by Joanna Bell
I didn't stop until I was finished, either. I let my hips drive me in the last few times, those jerking, final thrusts working with Astrid's sweet pussy to milk the final drops of cum and shuddering bliss out of me.
***
That was the 19th. We left the condo that night to go to Henrietta's to eat, but we didn't leave again until the 23rd. And when we did I think we might have been the two most satisfied, love-struck human beings on earth.
"You two look happy," Hailey observed, smiling when we met her and Jackson at the Super Mart to help pick up the metric shit-ton of food they ordered for Christmas.
Astrid look up at me, and then shyly away.
"Yeah," I replied, grinning right back at my brother and my sister-in-law. "Things are good."
When we were finished picking up groceries, though, and headed back to the trucks to load up, I suddenly heard Jackson make an odd scoffing noise. The second I glanced up, I saw the reason why.
Jack and Darcy had just stepped out of Darcy's Range Rover – and they were headed right for us.
"Goddamnit," Jackson muttered under his breath as Astrid squeezed my hand a little tighter.
"It's OK," Hailey said, refusing to lower her voice – or change her course. "It's fine."
I hadn't seen my dad since that night. I hadn't heard anything about him since that night.
I actually saw his body stiffen the moment he spotted us, watched his shoulders hunch up into that typical Devlin defensive stance.
My dad didn't have anything to fear from me that afternoon. Not anything physical, anyway. I wasn't proud of what I did, but I wasn't ashamed either. How many beatings did I take at his hands, as a defenseless little kid? He deserved what he got – he deserved a lot more than he got, actually. But I was done with Jack. So was my brother. We saw him then for what he truly was, not the strong patriarch or the wise leader he wanted people to see him as but as a small, damaged, bitter man – and nothing more.
He straightened up as he approached, eying the 4 of us up and down the way he used to do when I was a kid, like there was something inherently embarrassing and shameful about me. Both women met his gaze. Neither man did. Jackson and I weren't afraid of Jack Devlin anymore, but we both instinctively sensed the trouble that is always lurking when our dad is in the mix.
I thought at first that we were all going to make it out unscathed. Darcy didn't say anything. We didn't say anything. Jack didn't say anything. Not until he was almost past us and he suddenly looked down at Hailey's pregnant belly and let out a low, mocking chuckle.
"Another one, eh?" He commented. "Another fucked up kid for his fucked-up dad? Probably not the best idea you ever had, checkout girl."
Me and Hailey moved as fast as Jackson himself did, grabbing his arms, holding him back as he charged.
"Fuck you," he growled at Jack, struggling to free himself from my grip. "Don't talk to her. Don't you ever fucking talk to her."
Jack Devlin's very favorite thing in the whole world is making you lose your shit. He loves it more than he loves anything else. He loved it that afternoon, standing just out of Jackson's reach with a big, superior smile on his face and his body angled casually, almost jauntily towards his seething son.
He was lucky I controlled myself. Because even as I held Jackson tight I could feel the rage once again beginning to descend over me.
"And you!" He continued, finally noticing me. "Wow Darcy, willya look at this! What do you nobodies got goin' on? Got yourselves a Loser's Christmas planned or something, is that it?"
Jackson was still struggling and jerking to free himself from my grip and there was a moment when my eyes briefly met Hailey's and I could just see that we were both considering letting him go.
And then I heard someone running towards us. Astrid. I thought she was behind me the whole time.
"Where were you –" I began to ask but she walked past me. She walked past all of us until she was standing very close to Jack. It was then that I noticed she was holding something in her hand.
"A Loser's Christmas?" She asked, holding something up in front of my dad's face. The photos. She had the photos. "You want to talk about losers, Jack?"
Oh Jesus, she called him Jack. I never saw such fine or such sweetly-delivered disrespect.
My dad took a minute to understand what he was looking at but when he did I saw the amused expression on his face melt away.
"Get those out of my face," he muttered, turning away.
"Why?" Astrid continued, ripping the photo in half and holding up a second. "Why? You had them taken. If anyone should be able to look at these it's you. You tried to ruin Cillian's life. You tried to ruin Jackson's life. You've never even met your own grandson – and you surely won't meet the one on the way, either. So tell me again who is it that's going to have a Loser's Christmas?"
Jack Devlin tried to turn away again but Astrid held a third photo up in front of his face. He didn't move to push her away, or lay a hand on her. My dad understands, on some level, how things are. And he understood in that parking lot that laying so much as a single finger on Astrid or Hailey would have been the end of him. So instead he just stood there, caught between his own instinctive inability to back down and his own allergy to taking responsibility for anything.
"Look," Astrid continued, her voice as flinty as I've ever heard it before or since. "Look at it. You had these taken. You wanted to keep your sons close and this is how you did it – because you don't know how to keep anyone close without threats and coercion. You know what kind of person doesn't know how to keep people close without threats, Jack? A loser, that's who. So you can stand there grinning like a hyena all you like, I just want you to know that we – all of us standing here right now, including your own sons – know exactly who the real loser is."
I felt Jackson's body relax. He knew as well as I did that Astrid was destroying Jack Devlin more thoroughly and more brutally than any punch ever could.
Jack knew it, too. He took a small, involuntary step backwards as she held another photo up to his face. His good time was over, I could see it on his face. He wasn't having any fun anymore.
"Come on," Darcy urged. "Let's go, Jack. You don't need to give these people the time of day."
She tried. God bless Darcy, she tried. But her husband jerked his hand away from hers and stayed right where he was, unable to process the fact that it was suddenly him – and not some minion or employee or waitress or son – who was on the end of an epic dressing-down.
"Get out of my face," he finally said, afraid even to swear at Astrid because he knew Jackson and I were both poised to tear his head clean off his body.
But Astrid wasn't even finished.
"I know!" She continued, her voice rising as she ripped up another photo and showed him a new one. "I know who you are. We all know who you are, Jack. We know what you tried to do. And do you know what else we know?"
Astrid took the rest of the photos in her hands and ripped them all in half at once, just inches from Jack Devlin's nose. And then she looked him dead straight in the eyes and delivered the killer final blow:
"We know you failed."
And then she walked away. We all walked away. None of us even turned around to see what Jack Devlin did, or how he took it. I was never prouder of someone – never prouder to be with someone – than I was in that moment.
"Holy shit!" Hailey exclaimed, grasping Astrid's shoulders and giving her a little shake when we were back at the trucks. "Holy shit!"
Jackson just shook his head and chuckled. "Damn," he said, looking at Astrid and then at me. "Just damn. Remind me never to get on this one's bad side, man – that's all I'm saying."
Astrid herself looked mildly shell-shocked, like even she couldn't believe she'd just done what she did.
"I should go pick up the pieces," she said quietly. "Of the photos, I mean. The ones I dropped. I hate littering."
Hailey burst out laughing. "Don't worry about it, girl. You have yourself a seat and I
'll go take care of it. That was – oh wow, that was beautiful."
"I'll do it," Jackson said, not about to let his pregnant wife start picking up litter in a parking lot.
"I'll help," I added.
We left the girls and the groceries at the trucks and went to make sure there weren't any errant pieces of compromising photos of me floating around the Super Mart parking lot.
When we were out of earshot Jackson just looked at me and said one word:
"Goddamn."
I caught my brother's eye. "I know."
***
Even without the winds of fate swirling around our heads that Christmas would have been one to remember. Jackson and Hailey invited a real mix of people: old friends from Sweetgrass Ridge, newer friends from places like Los Angeles and New York and Boston, family and soon-to-be-family, friends-of-friends, both Brody's grandmothers – no one we loved was left out. Jack Devlin wasn't there, obviously. Neither were the 3 younger Devlin brothers, none of whom had yet shown signs of interest in reconciling with their older siblings. But Uncle Dave was there, and so were 3 of his close friends from the trailer park.
We invited Astrid's parents, too, but they had plans to spend Christmas on a friend's yacht in the South Pacific. They promised they would fly out to Montana sometime before Easter so we could finally meet.
By the time Christmas Day itself rolled around, I still had the ring in my pocket, seemingly gaining an ounce or two in weight for every hour it stayed there. The moment I was waiting for somehow still hadn't come yet. It had to be right. It had to be perfect. And it couldn't be in bed, either. I didn't want Astrid thinking it was just about that.
"Cillian?"
I turned around, realizing I'd been staring out the window for who knows how long. Hailey was behind me, one hand resting on her prominent belly.
"Yeah? What?"
"The turkey?"
"Oh," I replied, remembering why I was in the kitchen in the first place – to wrangle hams and turkeys and vast trays of chopped vegetables into and out of various ovens. "Yeah. The turkey. Where do you want it again?"
"The bottom oven," she replied, laughing and shaking her head. "I told you twice already."
"I know, I know. I'm just – I'm distracted."
Dinner was a team effort. Brody, Astrid and Hailey's mom decorated the house with evergreen boughs and Christmas lights and strings of construction paper loops Brody made in school. Jackson and I did the heavy lifting and the picking up of various guests in Billings and Uncle Dave entertained the little kids. Lacey from Los Angeles, Hailey's aunt and her best friend Lili did most of the cooking, with instructions from Hailey herself.
After delivering another plate of Christmas cookies to the guests in the living room, I found myself leaning against the doorframe, just taking a breather as the scent of roasting turkey and ham started to fill the house.
"You know, Hailey always used to say I was wrong about Montana."
I turned to find an older woman dressed entirely in black standing beside me. I didn't recognize her at all, even though she was talking to me like I should.
"Oh!" She exclaimed when she got a better look at me. "Oh my goodness. I thought you were Jackson!"
I smiled. "Nope. I get that a lot, though. What were you saying? You were wrong about Montana?"
"Yes," she nodded. "I thought she was wrong to move back here from New York. I thought it would be too boring after the big city. But – this is nice. I'm Candy, by the way. Candy Levinson. I'm a friend of Hailey's."
I shook Candy's thin, ring-bedecked hand. "I'm Cillian, Jackson's brother – but I guess you already figured that out."
***
Dinner started around 3, just as a wall of cloud came down off the Rockies and the snow began to fall outside. Jackson and Uncle Dave and myself set up a second table in the dining room and helped, with a few of the guests, to ferry food from the kitchen.
And then we all sat down to eat. It was – I want to say wonderful but I'm not sure a single word is enough. It was real. Even though many of the guests didn't know each other there was something in the air in that house, on that day. Some spirit of warmth and conviviality and family. And lord, on that last one I didn't even know how right I was! Candles flickered on the tables, the smell of pine and mulled wine and good food filled the air. People ate and chatted and laughed – and then ate and chatted and laughed some more.
I found Jackson in the kitchen as the meal wound down, leaning against the counter and sipping a glass of whiskey.
"What do you think?" He asked when I walked in. "This was good today, wasn't it? This was real good."
"It was," I replied, rubbing my over-stuffed belly as my brother poured another shot and handed it to me. "We never had this, did we? Not after mom died."
"No," he replied, suddenly serious. "We didn't. It feels like a million years ago now, doesn't it? Two million."
I sipped my whiskey and set the glass down on the counter. "It does, it does. And sometimes it feels like yesterday."
"You know Patrick told me years ago that he only has a single memory of mom? I don't think Séan or Connor have any."
"I guess that makes sense – they were so young when she died. Look, I'm sorry man – I didn't mean to get morbid on you."
Jackson turned to look at me. "It's not morbid. I don't feel morbid at all. I feel fucking happy – and grateful."
"Yeah," I agreed, nodding. "Yeah, me too."
Chapter 44: Astrid
I ate so much food that day, and carried so many dishes into and out of the kitchen, and played hide and seek with so many random children, that by the time the meal was over I was exhausted. Surprisingly exhausted, actually.
Hailey found me in the kitchen where I and a few other guests had formed a kind of dishwashing chain and touched my arm.
"Come on Astrid," she said. "You look tired."
We were in the hallway outside the kitchen, headed towards the back of the house when I suddenly realized I was going to puke. There was about a second's worth of warning nausea, nothing more. Just enough time to get my hand up to my mouth – and then to barf through my fingers.
"Oh," I said, looking down at the puddle on the floor and not quite believing what I'd just done. "Oh shit. I – I'm sorry."
"It's OK," Hailey said, putting an arm around my shoulder. "Come on, let's get you to bed."
"I don't know what's wrong with me," I said a few minutes later when I was tucked into bed in one of the guest rooms. "I threw up on one of Darcy's bushes the first time I met Cillian's family. Right in front of Jack and Darcy!"
"Did you?" Hailey giggled.
"Yup. Just barfed all over it. It was Jack's fault – as soon as he knew I was feeling carsick he started driving like a total dick."
"He is a total dick. And I'm glad you puked on his wife's ornamental bushes."
I yawned suddenly and Hailey gave me a look.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing," she replied. "I just want to grab something and then I'll let you sleep, OK? Give me a minute."
When Hailey returned, I could see she was holding something in her hand. I at first thought it was candy of some kind.
"I'm fine," I said, yawning again. "I'm not really hungry –"
"It's not food, Astrid."
There was something in her tone – something pointed. It woke me up a little.
Hailey didn't bring me candy. She brought me a handful of pregnancy tests.
"They're leftover from a few months ago," she said. "I bought, like, a thousand of them."
"No," I laughed. "I don't need these. Thank you and everything but I don't."
Cillian's sister in law looked at me. "Don't you?"
"No. I don't."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I'm sure. I –" I hesitated suddenly, thinking.
I never had protected sex with Cillian. So I think some part of me – the more nervous, irrational part perhaps – just figured that because I hadn't yet g
otten pregnant that it was some kind of impossibility that I would. It wasn't quite a thing yet, because we were still spending so much time apart, but it was definitely on my mind. On my mind enough that I'd already resolved to talk to my doctor if nothing continued to happen even after a few months of living together when I was finished my MA.
There is also the fact that I have never been good at allowing myself to hope for the things I want most in the world.
"What?" Hailey asked.
"Nothing," I replied quickly. "Nothing. I – no, I don't need those."
"You've been using protection? You don't have to answer that if you don't want to, I just thought –"
"What did you think?"
Hailey looked away. "Nothing. I mean, I thought maybe you were trying. It seemed like – it just seemed like maybe you were."
"We haven't actually been using any protection," I said, very quietly. "But we don't see each other very often – the last time I saw Cillian before this was October."
Hailey shot me a look. "October?"
"Yeah."
"Do you have to pee right now?"
***
Twenty minutes later I was staring down at a small row of pregnancy tests, my whole body shaking with disbelief and my eyes blurring with tears. Every single one showed a positive result.
"Are you OK?" Hailey asked, watching me. "Is this what you want?"
"Yes," I wept, covering my face with my hands. "Yes. Yes, this is what I want. Oh my God. Is this – are those real? They're not too old or anything?"
"They're real," she replied, pulling me into a big hug and then giggling when her belly got in the way. "They're definitely real. Oh wow, Astrid. Wow! You're going to have a baby!"
I looked down at my flat belly, and then at Hailey's distinctly not-flat belly, trying to wrap my brain around the idea – the fact – that somewhere beneath that flatness lay the tiny beginnings of something wonderful.
***
By 10:00 that night most of the guests had retired to their hotels or their guest quarters, and the only people left around the dining table when I woke from my nap and joined them were Cillian, Jackson, Hailey, Brody, Uncle Dave and, seated next to him, a friend of Jackson's from LA – Lacey.
