I’m not in the mood. I feel like I haven’t slept in days. When he steps to the side, my mum comes into view again, her face soft, but the worry lines are still around her eyes. She looks like an angel with the sun shining behind her and right now, an angel is what I need.
“Mum, thank God.”
I move out of the way to let her in, leaving the door open when Madison, Hayden and my uncle Max pull up.
“What on earth has happened in here?” Mum calls.
I turn around and face her, unable to meet her gaze when I blurt out everything. “Sunday didn’t sleep. Well, she did when she was in my arms, but the second I put her down, she would start crying.”
“Is that why you have bottles, dirty nappies and cups of coffee littered around the place?” Dad muses, looking around.
I narrow my eyes on him. “Yes! If you’re here just to make fun of me, then leave. I’ve not had a wink of sleep and I’m ready to pull my hair out.” I give him one last warning look before turning to my mum. “How did you do this? Show me.”
She chuckles, taking Sunday out of my arms. Even after she kept me up all night, I want to take her back, hold her close where she belongs. I rub my chest, hating the foreign feeling; emptiness.
She hands Sunday to Dad, giving him a stern look that says ‘behave’, before assessing the mess.
“Um, Aiden, why is there a pile of her clothes shoved into the corner?”
I run a hand down my face. “She kept throwing up. It was bad. And she had diarrhoea—it was everywhere, Mum. All up her back and down her legs. I wasn’t prepared for it and ended up throwing up on her.” I inhale, running my fingers through my hair. “Mostly, she was being sick.”
She walks over, picking one off the top. “There’s only a bit of dribble on here, Aiden.”
I throw my hands up. “I didn’t want her to be cold.”
“Why didn’t you put a bib on her?”
I look around, wondering what the hell she’s on about. “What’s a bib?”
She rolls her eyes, groaning, and walks into my room. She comes back out holding up a bandana. “This is a bib. It goes around her neck.” I watch as she wraps it around my girl’s neck, popping the buttons together at the back.
Well, shit. Who knew? I shrug sheepishly. “I thought they were for her hair.”
She laughs. Max, Madison and Hayden walk in, whistling at the mess. “Seems you had a party without us,” Hayden mutters, her eyes filled with mirth.
I narrow my own. “I’m not in the mood for any shit. I’ve not slept.”
Both girls put their hands up in surrender.
“So, you don’t want to hear what happened to Maddox last night, then?” Max says.
My head snaps to him. “What about him?” I ask, intrigued. Maddox is one of the eldest of us cousins, but you’d never believe it. The guy is a kid through and through. How he manages to run a successful business is anyone’s guess, but he does, and customers wait months to hire Maddox and his team.
Madison giggles. “He called me this morning to ask me to pick him up from the police station. I didn’t want to get up, so I called Mum and Dad. They’re going to pick him up.”
“He got arrested?”
“We don’t know the full story. We’re waiting for him to get here to find out. Mum said she wanted to come over and see if you needed anything.”
I sit next to my dad on the sofa, watching as Mum starts picking up bottles and taking them into the kitchen. The girls follow suit. I’m too tired to argue, to tell them I’ll do it in a minute. I rest my head on the back of the sofa, closing my eyes.
“Rough night, huh?”
I don’t bother opening my eyes to answer Max’s question as he flops down next to me, leaving me sandwiched between him and Dad. “She wouldn’t stop crying. Every time I got her to sleep, I’d put her down, and it would all begin again.” I pause, opening my eyes and turning to my uncle. “Have you seen the outfits they make to put on babies? I swear they should be labelled a hazard. I felt like I was going to break her.”
“Babies are flexible. It takes a lot to break a bone, son. You did good. She looks peaceful,” Dad whispers. My lips twitch when he runs his finger down her cheek, looking lovingly down at her. “It’s been so long since we had a baby in the family.”
I grunt. “Well, let’s hope we don’t follow you guys and start a tradition.”
“What do you mean?” he asks, pulling his eyes away from Sunday.
“Well, according to Grams, Aunt Denny got pregnant first, then Harlow and you followed suit, trying to fill your own stadiums.”
Dad grunts but Max gasps, sitting forward. “Nope. Hayden isn’t having sex. Over my dead body. And as cute as Sunday is, I’m not ready to be a grandfather. I’ve just got Liam and Hayden to move out. I can finally fu—I mean, have alone time with my wife. I don’t want to be called at all hours to watch over my grandchild. Not yet.”
“So, you let your only daughter move out, where you can’t watch her or see who she has coming or going?” Dad asks, his lips twitching. “You never were bright.”
I have to admit, he has a point.
“I’m in the room,” Hayden yells from the kitchen doorway.
Max stares at Hayden, eyes wide and slightly panicked, finger pointing at her. “I mean it, Hayden: you have sex or get a boyfriend, I’ll kill him. I don’t want you to have children yet.”
“Will you relax already? One, I don’t have a boyfriend at the moment,” she states, and I feel Max sag against the sofa, relief pouring through him. “And two, I’ve been on the pill since I was fifteen; ask Mum.”
With that, she walks back into the kitchen, leaving Max gaping like a fish.
Me and Dad watch him, waiting for the inevitable explosion that is going to happen in, three… two… one…
“I’m going to kill her! We discussed this. We discussed this!” he growls, standing up and grabbing his phone out of his back pocket, completely oblivious to the rest of us watching him. “We agreed: giving her the pill would just give her the green light to have sex.”
“When did you agree to this?” Dad asks, looking genuinely interested.
Max looks away briefly from his phone, muttering, “The day she was born,” before walking out.
The second he’s no longer in view, we both burst out laughing. Hearing us, he pops his head back in, pointing at me. “Laugh all you want, Aiden, but you’ve got all this to come.”
I choke on my laughter, straightening in my seat before turning to my dad, horrified. “She can’t date. Not ever. I mean it. I’ll kill any fu—fudger, who goes near her.”
Dad bursts out laughing, pulling his granddaughter closer. “Don’t worry, with how big our family is and how much bigger it’s getting, no lad will have a chance to get through all of us.”
I relax instantly, but still, the image of my girl growing up and dating turns my stomach.
Maybe I could keep her at home, home-school her?
Car doors slam in the distance, and Dad looks at me, his eyes lighting up. “I can’t wait to hear what the little shit did this time. I’m surprised Malik hasn’t kicked his arse yet.”
“If it weren’t for the fact he’s Maddy’s twin, I’d think he was Max’s son and that Landon was Malik’s. Both Landon and Malik have that whole moody and broody shit going on. I’ve even tried to perfect their stare, but I just look constipated,” I admit.
Dad nods, understanding. “He’s always been like it. Don’t forget, we didn’t have the same upbringing you guys did.”
My heart hurts at the reminder. We don’t know what happened; we just know it was bad and they never wanted to talk about it. “We know. We’re lucky to have you as our parents.”
“I don’t know why I bother,” Harlow yells, walking in. She starts to head to the kitchen but pauses halfway there when she sees Sunday with Dad.
“What did he do?” Dad asks.
She groans, rolling her eyes. “Let the fool explain. I thought
I’d heard it all, but clearly not.”
I laugh, a little more awake after hearing that. We’ve all been taken in for petty stuff, but the only one who has a criminal record is Landon. The rest of us either didn’t get caught or were let off. I’d like to think it was because of our good looks and charm, but it had more to do with explaining to a judge what we did than anything. It’s like they don’t want to report the stuff we did.
Maddox walks in next, with a fuming Malik behind him. He looks like shit—worse than me—with red-rimmed eyes, one of them black, and as I look closer, a few scratches down his face.
“What did you do?” I ask, smiling wide.
He groans, sitting down on the floor just inside the doorway, clearly too tired to walk any further. Mum comes in, handing me a cup of coffee before taking the other over to Maddox.
“You don’t deserve this, but I want you awake when you tell us. I’m intrigued to hear what you did this time.”
Maddox looks to his dad, who stands in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. “Do I have to?”
Max pushes past Malik and sits down next to me again, grinning. “You know the rules. You get caught, you have to tell us what you did.”
“It was stupid really,” he says.
“Go on,” Hayden urges, bouncing on her feet.
He scrubs his face, looking rough and haggard. “Okay, so I had this amazing idea. I promise, it was when I thought of it.”
“What was it?” Maddy asks, grinning.
“I was watching The Bachelor with Lily and Charlotte a few weeks ago…”
When he doesn’t say anything more, instead looking to his bent knees, Hayden giggles. “Isn’t that the pompous show about a guy who thinks he’s all that and gets women with no dignity to fight over him?”
Maddox glares at her. “Anyway, I thought that the dude was on to something. All those chicks, he had the pick of the litter, ya know?”
“What did you do?” I laugh, clutching my side.
“I set up an account on Tinder and arranged dates with a bunch of women, asking them to meet me at The Gin Inn last night. I thought I’d re-enact The Bachelor. It really did seem like a good idea at the time.”
What a div!
“What happened?” I ask.
He shrugs, looking anywhere but at the people in the room.
“Tell them,” Harlow snaps, hugging Malik.
His cheeks turn pink when he answers. “I kind of hired the pub out for the night. Once I thought all the girls were there, I took the stage.”
“They have a stage at The Gin Inn?” I ask. It was our local hangout and I’d never seen one before.
He waves me off. “I hired that too.”
“Of course you did,” Malik mutters.
“And?” Mum asks, sitting on the arm of the sofa, next to Dad.
“I told them they had ten minutes to convince me which one would be perfect for me, that sexual advances were welcome,” he looks away from his mum when she starts forward, “and that the winner would have the pleasure of being my girlfriend—until I got bored.” Malik coughs and Maddox sighs, leaning back in the chair. “And that I’d take her to Italy for two weeks.”
“And how did they react?” I ask, trying my hardest not to laugh.
He forces a smile. “A few were interested; I could see it in their body language and eyes.”
“And?” I ask, grinning from ear to ear, no longer tired.
He sighs, looking defeated. “They started pushing towards me. At first, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven, and was about to have a—”
“Baby girl in the room,” I growl before he can finish the sentence.
“Oh right, yeah. So, I thought that was about to happen, but when they reached me, they started attacking me. I barely made it out alive.”
“So, why did you get arrested?”
“For disturbing the peace and causing a riot.”
“What has Jimmy said?” Madison asks, talking about the bar owner who we’ve known for years.
“I promised to do his back room for free,” Maddox answers.
“Dude, I can’t believe you thought that would work.”
“I just wanted to give them a chance.”
“On that note, I’m going to go and finish the washing,” Mum says, shaking her head in disappointment at Maddox.
“Aren’t you missing work?” I ask him, resting my head back on the sofa.
“Yeah. I called Todd to run things while I’m gone. I’m gonna head back and get some sleep, then head over to The Gin Inn and apologise once again to Jimmy for last night.”
Glad some of us can get some sleep.
I close my eyes for a moment, listening to Malik give him shit.
*** *** ***
Groggily, I rub the sleep from my eyes and look around my clean apartment. There isn’t a cushion out of place, unless you count the one someone has stuffed under my head.
Sitting up, I stretch my back, groaning at the click. It feels good. I also notice there’s no one here.
Everything from the past twenty-four hours comes shooting back at me, and I jump up from the sofa, panicking.
Where the fuck is Sunday?
I glance down in the Moses basket, not finding her there. It’s dark out, which means I slept the whole day away.
I’m just about to grab my mobile from my back pocket when Mum walks out of the kitchen, drying her hands with a kitchen towel.
“Mum, where’s Sunday?” I ask, unable to hide the panic in my voice.
She gives me a warm smile. “Sleeping soundly in her cot. I put her down not long ago, after bathing, changing and feeding her.
My shoulders relax. “Thank you so much. I must have needed the sleep.”
“You’re welcome,” she tells me, moving further into the room. “I need to get going before your dad has a hissy fit. But before I go, I wanted to tell you how proud I am of you. I may not have expected grandchildren from you at such a young age, but I love that little girl with my whole heart. And I know you’re going make an amazing father.”
I feel a but coming on.
“But?”
She grins, shaking her head at me. “But… you need to relax. Stop panicking over the tiniest things, and if she cries, let her for a little while before picking her up.” Seeing the ‘I’m not doing that’ expression on my face, she laughs. “Trust me, it will be hard to sit by and listen, but once she realises you won’t pick her up every time she whimpers, she’ll settle down easier. She’s your child and I won’t tell you how to raise her, but that is my advice to you.”
I scrub the back of my neck. “I don’t know if I can handle her crying, Mum. My heart hurts every time I hear it.”
“Trust me, I know. I went through it with you lot. But it does get easier, I promise.”
“Thank you for staying, Mum, and for cleaning up my mess. You didn’t need to do that.”
“I’ll help any way I can, Aiden,” she tells me, grabbing her coat. “I’ve washed all of her clothes and put them away. Just make sure you use the powder I bought for her clothes and not the one you use. I’ve made you some dinner, too; it’s in the oven. Try to get some sleep before she wakes up.”
“I will. I can’t believe I slept all day and I’m still shattered.”
“That’s babies for you.” She picks her bag up before turning to me. “Oh, and your brothers and cousins said to meet them at Harvey’s for breakfast around ten. They want to go get some things for Sunday with you.”
“Um, I don’t have a pushchair.”
“Your dad already went out and bought one,” she informs me, pointing towards the door. I glance over and find a new pushchair that looks an awful lot like the Moses basket.
My throat tightens with emotion. “Tell him I said thank you.”
“I will.”
“Um, Mum?” I call out when she reaches the door.
“Yeah?”
“Is Sunday allowed out? She’s only a few days old.”
She laughs. “Of course she is. Fresh air will do her good. It’s going to be warm tomorrow so don’t wrap her up too much. She’ll get overheated.”
“I won’t.”
“Call me if you need me.”
I walk over to her and pull her into my arms. “Thank you, Mum. I love you. You’re the best.”
“I love you too, Aiden.”
CHAPTER FOUR
AIDEN
My head snaps up when I hear banging, before Sunday’s high-pitched scream startles me out of bed.
I tried to listen to my mum’s advice, but I could only last thirty seconds before I picked her up. No baby as precious as Sunday should be left to scream. She deserves to know she is loved and wanted. I never want her to think I’ve abandoned her.
I growl when drills and more banging picks up, rocking Sunday in my arms. Enough is enough. I’ve tried to get on with the neighbour, really tried. But she just woke up a newborn baby, who I only managed to get to sleep… an hour ago. Before that, she was awake six hours, only sleeping for short amounts of time.
Whoever came up with the saying, ‘slept like a baby’, clearly never had fucking kids.
I storm out of my room, holding Sunday, who’s calmed down now she’s in my arms, and head outside. Builders are carrying bags of cement through the gap between the properties, towards her back garden.
I glare at the one who makes eye contact with me. “Morning,” he calls out.
“No, it’s fu—fudging not. You guys ever heard of sleep? It’s six in the morning.”
“Whatever, mate,” he scoffs, before walking off.
“I’ll shove his ‘whatever mate’ up his fu—fudging arse,” I mutter under my breath, before looking down at my girl, who’s sucking her fist. I smile, still amazed she’s real. She takes my breath away each and every time. “Baby girl, you’re gonna have to tune Daddy out for a moment. I’m gonna have words with the mean old lady.”
Walking up to the door, I waste no time in banging my fist against it. Then, seeing the sign above the doorbell that says, ‘ring me’, I hold my finger down on that, too, until they answer. See how she fucking likes the noise this early in the morning.
Aiden (A Next Generation Carter Brother Novel Book 2) Page 3
