“Maybe.”
Both my brothers stared at me.
I shrugged. “I asked her this morning. She said yes.”
“Oh fuck. I walked in right at the wrong moment. Shit.” Roe smacked his hand to his forehead.
“Language.” Freya walked past him, smacking him on the ass.
“Don’t worry about my two, they have a full vocabulary already.” Finn shook his head as if he’d already given up. “Congratulations.”
“What are we congratulating?” Freya muscled her way in, caught in the arms of Roe.
I noticed that his hands spread across her stomach, just like they had before she told us she was pregnant with Calla.
“Let me go and get Iris. Say nothing.” I legged it out of the kitchen and upstairs, meeting Iris on the landing.
I felt that same punch I took every time I saw her. Beautiful, happy and mine. She was smiling now.
“Still need to hide?”
She shook her head. “This isn’t the first time this sort of thing’s happened, is it?”
“Fuck no. Mavis is sitting up and talking, by the way and Roe noticed your ring. Ready to share the news?” I put my arms around her, hugging her to me as best I could do.
Her face brightened. “Definitely. Let’s leave off sharing wedding plans though.”
“Agreed. We’re barbecuing breakfast as well.” I frowned at her. “And I think Freya’s pregnant. See if you can find out.”
“Oh,” she said, tipping her head to one side as if she was considering something. “That’d make sense. She wasn’t drinking last night or the last time we were out. I bet she is. That’ll be fun – if she is, Moon and the new baby will be in the same school year as each other.”
“Half-sisters. Almost the same as twins.”
“If they have another girl. They might have a boy and we’re jumping to conclusions.”
We walked downstairs, still talking in hushed voices. The kitchen was kind of full when we got there, Ruby inside now with the children, making them drink something good for them and sit down for ten minutes. All three looked like they’d been rolling round in the same fox shit and smelled like that too.
“Your children are feral.” I looked at my brothers and shook my head.
Finn shrugged. “It’s genetic.”
Ruby turned around and looked at Iris. “It’s the Holland genes. Sorry, Iris. I’ll hose them down later.” She stood up and pulled a face that told me she was weighing up what was coming next, looking over at Finn. “Well?”
Finn shrugged. “Celebratory breakfast?”
“What exactly are we celebrating?” Roe leaned on the kitchen island. “Let’s start with Iris’ new jewellery.”
I pulled Iris in front of me, wrapping my arms around her, my hands on her belly. “We’re engaged. As of this morning.”
There was an eruption of noise and congratulations, even from my nieces and nephew, who probably weren’t that sure what was going on.
The hubbub calmed, leaving a pregnant pause. There were glances between my brothers and their wives, more glances than I was expecting.
“Calla’s getting a sibling.” Roe stood up, catching Calla as she ran towards him. “We’ve just passed the twelve week mark.”
“Mam’s going to be beside herself.” Finn went over to Ruby. “May as well steal their thunder, Rubes. The last one’s going to be due about the same time.”
“You say the last - ”
