He shrugs and looks up at me through his wasted on a bloke lashes. “I wish we could be married before the babies come Lauren, I wish that already, right now, this minute, you were already my wife.” He shrugs, “But I can’t do anything to change that so I will just wait and look forward to the day that you will be Mrs Lauren Wilde.”
“You are such a freaky weirdo Gabe; most blokes would be running for the hills when they found out that their bird of nine weeks is eight weeks up the duff.”
I actually shake from the vibration of his laugh, he throws his head right back and laughs some more. His eyes are sparkling as he looks back down at me and kisses my nose, my belly flips. God I love him and I love that sound and I love that look; he shakes his head and gives me that smile, the one that reaches his eyes and says.
“Don’t mince your words, will ya darl. Lauren, my love, my life, you are so much more to me than my bird, as you so eloquently put it and as weird and freaky as you may find it, I am over the fucking moon at your up the duff condition. In all honesty, it was the last thing in the world I was expecting to hear when we walked into your doctor’s surgery this morning; I was shitting myself that something was seriously wrong, we’ve had so much shit happen these past weeks, well the whole fucking time we’ve been together really, we just seem to have rolled from one drama to another and I really was prepared for her telling us more bad news, but her telling us that we’re pregnant, I’m…” He swallows hard and I can feel my tears spilling over as I watch him struggle with his words and his own eyes fill up. “I’m blown away Lauren, I honestly and truly could not be happier, despite everything, all that’s happened, those babies have survived, they’ve been in there, tucked away inside you and they have survived it all, they’re a pair of tough little nuts, just like their Mum and I love them so much already and cannot wait to meet them.”
I brush his tears away from his cheeks. “Now seriously, I need to get you home and naked before I fuck you right here on this beach and we both get arrested for public indecency or whatever the charges are for getting your up the duff bird naked and sexing her in public, on a beach.”
He stands up with me still wrapped around him. “You won’t be able to do this for much longer. I will soon be big and fat like a heifer and stretched beyond recognition, I’ll be in need of a crane just to get me out of bed in the mornings. Oh god, I’m going to be so big and lardy and you won’t love me or find me attractive and you’ll go running back to the lanky blonde skank and I’ll be left to bring up our babies by myself.”
I throw my head back in despair and look up at the sky as I unwrap my legs from around his body and stand on the sand. He slides down my body onto his knees and kisses my belly.
“Can you hear your mother? Do not listen to a word that she says; the woman is delusional, now I want you both to grow big and strong and don’t worry about making her belly get bigger, because as far as I’m concerned, the bigger her belly, the more beautiful she will look, just wait till you get to meet her, you will see what I mean, you little blokes are so lucky, you have the strongest, most beautiful Mummy that you could ever wish for, even if she does talk shit sometimes, oh and she talks funny but don’t worry about that, I will make sure that you only ever speak with a true blue, Aussie accent.”
He wraps his arms around my hips and presses his face into my belly as he talks, I run my fingers through his hair, laughing at his words, I grab a handful and pull it so that he has to look up at me. “Blokes? We don’t know yet what they are, there could be a Shazza and a Sheila in there. Imagine, two more, just like Ava. Oh shit Gabe, what are we doing?”
He stands up as he speaks. “Nope, at least one will be a little dude, I just know it, all the twins in this family are one of each.”
“All the twins?”
“Yep. My Mum has a twin brother; you met Uncle Joe at the funeral, my cousin Lisa has twins, boy and a girl and Cooper has Ethan and Talia, boy and a girl. So I think the chances are pretty good that we will have a boy and a girl.”
“Far out.” Is all I can think of to say, it never occurred to me that there were more than one set of twins in his family.
I look at him with a grin and say in my best Aussie accent. “Strewth! Bruce and Sheila it bloody is then mate.”
“What is that accent, are you suddenly from South Africa? And just so we are clear. No fucking way are our kids being called Bruce and Sheila.”
He holds my hand as we walk back across the road, I grab my bag from the car and we head inside, my mood lifted considerably as we make our way up the stairs; I head straight for the bathroom as I need to wee badly and only just sit down when Gabe comes in with my phone.
“It’s Ryder.”
“Well put him on loudspeaker, I don’t want the phone in here.”
He does exactly that and stands at the toilet door with the phone in his hand.
“What’s up baby boy, how are you?
“I’m good Mum, you?”
“Yeah, I’m good, what you after?”