Choosing Forever

by Mary B. Moore

  “I’m only going to my apartment, Brett. I’m not leaving the country.” His face tightened as I said it, but apart from that his expression was impossible to read. “You’ve been a great friend…”

  “I’m not your fucking friend,” he growled before reaching up and gently pulling my face down toward him.

  I hadn’t been expecting it, and as soon as he kissed me, any thoughts of arguing with him over going back to my own apartment left my brain.

  That was the night that I’d given him my virginity. The night that everything had changed. And, the night that he’d just thrown back in my face.

  My grandmother had raised me to know what love was, but also to have dignity as a lady. I wouldn’t be giving Brett Townsend any of my time ever again.

  She’d also told me repeatedly that time healed everything. I really hope that she’d been telling me the truth because, right now, it didn’t feel like that would ever happen.

  Two days later…

  Devonshire had always been my go to place as a sanctuary. My grandmother had owned a cottage in a village called Appledore, which she’d left to me when she passed away. The second that Brett had ended things, I knew that I was going to come back here. I’d considered going somewhere else, anywhere really, but I just couldn’t do it.

  So, here I was in the only place that I’d ever really considered ‘home’, and I was still wondering if I’d made the right decision.

  Lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling, I wasn’t sure if it was the jet lag or the fact that I couldn’t stop the replay of what he’d said to me still going through my mind, but when I couldn’t fall back to sleep, I waited until the sun was starting to rise and then went out for a walk through the town down to the quayside.

  There were a few locals who I knew well here - one of which was an old childhood friend of mine called Finlay. He owned a veterinary practice in the village, but was one of the on-call vets for a safari park, Longleat, in Wiltshire. He was there at the moment so I hadn’t seen him, but I’d texted him to let him know that I was home and he’d replied that he was coming back to Appledore tonight, so we were going to the pub for dinner.

  His grandparents had owned the house next to my grandmother’s, which he’d also inherited from them, so not only would I have my best friend nearby, I’d have a neighbor too. Our properties only had a small road and a stone wall separating us from the seafront, so at night it was a bit eerie.

  My cottage was an old stone one that had been added onto over the years, but it was protected by the Heritage Trust so my grandmother had to stick to an original looking extension when she’d built onto it. It looked old and rustic from the outside and I adored it.

  The living room had a beautiful fire place that warmed it up quickly, so I started a fire before sitting down to answer some emails.

  An alert for Townsend Oil caught my attention first and I opened it up, wishing quickly that I hadn’t. It was for an online gossip column and I should have known better than to read it, but I just couldn’t help myself.

  Brett Townsend attends annual Autism Awareness charity ball with an unknown beautiful Texan belle.

  Well-known for being a bachelor, it was a shock to see him turn up with his arm around the brunette beauty. Sticking close to her throughout the night, Townsend looked like a man in lust.

  Is this a sign of love to come?

  I didn’t want to, but I had to. Clicking on the link, I looked at the photos of the event as bile rose into my throat.

  I made it to the toilet just in time for the coffee that I’d drunk that morning to evict itself from my stomach.

  Brett

  Reading through the small article that accompanied the numerous photographs of me and Brit from the night before, I could only hope and pray that Sabine didn’t see them.

  “What the shit is this?” Maya snapped as she held the screen of her phone in my face.

  I’d flown home after the ball to try and get my head together, and also in the hope that I could get away from the bullshit that had become my life.

  I guess now was as good a time as any to let the family know what was going on, though.

  Sighing, I leaned forward to look at the floor as I told them. The irony that the last time that I’d been in this position was when Coleman was telling me that I had to end things with Sabine wasn’t lost on me.

  “Someone has been threatening Sabine,” I started. I’d expected an outburst from the peanut gallery, but all I got was some gasps. “To keep her safe, I ended it.” Looking up, all I saw were the glaring faces of my family looking back at me. I’m only slightly ashamed to admit that I regressed to a sixteen-year-old and bitch squealed on the guy whose idea it was. “Coleman told me to!”

  All of the heads snapped in his direction at the same time, and the man who wasn’t afraid of anything took a step back. The women in this group were beautiful inside and out, but shit they could be scary, so his reaction was understandable.

  “It was the best thing to do!” Obviously, their expressions had gotten scarier because he held his hands up and started looking around him for a way to escape.

  “So, what’s your plan?” Cole asked while the women continued to intimidate Coleman beside us.

  “Adam has a couple of friends who are helping me,” I replied. Adam was one of Maya’s cousins and it had been a stroke of luck that he’d been in Houston when Coleman concocted this whole plan. “The plan is to make it look like…make my life look like normal,” I choked on the word; the way I was feeling was anything but normal. I couldn’t eat and I was struggling to sleep. Putting my arm around Brit last night had been torture. Fortunately, she knew what she was doing and was under Adam’s protection too, so no one would be able to get to her after being associated with me so publicly. We’d also fed the story to the rag that had printed it online, making sure that the wording was as misleading as it was.

  “You’re a dick,” Ebru muttered as she got up and went to leave. “And you’re a big old dick too,” she growled at Coleman who took a step back, bumping into the wall. “If I wasn’t pregnant I’d kick you in the balls,” she sniffed as she walked out of the room.

  The tension in the room was thick as we all watched her leave.

  “Well I’m not pregnant,” Mom stated, standing up at the same time as Gram. “You take that twat and I’ll take this one,” she started in Coleman’s direction as Gram came in mine.

  I’d just covered my balls with my hands when Ren caught her. Unfortunately, the tip of her shoe hit me right in my left ball and was probably aided in its trajectory by Ren lifting her up at the moment she kicked out.

  The pain rushing up through my gut, bringing me to my knees, and I vaguely registered the thud as I fell forward. Over the feeling of lava pouring through my body, I heard another thud as Coleman joined me on the floor.

  “That made me hot,” Gramps groaned as he grabbed her hand.

  I think the rest of the room made gagging noises, but they might have just been my own…and Coleman’s. He was definitely making them as no one had managed to catch Mom before she lashed out.

  “That’s what you get,” Mom made a lunging motion as she said this, and then sniffed and walked out of the room.

  I was still trying to recover when Cole walked over and nudged me with his toe.

  “You okay?”

  All I could muster was a groan in response.

  “Cool, so what you gonna do?”

  Another groan.

  “Oh, come on, she didn’t get you that hard!”

  Groan.

  “Don’t be such a baby. It was like this,” the intrepid shit stick argued as he demonstrated…by accidentally kicking me in the balls. “Oh shit!”

  I’d kill him later…once I got my balls out of my brain.

  Three

  SABINE

  There was nothing better than a Sunday roast. I’d eaten in some of the best restaurants in the world, but give me a pub roast or fish and chips any da
y.

  For the last two months, I’d been keeping Fin company at his veterinary practice or at Longleat and I loved it. He was six years older than me, but we’d been friends since the first time I accidentally ran over his toe with on my first bike ride. We were probably closer to siblings than I’d ever been with my brothers, too.

  “You sure you’re okay?” He asked for the millionth time. He was doing an ultrasound on an Orangutan to see if she was pregnant. The pregnancy test that they’d run had been inconclusive and the safari park needed to know if she was or wasn’t, so here we were.

  After this, we were heading to the City of Bath to have lunch at the Jane Austen Centre. After that, we were going to tour around where she had stayed and gotten inspiration for Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.

  I loved the Regency Tea Room at the center and had been thinking about the cream tea that I’d had there the last time I’d visited, when the thought of clotted cream started to make me feel sick. I still wanted it, but every time I thought about it I had to take deep breaths to try and stave off the nausea.

  “I’m hungry, but I feel sick.” It came out as a whine and Fin glanced at me before going back to the screen in front of him.

  “Seems to be happening quite often just now,” he murmured, giving me another side glance and then looking down at my stomach.

  He was right, maybe I should go to the doctor?

  Something hitting me in the center of the forehead and landing at my feet got my attention. Picking it up, I held a stick object that was covered in packaging.

  “ClearBlue preg…” So many thoughts hit me at once.

  Firstly, it was so clever that they had digital tests. What next – a Siri compatible one?

  Secondly, when had I last had my last period?

  Thirdly, were we still going to Bath for our day out?

  I want to say I fainted like a Hollywood heroine, but I as the ground rushed up to meet me I had a feeling I just looked like a sack of potatoes.

  Brett

  Watching Cole in the swimming pool with Luke and Isla’s twins, Dewi and Kali, I tried to look as if I didn’t have the weight of the world on my shoulders. Thankfully, the screaming of the twins as they jumped in and Cole caught them was making me smile - leave it up to frigging Luke to have twins that could walk and had no fear of the swimming pool by the age of one.

  I watched as Dewi jumped at Cole screaming and giggling her beautiful little head off. She looked so happy and didn’t have a care in the world as she went, and I wanted to have this so badly with Sabine.

  Luke was standing beside the pool with Kali in front of him waiting for his turn to jump.

  “Poop,” his squeaky little baby voice shouted out as Luke reached down for his daughter.

  Luke was too focused on getting Dewi out of the pool, though, so he did what every parent did. “Uh huh. Okay buddy!”

  “Poop!” He squealed again, jumping up and down excitedly, clapping his hands.

  I could have sworn I saw a scowl and a bit of redness pass over his face, but I blinked and it was gone. Probably wind.

  “Okay little man, you ready to go?” Luke took the couple of steps back to where he’d been initially. Kali was nodding his head so hard that he looked like one of those bobble head dolls. Dammit, they were so damn cute. “Right, on three, okay?” Again, he nodded. He probably didn’t understand what the hell Luke was saying to him, but maybe he did? “One, two, thr… Wait, did you say poop?”

  Luke’s hands frantically grabbed out at Kali as he launched himself into the air in Cole’s direction. Almost like it was in slow motion, the poop that Kali had been talking about came out of the side of his shorts and began its descent…towards Cole. The dick head was none the wiser, he was so focused on the adorable little person that was also headed in his direction. The projectile finally caught his attention, though, and in a split second he slammed his mouth shut and put his hands up in front of his face.

  Like that would save him.

  Luke and I were resting back against the counter while the twins, who were wrapped up in these seriously awesome towel cape things, played happily on the floor.

  We’d been here for the last ten minutes, enough time to have gotten comfortable and a cup of coffee, watching as the twunt continued to cough, whine and wash his hands with whatever product he’d found next.

  “I think I should feel bad,” Luke murmured as Cole checked the label on the carpet cleaner before spraying it on his hands.

  I was used to this shit happening to him. It had happened from day one, so I just shrugged knowing that it would be something else by the end of tomorrow.

  “I mean, the shit was one thing, but that kid is like a rock.” He took another sip and my eyes flicked to the rock in question. It was true, he might be a normal sized one-year-old, but he weighed a fucking ton.

  “I wanted more babies,” Cole croaked from the sink. “Now the only babies I’m having will be my own balls.” He didn’t even look up from his scrubbing as he said it.

  I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing; something that I hadn’t done in what felt like forever. Luke’s control broke and he only just managed to put his mug on the counter before he fell to his knees. The reel of the moment played on repeat through my head and I had to grab onto the edge behind me to stop myself joining Luke on the tiled floor.

  “Oh, nice!” Cole’s high-pitched voice broke through the pressure in my head, which was at a record high I was laughing that hard. “Fuckers!”

  The last bit was meant to be a yell, but his nuts were admittedly crushed so his voice came out in a shrill squeaky croak. That was it, I couldn’t take anymore and joined Luke in a heap.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” Mom demanded from the doorway beside us. “And why are you spraying bathroom cleaner on your poor…is that the ribs I was saving for tomorrow?”

  My head snapped up from the tiles, and low and behold he’d shoved a frozen rack of ribs down his pants.

  I fell over just as Luke let out a barely audible whine. He’d officially passed the point of being able to actually laugh and now it was just air.

  “It’s not my fault?” Cole squeaked.

  “What happened to your voice?” Mom asked, glaring at the now ruined ribs. “And you should be ashamed of yourself teaching the kids to do perverted,” she hissed the word in one of those loud as hell mom whispers that everyone in the room heard, “to meat.”

  “It’s my meat that needs replaced. That…that…that…” his squeaks trailed off as he gestured frantically toward Kali who was looking up at him like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, “assaulted me. No, it shit blitzed me and then broke me.” He finished pointing at his crotch, well, the rack of ribs.

  “Cole Townsend, do we need to have the talk again?” Mom put her hands on her hips and glared at him.

  “There was a fly-by-shitting, Mom.”

  I started laughing even harder as he described it. There really had been. Kali had only been in those adorable little trainer shorts which were loose on the side, so gravity had taken over and the torpedo had ejected out the side of them and had travelled in Cole’s direction. If he hadn’t closed his mouth and put his hands up in front of his face, it would have been a different story altogether.

  As it was, not sure if it was Kali or not, when the shitpedo had hit Cole’s hands, he’d automatically grabbed around the object. Just as he’d realized, he’d screamed and jumped for some reason and Kali’s body had hit him right on ground zero. I wasn’t a science genius, but the force of Kali’s jump added onto gravity and the tenderness of a guy’s dick and balls…that had to hurt.

  We’d just managed to pull ourselves up using the countertops when Cole hit the part of his recount where he described the feeling of a baby turd squeezing through his fingers. Now that had me gagging. Jesus Christ, did the asshole have to be so damn descriptive?

  “It won’t come off,” he started scrubbing at his hands again which, by this poin
t, were red raw. “What the hell do you feed those kids?” He shot over his shoulder at Luke who was trying to gulp in breaths of oxygen.

  Sighing, Mom walked over to the cupboard where she kept all of the medical stuff and walked back over with the peroxide. Cole was too busy whining and scrubbing to notice what she was doing until it was too late. She unscrewed the bottle, reached over and pulled his hands out from under the water.