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Christmas was nevermy favorite holiday, but I actually looked forward to this one. Mostly because I expected to have someone to share it with, though that was no longer the case. A tiny foot slammed into my spine. I bent double with a grunt. Well, not entirely alone. After all, I was growing a tiny human, and lived in a household full of unrelated people who were more family than blood could ever be.
Because I knew they would die for each other, and for me.
I shifted another chair into position around the table, my hand pressed to my bump. Six months into my pregnancy, and I was already prepared to dump my offspring on the ground and get some breathing space back. But the thought only lasted a minute before a dual hit of grief and guilt slammed into me.
A child who should have had two fathers now had none at all.
I swallowed back the rain of tears that would have showered tinsel and chocolate-coated pretzels alike, one worn and less shiny than last year, the latter melting in the post-Cairns dawn heat that promised a scorching Christmas Day.
Behind me, the boys set up the table while I puttered away in the kitchen of Fairview House. Somewhere in the house, an unspoken vow let me set up my tribute to the twins in my corner of the kitchen undisturbed. It was only for this year, the one time I’d ever do it in this house before I found where life would takebaobeiand me.
When we left the twins’ memory behind forever.
The thought clenched my heart too tight in my chest, and for the first time in the months since I found out I was pregnant, since I lost both fathers of my baby, I cried.
The first tear hit the tinsel, splashing against the merry purple Kai insisted on hanging around the old Queenslander to form a kaleidoscope of color that reverberated off every surface. Kai would have liked that, lighting up the place in his absence, his brother prancing around the kitchen, throwing banter and jokes every which way to see what stuck and embellishing on it.
They were the underdogs, unassuming considering their flamboyance in life. No one expected either of them to be the smartest men in the room and that’s just how they liked it, playing up the image of the manwhores for fun, because otherwise life was boring.
In the bedroom, my twins had been anything but, both exciting, doting lovers who, between them, gave me more attention than I could handle most days. More love since the first time I had my heart broken in Thailand, years before I met the twins in the exact same bar, doing the exact same job.
Just with a five-year hiatus in between.
Fate, or something like that.
A tiny hand pressed to my belly, as though trying to cuddle me from the inside out. I sniffled, cupping a hand beneath my bump. Not that my body wasn’t doing its job; against all oddsbaobeithrived, and for that, I was grateful. Eternally. I didn’t think I'd survive another loss, now or ever, and never one so important.
“You will be loved,” I whispered, stroking the tiny fingers that curled against the barrier of my skin, the protection my body offered from the outside wild that our baby would always have. “I will look after you, always.”
Baobeipressed against my palm, snuggling and stilling.
I held my hand there, my other wrapped in a knot of tinsel, and I knew our Christmas colors would be forever purple and blue.
Behind me, the boys laid two extra chairs around the table in silence.
***
The house buzzed witha dozen voices as the very annoying cuckoo clock ScottyJokerEvans had installed struck eleven in the morning. Christmas Day at Fairview House probably looked like any other Australian family dinner, lots of cold cuts, seafood, and cold beers, banter and cricket in the backyard, at least from what Noah King and Joker tried to explain to me.
I wouldn’t know, as the concept was so alien from the noisy, often jam-packed dressing rooms and common room the girls shared at the back of the club, most of us not having a home or family to go to, and so we made our own.
“You should be sitting and eating and getting all sorts of fat and curvy. The boys would have loved it.” CalebHeartsAnderson took a platter of freshly cooked lobster from my hands. “No need to slave over plates and things today. You’ve earned your keep plenty.”
I positioned a smile on my face, though mentioning the boys didn’t sting anywhere near as much as I thought it would. “I like cooking,” I murmured as the gentle giant of a man lifted the platter from my hands and pressed me down into a seat at the table. Ididlove to cook, but the truth was I couldn't justify sitting still when other people were dashing madly around me.
“Ignore him. He’s trying to show off that he can be domesticated.” Cheri wiggled her eyebrows at me. Her pink hair stuck up in straight spikes but even with her edgy look, her smile made her the friendliest person in the room.
“It’s fine,” I reassured her, then considered her words. “Are you considering getting your own place?” I knew King was supposed to be kept under lock and key as the unit’s coveted sniper, but it never occurred to me that the rest of the team might be free to seek their own accommodations.
The thought of Fairview house without its family making the four walls bend to fit around us made the large Queenslander seem...small.
I was still mulling over the state of the house, lost in my own head when a knock echoed through the house in its rare moment of silence.
Everyone in the kitchen froze.
“Ahh, I’ll get it,” I offered, leveling myself from where I wedged against the corner bench for support.
“Yes, go and be the maid for us all on a sacred beerish holiday,” Joker intoned.
