by Olsen, Isla
* * *
Moving the party to my parents’ place is a bit of a logistical nightmare. I know Mom meant well by having us all come here to surprise Brendan and Wade when they came home, but honestly it would have just made more sense to stick to the original plan and have them stop by Mom and Da’s for a bit so everyone could meet the baby. By the time we’re all ready to make a move—or in other words, by the time Brendan and Wade are getting sick of us and dropping hints they want to at least try to get some sleep—most of us are already pretty full up on eggnog, Da’s wine, or whatever other alcohol was at hand when the evening started.
Fortunately, my parents’ place is in the same neighborhood as Brendan and Wade’s so we can easily walk there. Definitely a good thing, considering none of us are in any condition to be driving.
It’s not until Heath and I are most of the way down the drive that I realize I have a little shadow following me. Frowning down at Baxter, I ask, “Shouldn’t you be inside? Your dads will worry if they can’t find you.”
He shakes his head, grinning broadly. “I’m staying at Grandma and Pops’ tonight because Daddy and BeeBee need space.”
I chuckle at the way he annunciates the last word; it’s clear this is something he’s overheard a grown up—probably my mom—say. “Okay, well, come on—you can walk with Heath and me.” I quickly crouch down so I can zip up his coat and adjust his hat before standing and taking his small hand in mine.
We continue down the drive and are at the sidewalk when I feel Baxter tug at my hand. “Wait! I needa say ‘bye to Wyatt!”
I turn as Baxter tears free of my grip and trots back up the drive to where Liam has just emerged from the house, carrying his five-year-old son in his arms.
“Wyatt!” Baxter calls, waving his arms and bouncing on his tip toes.
Wyatt, who looked as though he’d been dozing against Liam’s shoulder, seems to perk up at the sound of Baxter’s voice and starts to wriggle out of Liam’s hold. Once he’s on the ground, he steps toward Baxter and the two little boys hug.
“Oh my god, that’s so freakin’ adorable,” Heath says, and I turn to see him holding a hand to his chest as he watches Baxter and Wyatt with a fond smile.
“Bye, Wyatt.”
“Bye, Baxter.”
They break apart and Baxter trots back toward Heath and me while Wyatt takes Liam’s hand.
“You’re not coming to Mom and Da’s?” I ask him, a little surprised considering how much he and his wife, Melinda, love a good karaoke night, which is apparently the plan for when we get back to my parents’ and can turn up the volume.
Liam shakes his head. “We’ve got to get this one to bed.”
“Just bring him,” Heath suggests. “He can fall asleep at Aileen and Michael’s and you can carry him home later.”
Liam lets out a bark of laughter. “Spoken like someone without any kids. Trust me, man, once yours gets here, you’ll start to see it’s not that easy. Besides, Logan and Eden went home a little while ago—we should probably go check they haven’t burned the place down.”
I chuckle. Liam’s two older kids are in middle school and are usually given a lot of freedom, but I can see how leaving them home on their own all night might be a bit of a stretch.
Once we get back to Mom and Da’s, I hand Baxter over to my mom, who seems beyond relieved to see him arrived safely.
“Oh, thank goodness!” she cries, her hand going to her chest. “Mark said he thought he saw him leaving with you, but you know he’s got that wonky vision and he’s had a few of your father’s wines so I couldn’t be sure…”
I shake my head in wry amusement. I’m not sure my mother, who can barely read a thing without her glasses, is in any position to criticize someone else’s vision. My sister Bridie’s husband, Mark, sees perfectly fine except for being colorblind. “I’m sure there were other people who saw him leave with us, Mom. It’s not like we covertly whisked him away in a black van.”
“Well, you can never be too sure.”
Says the woman who forgot Brendan at the mall for three hours when he was nine. Actually, that might help explain a few things… I give Mom a reassuring pat on the shoulder and continue through the house into the living room, where I see Shay is already almost done setting up the karaoke machine.
We do Christmas karaoke every year, but this year someone’s made a rule that the songs have to be performed as a duet. I’m guessing it was to prevent Liam and Brendan from hogging the mic like they usually do, but considering neither are here it seems a little unnecessary. It does, nevertheless, make for some incredibly entertaining numbers.
The best performance of the night is obviously Ben and me doing “Jingle Bell Rock.” But Heath and Alannah’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” is definitely a crowd-pleaser, and has everyone up dancing and singing along. Although, to be fair, as drunk as everyone is they’d probably sing and dance to just about anything right now…
And that theory is proven correct when Jamie and Aidan get up to perform a truly horrendous version of “Mistletoe” by Justin Bieber. As if that song didn’t already suck enough…
4
Blake
* * *
When I wake up with my head throbbing and my eyes feeling crusted shut, the last thing I expect to see through my blurry vision once I finally manage to crack them open is a six-year-old in green reindeer pajamas hovering at the side of my bed. It’s Baxter, one of my many nephews.
For a long moment I search my muddled brain trying to reason out how Bax could be in my house. But then I realize I’m not actually in my house. This is my husband’s childhood bedroom.
“Did you know babies come from sex?” Baxter asks.
I blink a few times at the question; it sounds a little random but I guess his world is pretty focused on his new sister and how she got here right now. “I did know that.” I decide not to clarify that not all children are conceived through intercourse; that seems like a conversation for his fathers to handle.
“That’s where Daddy and BeeBee got my sister from,” he says.
“From where?”
He looks at me like I’m a few cents shy of a dollar. “From Sex. It’s where all the babies come from.”
With great effort, I manage to hold in my burst of laughter as I realize he’s made the assumption ‘sex’ is a physical place. Damn, this kid is cute. “Oh, right. Of course.”
“Are you and Uncle Owen going to go to Sex to get a baby?” he asks, curiosity plastered all over his little face.
“Uh…”
“Grandma says you should get a baby soon because you’re not getting any younger.”
I give up. I just can’t help letting out a sputtering laugh at that. I feel Owen’s arm come around my waist as he snuggles in closer behind me, his nose nuzzling against the back of my neck.
“What’s going on?” he asks sleepily.
“Apparently your mom thinks I’m old,” I tell him wryly.
He chuckles against my neck. “You are old, daddy.”
Baxter’s face screws up in confusion. “I thought Pop was Uncle Owen’s daddy?”
Obviously registering Baxter’s presence, Owen springs up, his eyes wide and cheeks flaming adorably pink. “Oh my god—Baxter!”
“Baxter!” My mother-in-law, Aileen, calls from the hallway. “Come and leave your uncles alone, love. They’re a touch worse for wear this morning.”
Baxter turns on his heel and trots off into the hallway. “What does that mean?” he asks Aileen.
“It means they drank too much eggnog last night. Now, come on, love. We’ll make some pancakes.”
Baxter lets out a whoop of excitement and their footsteps disappear down the stairs.
“Well, that was mortifying,” Owen groans, collapsing onto my chest.
I let out a soft chuckle and bring up my arms to wrap around him. “He’s not going to remember it.”
Owen props his chin on my chest and looks up into my eyes. “Are
you serious? He still thinks ‘dildo’ is another word for ‘backpack’—that kid doesn’t forget anything.”
“Okay, you might have a point there,” I admit wryly.
He adjusts his position so he’s no longer sprawled on my chest, instead stretching out on his side with his head propped against his palm. “It’s official, I can’t call you that anymore. The association’s been made—there’s no way I’ll be able to get that out of my head.”
“But I love when you call me daddy,” I say, unable to stop my lips from forming a pout.
Owen offers a teasing grin, his free hand coming up to brush over the stubble on my jaw. “Sorry, Blakey Bear. I’ll have to think of something else.”
I groan. “Just as long as it’s not that.” ‘Blakey Bear’ is the ridiculous pet name my mom has for me; Owen took to using it ironically pretty much the second he heard it, but I absolutely do not need to be reminded of my mother during any of our more intimate moments.
“Why are we in your old room, anyway?” I ask, glancing around at our surroundings. “Not that I don’t have extremely fond memories of this place.”
Owen chuckles softly. “You don’t remember last night?”
“It’s a little fuzzy,” I admit. “Although I do have “Last Christmas” on a loop in my head…”
“Yeah, you and Shay did a duet when we got the karaoke machine out.”
“Shay and I did a duet to Wham!?” I ask incredulously.
Owen offers a bright grin. “Yep. Didn’t need the words or anything.”
My eyes narrow skeptically. “Are you sure it wasn’t The Boss’s version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”?”
Owen shakes his head back and forth, lips spread into a wide grin. “Nope. It was Wham!”
I groan, shaking my head in mortification.
It seems Owen and I aren’t the only ones feeling “worse for wear” this morning; when we finally make our way downstairs, it’s to find Declan and Heath, Aidan and Ben, Ellie, and Alannah, all sitting around the kitchen table wearing last night’s clothes and seedy expressions.
“Jesus, did everyone sleep here?” I ask.
“Not everyone,” Aidan says, his voice sounding scratchy, most likely from overuse last night. “Jake took Shay and Jamie home not long after that beautiful duet of yours.”
I close my eyes, drawing in a regretful sigh. I still can’t believe I sang Wham! in public.
“Finn went with them as well,” Heath says. “He didn’t trust himself under the same roof as Ellie.”
“I’m not sure that’s the exact reason,” Dec says. “We’re speculating.”
Aidan gives a wry shake of his head. “No, that’s definitely the right reason.”
I let out a breath of laughter, exchanging an amused glance with Owen. I have no clue what’s going on with Finn and Ellie but it sure sounds interesting.
“Oh, good, you’re all up,” Aileen says as she bustles into the kitchen. “We’re about to make some more pancakes.”
“I already had pancakes!” Baxter announces brightly, trotting after my mother-in-law.
Aileen ruffles his blond curls affectionately. “Yes, well, who knows how long you’d have waited for breakfast if we hadn’t gone ahead without this lot?” She waves a lazy hand in our direction before turning her attention back to Baxter. “Now, my dear, why don’t you sit up on this stool and you can be my assistant like you were this morning.”
Baxter rushes to comply, climbing up onto one of the kitchen stools, his little legs swinging back and forth as he watches Aileen at the stove.
“Jeez, Mom, how strong was that eggnog?” Alannah groans, rubbing a hand over her face. “My head is killing me.”
“It was the same as it always is—one third alcohol. Clearly your tolerance isn’t what it used to be.”
“I think it’s the amount you drunk that was the problem, sis,” Declan says with a teasing grin.
Alannah grumbles a response that I don’t quite catch.
“Where’s Haley?” I ask her, surprised to see her here without her wife.
“How drunk were you, exactly, Blakey Bear?” Heath asks, prompting me to groan in annoyance and roll my eyes. “Haley took Lea home after we all left Brendan’s place.”
“Everyone with kids left early,” Aidan says. He offers Heath and Declan a teasing smile, warning, “That’ll be you two next.”
“If the baby ever gets here,” Heath mutters. “I can’t believe Arya was born first!”
Declan places a gentle hand on his husband’s arm. “Babe, remember what we talked about?”
Heath draws in a breath and lets it out slowly. “I can’t hold my child’s failure to be born first against them for the rest of their life,” he recites.
Everyone at the table sniggers while Declan leans over to give Heath a kiss on the cheek.
5
Connor
* * *
“Jesus, has the whole city congregated in this mall?” I ask Josh as we join the mile-long line to meet Santa. For the record, we have Chase with us; we’re not just two creepy guys lining up with a bunch of kids we don’t know.
“It’s the Sunday before Christmas, Con,” he says reasonably. “Of course it’s going to be busy.”
I groan. “Fuck, this is going to take forever.” I lean out to the side so I can peer around the people in front of me. Way off in the distance I see Santa seated on a red, throne-like chair, while his elves usher just a handful of kids at a time into the little enclosure surrounding him. “They should have two Santas working,” I suggest. “Or three. It’d make the line move quicker.”
“Yeah, I think that’d probably freak the kids out, having more than one Santa.”
“Well, it’s not like it’s the real Santa,” I reason.
That comment earns me what I feel to be unjustified glares from a bunch of parents in my vicinity. I roll my eyes at them. “What? Everyone knows the real Santa is in the North Pole right now finalizing all the logistics for his big trip on Thursday. These mall Santas are all just body doubles.”
“But I want a photo with the real Santa,” a little boy in front of us whines, tugging on his mom’s hand.
I shake my head at him. “No one ever gets to meet the real Santa, buddy. He can’t leave the North Pole except for on Christmas Eve—haven’t you seen The Christmas Chronicles?”
Next to me, Josh is shaking with silent laughter, but he manages to recover enough to tug on my arm and pull me down so he can murmur in my ear. “As amusing as this is, I think you need to shut it now—these parents look ready to mutiny.”
“Fine,” I say with a sigh. “But only because it’s you asking.”
The little boy in front of us is full on crying now, which makes me feel a little bad. But also a little disenchanted. I hope Chase isn’t this annoying once he’s whatever age this boy is.
And speaking of my awesome son, I get a whiff of something incredibly foul coming from the direction of Chase’s stroller and know he’s finally done that poop we’ve been waiting for all morning.
“Urgh, god. That’s enough to knock someone unconscious,” I groan, waving a hand over my face.
Josh chuckles. “Why don’t you go take care of it. I’ll smooth things over here.” He waves to the area around us and the parents who are still looking pretty peeved.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Why do I feel like this is a ploy to get me to change what is going to be an absolutely disgusting diaper?”
Josh holds a hand over his heart, batting his eyes at me in a look of pure innocence. “Would I do that?”
I shake my head in amusement and move toward Chase’s stroller. He holds his arms up signaling he wants to be carried, so I unbuckle the restraints and haul him into my arms before tugging the diaper bag from the stroller’s handle and slinging it over one shoulder.
As predicted, the diaper is a bad one. I remember Josh telling me back when I first found out about Chase that his diapers would get worse when he starte
d eating proper foods, but I honestly didn’t imagine this.
“You’re just a little poop machine, aren’t you?” I say with a grin as I clean him up and fasten a fresh diaper. “But you’re my little poop machine so your forgiven.”
Chase grins, clapping his hands together. “Dadadada.”
“Yep, that’s right.” Once I have his pants back on, I sit him up on the change table, pressing a kiss to his forehead before drawing back and smiling at him. “Can you say Santa?”
“Sa!”
“Eh, close enough.”
I haul him back into my arms and return to the bustling mall to meet Josh in the Santa line. Which has barely even moved in the twenty minutes I’ve been gone with Chase. Jesus Christ.
When we get to Josh, Chase immediately holds his arms out toward my fiancé. “Jojo! Jojo!”
I hand Chase over and start rooting around in the diaper bag for a bib and some snacks. I fasten the bib around Chase’s neck and then unwrap a cheese stick, handing it to him.
Josh groans. “Cheese? Really? I’m going to end up with this all over my shirt.”
I shrug. “Would you rather I get out the blueberries?”
“Oh, god no.”
By the time we reach the front of the queue, Chase has eaten another cheese stick, the blueberries, a couple apple slices, and half a saltine cracker. He’s also pooped again, with Josh diving on the bomb this time, and he’s spent about twenty minutes snoozing in his stroller. Fortunately, despite the ridiculous wait, there haven’t been any outbursts or tantrums, which is more than I can say for many of the older kids in the line.
But that all changes once we finally get up close to Santa. It’s like the second I set Chase on Santa’s lap, a switch flicks and my sweet, happy little boy turns into a screaming little monster.
“Oh my god! What’s happening?” I ask Josh, my eyes wide with horror. “He was fine two seconds ago!”