Fake (19 page)

Chapter Twenty

Ruben

Waking up in a panic, is not a nice feeling. I reached for Lydia, only to find the spot where she had fallen asleep the night before was empty, and cold. She hadn’t been there in a while.

I jumped from the bed and raced to throw on some clothes. She could run, but I wouldn’t let her get away again. I jogged down the stairs and was heading towards the front door when Taylor caught my attention by waving at me. I stopped and frowned at her. She smiled, crooking her finger in a ‘come here’ gesture.

I didn’t have time to waste, but something told me I needed to do as she requested. When I reached the archway, she pointed into the kitchen. My heart tripped over itself and I bit my lip to hide my smile.

Lydia sat at the counter with my brother and Harley, giggling and smiling as if the day before hadn’t happened. The Lydia I knew; would have milked this drama for all it was worth and punished Jackson for weeks. The Lydia sitting mere feet away from me, looked like she didn’t have a care in the world. She blew a raspberry at Harley and had my niece wailing with laughter.

It was a beautiful sight.

Jackson and Lydia seemed locked in an intense conversation, but neither of them seemed upset or angry about it. Taylor put her hand on my arm and grinned up at me. I wasn’t sure that I shared her enthusiasm for this sudden change of events. Surely it was too good to be true, or was I just expecting the worst as always?

I heard Mason and Harper stomp down the stairs and immediately turned to hush them. I didn’t want anything to interrupt the scene in the kitchen. They joined us in the archway and shared knowing smiles.

I don’t think anyone wanted to move or even breathe too loud. We just watched.

Eventually, Jackson’s eyes met mine and he stopped talking. Lydia swivelled on her stool and her eyes widened like she’d been caught doing something wrong. If anything, I wanted to grab her, lay over my shoulder, take her back to my room and have my way with her...instantly. The rest of family probably wouldn’t appreciate that too much though, not that they were ever exactly quiet.

Instead, I walked into the room, wrapped my arms around her waist and kissed her mouth. Hard.

I wanted to tell her how important it was to me that we managed to get past all the bullshit going on, and just...
be.

She’d already done that and I was showing her grateful I was.

Taylor cleared her throat and pointed out that there were ‘little eyes’ in the room.

“Yeah, yeah. Morning Taylor, sorry for snapping at you last night.”

She barely acknowledged my apology but I knew she’d accepted it. She looked directly at Lydia, her gaze was assessing, but friendly.

“Everything ok this morning?” She asked.

Lydia nodded and smiled.

Nodding slowly, Taylor smiled back and shuffled over to Jackson, and told him she missed him last night.

“Right! Good, drama over. Few things though, firstly, I’m the main drama queen around here. As far as the whole ‘zoning out on the sofa’ thing went, you were pretty close to stealing my title. So honey, you’re going to have to find yourself a new title and tone it down a bit ok?” Harper started, addressing Lydia. I jumped in to defend her but Harper carried on. “Secondly, I really hope you guys are ok now, we’ve had
more
than our fair share of issues around here and it’d be nice to have some quiet for a change.” Jackson made a strangled sound in his throat that said the words ‘Harper’ and ‘quiet’ did not fit well in the same sentence. I whole heartedly agreed with him, but she was on a roll.

“Finally, for crying out loud Mason! If you do not stop drinking the milk straight from the carton, I’m going to ram that thing where the sun don’t shine!”

Mason froze in the act - the carton touching his lips and his eyes wide. He scowled and lowered it.

“Don’t start on me just because you realised you had nothing else to say! You don’t mind my tongue in your mouth, but you mind it around the milk carton? Come on, Harp, you can do better than that.”

Lydia was watching all of us with wide eyes and tilted lips. I was glad she found my crazy family amusing; would have been awkward if she didn’t.

Shocking the hell out of me, she stood up and starting speaking.

“Is it my turn yet?” She asked. Everyone stilled and went quiet. “Hi, I’m Lydia. Even if this is the third time we’ve all met, I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. The first time, I couldn’t get a word in edgeways, the second...well...yeah. I’m sorry about last night.
Honestly
, I’m not usually quite that psycho.” I snorted and she sliced me with her eyes so I kept my thoughts to myself. She looked at Harper.

“You can keep your title, you have no competition from me. Frankly, all this drama is exhausting and seeing as I’m going to be carrying the newest Brent baby for the next seven or eight months, I just don’t need it.”

She looked individually at every person in the room like she was weighing up her options of what to say next.

“We have plenty of time to get to know each other now, so as much as I just
love
these speeches, maybe we could table them for a later date?” She plonked herself back down on a stool and started speaking in high-pitched tones to Harley.

We all looked at each other blank faced. There wasn’t really anything left to say.

“Coffee, anyone?” Mase asked, breaking the silence.

Lydia grimaced and shared a grin with Jackson. I didn’t know what that was about, but I liked it.

The voices grew louder around me, but I was locked in a trance staring at my girl. For years, this was what I’d wanted. Her, here in my home, with my family, a part of everything.

I’d never been that happy.

“Still on for shopping today, Harp?” Taylor asked, Harper nodded and looked to Lydia.

“You up for it? Think your man will let you out of his sight for a while?”

Lydia bit her lip and I just
knew
what she was going to say.

“I’d um...I’d love to, but I have my first midwife appointment in an hour and I don’t have any money anyway.”

“Here.” I handed her my credit card and before she even argue with me, Taylor snatched it from her fingers and handed it back to me.

“Uh uh. Not today, your money is safe. Today’s shopping trip is covered...isn’t that right, Jax?” She said, batting her eyelashes at him.

I smirked. Lydia might have forgiven him easily, but Taylor was going to make him pay for what he did.
Literally
.

God love that woman. Best thing that ever happened to my brother. Taylor wasn’t finished.

“And, you’ve yet to learn this, but Harper won’t be ready for at least a couple of hours anyway so you have plenty of time. What do you say?”

“Ok!” She grinned.

I blinked, shocked.

What the hell is going on?!

She never, ever agreed to things that easily, especially not where money was concerned. I wasn’t going to draw attention to it though in case she changed her mind. I let the females natter about shopping and babies and weddings and whatever other shit women talk about and leant back against the counter.

This was all I had ever wanted for us.

What exactly did you do when all your dreams had already come true?

You celebrated.

“We should meet later, all of us. We’ll go to dinner and to the club. Have drinks in the private room or something. Don’t worry, Lyds you can have lemonade.” I joked.

Everyone agreed and we made plans for later in the day.

Back in my room, Lydia was talking incessantly about the midwife appointment and I was actually starting to get nervous.

The dad part, I could do that. I was there every step of the way for Harley and even though it would be ten times harder with a baby of my own, I was confident that I’d be fine. But the pregnancy? No. I avoided Taylor like the plague when she was pregnant because she scared the fuck out of me. She was bitchy and snappy all the time and Jackson followed her around like a lost puppy.

Shit! Was I going to do that too?

I didn’t know anything about midwife appointments or ultrasounds or...labour! I tried my hardest not to show it, because I knew how excited Lydia was.

It didn’t take long for us to be ready and I waved a quick goodbye to everyone on the way out the front door. I clicked the locks to the garage and the door opened. Without thinking, I walked to my car and opened the passenger side door for Lydia. Hell yeah, I know how to be gentleman...albeit a stupid one.

“Whose car is this?” Lydia asked, looking confused.

I winced. Shit, she didn’t even know about my car. I have the same car as Mason but in a different colour, a midnight blue
Vauxhall Astra
. Nothing fancy, but we upgraded every year, so I had the sport version. It was the one luxury I allowed myself to have, with no feelings of guilt.

“It’s, um...mine?” I phrased it like a question.

Instead of flying off the handle like I expected her to, she just rolled her eyes at me, and slid into the passenger seat.

When I reached the driver’s side, I took a deep breath, and drove off to see our baby.

*~*~*

Lydia

Who likes the doctor’s surgery?

No one.

Even the people who worked there looked bloody miserable. I didn’t let it affect my excitement though, I was there for one reason and one reason only...to see our baby. We sat in the waiting room, glancing at the clock every five seconds. According to the receptionist, my midwife was running behind schedule, a fact that I hated. I was impatient.

The mere fact that I didn’t know how many weeks pregnant I was, had my tummy fluttering. I could have a tiny embryo in my womb, or a foetus that actually resembled the baby it would eventually be. I placed my hand over my tummy, it was such an incredible feeling.

“Miss Romero?” The receptionist called.

Ruben jumped up from his seat. I giggled at him.

“You can go straight through to room six.” She advised, with a nod of her head.

I was not a fan of the midwife. The second we walked through the door, she looked me up and down as if I was something she’d just stepped on. I thought midwives were supposed to be kind?

“Hello.” She said.

Ruben stepped forward. “Hi, I’m Ruben, this is Lydia.”

He held out his hand and she shook it limply, muttering her name.

Dr Cross. By name and nature apparently.

Bitchy midwife #1.

I idly wondered if there was an award for that title. She’d win for sure.

“Take a seat please.”

We both sat and she fired off questions about the pregnancy so far, then she started asking about family history and I answered what I could. She frowned, clearly annoyed at the fact that I knew little to nothing of Ruben’s family history. Little did she know that, that wasn’t exactly my fault!

“Have any members of either families, have a history of miscarriages or still-births?” She asked.

I shook my head, no. Ruben, on the other hand, made her dislike us a little bit more.

“I’m not one hundred percent, but I think my mum had a few miscarriages. Maybe three or four.”

“Did she have a medical reason for this?”

“Yeah, she was hooked on drugs for most her life.” He answered bluntly.

Oh, Dr Cross did not like that.

She started lecturing both of us on the risks of drugs, alcohol and tobacco use during pregnancy and Ruben cut her off.

“With all due respect, Doctor. Please don’t assume that just because there is a family history of drug use, that we partake in those sorts of recreational activities too, because that’s just not the case. I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs and I only drink on occasion. Same goes for Lydia.”

She harrumphed, either not believing him or not caring. By the time she asked me to undress my bottom half; I was ready to storm out. She was rude, judgemental and downright mean. More than once, I had to put my hand on Ruben’s knee to stop him from saying something that would get us removed from the premises before we’d gotten to see our baby.

She put a red trumpet-shaped device to my stomach and lay her ear on it. Ruben and I frowned at each other, not sure what she was doing.

“Clear, nice, strong heartbeat – because I can already hear it, I’ll assume you’re more than twelve weeks. Therefore, we’ll try an external ultrasound first. We should be able to see the baby well.”

I sucked in a breath. More than twelve weeks?

I sort of assumed that I’d be anywhere between four and twelve weeks, but
more
than twelve, that didn’t even enter my mind.

The gel was squirted on my stomach and I looked to Ruben with a smile. He leant down beside my ear and whispered, “How’s that...
Squirt!
”

He hadn’t called me squirt in years and I almost burst into tears. It was a reminder of how much we’d been through. While I was staring up at him, the unmistakable sound of a heartbeat filled the room and I spun my head around to look at the screen.