Not Us: Briggs & Jacqueline

Chapter 29

Jacqueline's POV

Coming home from the hospital was interesting. We came home in our smaller SUV after deciding that Odette would need the Telluride more than we would with three kids. Especially two under one. It was basically twins with a toddler. We all decided together on day two of the hospital stay that we'd hire a maid to keep the house clean and the pool house. We would need someone to help. We also talked to Beth and Jake. They were going to stay in one of the guest rooms in our place and have monitors that connect to the pool house in their room if Odette needed them for anything.

We were in this together though. Odette and I had been joined at the hip since we became friends. There was no fucking way I was going to let her drown in this new adventure that life had shit on her. I mean, just four fucking months ago, we were sitting with Poppy at brunch, rubbing our bellies, and saying who we'd leave our kids with. We didn't think she was serious.

Neither she nor Mack had family. They had a lot of friends, and we'd kept in touch, but she and Odette honestly stayed in contact the most. They had always been friends. Not as close as she and I were, but they were close. Best friend close. And thank god. Poppy and Mack's kids might have gone into the system otherwise. Poppy had been no contact with her family since she entered college. She worked her ass off to get her degree to be a better social worker than the ones who looked the other way when she was being abused as a child. Mack, his family died when he was young. Unfortunately, the cycle continued with him.

The first few nights at home were hard. The boys, Asher and Archie cried a lot. Beth was over at the pool house all the time, helping her adjust and just being a second set of hands for her. She and Odette were taking the kids to parenting classes and working with the teachers on how to get the infants on a feeding schedule that worked for them. We'd been prepared for multiples and we went and took the classes as we were pregnant.

All of us were exhausted. The kids and the adults. There was so much laundry, and cried, not just from the kids either! We adults were crying and tired. Arther and Johannah had been coming over to help out more during the day to give us a break and so we could nap. It was wonderful. Those naps got us through I swear. And when we were feeling a little more rested, they'd tap in for Beth and Jake.

We all came together and worked as a team.

It was finally Thursday, and this Bodhi guy was supposed to be coming in today. Briggs said he'd meet him since he was still home with us. He insisted, so his dad and Johannah came over to help while he was picking up the secondary executor and the lawyer.

Arthur and Jake were setting up the boys' rooms in the east hallway. Odette wasn't going to be alone in the pool house with three kids, but it's what was set up for them when we were handed two more. The beds we'd ordered came in. Odette was napping in our room with Sutton and Asher. Archie wanted to help his new papa set stuff up.

Some of the toys we'd ordered for him came in also. And he helped Odette pick out whatever he wanted for his and Asher's rooms. She looked at me, eyes full of love and shame.

"I'll pay you back," she mumbled as Archie went to show his new Nana what he picked out.

"You most certainly will not. I won't take a penny from you. You know this isn't anything."

She nodded, "I want to do this. Please. You need to save up for the house next door. Our kids need to grow up together." She smiled at that. We'd been keeping an eye on Arthur's house. He was talking about selling because he and Johannah had become an item about six months ago and he was moving in with her for now, until the house at the end of the cul-de-sac went up for sale or auction. No one had been in it for years, but she'd always loved that house and Arthur, being a man who provides (she winked at me as she said this and I wanted to throw up), was going to make sure she got the house. No matter what. Plus, they'll be close to the grandkids.