The Brightest Stars ✨

Chapter 22

If somebody had shown Gabe a glimpse of his life this time last year, he'd have sworn up and down that it was an alternative world in an alternative universe, inhabited entirely by doppelgängers. If somebody had told him he'd be watching The Crown on Netflix with his pregnant fiancée he'd have laughed in their face and asked them what type of crack they were smoking and what it had been cut with.

But here he was on a Friday evening, spread out on the couch with Natalia's feet in his lap. She wordlessly demanded foot massages often these days and he dutifully obliged her, he figured it was the least he could do since she was continuing his family line.

"Is my big jock of a man reading? Wait...can you even read?"

Gabe threw his head back and laughed. They were at that point where nothing she said was offensive to him anymore. He never knew what she was going to say. She was the best type of unpredictable. She made each day and moment more than a mundane passage of time.

"I read," he insisted.

"Name one book you've read since I've known you?" Natalia said, raising a finely sculpted eyebrow. "Present material notwithstanding."

"Sometimes I think you're normal and then you say things like, 'Present material notwithstanding'." Gabe mimicked, side-stepping her initial question.

"It's because I read," she smirked.

"Or because you watch stuffy British dramas."

"That's a fair observation. But tell me what you're reading," Natalia insisted, despite rolling her eyes heavenward.

Gabe sheepishly held up the title, knowing that she would eventually discover it anyway. He might as well come clean early and get the teasing out of the way.

"The Expectant Father: the ultimate guide for Fathers-to-be." Natalia read out loud, a puzzled but amused look on her face. "I bet you know how to diffuse a bomb and crash land a plane or something but it's the thought of children that has you reading self-help books?" she laughed.

Gabe gave her a look and returned to reading his tome quietly not bothering to reply to her question. He could crash land a plane if he was forced to and he knew how to diffuse a bomb but children and dealing with pregnant women were something else entirely.

He never wanted to become the monster of a father he had growing up. A classic case of a narcissistic career man that put profit and image over everything including his own family. No, Gabe wanted to raise a family in love and in laughter, something that he had very little of growing up.

His mother tried of course, during the hours that his father was away; their house was light and fun but turned into a strict den when his father stepped through that door with his gleaming, monogrammed suitcase and foul moods. And his affairs, having an affair was expected and accepted in the circles that he kept but soliciting sex workers was something else entirely. It must have sucked the spirit out of his mother's soul, he was certain of it.

Now, that he had the time to examine his childhood from an adult perspective he could see how the choices his mother had made in regards to raising him was a product of trauma. He did feel bad for exposing his father at his mother's expense and the guilt settled low and heavy in the pit of his stomach. But he did it for peace of mind. Something he thought that he deserved. He had paid his dues to karma and the universe. He deserved to be happy. He was going to be happy.

He looked over at Natalia, her stomach had grown over the last weeks, into an adorable bump that was visible under the loose clothes she wore. A silk pyjama shirt and pants. The pregnancy made her skin sensitive and she couldn't tolerate anything but natural fibres. It meant that she had to get a whole new wardrobe sooner than expected. When she had safely sailed into the second trimester they had informed her brother, their colleagues at work and her friends.