“How do you know that?” Izzy wants to know.
“I sourced some Finnish wine once when Leon had some Scandinavian and Finnish visitors over to look at the Ark.”
“I was half expecting you to jump on board the baby train,” I tell Nix, who’s currently holding Ethan. “You’re slacking.”
“I’m working on it,” she says, laughing as Izzy elbows her. She blows on Ethan’s fingers, and he swats her chin.
“And you, Remy,” Abby says. “You need to catch up.”
“We need to get married first,” Remy protests. Their wedding is booked for March. “One thing at a time. What about you, Clio?”
“I’ve only just moved in with the dude,” she protests. “We need a lot more practice yet.”
I snort, and the others laugh. “Don’t rush, girls,” my mother tells us. “Plenty of time for babies when the time is right.” She meets my eyes and smiles, and I know she’s telling me not to worry about the fact that I’m not settling down like the others.
Clio, however, has already had a glass of wine or two, I can tell, because she has her naughty glint in her eye. “So, Jules,” she says, seeing my warning glance and ignoring it, “how’s poor Stefan? Did you manage to comfort him?”
I see a couple of the others exchange amused glances, so I know that word’s getting around. “Jesus,” I complain. “Is there no privacy in this family?”
“Nope,” Summer says. “How is Fred, anyway?”
“Doing well,” I grumble. “We’re waiting for an update to make sure he got through the night okay.”
“Poor Stefan,” Nix says. “He must have been distraught. I hope you managed to cheer him up.”
“Haha,” I reply as everyone sniggers. “I hope you’re all enjoying yourselves.”
“I saw a T-shirt online today and I thought of you,” Clio announces. “It says,” and she points to her chest to illustrate the placement of the words, “Call the vet, these puppies are sick.”
I can’t help but laugh. “I might have to get that.”
“You’d better get a move on,” she tells me. “Tick tock. You’re being awfully slow getting this sorted—I expected better of you.”
“Clio,” her mother scolds. “Stop pushing her. If anything’s going to happen, it’ll happen in its own time.”
“That’s the whole point,” Clio replies. “Time for Operation Polar Fling is running out.”
“Operation Polar Fling?” Abby queries. “What a great name.”
“It’s underway,” Clio tells everyone. “At the moment, though, it appears to be taking longer than the invasion of Europe.”
“I can’t just tear off all my clothes and say ‘get it here, big boy,’” I tell her, causing my mother to cough into her wine.
“Why?” Clio protests.
“Well, for a start it’s freezing outside.”
“That’s what log fires were invented for—Polar Fling nookie.”
“And she’s speaking from experience,” Nix says. “Aren’t you, Clio dear?”
“Absolutely.” My best friend piles her plate with hot snacks. “I’m happy to admit I’m bonking Ryan’s brains out. The poor guy hasn’t had decent sex in about ten years. We’ve a lot to make up for.”
“I thought he looked knackered,” I tell her.
My mother meets my eyes and rolls hers, but then she just smiles. We both know what Clio’s like, and I know Mom is secretly delighted that Ryan’s found a new lease of life with the young, spirited baby of the family.
“I must admit,” Izzy says, handing around a plate of vegetable crudités, “I’ve always thought you and Stefan would get together eventually. He’s always looked at you as if you had no clothes on.”
Heat rushes through me, sudden and intense, and Clio glances at me, then stares as she obviously sees my blush. “Wow,” she says. “Solar flare.”
I poke my tongue out at her while everyone laughs. “It’s true, though,” Izzy says. “And I’ve been surprised the two of you have never dated. Why is that?”
“Because of Hal,” I reply. “He loves him like a brother, and he’s worried if he screws things up with me, he’ll lose the friendship of the whole family.”
They all go, “Aw…”
“It wouldn’t change anything,” Clio protests. “I think we’re all grown-up enough to understand that relationships don’t always work out.”
But my mom says, “It’s easy to say, but he’s seen what happened to Hal.” Izzy pulls a face, and we all echo it at the thought of his jealous, psycho ex. “Plus, you don’t know what he’s experienced before,” Mom adds. She meets my eyes, and I realize then that she knows about Maia and Mason. No doubt Nikau told Brock at the time, but he didn’t feel it was his place to spread the news around.
“But they’d be so perfect together,” Clio insists urgently.
“You don’t know that,” I tell her, suddenly tired of it all. “I kinda don’t want to have to talk a guy into having a relationship, you know? I want someone to be with me because they’re crazy about me, and they can’t bear to be apart from me. You all know, you’ve all got that perfect someone now.” I feel a surge of resentment that I’m the only one still single. Not at them—I love all these gals and I’m happy they’ve all found their Mr. Right. But at the world, at God, at Fate, whatever you want to call it. Whoever’s in charge up there is doing a sucky job.
“You’re absolutely right,” Summer says briskly, “you totally deserve that kind of guy, and I know it won’t be long until you find him. Now, Abby. I think it’s time we focused on you. Tell me, do you need tips for your wedding night or do you think you’ll be able to wing it?”
We all start laughing, and the conversation moves on, to my relief. The food is passed around, wine is poured, and I gradually start to relax as the attention moves from me and the alcohol threads through my veins.
I manage to forget a little about my current situation. A couple of hours pass swiftly with us all talking, laughing, and singing, and it seems no time at all has gone when Mom, Ophelia, and Georgia rise and say it’s time for them to retire. I doubt they’re really tired; they probably want the younger generation to have some time alone, but I give them all a hug and say goodbye, then pick up some plates and carry them through to the little kitchen as the others see them out.
Summer joins me, and even though Eva protested that we didn’t need to wash up, we take five minutes to rinse the plates through.
“You okay?” she says after a while.
“Yeah.” I give her a smile. “A bit tired.”
“Me, too. I don’t drink that much at home and it was lovely to have a couple of glasses, but I feel kinda zonked now.” She yawns.
I give her a fond look. “Never mind, your lovely hubby will be back soon to tuck you up.”
“Yeah. I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”
It’s a strange thing for her to say, considering she has CF, and she was near death only a few months ago.
“That sounded weird,” she says. “You know what I mean, though.”
I laugh. “Yeah. You do seem to have a happy marriage. I envy you that.”
She stacks the plates carefully. “I don’t think our relationship is any different than anyone else’s. I know I do things that irritate him, and he’s hardly perfect. But I guess, because of my CF, we’re willing to overlook the tiny things more. If we do argue, we always make up the same day. We fight the battles worth fighting, you know? So much of life is given over to trivia, to tiny things that don’t really matter. Sometimes he’ll leave his socks lying around, or he’ll forget to take out the trash, and I get irritated and go to yell at him, then I think is it really worth it, in the big scheme of things?”
“Wise advice,” I reply.
“And easy to say,” she says. “Not always easy to do.” She puts down the last plate, then reaches out and rubs my arm. “I saw your face earlier, when you said about wanting someone to be so crazy about you that they can’t b
ear to be without you. That’s how it should be. Have you thought about saying that to Stefan? Explaining that you’re interested in a relationship, and that you understand whatever issues are keeping the two of you apart, but that you’re not going to wait forever for him? A little jealousy is sometimes enough to get the ball rolling.”
“I suppose. I don’t want him to feel as if I’m trying to play him, though,” I say doubtfully.
“No, fair enough. But there’s nothing wrong with being honest and explaining you think too much of yourself to hang around waiting for him to get his act together. If he truly doesn’t want a relationship, that’s his prerogative, and it’s best you move on. But if he’s implying he’s interested and expecting you to talk him into it, that’s not fair.”
I give her a hug. “How come you have such an old brain on such young shoulders?”
“I’m nearly thirty-eight, I’m hardly young. And my kids think I’m ancient, so…” She smiles as she moves back.
“How long do you think the guys will be?” Nix asks as we return to the living room.
Summer checks her watch. “It’s gone ten. I said it was probably best not to keep the boys out too long, but they’re obviously having fun. I’d think not too much longer though.”
“One for the road?” Nix asks, waving a bottle of Finnish vodka.
I’ve already had several glasses of wine, but I nod, and we all sit for a final drink, with Izzy and Poppy finishing off with a small glass of lemonade.
“I miss wine,” Poppy says, pouting.
“Me too. But it’ll be worth it.” Izzy holds up her glass, and Poppy clinks hers against it.
Outside, the snow falls steadily while the girls laugh and chatter on. I think of the guys, probably beginning to head back, trudging up the hill in the snow, boisterous and merry. Tomorrow, Noah and Abby are getting married. It’ll be Christmas Eve, and Santa will be packing up his sleigh, ready to deliver Christmas magic to the rest of the world.
Will there be a little left for me? I look up at the night sky, and even though I can’t see the stars, I think of the star that once appeared at this time of year, and make a wish.
Chapter Twenty
Stefan
“Jesus, it’s cold.” Hal hunches his shoulders and shoves his hands deeper in the pockets of his jacket. “Can’t believe I forgot my gloves.”
“You need your mom to thread them through the sleeves of your jacket on a piece of elastic,” I tell him.
He laughs, as we make our way up the hill back to the Escape. The others are in front of us, tossing snowballs with the boys.
“It’s been a great evening,” Hal says. “I’m pleased for Noah.”
“Yeah, I think it was just what he needed,” I reply. “A rowdy, raucous evening with strippers and everyone getting blind drunk wouldn’t have been his scene.”
“More’s the pity,” Hal says, and grins. I smile back, knowing he’s joking. The days are long gone when the two of us would have found that kind of night appealing.
“Are we getting old?” I ask him, as the path grows a little steeper and my joints protest.
“Just a bit. Izzy told me off the other day for getting up off the floor and groaning like an old man.”
“What were you doing on the floor?” I ask, knowing perfectly well from his smirk that he was having sex.
“Measuring the carpet,” he says.
I chuckle. “You’d better get used to sitting on the floor. You’re going to be a dad, and you’re going to have to make train sets and Lego and stuff.”
“I’m going to buy heaps of beanbags and cushions. And possibly a block and tackle system to get me up and down.”
I laugh. “Do you want a boy or a girl?” It’s the first time we’ve talked about the fact that Izzy’s pregnant, apart from our initial hug on the night he announced it.
“I think I’m supposed to say I don’t care, as long as it’s healthy,” he replies. “And it’s true, mostly. I don’t mind. I like the idea of a boy, someone I can throw a rugby ball around with. But I can do that with a girl, too.” He blows out a long breath, forming a white cloud around his face. “If I’m honest, though, I think I’d prefer a boy. I’d worry more if it was a girl. Even if I taught her self-defense and stuff, there’s always that fear…” He trails off, but I know he’s thinking about Jules and Connor, and about Maia.
“I don’t get it,” I reply. “How can guys do things like that to the women they love?”
He looks up, at the snow falling softly around us. “I don’t know.”
“Do you think there’s truth in what they say, that every man is a potential rapist?”
He snorts. “Well, we all have a dick. So theoretically speaking… But no, I think it’s bullshit.”
“I never thought Mason would do anything like that,” I admit.
“No, me neither. But after saying that… he was always a loose cannon. He always went that one step further than either you or I.”
“That’s true.”
“Do you remember that party we went to at Ollie Brooks’s place? Someone fell in the pool fully dressed and we all started jumping in? A couple of us threw our girlfriends in. And Mason picked up Ollie’s mom and chucked her in?”
I give a short laugh. “Yeah, I remember.”
“I’d never have done that. She was absolutely fuming, and she sent us all home. There are lines you don’t cross, you know? But they never mattered to Mason. There was that time a year or two before that where we all got drunk at some other party, and we were coming back across the fields making a load of noise, and he got a brick and threw it through that old lady’s window.”
My smile fades. That had been awful. We’d all known the old lady who lived in the house on the corner of the park. She was a sweet woman who often had trouble keeping kids out of her garden because it was near to the high school. We’d been truly shocked that Mason would do such a thing. As Hal said, there were lines you just didn’t cross, no matter how rebellious you were. Hal and I had gone around to her house the next day and apologized, cleared up the glass for her, and paid for her to have a new window put in. Mason had refused to go with us.
“All guys have testosterone,” Hal says. “Most of us get into fights and have anger issues when we’re young. We’re animals, when it comes down to it. But the majority of us learn to control it.” He glances at me. “You’re not worried, are you? That you’d do something like Mason?” I hesitate, and Hal stops walking. “Jesus,” he says. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I turn to face him in the snow, shivering as a breeze blows flakes down my neck. “I know Mason sometimes took things too far,” I reply, “but I never thought he’d do that to a woman, and especially to my sister. He grew up with Maia, the same way I did with Jules. If he could do something like that, who’s to say we won’t? That I won’t?”
“Because we’re good, kind, decent guys who love our girls,” he says. “Jesus, Stef. Do we get carried away in the moment? Yeah, sometimes. But if a girl said stop, would we ignore her and keep going? I know I wouldn’t, and neither would you, so stop with this bullshit.” He glares at me. “Is this what the last year has been about? Is this why you’re terrified of dating Jules? Because you’re afraid you’ll do something to hurt her?”
I don’t reply, but he’s sort of right. I’m confused, baffled, and shocked by what my friend did, so cut up by it, so horribly frightened and furious and scarred, that I’m not sure I’ll ever get over it.
I wait for Hal to yell at me, but his anger fades and his expression softens. “Dude,” he says. “You couldn’t do that to Jules any more than fly.”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “Since Mason… I feel as if there’s a monster living inside us all, trying to get out.”
“You’re the most loyal, righteous guy I know, Stef. You’d go to the ends of the Earth for me, for any of our friends, for all the women we know. You were always the one who kept me in check, who reined me in. No matter
how much you drank when we were young, your moral compass always pointed north. Always. I can’t think of a single thing you’ve ever done in your whole life that has been reprehensible or disgraceful. You were my best man, because that’s how I think about you—the best man I know. If you were to date Jules, to end up with her, I’d be the happiest guy in the world.” He gives me an affectionate smile. “You fucking idiot. Why didn’t you talk to me about this?”
My throat tightens, and I can’t reply. He shakes his head and comes forward to give me a bear hug. “I’m sorry about Mason,” he says as we stand locked together, the snow falling on us. “Truly sorry. But don’t compare yourself to him. He’s not half the man you are. Not a quarter—not an eighth.”
He releases me and holds me by the arms as he looks into my eyes. “You all right?”
I nod and swallow. Below us, the carol singers are walking through the village, and their handbells ring out the introduction to a new song.
“They’re playing our tune,” Brock calls out, and he joins in with the carol singers, loud and somewhat tuneless. “We Three Kings of Orient are…”
Charlie adds in the next line. “One in a taxi, one in a car.”
Matt finishes off. “One on a scooter, bibbing his hooter…”
The rest of us can’t help but laugh as the three of them walk up the hill, struggling to stay in a straight line.
“Star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright…” Noah sings the words softly as Hal and I walk up the hill toward him. “You two look far too serious. Everything okay?” He frowns in concern, and I realize he’s thinking I’ve heard about Fred.
“Nothing like that,” I tell him. “Just me being maudlin.”
“You need to get laid,” he informs me, and Hal snorts.
“Probably,” I agree, trying not to think about Jules’s soft body, and failing.
“I’m getting laid now,” Noah says cheerfully. He’s obviously had a tad too much to drink.
“Not tonight,” Hal reminds him. “She’s over at Summer’s tonight.”
My Christmas Billionaire (The Billionaire Kings Book 7) Page 14