“That sounds great but can I ask one favor?”
“Anything,” my mates said in unison.
“Can I eat in bed? With you three and the babies nearby? I want to head toour room when we get home.”
“Absolutely,” Huston said but he turned and stared straight ahead. Oberon was suddenly quiet and Tanner avoided my gaze when he checked the mirror but nodded in agreement.
They were disappointed but had swallowed it because they wanted to make me happy. I thought about all the meals we’d cooked together. Half the fun was in the preparation and with them in the kitchen and me upstairs, I’d be missing out.
“How about you drag a sofa into the kitchen and the babies can be with us, out of the way of the gas flame and the ovens?” We had three ovens which was a lot. “The children can sleep in the stroller.”
My mates faces lit up as we got out of the car and they wheeled the babies inside.
I lay on the sofa feeding my little ones one or two at a time while my mates filled my glass with juice and I nibbled snacks. They bantered as they got the dinner ready.
Huston cut up the vegetables that would be placed in the oven and his brothers complained he cut them too small and they would burn. Tanner prepped the lamb, inserting cloves of garlic into slits he made in the meatand Huston said we’d need a lot of mouthwash tonight. Oberon cut up broccoli and bopped around the kitchen. It was so normal and after this momentous year, I craved normal.
“Remember that holiday you talked about Tanner.” He stopped what he was doing and glanced up.
“You want to get on a plane with the babies?” His brow furrowed.
“No. I can’t think of anything worse right now.” Armelle squirmed and I sat up and put her over my shoulder. “When the kids are older we’ll go somewhere.” I didn’t point out that we could hire a private plane. Tanner would not be impressed with someone else flying the plane. “No, I wanted to let you know that right now I don’t want to be anywhere else but here, with my three mates and three children.”
“Me too.” Huston dropped the knife on the counter and hugged me.
“And me,” Tanner agreed.
“And I make three,” Oberon added.
40
TANNER
We need a what?
“We need a what?” Surely, I’d heard him wrong. My mate did not just suggest we get a bus, did he?
“Here, I’ll show you.” He tapped on his phone and slid it over to me. “It doesn’t look like a bus, not really.”
The photo told a different tale. It very much did look like a bus. But that was neither here nor there. I was more curious as to why the sudden desire to buy this monstrosity. The minivan fit us quite well and the booster seats the kids used now were much smaller than their old car seats giving us more room than even a year ago.
It was hard to believe that nearly seven years ago Candrin came into our world needing a place to stay after he’d just lost everything.
“We can go look at it,” I conceded. If my mate wanted a bus, a bus he was getting. “Do we need to get a special license to drive it?”
“Not for this one. That's why I picked it.”
At least there was that.
“Dad!” Armelle came rushing in, effectively ending our conversation. “Want to see my picture?”
“More than anything.” I said as she climbed on my lap. “Tell me all about it.”
~Oberon
I still didn’t understandwhy we were at a dealership looking at a bus, but here we were doing exactly that. I didn’t know you could just buy a bus off the lot, but given they had a few on display, it was a thing. The salesman kept calling it avan, but he wasn’t fooling any of us with his rhetoric. If it could fit fifteen that was a full on bus. It had the same kind of slide open doors. Totally a bus.
“And the price is unbeatable,” the salesman said for the third time.
