"How do you do it?" Sophie asked the second she walked into my house, screaming baby in tow. She looked like a typical new mother; her hair was disgusting, her shirt was greying and she wore two completely different shoes, not to mention that she had massive bags under her eyes. Motherhood had hit my sister hard. "I can't do it anymore. I want to send her back, get a refund or a replacement."
She parked the buggy that held her week old daughter in my hallway and then continued to walk through the house and down the stairs that led to the kitchen. I think she got halfway down when I heard one of Sophie's familiar, 'fuck sakes.' Trudging back into the hallway, she held a hand up to me, as if sot say, "Don't you dare," and then proceeded to tackle the intricates of the fancy pram she insisted on buying and freeing her daughter. It took a few minutes of watching her pathetically attempting to juggle baby, diaper bag and her own handbag before I stepped in and took the baby from her.
"Seriously, Charlotte, how do you do this?" I heard Sophie shout as I take Léa down to the kitchen. Walking in, Sera looks over at me with those big, bright eyes of hers and smiles while she giggles. Nearing her, I hear footsteps following behind me and then, "See, your baby is normal. Why can't my baby be like yours? I don't suppose you fancy swapping babies, do you?"
Lucas, our brother who had stopped by unexpectedly this morning, scoffed at Sophie's suggestion, making his presence here known to her. It wasn't often than Lucas ever came by my house; he and Emma had always been the closest while Sophie and I were simply on the periphery but recently, he's been coming over more and more, wanting to integrate himself as the world's coolest uncle to Sera. However, I think now that Léa's here, Sera and I might be seeing less and less of him. Isaac will hit the roof if that happens. He's already annoyed that my mother seems to have forgotten our daughter's existence.
"Sophie, you can't swap babies," Lucas tells her. He thinks it's a matter of fact of but someone like Sophie, that's just a minor glitch in a bigger plan. "Why do you look so harassed?"
Sophie grunted, shoulders dropping and bags falling to the floor with a loud thud. "Because that little she-devil kept me awake all night, crying into the early morning and then crying against after just twenty minutes of sleep. My husband, that complete and utter fucking wanker, slept through it all so it was up to me to get out of bed and sort her out. I swear, that baby has it in for me already."
"Have you thought that it's due to your aggressive nature and compulsory cussing?" Our brother offers as reasoning to Léa's constant upset. As always, Luc doesn't hold back when it comes to Sophie, a trait that we all find hilarious because he's one of the few that can put her in her rightful place. The only other people that can do that are Daniel and Isaac. When Sophie glares at Luc, he blows her a kiss. "We don't all find it as endearing as Daniel, you know."
Stepping in so that my brother and sister don't turn my kitchen into a bloodbath, I hand Léa to Lucas and hope that he doesn't make her cry. Her screams earlier were excruciating and I can't fathom why Léa was like that; Sera had never sounded so pained when she cried, not even when Isaac sang to her. Let me tell you, Isaac's singing voice is enough to make anyone cry.
When Sophie sits at the table, her attention goes straight to Sera and she starts cooing about how happy my daughter is. Sera doesn't really understand but she smiles and gurgles whenever Sophie speaks, just as she does whenever anyone showers her with attention. Since she's learnt to smile, it's one of her favourite things to do. Isaac, Martha and I can't get enough of she adorable gummy grin.
While Sophie's enamoured with Sera, Luc looks majorly uncomfortable with Léa in his arms. She squirms and her eyes close tightly, a sign that she was about to scream once more. And scream, she did. Her cries startled Sera, making her snap her head towards the sound that was so unpleasant and stare at the commotion going on. Sera watched Léa for a few seconds before her blue eyes searched for me in the space. Just looking at her, I knew that if I didn't do something quickly, we were about to have two screaming babies on our hands.
"Luc, pass Léa here and you get Sera," I instruct my brother. He swiftly jumps to his feet and passes out niece to me before rushing back to the table and picking Sera up from her high chair. When she was in his arms, she snuggled into his chest and her eyes began to droop. "It looks like it's time for Miss Seraphina's nap. Luc, do you mind?"
My brother shook his head. "Of course not," he answers. When he turns to Sera, his voice softens and he says, "Come on, sweetie. Uncle Luc will sing you his favourite song. Let's leave the crazies down here, yeah?"
Wanting to make a sarcastic comment back to him, I was interrupted by another one of Léa's sobs. Her cries had gone from being high shrills to being pathetic hiccups that were heartbreaking to have to listen to. Frowning, I hand Léa back to Sophie and tell her to sit tight as I run up a few flights of stairs and rush to the master bedroom.
Isaac had been working nights since Thursday and was currently sleeping off his most recent twelve-hour shift, a peaceful smile on his face as he snored quietly. The bed covers were crumpled at his waist, his shirtless torso on full display as his chest moved up and down steadily. He was lying on his back, one arm bent above his head and the other palming the empty space next to him. That was how he slept whenever he was alone; one arm grasping the space that I should occupy. I hated having to wake him.
"Babe?" I whisper as I clamber onto the edge of the bed and push at Isaac's bicep. In a blink of an eye, his arm shoots out and wraps itself around my waist, pulling me over this body and throwing me down next to him. Gasping at the sudden change in position, I manage to catch my breath just in time before Isaac rolled on top of me, his nose tickling the sensitive skin just under my ear.
"Yes, Lottie?" He sleepily greets me. His lips start to trail down my neck towards my collarbone, the warmth making me shudder. I felt one of his hands travel down my side, tickling me as he moved southward and then crept back up under my shirt. I felt my skin prickle with excitement as all my senses began to fade away. I was semi-conscious when I felt Isaac's breath against my lips. "What's with the afternoon delight?"
Snapping back to reality, I pat Isaac's shoulder and try to shove him off me. When that doesn't work, I hook my legs around his waist and flip him over so that I was straddling him. "Sophie's downstairs-"
"And there's the passion killer," Isaac grumbles. I give him a stern stare. He frowns. "Alright, your sister is downstairs, and..."
"Well, actually, I should probably tell you that Luc is also here but he's putting Sera down for her nap," I admit, wanting to give Isaac the full information. "As I was saying, though, Sophie's in the kitchen with Léa and Léa won't stop crying. It's awful, Isaac. I think something's wrong. Can you come down and take a look?"
Isaac sighs. "Only because it's Léa. I'm going to need five minutes to, uh, calm down. Unless you fancy a quickie?"
"Please, we both know that there's nothing quick when it comes to you," I tease him. The last time Isaac and I tried to get in and out of the mood quickly, we were holed up in the bedroom for two hours. "As motivation, though, if you come down and sort Léa out, in an hour I can get Luc to take Sera out and maybe, just maybe, ask him to drop the baby off with Dad for the afternoon. Then we can delight until our heart's content."
I've never seen Isaac jump out of bed so fast in my life. He led the way to the kitchen, his long strides working to his advantage, and greeted Sophie with a smile that seemed genuine. It was most unusual to see Sophie return the smile too. I think they're both sleep deprived. Isaac explained that he was going to take a look at Léa but first, he needed Sophie to tell him some of the symptoms that Léa had.
"She's super cranky, she cries when I hold her, feed her, bathe her," Sophie begins, an exasperated sigh escaping her lips. "She's up all night and she hates being on her back. That's about it."
Isaac nods and then starts his examination of the baby. He nods in certainty. "Ear infection. You're breastfeeding, right?" He looks up at Sophie who blushes and nods. I saw the way her eyes had lingered down to Isaac's eight-pack. Pervert, Sophie. "Keep doing that, even if you need to express. Breastmilk helps build up her immune system. If you have Calpol at home, give her the right dosage and keep her upright as much as possible. If things don't improve, take her to the doctor and they'll give her antibiotics intravenously. At only a week old, she shouldn't be having ear infections, though. They did a hearing test as part of the newborn screening, didn't they?"
"I think so," Sophie replies, her hand going to Léa's head as she adjusts the baby's position in her arm so that she's more upright. "Do you think we need another one?"
"Maybe," Isaac says as he gets back up to his feet. He gives Sophie another smile to put her at ease. "She's perfect, otherwise."
Sophie frowns. "She's horrible. It's a good job I love her."
Isaac stays down in the kitchen and listens to Luc singing to Sera, joking that my brother sounds even worse than him. He even went so far as to say that to Luc when he rejoined us once Sera was asleep. As we all sipped on the tea Isaac made, I asked Luc if he'd be able to take Sera and drop her off with Dad after, which he readily agreed to. He did make a comment about being able to look after his niece without needing to rush off to our father, though.
After an hour, with Sera wide awake and fed before being strapped into her own buggy, Isaac and I stood on the doorstep as we waved off Sophie and Léa and Luc and Sera, waiting until they were out of sight before closing the door and rushing off up to the bedroom. As I flew up the stairs, I discarded my shirt and unbuttoned my jeans, ignoring Isaac's grunts that he wanted to do that. I was just about to jump on the bed when I felt Isaac's arms wind around my core and pull me back into his solid chest.
"Allow me," he whispers from behind me. He spins me in his hold and forces me backwards as he walks towards the bed. When I feel the back of my knee connect with the edge of the bed and almost fall, Isaac helps me regain my balance. His hands travel down the back of my thighs as he picks me up and throws me onto the bed, my hair fanning around me.
"That's a sight for sore eyes," Isaac grins. Leaning over me, his hands find the band of my jeans and he slowly pulls them down, tugging them off in one quick motion. My underwear goes next, followed by my bra until I'm fully naked. In a split second, Isaac's pyjama bottoms end up on the other side of the room. "What's our record, again?"
I bite down on my lip. "Four."
"Four?" Isaac says, his eyebrow shooting upwards. "Challenge accepted. Let's go for the first, then, Miss Delaney."
I groan. Not from the sensation of his lips against my breasts or his hands on my thighs, but from the sound of my name. I wasn't sure how many times I could say it, but I really wish he'd pick up on my hints.
"Isaac?" I sigh out his name and force him to stop with those hot kisses. He looks up at me and frowns. "You know I love you, don't you?"
He nods. "Right?"
"And I want to be with you forever, right?" Again, Isaac nods in response to my question. He doesn't seem to be catching on here. "Like, I want to be yours and only yours, forever."
"And?" Isaac blinks at me, really not following this at all. "Your point?"
I sigh. "Never mind. Just kiss me and tell me you love me and then make me scream."
"That I can do," he laughs, kissing me instantly. "I love you."
By the way, by the end of that afternoon, we broke our record.
Here's your Sunday chapter. Sorry that it's late in the day- I was attempting to watch Fast and Furious 8 as I was writing, got distracted, and closed my Chromebook for a while.
Thoughts on today's update?
I can't remember who asked for some more Lucas Delaney but I took it on board and added him to this chapter. There was also some discussion in the comments about how Sophie had a very easy pregnancy while Charlotte didn't- well, she may have had it easy before Léa was born, but she won't have it easy now that Léa's here. Here, she's ill, but in the future, she's just going to be a little madam. Very spoilt.
Just to settle something- Charlotte WILL NOT propose to Isaac. Sophie popped the question to Daniel so I'm not doing it again.
That said, seriously, Isaac. Take a hint!
On a more serious note- and not at all Baby on Board related- yesterday was Armistice Day and today was Remembrance Sunday. I always get very emotional on November 11th because it's very sad to see all the parades etc. that happen to remember the fallen. It's not just for those British soldiers who died, but it's for all the innocent lives lost in all wars- past and present- regardless of religion, creed and colour. We will not forget you.
See you Wednesday, my peeps.