“Holy mother of fu…goats!” Max shot upright, Victoria waking up a little more gracefully.
“Happy Cwistmas.” Eliza tucked herself into his chest. “You need up. Pwesent time.” She pulled at his hair then dug her finger into his arm.
Max cuddled her and kissed her head, glaring at me hard. “You put her up to this, didn’t you?”
I shrugged. “I was going to set her on Seph and Shay first, but when we went to see if Santa had been, we found he’d left his pants, underwear and a suspiciously jizzy T-shirt near the tree.”
“Shi – shine.” He sat further up. “I forgot about those.”
Victoria was giggling helplessly in bed, her cheeks flushed and she had a glow about her that meant she’d either had a very good night or very good news.
I looked from my brother to her and back again. “Happy Christmas. What do you think your favourite present will be? Or will it be delayed while it finishes baking?” My spider sense was definitely tingling.
Max looked at Vic, Eliza completely snuggled up to him.
Victoria nodded. “I’ll need to explain why I’m not drinking champagne on my wedding day. They’ll work it out from that anyway.”
“The best present will be here in about eight months’ time.” He gave me a grin that was bigger than I’d ever seen from him before.
I looked at Vic; she nodded. “The test in the bathroom was mine.”
Killian stepped towards Max and bent down to do that man thing where there pat each other hard on the shoulder.
“I’d give you a hug but you’re in bed and it would be weird.”
Max nodded. “Yeah, we never talk about the one time we did that, do we?”
They both started laughing and I decided that now was not the time to ask questions, given that Eliza was there, gripping both Max and her daddy with her tiny hands.
“Congratulations.” I looked at my brother. “I’m so happy for you. And so pleased to watch how you experience sleepless nights, colic, projectile diarrhoea…”
His grin was bashful rather than shit-eating, which told me a lot. “If it’s a girl, I’m definitely up for investing in that school, K.”
Killian nodded. “Owen texted me the same thing last night. I think it’s a goer. Best way to save our sanity.”
Victoria just shook her head. “Max, you need to go and rescue last night’s clothes before Marie finds them. That isn’t something you want to explain.”
He nodded, looking at me and then Killian, passing Eliza to her father. “You’ll need to leave the room before I can go do that. Don’t need to make K feel inadequate.”
I snorted, shook my head and shifted. “Do you want to watch Seph be rudely awakened or shall we not wait for you?”
Max laughed. “I think I can find better ways of spending ten minutes.”
I popped my head back round the door. “I think you only need three for that.”
The room where Marie had stuffed Seph and Shay was approximately a thirty seconds fast walk from the kitchen. We stuffed Eliza into her coat and put on her wellies; Killian and I stuffing ourselves into whoevers’ coats were closest.
“Unkkie Seff?” She looked up at me.
“Absolutely. And you have to be really, really loud. Creep into his room and then shout and dive on him. It’s the only way you’ll wake him up.” I took her tiny hand in mine and hoped it didn’t grow any bigger. I knew it would, and there would be moments when I’d want to pause her at that age too, but this was precious.
Just as Seph’s face would be when his niece bounced on him because it was Christmas morning.
The door was unlocked. There was no reason for either Seph or Shay to lock it, and neither would’ve thought to anyway. I pushed it open, Killian watching with a broad grin on his face.
“You never tire of being diabolical, do you?”
“Never. Don’t worry about Seph; he’ll get revenge.”
