by Skylar Heart
Dylan
I laugh as Jake and Mal try to move a dresser to the side. A dresser still filled to the top with crafting supplies which makes it super heavy, plus the wood itself looks really heavy too.
“Stop laughing.” Mal glares at me as he leans on top of the dresser. “Fucking do something, help us, instead of just laughing your ass off.”
I grin, going over to him and I tap his nose with my finger. He’s sexy when he gets annoyed like that. “You should really watch your language, or Tom will kill you if he finds out that Elly picked up curse words from you...”
Jake laughs, still out of breath from trying to move the dresser, and he sits down against the wall. “Yeah. Oliver’s parents did not appreciate it when I accidentally cursed around him one time. The little guy pretty quickly figured out that yelling ‘crap’ all the time was a surefire way to wind his parents up and it made Mia and me act very awkwardly.” Jake shrugs. “He seems to have grown out of it, but death glares were definitely a thing for a long time, and not just from his parents, but from Mia too.”
I eye Jake, trying to read his emotions, to read him. Jake and Mia don’t talk about Oliver a lot, and while Mia sometimes seems upset when she does, Jake seems a lot more comfortable when he talks about their little guy.
“Not sure if this is overstepping any boundaries or anything, but do you have a picture of him?” I’m kind of curious what their kid looks like, if he has the same intense gaze as they both have and whose smile he has.
“Sure.” Jake gets back up and comes over as he grabs his phone. “This one was taken at Mia’s dinner party at the restaurant.” He shrugs. “I’m fine sharing with you guys, it’s just... He’s my biological son, but I’m not his father, and we all agreed that Mia and I wouldn’t share these things online because it could confuse people.” He smiles softly but his eyes turn sad. “And it’s not like there’s much to share, we only see him about once a month. I don’t feel like constantly explaining things to other people, like why he doesn’t live with us, or how we got into this situation in the first place. Not many people understand and even fewer accept it.”
He turns the phone so that we can take a look at the picture he’s showing, but I’m much more interested in the sad look in his eyes. Not about Oliver or about the situation they’re all in, but about how other people don’t understand it, and I put two and two together. His random comments about not living with others. The way that he seems to keep people away from him, at least when those people aren’t Mia or us three. Or when Mal mentioned how Jake had acted when Mal had blurted out that Jake was great boyfriend material. It all starts to make sense and that just hurts my heart. Fucking hell...
I impulsively reach out and put my arm around his shoulders, pulling him against me sideways, tears springing in my eyes. “We understand. We understand how things are.” My voice sounds all strange and while Mal is giving me a confused look, Jake’s hand tightens in the back of my shirt, holding onto me too.
“Thanks.” Jake’s voice doesn’t sound so steady either. “That means a lot.” He lets out a slow breath. “This all means a lot to me. All of you, all of this.” He jerks his head back, to the rest of the house. “Thanks for having me, for accepting me, our strange situation.”
“Of course.” Mal now comes closer too, wrapping his arms around both of us. “We’re happy to have you. A love of Mia’s is a love of ours.” Then he shrugs. “But only the ones who really love her, not that asshole.”
“Language.” Jake and I both say at the same time, before we all start laughing.
I think we’re all going to have to watch our language much more if we’re always around Elly.
Then Jake hangs his head. “Oliver.” His voice sounds so dejected. “My parents aren’t going to care about what I do, as long as I’m happy and preferably not always living alone, but Oliver’s parents may not understand it as easily. Our situation is strange enough as it is, and to add all of this to that.” He sighs. “I don’t know. Oh, fuck. I have no idea how we’re going to explain this to them without them just going ‘nope’.”
I tighten my arm around him. “I have no idea either. But if that kid is even half as smart as you two are and if his parents are even half as kind as they seem to be, then I don’t think that will be much of a problem.”
I hope, anyway, because I don’t want for them to have to give up being able to see their kid, or sharing age-appropriate things with him, just for living with us, for being with us. I don’t want them to have to miss out on the life of their kid, just because they want to be with us.
We’re going to have to make this work. We have to, for everyone. Because I don’t think I can go back to being the guy I used to be, before I found Mia at the edge of that cliff that stormy day.
Right now, in my head, there are four distinct parts in my life: when we were kids, when Mia didn’t come back, when we lost Poppy and since we found Mia again. I don’t want to have to add a fifth part to that. I want us to be like this forever.
I don’t want to give up on them, I want this to work out, for all of us.
I’m searching online on how to get paint out of clothes because... Well... We’ve got six sets of clothes to get paint out of. Hopefully... I’m not sure why we didn’t change into old clothes that would be fine to get paint on before we started painting, but we didn’t... Probably because we all felt a little raw, a little off-balance.
Mia got a phone call from her Dad about her parents dropping by tomorrow, and that made her anxious, and Tom wasn’t much better about it. That, on top of the chat Mal and I had with Jake. Yeah, we sort of just did things instead of thinking them over long enough first.
Sure, most of Elly’s room is now painted, all pretty and cute, and it makes such a difference. Although, we probably have to go over it again, since I think we weren’t all as precise while painting as we should have been. Especially if I have to believe the glares Tom kept giving me.
I’m afraid that I probably won’t be part of the group who will be painting the second layer. And the room the five of us sleep in is mostly finished with the first layer, but we didn’t have the energy to keep going for much longer.
Arms sneak around my shoulders, and then Mia’s boobs push against my back as her hair tickles my neck. “Did you find anything?” Her voice is soft, sweet, tired.
“Some.” I sigh. “Also lots of mentions to make sure you’re wearing old clothes or clothes that are okay if they get dirty before you start. But I’m afraid that we likely won’t be able to get the paint out of them after it’s all dried up, not very easily anyway.”
She lets out a soft laugh, leaning a little more as she tightens her arms around me. “Ah, well. Maybe we’ll do better next time.”
Mal wanders into the kitchen, fresh from the shower, his jeans hanging low on his hips as he’s drying his hair with a towel, stretching his delicious body long, his muscles moving under his skin. “Any news on the paint?”
I blink a couple of times, pulling my eyes away from the little strip of hair disappearing into his jeans, and I clear my throat. “Eh. No, I’m afraid. Sorry.”
He shrugs, meeting my eyes and I realise he definitely knew I was checking him out. “Ah, well. I guess I’ll have to order a new stack of ‘Mal-adjusted’ shirts. Some were getting a little ratty anyway.” He comes over and leans close, giving Mia a quick kiss on her cheek. “Want me to order extras for the whole gang?”
Mia laughs, standing up straight and then she sits down next to me. “I’m not entirely sure that’s the best thing to wear for me. Doesn’t really match my ‘vibe’ does it?”
I laugh and raise an eyebrow at Mal. “I’ve still got the one you gave me. It’s still good.”
He rolls his eyes. “Spoilsports.” Then he runs his hands over his arms. “Why does it have to be this cold?”
“Because it’s almost winter and you’re not wearing a shirt?” Not that I’m exactly complaining, I enjoy the view.
I c
lose the browser. I don’t think I’m going to find much more about the paint situation. Those clothes will have to be our ‘old’ or ‘painting’ clothes, especially if we’re going to be painting a lot more around the place.
If we get to stay in this place, which isn’t a guarantee anyway. And that definitely lowers my mood.
I wish we already knew, but at the same time, if we’re not going to be staying here for much longer, I don’t know if I actually want to know about it at all...
I want to know if we’ll be getting good news, but if we’re going to get bad news anyway, I don’t want to know about it.
13
Mal
I woke up very early this morning, something I’ve been trying out lately. I kind of like it when the rest of the house is still asleep, the quiet of it. Even Elly was still asleep when I made myself comfortable in the chair in the living room this morning.
I’ve now got most of my music and band stuff at the house. Not all of it, as some is still in the practice studio that the band rents, but everything we stored in the van and took with us as we went from place to place is now here. Of course, I don’t have a place where I can easily practice my guitar without headphones, since the house is definitely not sound-proof enough for that, but that doesn’t mean I can’t just play with my headphones on or compose new songs on my laptop.
I’m nearly at the stage where I can let Mia hear the songs that I wrote, which makes me nervous, as this will be the first time in years that I’ll let her hear something that’s still a little raw.
These last couple of weeks have definitely given me enough inspiration to keep composing and writing lyrics for quite a while. Which, I guess it’s good, but it’s also a little scary because it feels like it could all stop at any moment, this creativeness could just dry up. And if I’m going to try to do this for a more stable source of income, I need to keep this creativity going for as long as possible.
There’s no backing out of it if things get a little rough, because that means I won’t be able to contribute anything to this household and I hate even thinking of that.
Something moves in the corner of my eyes and when I look up, Jake is leaning in the doorway, his shoulder against the frame, his eyes on me unreadable.
I take my headset off. “Morning. Did you try to get my attention?”
He slowly shakes his head. “Nah, just watching you work.”
I nod, not really sure what to say to that. It’s kinda weird and creepy, but, at the same time, flattering too?
Then he steps inside, closing the door, and sits down on the couch opposite me, his eyes on me heavier, but somehow also sadder. “She doesn’t need to know, okay? What happened yesterday with you, me and Dylan, what we talked about.” He looks down at his hands.
“Why?” I’m trying to figure out if he said anything specific, but I’m coming up blank. We talked about Oliver and how Jake can’t really share that part of himself with a lot of people, but I don’t remember him really mentioning much else at all...
“She doesn’t need to know about me not really having many people in my life.” He runs his hand through his hair, making it spike up, making me want to reach out and run my fingers through it too. “She doesn’t need to know that I can’t always be bothered to explain the situation to people and that that means that I don’t tend to have a lot of relationships and things like that. Anyway. Yeah... Just... She doesn’t need to know.”
I eye him, things finally clicking together, including the way he stilled when I said he was great boyfriend material... Oh, fuck. Fucking fuck. “Jake...”
He shakes his head. “I’m good, really.” Then he stands up and I quickly grab his wrist, making him stop.
“I just wanted to say that we’re here for you, no matter what. But I don’t think you can keep that a secret from her. I think you need to talk to her about that.”
“She’ll just blame herself, start feeling guilty again. I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want her to feel like that again. She’s been fighting her own guilt for long enough, she finally seems to have stopped.”
“You need to tell her. Not to make her feel guilty, but because I think she’ll surprise you with what she’ll say.”
He eyes me, frowning. “I don’t know.”
“I do.” Because I’ve seen the way she responds when she talks about Oliver, when she thinks of him, and I think she’s been holding herself strong when it comes to their boy and talking to Jake. There are things she doesn’t want him to know, because she does blame herself, but I also think that them talking to each other about him, finally, may finally stop the both of them feeling so guilty. They’ll sometimes talk about Oliver, but not really their own feelings about him, which is a different thing.
I let go of his wrist and he stays still for a while, before he nods a little, and then leaves the living room, going to the kitchen.
Those two... Really. Pretending to be so open to each other, pretending they don’t have secrets from each other, but there’s one thing that they’ve both been hiding, one part they don’t show the other, and I think that they need to show that part to the other, if they’re ever going to make this work, if we’re all going to work out together.
We’ve cleaned the house as well as we could in just a couple of hours, trying to make it look less like a vacuum cleaner and five cans of paint exploded all over the place. Which was definitely needed after all the painting and cleaning we’ve done in the last couple of days. The house was such a mess that I nearly didn’t dare to look around when I realised how bad it was.
“Kitchen?” Mia is standing in the hallway, looking around, her eyes wide, a slight panic in them.
“Clean.” I open the door. “Very clean.”
She nods. “Okay.” Then she turns to the living room. “There?”
“All picked up and vacuumed. We can’t really do much about the state of the couch or Elly’s toy boxes.” Because somehow, about an hour ago, Mia had been on the verge of tears about the state of the old couches. Not that it was really about the couches, but that was what brought her distress on.
Her constant panic, her fear, it’s making all of us very nervous. If she’s already this upset, then what happens if her parents arrive? And she obviously thinks that they’re not going to be bringing any good news, or she wouldn’t be this upset. If she thought this was just going to be a social thing, then she wouldn’t be this panicked to clean everything up and put everything away ‘in the right place’.
Jake quietly steps out of the conservatory, holding a big basket with clothes. “I’ll fold these and put them away.” When he walks past her he gives her a quick kiss on her cheek. “You’ll be fine. They’re really not going to worry about the state of the house. Vacuuming the hallway again isn’t going to make it better.” Then he steps past me and goes up the stairs.
Tom is putting the finishing touches on Elly’s new room while Dylan is at his own place, doing a couple of things there. It seems that he really wasn’t able to grade and do work for his classes with us constantly moving and making noises around him. I don’t blame him, I don’t think that I would be able to work like that either, but then, I did get some work done this morning, just so I could be here for Mia and whatever she needed before her parents drop by.
Mia checks her phone. “They’re almost in the village.” Her voice peaks. “They’re almost here.”
Right. Showtime.
I dart up the stairs, first going into our bedroom, where Jake is sitting on the bed, folding, making neat stacks for every person. “They’re almost here.”
He nods, looking over the pile he still has to fold. “I guess this can wait. I’ll be right down.”
“Good.” I go over to Elly’s room, where Tom is teaching Elly how to carefully paint a corner of the wall. “Guys? Mia’s parents are almost here. You may want to clean up...”
Tom looks over his shoulder at me and I spot the big splotch of paint on his cheek. “Oh. That was s
ooner than expected.” He looks at his little girl. “Okay, let’s put this away and we can go have tea and cookies with Mia’s parents.”
Elly’s eyes start to shine. “Tea and cookies!” Because that’s a great way to get a young girl excited, she doesn’t really care about who she shares it with, just that she can have tea and cookies. She’s about to sprint off, but Tom quickly grabs her.
“Let’s make sure you don’t spread paint all over the place first.” He laughs, picking her up. Then he looks at me. “We’ll be right down.”
I nod and go back down the stairs. If anything, Mia’s parents will definitely get a good idea of what everyone is like. Tom is always covered in something to do with his job or something else DIY, his baby girl at his side, always covered in colours from crayons to paint to whatever else she can find. Dylan all wrapped in his work, his mind there and not always here. Me, ehhh... Dunno, not sure how to describe myself here.
And then, of course, Jake, who they already know, and their own daughter.
Just as I’m about to disappear down the path of how to describe my own place in our little family, Mia’s voice calls out from the kitchen. “They’re here!”
Their Treasure
Scarred Cliff 6
1
Mia
I’m so nervous, so, so nervous. The call from my dad yesterday didn’t sound very good, and his hesitation when he heard about Elly and her being Tom’s child made things even stranger. It all makes me even more nervous now. I’ve been on edge all day, not sure what to do, how I’m supposed to show the house to them or what my parents expect and it’s just... I don’t like it. I really don’t like feeling like this.
It’s only been just over a week since the guys took me home, since the guys picked me up from their house, but as I watch my parents walk up the path to the door, I feel like a totally different person. I don’t feel like the girl I was when I was at their place, I don’t even feel like the girl I was when I left again, I feel...