What I didn’t know was that when a Townsend said them, it meant they were going to start helping you out in your place of business while they got to know you. Sometimes individually, sometimes as one big hoard. I also didn’t appreciate the fact that a hoard of Townsends was like a hoard of locusts – all-encompassing, and leaving behind a trail of destruction. Although, it had to be said locusts meant to leave destruction, a Townsend didn’t, it was just what happened. I’d definitely find that out in the future though.
For now, it was late and we all had sleep we needed to get. Then, I was going to have to check to make sure that the team I’d text to clear up the destruction from the fight in The Bar had done the job so that Annie could open it up again tonight.
Before we left and went our separate ways though, Tate pulled me toward him and gave me a gentle kiss on the lips, shocking the hell out of me.
“I need to go home and discuss something with my parents,” he told me, looking like he wanted to do anything but that, something that he then confirmed. “I would much rather be with you, but your ex threw some threats around back there, so I need to get the lawyer involved. He’ll only deal with us through our parents after the last time we needed him,” he explained, ignoring the expression on my face blatantly curious about that last part. Pushing on and suddenly looking uncertain, he asked warily, “But, would it be okay to pick you up first thing in the morning? I want to spend time with you, just the two of us.”
Tate on any given day made your lady garden bloom like the daisies in my garden, but looking like he was bracing for me to scream no? I about melted at his feet. Pregnancy hormones, we’ll blame those for it.
“Absolutely,” I rasped, and then cleared my throat. “Whenever suits you best.”
After an apology from Levi, where he got on his knees on the dirty police station floor and apologized until I yelled at him to get up, another kiss from Tate, and hugs from the rest of the family which surprised both of us, Beau and I drove back to mine and had an unplanned sleep over – her in the spare room, me in my own room. It only took seconds for me to pass out and go into a deep sleep.
I was used to having bizarre dreams that made no sense, but one where I gave birth to a puppy that had Tate’s face, in a cell at the police station was weird even for me. Added onto it, there was a rotating mobile over my head in the cell with Chris singing Yellow Submarine, by the Beetles. That was a whole new realm of bizarre, one which I’d probably be better off labelling as a nightmare.
That said, when I was woken up by my bed shaking at five o’clock in the freaking morning – or a time I’d rather call ‘you’re dead o’clock’ – and saw Beau standing at the door to my room shaking her head, I lost my shit.
“God invented sleep because the apple needed to get away from sheep and dancing pigs,” I shrieked, and pulled the cover over my head.
It only took seconds for me to overheat though, which meant because I was already asleep again, I threw the cover back off me, not bothering to look where my hand went.
It also meant I wasn’t even aware that I wasn’t alone, so how was I to know that I hadn’t hit one of my pillows?
I didn’t hear the groan of pain followed by the coughs and the word ‘balls’ being repeated right next to my head. Instead, I dreamt of a mobile over a big green garden, with rose bushes being painted red by a pretty sheep with yellow bows in her hair, with dancing balls skipping around us.
Four
Tate
After I’d had a talk with my family and our lawyer, who’d been on speakerphone the whole time, I’d left them at four in the morning and driven to Lily’s. I hadn’t expected her to be awake, but as soon as I killed the engine, her front door had opened and I recognized her best friend Beau standing in it.
“You gonna sit out here and play with yourself, or are you coming in?”
Holy shit, she was a spitfire.
I’d ended up crawling into bed with Lily, and just as I’d gotten comfortable after she’d yelled at Beau, she’d twitched and my nuts ricocheted around my asshole. Women really have no idea how sore it is when they’re hit. It feels like a bomb’s exploded in your crotch, and then this sharp piercing pain takes over. If you survive it, you can look forward to roughly forty minutes of the same feeling until you cough them back into their sacks.
Lying beside her and trying to breathe with my balls where they’d ended up in my lungs, I played through the conversation with the lawyer to get my mind off the pain. That was a different sort of pain altogether, but one I preferred to the Nagasa-dick-i in my crotch.
While I’d been in the cell, Chris had declared that he was going to get a court-enforced paternity test done on the baby to prove he was the father. He’d also claimed he was taking me to court for raping Lily while they’d been together. His claims after it ranged from wanting spousal support, pain and suffering, you name it. His overall figure? Five-million-eight-hundred thousand. Why? Because he could.
The last thing I wanted was for Lily to be under any stress, it wasn’t good on her or the baby, so I’d dealt with it. I’d have to explain to her at some point, but not now. He was going to be served with a cease and desist letter in the morning, along with the threat of a counter-suit if he didn’t stop. Fingers crossed that shut him up.
The guy was just such a fucking sphincter. Who does that shit? Rich had agreed, as had most of the inhabitants in the cells including people we didn’t even know, that he believed Lily when she said they’d never had sex – so why was he so adamant that they had? He was delusional. And who cheats on Lily with someone like Carly? The thought of sticking my dick in that chick made it curl up and run up to where my balls were resting in my esophagus. She’d offered it to all of us on a plate in high school, and not even the most desperate guys had said yes. Instead, it was the out of towners passing through Gonzales County who got caught in her claptrap, and obviously assholes like Chris.
The whole thing had been irritating and worrying and protecting Lily and the baby had been the priority. The lawyer was aware of that, and would do everything he could to nip it in the bud, apart from drowning the guy. Apparently lawyers didn’t like it when you suggested shit like that.
I was also struggling with how Levi had reacted to the news. Some people might look at my parent’s reaction to the pregnancy news as naïve, but as they’d explained when we’d gotten to their house – I wasn’t the type of guy to get something like that wrong. I just wasn’t. They knew her dad too, and he was one of the most upfront, honest and decent men around. Her mom was an iconic actress who did a lot for charity and raising awareness of different issues too, so she had no reason to lie. Plus, Lily herself had a great reputation and had helped a lot of people out since they’d moved here. In fact, it hadn’t even been a year, but if I’d have called bullshit at the news when it had been revealed earlier, most of the town we lived in would have beaten the shit out of me. That’s how loved she was. Why? Because she was just like her parents – a decent, honest person who would do anything for anyone.
In time, all the doubters would come around, I was sure of it. Right now though, the only people who mattered were Lily and the baby.
I wonder if it was a girl or boy? At what stage of a pregnancy could you find that out?
Deciding sleep was overrated, I picked up my phone and started doing some searching online to answer the billion questions in my mind.
Would it have a penis or a vagina already?
When could we find out what gender it was?
When would it start talking, and would it drown inside her if it hiccupped?
Could a fetus sneeze or fart? Where did the air go if it did?
The list was endless, but surprisingly enough there were actual answers for these questions on the web.
The answer to the first one was – there wouldn’t be anything on the outside for another couple of weeks, but on the inside they either had balls or ovaries. I’d double checked if there was someone who had a hig
h-powered microscope scan thingy so we could take a look at its crotch in two weeks, but sadly that was a no.
The second one was a bit easier, but the wait was going to be painful. The advice was that you’d likely get the right answer (if the technician knew what the hell they were doing, which judging by some of the stories on parenting groups quite a few hadn’t) if you waited until at least eighteen to twenty weeks into the pregnancy. Bummer!
There was a site that outlined home methods of finding out the gender, like boiling red cabbage and mixing it with Lily’s pee. If it turned pink, it was a girl. If it turned purple, it was a boy. This made me panic slightly because what if it was between pink and purple, then what? What shade of purple were we talking here? Then there was a baking soda test where you add some to the pee. I knew about this one because Luna had done it when she was pregnant with Jamie – if I remembered correctly it came out wrong too, so that one didn’t fool me. There was one that Lily could do tomorrow where you put a key down, and if she picks up the narrow end, it’s a girl. If she picks up the big round end, it’s a boy. I had keys with me and Lily had keys, so no matter what we could totally do that.
There was one that caught my eye and had me sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor, ready to get up once I’d finished reading it. The age of the mother added onto the year of conception test. My first problem was that I didn’t know her age. I could guess at twenty-two because of our conversation all those weeks ago, or I could be totally wrong and she’d either been an early blossomer or a late bloomer – so I needed to find her driving license to get the exact age. After that, you then added the year onto it, and if the resulting number was an even one, it was a girl. If it was an odd one, it was a boy. This was a Mayan belief, then again so was the end of the world and everyone had held their breath on December 12, 2012, and nothing had happened then had it? Maybe this was right though? They couldn’t be that wrong twice, could they?
Quietly padding out the door, I went into the living room and saw two purses on the couch. Picking the first one up, I took out the wallet and checked it for a license. Pulling it out, I saw Beau’s photo on it and then noticed her real name. Silver Isabeau Albright? Now, we’d known each other vaguely when we were at school, but I’d always just assumed her name was Beau Albright, how did I miss the fact her name was technically Silver Al-bright?
“In case you’re wondering,” a voice said right beside my ear, making me squeak out a goose honk and jump just as the light went on beside me, “I made the school swear that I’d be known as Beau or Isabeau the day my parents registered me there.”
As I’d jumped, her license had gone flying over the couch and landed the other side somewhere, so she walked around and picked it up before turning to look at me, flicking the card between her fingers.
I needed to get some control of my sphincter after that, so I did what any man trying to get some dignity back would do – I glossed over my reaction by deflecting. “Your parents called you Silver Al-bright?”
“Your parents called you Taint.”
That made the smile drop off my face faster than someone clapping their hands with my balls between them would have. “No, they called me Tate. My cousin’s irritating wife calls me Taint.”
Shrugging, she grinned at me smugly. “Know what’s even worse?” She waited until I shook my head before continuing. “My sister’s name is Diamond.”
That was…
“Wait, you have a sister?” How didn’t I know this? Then again, I’d walked around school and the world with my head up my ass, I guess.
“Vivi Albright.”
Now that made sense given the last name and all, but if I wasn’t mistaken…
“Oh shit, she went out with Archer.”
She’d been a great girl, but Archer had been running away from something for a long time and he’d gone through girlfriend after girlfriend. Not that he was a slut who went around fucking every woman he found, far from it and even his exes said the same thing. It was like he was a male Goldilocks and the women were his porridge. This one’s too tall, this one’s too short, this one supports the Cowboys, this one has blonde hair… that kind of thing.
You know when you’re searching for the one and you don’t want them to pass you by, so you give attention to certain people and take them on dates to see if it could possibly be them? Yeah, Archer was that dumbass, because we all knew who it was that he was looking for, and so did he. He just didn’t want to admit it.
But Vivi had been one of them and if memory served me right, she’d introduced him to all of her friends and family on her dad’s birthday – and we’re talking over a hundred people at a party where she stood up in front of them all and broke the news – and he’d ended it with her as soon as they’d cut the cake.
“We don’t hold it against him,” she chuckled, seeing it all drop into place for me. “But your expression is awesome. Vivi can be… intense,” she explained, putting the license back in its place in her wallet now. “Not one of us was surprised when he ended it, including her, she just didn’t like that he was eating the last piece of cake when he did it.”
I could get that, I loved cake, and he always ate the last fucking piece.
Desperate to change the subject away from my dumbass of a brother, I looked at the other bag. “I need to know how old Lily is.”
Frowning, she looked at me and then at her wallet in her hand. “So you’re not robbing us, that’s good to know. Why do you need her age? Shouldn’t you already know this seeing as how she’s carrying your kid?”
“You thought I was robbing you?” She had a fair point about the age thing, but this?
“Eh, I wasn’t sure, but you were in my wallet, so…”
“I need her age because the Mayans say if you add the age at conception with the year it was conceived in, if you get an even number it’s a girl, odd it’s a boy.”
Her eyes widened, and she blurted, “Twenty-two and it’s 2019,” trailing off her eyes flicked to the side before she yelled, “so that makes two-thousand-and-forty-one, and that’s an odd so it’s a boy!”
Feeling my legs sway, I grabbed onto the first thing I could which just so happened to be a statue on the table with something long poking out from between its legs. Glancing quickly at it, I saw what my fingers were wrapped around - fuck’s sake, I was wanking off a statue. Snatching my hand back, I looked back at Beau praying she hadn’t seen it.
Sadly, this wasn’t the case.
Leaning in, she winked at me. “I bought her that when I went to Africa, it’s a fertility statue. You’re welcome!”
I rarely blushed, it was a waste of time when so much random shit happened to your family, but this woman had my cheeks burning. Determined not to give her the reaction she was looking for, I looked down into the bag and saw it – the one thing that both haunted me from my childhood, and made me grin with happiness in adulthood. Cherry Chapstick. It was stupid, and the story behind it was dumb, but it was a bit like smelling your grandma’s cooking and feeling like you were home.
“What’s that look about?” Beau asked, trying to see what I was looking at. “What did you find?”
Sighing, I closed up the bag and tried to figure out how to word it without looking like something out of a stalker or a serial killer movie. Then again, was there a good way to tell this story? The answer to that was no.
“When I was at school, the chick I was dating kept wearing this lip balm that made my lips burn and swell up,” I told her, watching her cringe. “We weren’t that old, but she’d give me a peck on the lips and I’d look like a freak for the rest of the day. We broke up.”
“What’s this got to do with the stuff Lily has? Oh shit, are you allergic to that too?”
“No,” I shook my head, thinking about the rest of the story. To get to the point, I had to go through all of it – fucking great! “This kept happening, no matter what flavor or brand the girls used, until I started dating this one girl in midd
le school. Come to find out, she was wearing cherry Chapstick.”
“Ah, okay, well it makes sense then. Well done to Lily for using the right kind,” she shrugged, looking disappointed that there wasn’t more to the story.
Oh, was she wrong.
“It doesn’t end there. I started buying it for the girls I was dating and ended up buying so much that…” I fucking hated this part of the story. “People thought that I was gay.”
Beau didn’t say a word, she just blinked slowly at me. Yeah, that was the standard reaction I got when people heard the story and then found out the reason.
“I’m not sure…” she began and then took a deep breath in.
“My parents put up a pride flag and organized a pride parade through Gonzales County,” I rushed the last words out.
That was pretty much the end of it all now, well at least the bits that I wanted to share. My family had been so supportive about it all, but they’d taken it to the next level. Even now, I’d get invited over for dinner or lunch and Mom would tell me about some guy she’d met, or a friend knew, and how they were single. I get why she was doing it – she wanted to make sure I wasn’t hiding it and for me to know they supported me no matter what, but still.
A huge grin broke across Beau’s face and I knew I was in deep shit. “You’re the rainbow sheep of the Townsend family,” she crowed and did a weird dance. “You’re also the reason we have our own Pride celebrations here.”
“Well, my family are the reason for that,” I felt it pertinent to point out. “But they also go to LA for the celebrations there and to lend their support every year.”
This was where I felt nauseous. Not because they did that, I totally supported it, but because two years ago, my mom and dad had imbibed on a few too many shots during the celebrations in LA. That evening, as the news channels updated their online articles, a photo had been printed across all of them – of my parents wearing nothing north of the border apart from a pride flag which had been painted onto them. Obviously, they’d blurred out her boobs in a lot of them, but some of them hadn’t.
Tainted Gold: Providence Gold Series Book Three Page 5