The Subtle Art of Love and War 3

Chapter 18: Full Circle

May 23, one year later...

Jo and I sit hand in hand at the back of the car whilst James drives us to the hospital. I can't fucking believe we've made a full circle since a year ago.

Last year, we lost Ash, I watched my wife drift away from me with my very own eyes. This year, we'll be finding out the sex of our baby and we're stronger than ever. We thought that we would never want to go through the same debilitating grief again but look at us now. We're expecting another baby.

Full fucking circle.

After my birthday last year, Jo went out of her way to make sure her calendar is clear for the next entire month of May. She wanted us to spend my birthday this year in Perth. Clearly, that's not going to happen. So much had happened since May last year, and Christ, where do I even bloody begin?

Katherine completed relocating her makeup company from LA to London and Felix opened a speakeasy. Their spawn, as I'ver very well predicted, has been been quite a devil. The kid has a curious fascination with fire and he's not even two years old. Felix is fucking proud of Paxton and Katherine's already complaining about discovering a strand or two of white hair in the span of one year. But our best friends, despite all the stresses of parenthood and adulthood, have grown stronger together.

They finally took that trip to Japan-the one that was supposed to be their honeymoon-but instead of it just being the two of them on a romantic vacation, they brought Paxton and his nanny with them. Kath's Instagram feed featured aesthetic photographs of their family around Tokyo, Kyoto and Okinawa, but the best ones where Kath was covered in vomit or the ones where Paxton's shit leaked from his nappies or the ones where his face was contorted into a scream as he balled his eyes out in a tantrum... those were sent to us privately along with overly dramatic captions about shoving their son back into Kath's vagina.

Moving on from my wife's best friend's vagina...

Dan and Stanley got married. It was intimate and very simple but the after party have gone down in history. Felix and I closed the club for it and let's just say... the party was fucking lit. We all got so high that night, I barely even recall how Jo and I ended crashing at the Kents' penthouse. Two months later, a Russian model knocked at their door telling them she's pregnant after having sex with Dan... and Stanley on their wedding night. Apparently, my mates were too high and horny that they had unprotected threesome with her that night.

After some very difficult conversation about that, they both came to a decision to keep the baby and pay Tanya, the Russian model, a hefty amount of money to give them full custody. She agreed and willingly signed all the documents. She wanted nothing to do with the baby anyway although she never even considered aborting it; said she would've chosen giving it up for adoption than getting rid of the baby. Now, she is seven months along the way and is staying with them until after she delivers. They're expecting a baby girl and they don't plan on testing the paternity. I'm so fucking happy for them, honestly.

Jack is... well, he's still with Willa. I know, right? Like how the fuck did they manage to stay together this long? He's aware of the animosity polluting the air around us whenever he brings her to parties and get-togethers but at this point he no longer seem to mind. He's in love with her and we can't do anything about that. Willa's trying to fit into our group but you can't really ignore the fact that she helped her brother assault Josephine even if that incident happened years ago. No matter how many times she apologises to me and to Jo, it won't erase what happened that night and it'll take a goddamn miracle to change our minds and accept her. Let's just say we're tolerating her presence for the sake of Jack.

The Lancaster brothers are on fire. Gareth finally divorced Kelsey's gold digging ass after almost two years of marriage and is now being tagged as one of the most illegible bachelors in the entire world alongside his brother, Blake. Lancaster Telecom has successfully penetrated almost a third of the European countries all in all, and we've started negotiating the terms for its joint venture with Benson Dev. With our newest software and their assets, market reach and expertise, we are going to run this shit. And Blake still hasn't met anyone else that would top Josephine-and I fucking doubt if there ever will. According to him, he's not holding his breath waiting for someone to come along. He's happy and I trust him enough now to leave him alone in a room with Jo without worrying that he'll seduce my wife or talk shit about me. Hard to believe that almost two years ago, I beat the shit out of him because I was threatened by his feelings for Jo. Now, Blake and Gareth are basically part of our group.