Acquiesce

Chapter 36

As soon as we were off the plane we were right back into the fire, at the mercy of a murder of paparazzi. They threw their questions and snapped their pictures as we rushed through the airport, neither one of us willing to stop ant entertain them. They were most keen to speculate why we were back. Although we'd ignored them their lines of enquiry stuck in my mind.

...

A week later was the twins' first birthday, 25th of May so we got a party of family to gather.

I was preparing food to serve to everyone when Meg found me. She'd offered to help but she was way later than she said she would and I was overwhelmed on my own.

"Are you alright?" she asked. "You look stressed."

She just didn't get it, she was probably hung over, if not coming down off something from last night. I didn't know why she was even there for the kids' birthday.

"I'm fine, I've been planning this for ages and everything is going well." I said as though saying it made it true.

I grabbed a knife, heavy handedly slicing some cheese.

"Woah, watch you don't chop your fingers off." She reacted to my recklessness. "Take it easy, we're not dying to eat."

"Why am I bothering then?" I dropped the knife letting it clatter on the work surface.

"Is there anything I can help you with to get it done?" she offered looking around.

"No, it's my children's party, I've got this."

"Go and enjoy their day, I can do this."

"No! This is my responsibility." I snapped at her.

"What's gotten into you to make you this moody?"

I looked down, eyeing the mess of food scraps I'd created, deciding I had to just tell her honestly what my problem was. "I might be pregnant..."

"Oh, congratulations, I didn't know it'd come so soon." She tried to sound excited but she was just confused at my concern since apparently it was expected of me.

"No, it's bad. We just agreed we don't want any more." I corrected. "He'll hate me for doing this, again."

"You just had a six week honeymoon, it can't come as a surprise if you are, can it?"

"Well we didn't spend our time playing chess."

"There you go then, Liam'll love it, he loves being a daddy."

"We were careful though."

I knew we had been safe, every single time but I still just felt pregnant. I was so confused, I didn't know how to process it and I certainly didn't know whether to be happy about it or not.

"Then you can't be, can you?" she shrugged it off. "Do a test if you have to but you probably just put on weight eating holiday food and then you got straight back here, worrying about this perfect party and everything."

"You know what, you're right." I told her, wanting to drop the subject quickly. "It's just all in my mind cos Paul brought it up and Liam thought I was and then there's the honeymoon and today..."

"Exactly, you're trying to put something else on your plate."

"I've just got babies on the brain." I agreed.

"Go be with your babies then, I swear I can handle making food." She started washing her hands to get stuck in. "Go on, don't let Liam have all the fun."