother too"
"Oh yeah?" Harry smiled, knowing now how his son felt about future family additions. "How would you be a good big brother then?"
"Well like Uncle Will, I'd let them win whenever we played FIFA" Jamie replied, still glancing at a picture of Harry and Will on the fridge.
"Will does -not- let me win Jamie" Harry interrupted, laughing a little to hide his irritation. "I've beaten him loads of times fair and square"
Jamie giggled at him, amused by his frustration. "Bet you can't beat me and the mighty Liverpool!"
"Oh we'll see about that J-Man!" Harry replied, letting the frustration slide as he picked his son up and put him back on the ground.
"I'll go set up the Xbox!" his son shouted as he rushed out of the kitchen towards the den, from which the sounds of the console starting up abruptly echoed throughout the house.
"Turn that down Jamie!" he heard his wife shout from somewhere upstairs. He couldn't help but smile at it all.
"Sorry Mum!" Jamie shouted back.
How silly were we to think we didn't want anymore? Who wouldn't want more little Jimmy-jams running through this place, and more kids of our own in the pictures that would cover even more of the apartment?
He took a large gulp from his glass of orange juice, finally able to quench his thirst. He'd need the extra energy for a few marathon matches between Arsenal and Liverpool on FIFA, knowing Big Game James was quite the competitor when it came to their matches on the console.