Matty
It had been a fairly successful day celebrating the arrival of the new addition to the family. Max got excited opening gifts and everyone adored little Eric. Jem was reluctant to let him out of her sight for second, she did agree to let everyone have a quick cuddle and photo, after max had supervised hand scrubbing to his satisfaction. Jem became anxious after a while of not having him in her arms so max confiscated his son back from his mum, carrying him like he was a bomb that would go off at any second.
"You want your mum don't you little man, here you go Emmy, he's safe baby I promise" max kissed her head.
"A little help boys" Sandra struggled out to the garden with a delivery of the biggest bunch of flowers I'd ever seen in my life.
"These must be for Emmy" max helped Sandra searching for the card "got it, you want me to" he pointed and opened it, his expression changing from happy to disappointed "to Jemima and max, sending you much love and happiness with your new arrival, we can't wait to meet little Eric in person. love william, peter, Tammy and Gio."
"That was nice of them sweetie."
"Peter so made him add their names to this." Jem laughed looking over the flowers "peter would not know my favourites. He says flowers look all the same to him."
"There's a gift basket too darling. Looks hand packed. "Let's see. 'Welcome to the world master Eric Arthur Weaver, all our love the Higgs family. They were very fond of you darling."
"Well pollen isn't good for Eric" Jackie snatched the flowers stomping off with them. I shook my head subtly at the beautiful flowers being man handled and dragged away, several being bashed off.
"Master weaver" max laughed it off "you don't look like a master weaver, sounds weird. We can look through it later, not sure we got a flower vase, might have to put them in several different containers. We got a bucket but they've got the flowers from management in" max joked
"Should have known, no one else knows, no ones going to buy you flowers for your birthday are they" jem laughed
"No management sent a crate of beer, not sure when I'm supposed to drink that lot, I'm on duty, aren't I little man."
Jem nodded kissing Eric's cheek "you smell nice" she whispered at him, Max's lips turning into a giddy smile, I gave him a wink, they'd had a good day so far, a few blips but overall a good day.
"I'll get it. It better not be more flowers." Jem joked "we need to fix the security gate Matty"
"Yeah I know, I keep forgetting to call them back. I will do Jem."
"I don't know what her favourite flowers are. I should know shouldn't I" max scratched his head
"You've bought her flowers once. You're not a flower buying kind of guy max. More ice cream tubs."
"That's true. I know her favourite ice cream flavours" max nodded smugly "she's doing better isn't she. The nurse came this morning" he was informing his mother "she said because he's small he needs small feeds more often, which is exhausting but she seems to be doing alright. Still painful"
"When he gets used to it and bigger it should be easier Max, like you say she's doing good, so are you. How many times were you up last night." Sandra giggled at him
"I lost count. He's like me he don't like sitting or laying still apparently or the quiet. I got a mini me. Despite the lack of sleep, best birthday ever!" Max joked
"Well let's hope not" Jackie shook her head "it's not funny max. Jemima won't cope, it's hard work. I know what being a mother to a........"Jackie insult was cut off by Jem screaming at someone to get out. Max and I darting towards the house at speed.
"Max! Mattyyyyyy!" Jem was screeching with her back against the door putting all her weight on it trying to shut it. A black shoe stopping it from doing so
"Jem, what's the matter? Who is it?"
"Don't let him touch him, Matty, I don't want him near him." Jem wept
"Come here Em" Ed appeared opening his arms, Sandra helping him to calm her and Eric down.
"Matty, you want me to deal with it?" Jack ran down the stairs from the bathroom
"No clue who....dad?" I asked the figure standing in the doorway "what the hell are you doing here! I told you not to come here again!" I yelled, he'd turned up a few months ago after I'd refused to meet him and I'd sent him packing.
"Don't let him hurt my Matty" I heard Jem panicking to Ed "Eric, no, please, make him go away. He can't see Eric. Ed stop him, he's drunk he's going to hurt my matty!"
"Dad seriously what are you doing there, how did you even know about Eric? We haven't told anybody!" I moved further towards the door.
"Who?"
"Eric! Your grandson!" I pointed at Jem and Eric who was being shielded by Ed protectively.
"I came to see you not your fucking sister. She get herself knocked up? Tart, just like her mother."
"Oi! You watch your fucking mouth!" Max charged forward
"And you are who exactly?"
"This is max, my band mate, Jem's partner. Eric's dad."
"Oh you are kidding me. She's shaked up with your mate! What makes you think that rat baby is yours boy, could be anyone's. Apple don't fall far from the tree eh Jemima, turned out to be a little whore like your mother! Stupid child."
"I'm warning you Matty he don't shut up I'm gonna deck him!" Max ranted loudly
"She looks pretty cozy with the other one. You realise she's probably making her way around your whole band Matthew! Open your eyes before it's too late and she drags you down like your mother did to me."
"Leave.now" I growled centimetres from his face
"I came to see you not your tart of sister. I warned you about this, about her, she's a fucking prick tease. What did you think was going to happen taking her in to live with five boys. Surprised it's not you that fell for it, Tell me you didn't father that ugly rat baby boy!"
Before I knew what I was doing my fists were pounding repeatedly into my dad who I had pinned to the floor of our drive way. I couldn't stop. I didn't want to stop but I couldn't even if I wanted to, they were pounding fast and hard. I didn't even hear Ralph and jack yelling in my ear until they forced me off him., dragging me back to the house still trying to throw punches, kicking my legs to try and get another shot in. I saw max fly past and take over, screaming in my dads face, pounding his fists equally as hard, kicking him repeatedly. I've never seen max snap like that, he was so chill usually, we'd always fought his battles for him ever since he was kid. The odd scrappy punch or fight but he never went full rage.
"Son! Stop! Max! Maxwell!" Henry was shouting trying to pull him off
"Max! Think of Em! She's shaking with fear right now max! Stop!" Tom ran to help. Max looked back at my sister's terrified face, her whole body shaking in Ed's arms clutching her squeaking son.
"You fuck off! Don't you ever come near her or my son again. You fucking drunk bastard! I'll fucking kill you, you hear me! You stay away from Matty too, you utter scum, I know what you did to him you piece of shit. Don't you ever touch my fucking brother again!" Max screamed in his face throwing a final punch before dragging and throwing him out of our broken gate.
"Where is she?" Max ran back in double locking the door. "Fucking bastard. I don't care if he is your dad! He's not coming near my family again!"
"Son" henry focussed Max's angry face in his hands "look at him. He's your best friend, you know what that man did to his family, look at the state of his fists, he's shaking like a leaf, you don't need to fight him on this."
"He is my family! He's not touching my brother again! I'll fucking kill the bastard. Where's Emmy?"
"She's petrified Max."
"Where is she dad!"
"Laura took her up stairs" Ed pointed, I followed max and Ed up the stairs to their room "Lor where is she? You can't leave her on her own babe"
"Shush" Laura held her finger to her lips, she pointed to the wardrobe.
"Kiddo, I'm opening the door, it's Matty, I cant fit in like I did as kids Jem. I promise he's gone, ok? I'm opening the door now." I slowly opened their freestanding wardrobe with my trembling blood stained hands, my chest still heaving as I tried to regain normal breathing. When the door opened I saw a petrified, quivering Jem clutching her son, when she looked up at me, just for second I saw it, my little Jem, my little four year old sister hiding in the wardrobe because dad had yelled at her and was smashing up the kitchen drunk, she'd had a chest infection and was off nursery. I was playing a football match after school so was back late, mum had gone out and dad had lost patience with my sick little sister. I'd found her hiding in my wardrobe waiting for me to come rescue her, soaking wet from wetting herself, sick down her pyjamas, trembling, clutching her unicorn. She was that same petrified little girl looking up at me despite being eighteen and holding her own little one. my heart broke. Everything I'd been saying and everyone had been laughing at me about was true, inside she was still my petrified little baby sister. My little jem who I needed to protect at all costs.
"Jem, I'm here." I reached, she flinched away from my blood covered hand looking even more petrified. Ed tapped me, handing me a towel to clean them up with, I wasn't sure what was mine and what was my dads, I winced at the sting, it had been a while since my knuckles were this mangled, last time I'd snapped that bad I'd been arrested and cautioned, kept in a cell over night. "Sis, you're safe, Eric's safe."
"Is he gonna take my baby boy?" Jem's quivering voice whispered
"No, never, he's gone. I swear."
"Emmy, baby, I'm here" max shuffled forward "I'm not going to hurt you. It's me, come out baby, is he alright?"
"He's gonna take him max. He's gonna bury him in the garden, in the dark, he doesn't like the dark"
"Oh Emmy" max broke down helping her out, taking her to their bed. I watched him hold her so lovingly while he wept into the back of her hair, nuzzling her affectionately. I watched presuming this is what they did when he'd announce I'm taking you home and disappear up here when she was upset.
"Matt, give them some privacy son. You can hold her later. Let him hold his girlfriend and baby." Ralph patted my arms
"Of course dad" I whispered back, nodding tearing up myself
"Told you he wasn't always getting randy up here" Ralph teased winking at me
"Good lad" I rubbed max's head, leaning down to kiss it. "Good job max, love you brother. When you're ready dude. Look after her for me."
I cleaned up in the bathroom helping max when he joined me, laughing at his squirming "not used to this are you mate." I smirked dabbing antiseptic on his knuckles "this used to be daily for me at one point. Thank you." I patted his cheek, he looked at me oddly "for kicking the shit out of him. He's a nasty piece of work still. That's what we grew up with. No wonder we're both screwed up, didn't stand a chance from the start. He's still bloody drinking, he told me he'd stopped. I heard what you said to him. Bit of a role reversal for us huh, you threatening someone to stay away from me or you'd kill him, that's usually my line, my little bro's grown into a man." I smiled at a blushing max. "So much for a nice birthday and welcome home eh"
"Still my best birthday, he can't ruin it. My boys home. I thought he'd still be in. They said to be prepared for a long stay, he surprised them all. I'm Twenty one, I feel like a grown up at last. I'm a dad Matt! Me! I wanna be a good dad."
"You are and you'll continue to be."
"Did your mum have an affair Matty? It sounded like that's what he was implying."
"No clue. Would explain a lot, pretty sure he didn't keep it in his pants either though. Came home one day and this woman was there, coming down from upstairs with her dress on inside out. He just told me she was a friend from work. I got no doubts Eric is yours mate. I panicked when Ralph told me, only because I thought someone had taken advantage and she'd been too scared to tell me. No too scared to tell either of us. Only reason I doubted it for a nano second. You'd know, I know that now."
"I would have known, she can't hide anything from me, details sure but I know when's somethings wrong, like when my so called mate was touching her leg under the table, I could tell by her face before she even said anything. Matty you don't have to worry about me being a dick. He's mine. No doubts. She's hardly left my side since we got together. He bloody looks like me, well and you. Not that I would think differently otherwise. My boys not an ugly rat though."
"No of course not, he's a gorgeous tiny handsome boy. Eh mate? He's a midnight blue baby, he's gonna be gorgeous, we're a good looking bunch. He's got both me and you in him, his going to be one handsome dude. How many awards we got for being handsome between us. You're still the only one that's won one for having the best celebrity backside though." I joked
"Emmy likes my peachy backside" he sniggered blushing, he'd won that award three bloody times "My Mrs is stunning. I'm punching."
"We know." I smirked "yes he's small, he's no rat baby max. He'll grow into himself. That little pout he does is too cute."
"He rubs his face with his hand when he's tired, the little yawn he does, my heart melts every time Matty. I'm gonna protect them."
"I know you will, we got a problem though mate......I don't trust my dad as far as I can throw him. I wouldn't put it past him to sell a story, leak his birth with a few thrown in lies to make some quick money. Like I say he's drinking again, you could smell it on him, maybe he never stopped. He asked me for money, when he wanted to see me. I didn't tell Ralph. He's been supporting me through it. Didn't tell anyone."
"You should have" I turned to see Ralph with his arms crossed angrily over his chest. "That man is a worthless drunk that doesn't deserve a damn penny from you boy."
"You complain when Tom pays for hospital parking for you, he shows up after being an absent deadbeat dad and wants handouts. Not little ones either. I was tempted to give him some and tell him to disappear again. God knows what he did with the money from his half of the house I bought him out of, he didn't let me have it cheap."
"He'll just keep coming back for more, like all those so called friends of yours and the boys in the early days. You learnt your lesson the hard way. You know who your real friends are. Friends like Dylan, now he's never asked you for a damn penny has he. Even when he nearly lost his garage because his business partner ran off with all the money. That boy was overwhelmed when you boys paid off his debts and bought the lease and business for him. Embarrassed as hell but so fucking grateful. It's why you all get mates rates even though he knows you can afford it."
"I want to ring him and few others, tell them about Eric." Max smiled "I don't want them hearing the news from the gossip sites. They know me and Emmy are together. Then we got to convince Emmy."
We wandered downstairs to the living room, where we broke the news to Jem that we had to go public. It didn't go down well, she had a full blown panic attack, Jackie's griping from the cheap seats really wasn't helping. We decided to send a photo to management and get them to do a press release for us.
Midnight blue are proud to announce the birth of the first midnight blue baby, born premature, he has been in the hospital recovering. It is with great delight we congratulate very proud dad Max Weaver on the birth of his first son, who although he was born very small and delicate, weighing in at a mere 3lb 8oz, is now at home with his parents doing well and enjoying all the attention from the boys.
No further comment or details will be released at this time and we please ask fans and media to respect max and his girlfriends privacy while they settle in to family life.
The midnight blue boys and Team.
The internet literally went into melt down as soon as the press release was put out. We decided to leave Jem's name out of it for now, there were rumours and even youtube videos of max weaver secretly in love with band mates sister with clips of him making flirty eyes at Jem, although there were also a few of Tom and Jem that were edited to look pretty convincing. Max had been going out more with her, doing his gradual thing, like we'd agreed.
"What's the response been so far?" Henry asked max
"Mixed." He shrugged refreshing his social media page he had open. We didn't usually look at social media, we'd learnt the hard way to stay away from it with our personal lives, there were always lies and rumours, false stories. Our parents sat us down after a few years and informed us that for our mental health we shouldn't be looking and reading the made up or opinionated shit that was written about us, so we only read things people drew our attention to and thought we should know about or where down right funny. It affected Tom and Max the most as the youngest. "Rumours about who his mum is of course, some have guessed Emmy, but there's photos of her from a few days before she gave birth so it's throwing them off a little. Cara's been mentioned. Stupid bitch hasn't corrected them, no surprise there. Ugh candy. Right I'm stopping looking. Some of these are down right disrespectful. Publicity stunt for the band, i mean please, it's not like album sales are down is it. We don't need the extra publicity."
"Ignore it max." Henry encouraged him "just enjoy your boy. I put together his swing chair for you, very fancy son. He loves it"
"He's in it! You should have called me! I missed it" max whined scuttling off, I laughed following him. "Awww Matty look at my boy, you like it Eric? Look you push this button and it rocks itself! How cool is that and I think this one, yeah this one if you press it twice it plays a little tune. There you go buddy you like it? You tired again? I'm taking that yawn as a yes. Here have your pacifier or dummy as your mum calls it. Oh I see she's napping. You ware her out again little man, oh you've gone too. I'll switch the music off then." Max rambled on, Tom filming him discreetly "oh no, okay okay calm down squeaker, I'll switch it back on. He really don't like quiet."
"Like father like son eh max" I pointed at his shirt, one of his favourites my sister bought him I destroy silence with a drum kit on the front. I thought back to London remembering my sister sleeping in it and max appearing shirtless from her room. It was so obvious.
"Hmmm that's my boy." Max grinned proudly, tucking a blanket over him. "Need to get him some rock and roll outfits boys. My handsome boy needs to look smart. His feet are cold" max rubbed them gently, his dad passing his some baby socks. Max sighed struggling to get them on, with his twitching thumb, too nervous incase he hurt him
"Hey no tears boy, I got you." Henry crouched next to him putting his hands over max's to keep them steady "that's it, roll them first to get them over his toes then gently pull them over his tiny feet. That's it. Good job daddy" Henry ruffled his proud looking sons hair who was switching the rocking motion back on. "He definitely likes it. Used to have to rock you in your pram with my foot or take you for a drive. Wish I'd had one of these contraptions" Henry smiled taking a snap of his grandson
"Glad it's not just me Henry" I whispered at him "my photo streams nearly full already." I joked
"Don't let him sleep all the time, you need to get him trained and in a routine, on a feeding and sleep schedule max. He'll get used to it and won't sleep without it. Your dad made that mistake with you. Now look at you, you can't lay still long enough to get any sleep." Jackie walked in going to switch the swing off rocking mode. Henry's hand appeared in front of the buttons blocking her.
"Leave it" Henry said quietly but firmly, Jackie tutted rolling her eyes going to try again "I said, leave it be Jackie. Go help Sandra sort his new clothes out, go on. He needs warmer socks and some baby shoe things when we go shopping."
"Thanks dad" max smiled up at Henry "I won't put him in it all the time, I promise, it was an unpleasant encounter, I'm sure he's picked up on the tension. The nurse said to go on his schedule for now. I don't like the idea of leaving him to cry."
"You do whatever you want to do max, trust your instincts boy, those dad instincts are kicking in. look at him, he's happy and he's safe, Levi is apparently standing guard." Henry chuckled at the dog flitting between watching Jem sleep and watching Eric in his swing.
"Good boy Levi. Maybe we need a guard dog too eh Matty. Train it bite intruders."
"Maybe. We need to keep looking, this place is not ideal. We were on top of each other before we had little man invading the house. The gate people rang back, it needs a part so it'll be a week at least I'm afraid."
"Great, something else to worry about." Max twitched out
"You got this mate. Put some ice on those knuckles."