“Hey, they’re the fancy ones. Tempura batter and everything.”
“Ooh, tempura batter? Why didn’t you say so!”
Laughing, William picked up the pond and put it in the fridge before organizing the fillings for the wraps. This was just lovely, thought Juniper. The way William and Billy interacted, the light banter, the affection. It was all just so…She sighed. Always, at the back of her mind was the wondering. Wondering how much longer William would be staying in Blessed Inlet. Wondering what would happen when it was time for him to go. Just wondering.
They ate the nugget wraps and although she teased him, Juniper had to admit they weren’t too bad. Of course, they were a big hit with Billy so that helped. After that, it was all Juniper could do to stop Billy from eating all the chocolate frogs in the pond at once. He only gave up trying when William said that if he ate them all now, they couldn’t’ have any in the morning.
“Are you coming back tomorrow?” Billy asked excitedly.
William looked at Juniper. It was best for her to handle this situation. “Ah, well, baby, William’s actually having a sleepover.”
Billy clapped his hands in excitement. “With me?”
Juniper cleared her throat. “No, he wouldn’t fit in your bed. He’ll sleep with me.”
“Oh, like Nana does when she comes without the car house?”
“Yes,” Juniper replied, relieved. “Exactly like that.”
Satisfied with that, and with a promise that he would be able to have breakfast with William if he got ready for bed with no fuss, Billy was in his pajamas, teeth brushed and in bed in no time.
“Well, that was easy,” Juniper said, coming to sit with William on the couch. She snuggled in as he put his arm around her. More loveliness.
“Juniper.”
Something about his tone sent a shiver of tension through her. “Yes?”
“What do you think you would do if your parents contacted you, asking to meet Billy?”
She looked at him in surprise, pulling away. “Oh, um. I don’t know. Probably let them, I guess.”
“Really?”
She thought about it for a very long moment, feeling a wash of hard, painful memories course through her. “I’m not sure, now that I think about it. They were just so awful when I told them I was pregnant. They didn’t know I’d deliberately chosen to have a baby.” She stopped, rubbing at her chest as her heart squeezed painfully. “I mean, it’s one thing to not accept me, to always be uncomfortable about how different I am to them. Their world was just so foreign to me that I never felt like I was standing on solid ground. I understood that, had learned to accept it.” She smiled when he took her hand in his. “But I was so ecstatic to be pregnant and I felt so lucky, so blessed. It just felt so right.” Hersmile turned sad. “Maybe I was a bit naïve. I thought such a blessing could maybe bring us together. That they might like the idea of being grandparents.” She looked at him, taking comfort in the sympathy she could see in his eyes. “My father told me to have an abortion.”
The sympathy turned to anger in flash. “What the fuck?”
“I know. That was it for me. The final dealbreaker. It wasn’t like, oh, you’re stuck in an awkward situation, we’ll support any decision you make. It was, how would this look to their friends? How would it affect their business? Their useless, hippy, artist daughter is now a single Mum. Typical. Then my sister said I’d done it on purpose, just to upset everyone and my Mum agreed.” She lifted his hand to her lips, pressing a kiss to his palm, trying to sooth him. “I rang Nana straight away, distraught. She was on the next plane to Melbourne, God love her. She tore strips off my parents, threatened to stab my sister with a fork at one point and told them all they were dead to her.” She smiled, feeling lighter and easier at the memory. “But she looked after me, as well. That’s when we hatched the plan for me to have the baby in Byron Bay. She flew home to get everything ready for me and the rest is history.”
“Juniper, that’s just so awful.”
“It is, isn’t it? What a pack of arseholes.”
“So, after all that, if they did want to see Billy, you’d let them?”
“Maybe not. You never know the answers to those sorts of questions until you’re actually presented with them. Anyway, enough of that. It’s too grim.”
She moved to lay her head on his shoulder, but he stopped her, tilting her head up with a finger under her chin. He leaned in to kiss her and she put her hand on his chest. “Hey.”
“Hey, what? No hanky panky. Just necking.”
“I know where necking leads.”
“You’ll just have to control yourself.” He brushed his lips lightly across hers, pulling her harder against him with the arm around her shoulders. She gave in. It was exactly what she wanted, so why resist? She would just have to stop before it got out of hand, and she was ravishing him on the lounge room floor. She pushed that thought away immediately, before it gave her any serious ideas. She let herself sink into the kiss, that soft, wet tangling of tongues that she adored. She sighed, shifting closer to him, sliding her arm around his neck. Even more loveliness.
A few hours later, after they’d pretended to watch a movie but had pretty much necked all the way through it, they slid into Juniper’s bed, both wearing pajamas. She sighed with contentment as he pulled her against him, spooning her, and happily drifted off to sleep.
Juniper awoke hours later to the sound of Billy climbing out of bed, his feet pattering up the hallway to her bedroom. She debated with herself whether she had the energy to get up and take him back to his bed or if she should just let him climb in, but he surprised her by going around to William’s side of the bed. She lay perfectly still as she heard him whisper, “William.”
