“Well of course I will,” Maisie responded. “And which Barbie do you have?”
“Which doesn’t she have?” Elijah groaned.
“Dadda no be naughty,” my cute, two year old niece shouted, glaring at Elijah.
Elijah like the sap he was for his little princess, simply laughed and rolled his eyes. “I’m so totally whipped,” he muttered. “I have no damn balls left.”
We all laughed, except for Bella who had no clue what was so funny.
“Come on in, all of you,” Mum said above our laughter, finally letting go of Frankie. “Lunch is almost ready.”
As everyone filed in, I tugged on Maisie’s hand.
“You okay?”
She nodded. “Yes, I’m so happy for him.”
Then she smiled at me and all I wanted to do was apologise once again.
* * *
Finally, with lunch finished and Frankie having polished off two helpings of apple pie, I was sitting on the patio with my dad and Elijah, watching as Bella and Frankie chased each other around the garden.
“He’s so like you were as a kid,” Dad said, turning to me with a wistful look in his eyes. “He even walks like you.”
“I know,” Elijah added. “How the hell people haven’t noticed is beyond me.”
I shrugged. “We’ve never been seen together until recently. It wasn’t as though Maisie and I were a thing for long and people we know would put two and two together if they saw her with him.”
Dad stared out over at his grandchildren and I knew he was thinking about all the time that had been wasted, something else I felt guilty about. I’d never considered how everything had affected my parents, yet it obviously had because they’d both spent most of lunch staring at Frankie and getting emotional.
Suddenly Bella screamed making Elijah shoot up from his chair, but the air was quickly filled with laughter.
“She okay, buddy?” I called to Frankie.
He nodded. “Yeah, a ladybird landed on her arm.”
“It tickle,” Bella shouted, holding her arm out in front of her.
“Count the spots,” Frankie said, crouching down to Bella’s height. “Then you’ll know how old she is.”
As Frankie helped Bella to count the spots, Elijah bent to pick up his beer bottle. “I’d better take her to the toilet,” he sighed. “She forgets when she’s having fun that she needs to go.”
Dad chuckled. “I seem to remember you being like that, whereas Sam, he went every five minutes. He was obsessed with it.”
“I remember that,” I replied, grinning with my eyes still on Frankie and Bella. “In the end Mum kept me in just my undies when we were at home, because I kept complaining about having to pull my trousers down all the time.”
“Oh yes.” Dad smiled. “You decided to call yourself Tarzan and wouldn’t answer to anything else for about a week.”
“God, you always were a dick.”
Elijah jumped out of the way as I threw a fist out to punch him in the leg.
“Pussy,” I grumbled but he just winked at me.
“Bella, come on toilet time.” Elijah’s voice boomed across the garden to the kids who were now near the fence at the bottom, studying something in the flower bed.
Bella ignored him, but when Frankie said something in her ear, she turned and ran back up the garden, with my boy chasing after her. When Bella ran into Elijah’s waiting arms, Frankie ran to me and flung himself onto my knee and I’d swear my fucking heart swelled to twice its normal size.
