“You ordered it.”
“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” Maddy heaved a huge sigh. “You’re right. Oh, what the hell. I’ve probably got to tell someone, and I don’t actually want any advice, so maybe you’re the best person for this. But don’t you breathe a word of this to anyone else.”
Eddie leaned forward and took one of her hands.
“I’m pregnant.”
He stroked her palm, wondering what you said to that. “Congratulations?”
Maddy snorted, then grabbed her napkin and looked dangerously teary again. “Yeah, thanks. I think.”
This was so way out of Eddie’s comfort zone, he’d need a map to find his way back there again, but at least he was okay with getting lost. “So, what’s the problem exactly? Are you not sure if you want to keep it?”
Maddy hugged her arms around her middle and glared at him. “Of course I want to keep it. This is my baby.”
“Yours and Niall’s?”
“Yes, of course it’s Niall’s.”
“Hey, don’t blame me for wondering. I know you two have an open-relationship arrangement going on.”
“Yeah, but I’m really careful. And besides, I’ve only been seeing other women for the last few months. It has to be Niall’s. The dates are all right.”
“Okay. And what does he think about it?”
The cheesecake was suddenly demanding all of Maddy’s concentration.
“You haven’t told him?”
“What if he wants me to get rid of it?” Maddy moaned. “That’s our baby. I couldn’t bear it if he didn’t want it.”
“What makes you think he wouldn’t want it?”
“He’s never talked about having kids.”
“I think you’ll find most blokes don’t until someone else brings the subject up.”
“Well, yeah, gay blokes don’t, maybe.”
“Hey, gay men can have kids too, you know.”
“Not without a bit of help from a turkey baster. And a willing surrogate.”
Eddie really didn’t want that image in his head. “Look, whatever’s going on, you need to talk to Niall. He’ll probably surprise you. I mean, he’s got that big old house and garden now. What’s that if it isn’t a family home? He’s probably been planning for this but didn’t want to bring it up in case you hated the idea.” The more Eddie thought about it, the more he warmed to the idea. “All that work he’s having done on the garden, that’s not for his benefit, is it? He doesn’t even like gardens.”
“Why would anyone think I don’t want kids?”
“Well, you never coo over babies, and you’ve always said you hate kids.”
Maddy pouted. “That’s other people’s kids. Mine will be different.”
“How, exactly?”
“They’ll be mine, for a start.”
“You know they’ll still have dirty nappies and get sick and all that kind of thing.”
Maddy waved her fingers dismissively. “It’s fine. I can deal. I’m not squeamish. Anyway, how come you know so much about it?”
“Three younger stepsisters, perhaps?” Eddie had been twelve when the first of them came along, so his teenage years had featured a fair bit of babysitting. “It’s hard to imagine you with a baby, but I bet she’d be cute.”
“What makes you think it’ll be a girl?”
“I don’t know. I just never had to deal with any boy babies. A boy would be cool, though. With a mum like you, he’d never have to worry about it if he liked boys or dressing up in fairy costumes or what have you.”
“Knowing my luck, I’ll probably end up with a Neanderthal sports obsessive like Jeff.”
“Mmm, equally appealing in its own way. I could train him up in the ways of the bear.”
“Shut up. I’m not letting you anywhere near my little boy. You’ll go putting all sorts of weird ideas in his head.”
“That’s better, you’re smiling now.” And more importantly, the threatened emotional meltdown had been avoided.
“Yeah, thanks, Edd. You’re right. I’ll have to talk to Niall. Tonight. Can’t stand much more of being in a state like this.” Maddy pulled a folding mirror out of her bag and set about righting her makeup, which, as far as Eddie could see, hadn’t been affected in the slightest. She frowned critically before applying another coat of lipstick. She was busy doing something unnecessary with her eyebrows when she next spoke. “So, has your Neanderthal shagged you yet?”
Annoyingly, Eddie’s cheeks started to heat. “Not exactly.”
She looked up from her eyebrow surgery. “You’re embarrassed! Oh, that’s so cute. You must really like him. I’ve never seen you blush before.”
“I’m not bloody well embarrassed.” Eddie attacked the bowl of sugar cubes with his teaspoon. “It’s just… I don’t know if I’m hoping for too much from him. This is only ever going to be a series of training sessions, after all.”
“You want a relationship with him.”
It wasn’t a question, so Eddie didn’t bother answering. His cheeks flaming hotter was probably confirmation enough for Maddy, anyway.
“Oh, poppet, really? That’s too bad. All those gay Doms you could have fallen for, and you have to pick a straight one.”
“I haven’t fallen for him. I’d just like to spend some more time exploring out mutual interests.” Yep, that sounded about right.
And Maddy clearly wasn’t having any of it. “You just keep telling yourself that, darling. Denial’s not just a river in Egypt, you know.”
Eddie flicked a sugar cube at her. “Oi, I sit here being all sympathetic and that, and then you tell me I’m in denial?”
Maddy put her shades back on again, neatly reassembling her celebrity-in-not-very-convincing-disguise look. “Yep, you’re totally deluded. Now come on. Fill me in on the fun stuff. What else have you been up to since I last saw you?”
“Oh, a little bit of this and that. Work, mostly, if I’m honest.”
“Come on. You must have bought yourself some new toys. And no, I don’t mean dildos thank you very much.”
“Funny you should mention that, because I found this guy in Bath who makes the most gorgeous glass dildos and buttplugs. Maybe you could get one for Niall to use. On you, not for him!” he added as Maddy flicked the sugar cube right back at him. It was good to see her laughing again.
Chapter Thirteen
Jeff was halfway down his brother’s driveway when a passing van stopped him in his tracks. Eddie’s car was the exact same colour. Why the hell hadn’t Eddie phoned him like he said he would? It had been four and a half days. Four and a half days since Jeff had rearranged his front room to hide the burnt patch on the rug, and the new set-up kept reminding him of Eddie every time he went in there.
“Oi, keep going.” Tony barged into him with a cardboard box loaded with what felt like rocks. “We’ve gotta get the van back to the hire place by six.”
“Yeah, all right. Can’t a bloke take a few minutes’ rest?”
“We’ll rest while we’re having lunch. Come on, bro. You’ve been away with the bloody fairies all morning. What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.” The only reason he was stressing out about Eddie not getting in contact was he had an itch needed scratching, and Eddie certainly knew how to do that for him.
“Oh.” Tony looked him up and down. “Girl trouble, is it? Yeah, you used to look like that when you were having a spat with Sarah. So come on, who is she, then?”
“Who’s who?” Jeff climbed up into the back of the transit van so he could stack their latest boxes neatly on top of the others. And hopefully avoid this line of questioning.
“This mystery bird. The one you’re getting all stressed out over.”
“It’s not a woman.”
“Then what is it?”
Some
how, Jeff resisted the temptation to say it was a man. Tony would never get that. The man was as straight as…as straight as Jeff had been up till a couple of weeks ago. He had a wife and four kids, for Christ’s sake.
“It’s work,” he eventually settled on. And it wasn’t just to shut Tony up. Work genuinely was a puzzle right now.
“Yeah? Thought you was doing all right these days? More jobs than you could take on, you said.”
“Yeah, that’s just it. Dad reckons I should start hiring a team.” Jeff wrestled a few other boxes into more stable positions—Tony was such a slapdash packer—before hopping down from the van’s tailgate.
“Sounds good. You get to sit back and boss them around while you rake in the profits. Wish I was in a position to do that.” Tony was part of a road-mending crew, but he really wasn’t the kind of bloke you’d want as your boss. Not enough attention to detail, for a start. “So come on, what’s the problem? Sounds like it’s all going fine.”
“I dunno. It’s just sometimes I get to thinking like this is Dad’s dream I’m living. Not mine.”
“Yeah? Then what’s yours?”
Jeff shrugged. “I like working outdoors. And with my hands. I just prefer doing stuff with plants than cement and shit. You know, proper gardening.”
Tony gave him a lopsided grin. “You’ll give the old man a heart attack if you tell him that. He already thinks you’re a bit soft in the head putting in all that work on your own garden. Won’t raise the value of your house, he says.”
“Tell me about it,” Jeff muttered.
But Tony slapped him on the arm. “Nah, don’t worry about what that grumpy old bugger thinks. You want to do it, you do it. One thing I’ve figured out since having the kids, life’s too bloody short to spend it doing stuff to please other people.”
“You’re all right, though. You’re moving away from him.”
“I know.” Tony’s grin grew wider, then faded. “Gonna miss the bastard, though. And Mum. You’d better look after them for me.”
“You’ll still visit every weekend, though?” Jeff didn’t think he could bear the burden of being the only child still around.
“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll be there to take the heat off you. And maybe I’ll make a career change too. You know, get into retail or something. He’d go ballistic, wouldn’t he? Probably smash all his bloody matchstick models.”
They both grinned at the idea.
“Come on. Just a few more boxes to load, and we can get this show on the road. Denise just texted me to say they’re going to be back by five, so we at least need to have the telly set up by then.”
They loaded the rest of the van quickly and by twelve thirty were on the road to Trowbridge. However, they hadn’t got any farther than Mells before Jeff’s stomach gave a loud rumble.
“Next pub we pass, we’re stopping for lunch,” Tony announced.
“Yeah, sounds good,” Jeff said without thinking. Of course, the next bloody pub would have to be Globetrotter. “Not here,” he said as Tony pulled into the car park and into the exact same spot Jeff had last parked his truck.
“Why not? I’ve heard they do good food.”
“Isn’t it a bit poncy for the likes of us?”
“Jesus fuck, Jeff. We’re not that bloody common. It’s just a country pub, and our money’s as good as anyone else’s. Now get a move on. I’m fucking Hank Marvin.”
Since Jeff couldn’t give the real reason he didn’t want to go inside, he followed Tony and hoped like hell it would be a different set of staff than the last couple of times he’d been down. If anyone told Tony that Jeff had been down here having a candlelit meal with a bloke, he didn’t know how he’d live it down.
Fortunately, he didn’t recognise any of the staff, and at the bar, they ordered their nosh. “And a bowl of olives,” Jeff added after placing their order for pie and mash.
“Olives?” Tony wrinkled his nose. “Didn’t think you ate that kind of rubbish.”
“They’re good here.”
“Yeah? So when have you been before?”
Fuck. Jeff grabbed the wooden spoon with their order number on it and led the way to a table. Unfortunately, the only one he could see was the one he’d last shared with Eddie. Seemed memories had a way of ambushing him today.
“I’ve been here on a date,” he eventually said. It wasn’t exactly untrue.
“Yeah? So when are we going to meet this mystery woman, eh?”
“I said a date, not a relationship.”
“Oh. Slapper, is she? Don’t worry, Mum might not have liked Denise to begin with, but she got over it eventually. The kids helped.”
“It’s not like that.” Fortunately, the olives arrived before Tony could wring anything else out of him, and Jeff took the opportunity to stab one of the oily Greek berries with the little double-pronged spear. Couldn’t talk with your mouth full, could you?
Unfortunately, all that brought to mind was Eddie trying to speak with his mouth stuffed full of Jeff’s dick. The organ in question got excited by that, and Jeff had to adjust his jeans. Fucking traitor. Was it possible for your dick to be gay, even if the rest of you wasn’t?
Tony was still staring at him.
“What?” Jeff demanded.
“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat an olive before. She posh, then, this bird you’re not in a relationship with? You her bit of rough or something?”
“Something like that.” Jeff chased another olive around in the earthenware bowl.
“Well, good on you, bro. Nah, don’t look at me like that. I mean it. You were with that bitch Sarah for way too long. ’Bout time you had a bit of fun. Doesn’t have to be anything serious, does it? Just mess around for a bit, and when you find yourself a bird like Denise, you’ll be ready to settle down again.”
“Sarah wasn’t a bitch.”
“Not to begin with, maybe. She didn’t half get snotty with me that Christmas, though. You remember? You’d have thought I’d have done something awful.” Tony launched into retelling one of his favourite anecdotes involving a prank the twenty-two-year-old Tony had played on Jeff’s ex. And yeah, he had to admit there was a funny side to seeing Sarah covered head to toe in the custard Tony had rigged up to trap him, but still…
“She’d just spent two hours getting ready to go out. You ruined our entire evening. You think Denise would have seen the funny side if that’d been her?”
“Not at the time, but we’d be laughing about it now.”
Maybe that was true. Denise had always been a lot more smiley and easy-going. Sarah had been…driven. And yeah, maybe a little humourless. She certainly hadn’t been anything like Eddie, with his easy laughter and sense of fun.
Fuck it. He really had to stop thinking about that man. Jeff stabbed an olive with the fork, but all he could picture as the tines punctured the olive’s skin was that pinwheel digging into Eddie’s flesh. He had to try that again. When Eddie was tied up. He eyed the olive fork speculatively. Maybe something like that could have its uses too. It was sharp and pointy. So long as he sterilised it first…
He wrapped it in a napkin and shoved it in his pocket. He’d eat the rest of the olives with his fingers.
Tony gave him a weird look. “You know, most folk stick to nicking the glasses.”
“I’ve got plenty of glasses already.” Jeff eyed the container holding the wooden spoon with their order number. If the server didn’t collect it when she dropped off their main course, he was having that too. What kind of a bruise would a wooden spoon leave on Eddie’s pale, succulent arse?
Jeff licked his lips, tasting a salty bitterness that only reminded him of Eddie more.
Five hours later, and Jeff took his leave from an exhausted but happy family in their new home. The kids were over the moon about the large park at the end of the road, and even Jeff had to agree th
at there were some benefits to living in a larger town, at least where kids were concerned. The twenty-four-hour Tesco was another. Stomach rumbling again, he decided to call in there on his way home. He usually did the weekly shop on a Saturday, after all, and he didn’t much fancy heading home to an almost empty fridge.
He was in the aisle full of grooming crap and all that bollocks, trying to decide which deodorant would smell the most macho, when his phone started ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket and stared at the screen. Fuck. Eddie. Should he answer in here? What if he got a hard-on in the supermarket?
Fuck it. He had to hear Eddie’s voice.
He fumbled, nearly accidentally pressing Decline instead of Answer, but managed to save his cool by growling a “Yeah?”
“And hello to you too,” Eddie drawled. “Got out of the wrong side of the bed today, did we? Bit too much of the old sauce last night?”
“Piss off.” Jeff lowered his voice and turned to the shelf full of deodorants. “Been helping my brother move house. I’m bloody knackered.”
“Ah, and now you’re doing the weekly shop, which is very near the bottom of the list of things you like to do on a Saturday evening.”
“How’d you know?” Was Eddie stalking him or something? Jeff looked up and down the aisle just in case, but there was no sign of that shock of straw-coloured hair.
“Relax, I’m not psychic or anything. Just heard the tannoy, and I’m good at guessing. I wanted to be a detective when I was a kid. Did I tell you that yet? I was obsessed for years. Used to buy all these solve-your-own-adventure books with my pocket money.”
“Yeah? I used to buy crisps and fizzy pop with mine.” Jeff pictured Eddie in a deerstalker, magnifying glass in hand. He’d look kind of cute like that. And then Jeff could be the big, bad cop who’d have to reprimand him for getting in the way of an official police investigation.
Shit. Now his truncheon was growing. Jeff stepped closer to the shelf and pretended to read the deodorant labels.
“What made you get into drawing stuff for a living, then?” he asked, as much to distract himself as to know the answer.
How to Train Your Dom in Five Easy Steps Page 12