“Not yet but they were both discussingDante’s Inferno, so I would guess that they’re heading that way,” Dec replies and we both laugh.
Entering the house, I follow the sound of voices, lots of them, many more than I had anticipated being here. Faces turn to eye me and Dec as we enter the huge lounge and I wonder how many of them even know my sister, Bethy, Bethany, and how many are appropriate friends of my mother’s with appropriate gifts for my new niece or nephew who should be putting in an appearance in about a month’s time.
Some faces I do recognise, family friends and a couple of Bethy’s oldest friends including Suzie Wright who I fucked when I was sixteen and she was eighteen, an experienced woman of the world. I realise I am smiling a wide toothy grin and she is reciprocating.
“Hey Mase,” she calls interpreting my smile as being for her, when in fact it was for me, or at least the horny adolescent I once was.
“Hey Suzie, how’s things?” I try to pull off distant and platonic.
“I’m joining your club,” she says as Olivia returns with my mother.
“Club?” I’m clearly confused at her inference that I am a member of a club, I’m not. I have no involvement in any club except Dec’s club that I have money invested in.
“Yeah, the divorcee club,” she explains making me shrink away a little because I know a come on when I see one and this is an open invitation to be happy divorcees together.
“Ah.” I feel unsure what else to say and am grateful for my brother’s speedy mouth when he manages to offer her words of discouragement.
“I think my big brother is only a member of that club in name, oh, and as if by magic his better half appears. Have you met Suzie?” he asks Olivia who is now sandwiched between me and my mother.
I lean down and kiss the top of her head as I snake an arm around her waist.
“I don’t think so. Nice to meet you,” Olivia says with an easy smile for the other woman who looks less than pleased to see my girl. “Have you seen the sunroom?” she asks me then looks around the room as far as Christian who she seems off with. “I was joking about the nine circles of hell, but I think there may be more than just the nine on those walls.” Her words make my mother, who hugs her again, laugh before Tommy, my stepfather appears from the direction of the offending room.
“I told Charlotte to tell everyone to bring a paint brush and we could have redone the confounded room.”
Christian doesn’t laugh at Tommy’s words, unlike everyone else. I think he feels that this is his fault, which it’s not, but what is his fault is the fact the room is still in the same state several weeks on and I am guessing that is an opinion Olivia shares.
“It will be sorted, but I have some staffing issues since Mase coerced Olivia to take up residence in his building,” Christian says and although everyone seems focused on baby talk and opening presents I am fully aware of his unnecessary words and their effect on Olivia who is shrivelling into my side.
“No coercing was necessary, just a design team and if you were stupid and blind enough not to see her worth then that says more about you than me,” I tell him curtly before looking down at Olivia. “Let’s get a drink, baby.” I lead her away towards the kitchen where I know the refreshments will be, calling to my sister as I go, “Bethy, I’ll grab your present from the car in a second.” My sister, along with most of the women present, including Christian’s wife Imelda, are staring at my defence of my woman. I really do love thinking of her in those terms; my woman, my girl, just mine.
I guide Olivia in the direction of the kitchen and am sure I hear Dec cuss Christian as we leave with something like, “I thought you were smarter than that.”
It’s another couple of hours, after watching my sister open countless gift bags and boxes when I realise Olivia is sitting on the floor nursing a baby, my kind of nephew; that’s the thing when your mother is on husband number five there are a lot stepsiblings around. The baby lying along the thighs of my girl is Jonah. His mum is Paige, the daughter of my second stepdad and the one thing I can say about my mother with conviction is that kids love her, and she loves them, so with every husband that went, the kids kind of stayed. Olivia is leaning against my legs and the sofa I am sitting on with her knees drawn up so that Jonah is lying along the length of her upper legs while her hands are free to stroke his face, hold his hands and weirdly style his hair.
I can’t hear what she’s saying but her voice is soft and gentle. This is the woman who hates babies, yeah right. I didn’t think anything could make her more beautiful to me but the image of her as a fertile and nurturing mother is turning me on so much that I can feel my dick stiffening, although that could just be the thought of how babies are made doing that. I wonder what our baby would look like then realise that Tommy is speaking to me.
I like Tommy. He’s one of my favourite stepdads. I tend to fair better with the odd numbers. My dad was number one, Paige’s dad, Johnny, was number three and Tommy is number five. Number two, Gary was a rich man who thought his money would allow him to cheat on my mum, it didn’t so she divorced him and took him to the cleaners. Then there was number four who came into his marriage with six kids by six different women and only two he had relationships with, Joey, who is here with his pregnant girlfriend and Imelda, Christian’s wife.
Tommy and I chat, about business, stocks and shares, anything and everything until my phone rings. I see it’s Arianna who declined her invitation today so as not to make Olivia feel uncomfortable. I excuse myself as my sister begins opening the gifts from us.
“Olivia chose them,” I say as I make my way into the garden but not before turning to grin at my girlfriend who is making my nephew gurgle and giggle like a crazy man. Yeah, I get exactly where he’s coming from.
Chapter 24
Olivia
I watch Mase leave to take his call and the look he throws back at me is hot, so hot I would like nothing better than to strip us both bare and never redress. His expression holds something more than usual though, as though he is seeing me for the first time.
The baby I am holding suddenly becomes restless and agitated and with every tactic for entertaining a baby I know proving futile, I happily hand him back to Paige.
She simply explains, “Dinner time.”
I watch on in horror and awe as she exposes her breast for the assembled audience and puts her son to it. The idea of exposing my breasts to anyone who isn’t Mason or Sarah who has seen me naked countless times seems weird even though I know breastfeeding is the most natural act in the world.
Getting up I decide to give myself some space now that Mason has left so head back to the kitchen for some solace and a drink. I quite like silence and solitude, but then that was all I craved for many years so the sheer quantity of people and the complex and tangled relationships that bind them are a little hard to deal with for me.
Pouring a glass of lemonade, I hear footsteps behind me. I turn, only to find Christian joining me.
