The Clinch

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Five: 7.5 Months Pregnant

"Coby!"

I turn around from folding laundry to find Gabriel propped in the door-frame with a brilliant smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. Despite the fact that he left quite a considerable mess for me to pick up after his drunken performance last night, I can't hold a grudge with him when he smiles like that. Call me a pushover, I know. "What are you talking about?"

He strides towards me, this morning's hangover non existent, as he snakes his arms about my waist and tugs me back against him. "Coby for the baby, yes? No? Opinion please?"

Chuckling, I continue to pour detergent into the top of the machine whilst allowing him to nuzzle my neck. "You mean Coby for a boy? It's not bad, but what if baby face is a girl, huh, what then wise guy?" Propping a hand on my hip, I slam the washing machine door shut and start fiddling with the knobs. Washing machines are a phenomenon that took me a while to grasp the concept of. Who needs a different setting for colours, whites, denims and silks? It's just too confusing. All I ask for is for it to clean my clothes, but this thing makes it seem like a complicated process.

Gabriel tickles my ribs and reluctantly lets me go whilst propping himself against the dryer. "Coby for a girl too. I thought it would be cute, because your name is unisex too. What do you think?"

Picking up the freshly washed clothes, I hip check Gabriel out of the way of the dryer and dump them into the top of the machine. "I like the name, honestly I do. But I think you've been watching way too much Basketball. What bought all this on?"

He smiles over at me guiltily. "Hey, Kobe Bryant is a legend amongst men. And I might have been ridiculously drunk last night after the game, but I remember having this epiphany and declaring to the whole room that I chose my baby's name. And as if by some divine intervention there was a sudden burst of light, although I may have accidentally knocked the light out; I was standing on a table after all. And all I remember after that is two lights coming at me and a long, deep whine, after that it's all blank."

I harrumph and swat at his arm in disbelief. "Only you, Gabriel Lancaster, could forget being hit by a car. Let me fill you in. At about three o'clock this morning I got a call from Reagan who sounded hysteric as he cried to me down the phone and told me to pick you up, that something bad happened. In a near panic I left the house in my PJ's and drove to the location Reagan told me you were at, only to find you trying to pick a curb stone out of the street corner whilst Reagan, Bradley and Shaun stood there egging you on. You are one stupid drunk Gabriel, I swear!

"If that weren't bad enough you sure looked like you'd been mowed down by a car and I was wondering how on earth you were still standing; you had blood and bruises everywhere for crying out loud! Just as I went to try and stop your pursuit for the curb stone, you dropped the stone on Reagan's toes and puked on yourself. Ugh" I groan in remembrance of trying to get all four drunk and disorderly men into the car without them falling and throwing up all over one another "and don't even get me started on what you were like when I got the boys in their beds and you safely home!"

Throughout my re-encountering of the tale, Gabriel periodically winces and chuckles at the right moments, before offering me a bashful half smile. "I was wondering why there was a curb stone in the bath."

Folding my arms sternly over my chest, I try to shoot him a disgruntled look. "You dragged it all the way upstairs and tried to wash it. You spent ten minutes trying to resuscitate it with mouth to mouth too."

He guffaws and when I swat at his arm, he gives me an innocent smile. "Hey, you've got to admit that's pretty funny."

I give him a tiny grin and roll my eyes. It's unfair that he spent all of last night awake and getting himself beat up and bruised, and yet he looks as freshly woken as ever. "Hilarious. Now go put your new girlfriend in the garden please, she can't just sit in the bath for the rest of her life."