by Bijou Hunter
Colt is, of course, an amazing father. From the moment he holds his firstborn, he’s a natural. Oh, and extremely proud that his wish for a girl came true.
“I have that kind of control over my sperm,” he brags to his brothers-in-law one weekend.
His baby girl, Joy Farah, is a tiny thing, but what the blonde lacks in size, she makes up for in noise output. The newest Johansson does everything loud—cries, laughs, burps, and, yes, farts. She also adores her father’s noises. Joy’s first real laugh is when he lets out a belch worthy of the record books. After a second of shock, she goes absolutely hysterical with laughter. Now he burps to make her laugh, and she does the same for him.
“She gets her gas from me,” Colt says proudly. “Her beauty is all you, baby.”
Despite Colt’s praise, I think Joy looks a ton like him. Her dark brown eyes are all Johansson. True, her laughing smile does look like mine, but the smirk she starts wearing at around six months is just like her daddy. Oh, and the growling! She sounds like a pissed Cooper. At a year old, she has growling contests with her pop to see who will one day take the crown from Pop-Pop.
“I think she’s beating me,” Colt says, pretending to be upset as he cuddles our second daughter, Rose Farah. “Am I less than a man if I get beaten by a girl?”
I reach down to give his dick a gentle tug. “You seem pretty manly to me.”
Colt lets out a suggestive growl that I pray Joy doesn’t replicate. His inability to keep his hands to himself is why we have our second baby so soon after our first.
“Farah and I are Irish twins,” Tawny tells me one day at the park. As I carry my two, she watches over Gunnar and Vi’s three during the couple’s weekend away.
“Pregnancy isn’t too hard,” I say, assuming I’ve jinxed myself by admitting this information out loud. “I throw up every morning for two months. Otherwise, I’m fine. Which is good since I think I’m pregnant again.”
“Tell Colt to put his balls in neutral, will ya?” she teases, and I suspect he’ll hear about it later from Judd and Gunnar.
Our babies travel well. We drive to Ellsberg every other weekend. Kori likes my babies in short spurts, but she isn’t impressed by how noisy they are. She does babysit them with MJ’s help. Mostly, she reads to the girls and washes their binkies after they spit them out. Though very proud of herself for taking care of her little cousins, Kori begs her mom to never have another baby.
“I need you to only see me.”
“No one else,” Rae promises her mini-me.
Once a month during a visit, Farah takes me to the salon for girl time. Sometimes, we go alone. Other times, all the girls get together for a day of pampering.
Farah and I like to cook together now that she’s given up knitting. I’m crazy-proud when I teach her new recipes I learned from Vidalia and Heidi.
All my life, I prayed my mom would reappear and love me. While that dream finally died, a better one came along. Farah never rejects me or makes me think I’m not good enough. Whether it’s advice on pregnancy, marriage, or even giving birth to my first baby, she’s always there when I need her. Farah actually joins Colt and me in the delivery room since I’m terrified of doing something wrong and he’s terrified period.
There’s no doubt Farah and Cooper treat me like a daughter. Their support helps me thrive in the same way as Colt and his sisters.
I’m no doubt closest with MJ whose weirdness makes her easy to trust. She’s too straightforward to screw with me. I do grow closer to Colt’s other sisters during our frequent visits to Conroe and White Horse.
On my first summer as one of the Johanssons, I finally get out of Kentucky. Kori and Rae come along too. For our road trip, we drive to California, head up the coast to Washington state, and then back to Ellsberg. Road tripping becomes my obsession. Not only do I get to see the country, but I’m able to spend weeks with my favorite people.
The best part of the trips is watching Colt act like a kid. He bounces around, talks a million miles an hour, and plays pranks on his sisters. Cooper claims his son will never grow up, and I hope he’s right.
I never want Colt to change from the man I met that day in Whiskey Kirk’s parking lot. His courage to do what was right over what was easiest startled me after a lifetime of people letting me down. His heart was big enough to let a messed-up girl like me inside.
His love literally saved me. Rae and Kori too. For three down-on-their-luck girls invisible to everyone else, Colton Kirk Johansson proved to be our tattooed hero. And I swear he’ll never stop being mine.
A FINAL WORD FROM THE HEIR
Terrance Shelly, age 98, is barely cold in the ground before I snap up his property. His family knows the old house isn’t worth much. The land probably isn’t either, but it’s prime real estate for Stella and me. We’ll be within walking distance from Gunnar and Vi’s place which happens to sit right next to Judd and Tawny’s home.
Living in an apartment for over two years isn’t quite the nightmare I’d have thought. We eventually buy a pull-out couch for when Kori and Rae visit. My parents rent out an apartment in the building so they can drop by without worrying about a hotel. They stay for weeks at a time after Joy is born. Mom also begins talking of retiring from school so she can spend more time visiting her grandbabies. I suspect she’ll wait until Kori is done with elementary school, though. Sticking around for Thisbe to start Ellsberg Elementary isn’t an option since MJ doesn’t plan to send her baby to school.
“I want her to be free-range,” MJ explains one night when we’re in Ellsberg.
Our two-bedroom apartment is comfortably cozy until our third baby is ready to leave his mama’s belly. Mister Shelly’s death allows us to buy the home we’ve been wanting, and Baby Kirk is two months old when our swanky contemporary-style modular house arrives at the property.
During our housewarming barbecue, Pop looks impressed by the two-story concrete and stone home. “They make some fancy fucking trailers these days.”
“And it was cheaper than the palace you live in,” I tease before gesturing toward the yurt in the backyard. “What do you think of our guest house?”
Pop smiles knowingly. “I can see me visiting often.”
Laughing at his wink, I was hoping for a positive reaction. I’d considered a smaller modular home in the back for guests, but Pop is always in MJ’s place. I thought he might appreciate this more.
“We have a guest room downstairs if the weather ever gets too shitty for Mom’s comfort. It’s also perfect for Kori when she stays with us in the summer,” I explain, amused for some reason at the idea of Gram and Rae on a cruise. I think it’s the matching goofy safari-style hats they always wear when out together.
“Will three bedrooms upstairs be enough?” Pop asks.
“We’re aiming for four kids, and I want another boy. If so, they can share. I’m not spoiling my kids like you did yours.”
Pop snorts. “That’d be more believable if your daughters weren’t eating all your chips as we speak.”
Joy and Rose sit on my lap, doing more than stealing chips. I swear they steal my fucking heart every time they smile. They’re the spitting image of Stella, not that she can see it. My woman might never understand just how beautiful she is, but I plan to tell her every day in the hopes that she’ll catch on.
Baby Kirk—or BK as MJ calls him—ruins my hopes of having all one gender. Stella wanted a boy, though. Unable to tell her no, I talked my balls into sending only boy swimmers to the finish line.
“My grandparents had two boys and then two girls,” I say when Stella shows me our fourth positive pregnancy test. “We’re going to flip what they did. Just you wait and see.”
“This is the last one, though, right?”
Running a hand through my once-again luxurious hair, I shrug. “I don’t know. Having five would make me the all-time winner in my family.”
“Fine, but no more than five,” she says, straddling my hips. “I think I might be nearing th
e point where I no longer find pregnancy fun.”
Stella rarely complains. When she does, I take notice. “Then we can stop at four. I don’t need to win everything. I already have the best wife, the best kids, the best club, and the best house. It seems like maybe I should back off and let someone else win occasionally.”
Stella laughs, but she doesn’t disagree with me. We’re living the fucking dream in Pema.
Yeah, it was tough in the beginning. I couldn’t find a decent slice of pizza. I missed my mommy. Pop too, probably. I might have even missed MJ.
But running the Pema chapter is far and away more fun than dealing pot and booze. I get to call the shots, decide on members, torment the new guys to make sure they’re made out of the right stuff, hand out assignments to those who please me. Not going to deny that I’m a dick, but the guys still dig me. Mostly because our VP is a bigger dick. Maverick’s entire job is essentially to make me look good, and the fucker excels in his role.
I like to think I’m a good president. No way I’ll ever be as smart as Pop or as tough as Pop-Pop. I just hope I’m a decent mix of them both.
And when work gets stressful, or Heidi and I butt heads, I can retreat to my cool house and hang with Stella and the kids. I’m not ashamed to admit I spend a ton of free time goofing around at home.
Joy is hilarious with her big personality. Rose is shy but sings all the time especially the song “Iko Iko” after Kori comes up to spend the week with us. BK wants to do everything himself and likes to boss around his sisters who ignore him like pros.
And then there’s our final child. Bruce is a sneaky motherfucker who sits back and watches everyone. Oh, boy, does he know how to smile in the most innocent way too, but he’s up to no good. I haven’t figured out his long-term evil plan. I think he might want to take over the world with a Bond villain-style scheme. Until he unleashes his master plan, Bruce is a fulltime mama’s boy and follows her around all day. I suspect if the evil mastermind thing doesn’t work out, that he might become a chef since he loves to help Stella in the kitchen.
When we go back to Ellsberg for the holidays or longer visits, we stay in my old room. Pop remodeled it to fit built-in bunk beds along with a king-sized one for Stella and me. In fact, a few years after I move to Pema, Pop remodels much of the house to make it more functional for his eleven grandchildren–Keith, Thisbe, Byron, Eugenie, Joy, Rose, Holly, Kirk, Bonnie, Bruce, and, of course, Kori.
Even with his kids having kids and those kids wearing him out during visits, my pop is still going strong. The man never plans to retire. I don’t blame him. I can’t imagine giving up the fun of running shit in Pema. Heir to a great leader, I was born to be top dog. Yet I’d still be moping around in Ellsberg if a sexy blonde hadn’t swept into my life, stolen my heart, and jumpstarted a future I’m still amazed by every damn day.
THE END
ABOUT BIJOU
Living in Indiana with my three sweet sons, three wacky cats, one super mom (and her ugly dog), I love cats, Red Letter Media, Call of Duty, and sitcoms canceled before their time.
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