The tone of his voice was calm, slightly challenging, but she was used to him by now. The stare down was intense, two pairs of eyes trained on each other, daring and waiting. She smiled warmly, knowing that picking a fight with her was just his way of changing the subject. She wouldn’t blame him anyway. She knew what it was like to suffer under, yet love a dysfunctional parent. Studying the slight creases on his face, she knew that though he had probably wanted to change the subject, he was equally curious about the father of her children. She reached out to him, placed her warm palm on his cheek and smiled when he impulsively leaned back, more from surprise than anything else. “The father of my children is the most clueless man on earth. I have no idea why I ever fell in love with him, but I don’t regret it for a single day. He gave me the best gift I could ever receive from anyone, my boys.”He swallowed. She suspected he did not think she would answer his question directly. He’d
Kids," Asher said, looking at Anne although he was addressing the kids. "This is your grandfather." She nodded, letting him know she did not regret her decision. Damien and Danny looked at the figure on the bed, whose face had contorted to form a smile, but instead looked like something out of a horror movie. They looked from him to their parents, probably unsure how to proceed from that moment. With the bit of strength in him, he sat up, wires and gauzes scattering all over. "Hi, kids. How are you both? I've been dying to meet you. What are your names?" They hesitated for a moment that even Anne began to get second hand embarrassment from watching him try too hard. "Danny.""Damien." He smiled a full toothed smile or rather, a full gummed smile. "I'm Ingram. I'm the reason that's your surname." The twins looked confused as they should have been. He noticed. "Don't tell me they took your surname and not mine," Ingram muttered to her with an undeniable note of annoyance. "In
"Yeah, sure," she muttered, facing away from him. Birth control, she wondered. She'd actually never used birth control in her life, never had a need to. And now he was casually asking her if she was on birth control. "I'm so sorry. That was a dumb question. I'll call my gynaecologist over to get you sorted out." She sat on the bonnet of the next car, wondering why he had a gynaecologist at his beck and call. Did he do this often? She asked herself. "What are you thinking about? What's bothering you so much? Is it the birth control?" He faced her at the back of the car, staring tenderly into her face. She flared her hands a little. "Why do you think something's bothering me?" He shrugged."Well for starters, your face is quite flushed and you haven't made eye contact with me since. " She made a show of gazing into his face just to counter him and he shook his head, holding in a chuckle. Surprising her, he climbed in next to her, bringing his face so close to her skin. "Just so
His fingers slowly wrapped around hers and squeezed. his eyes were trained on her but she could only look further ahead. She couldn't stop staring at those flowers. Something about them gave her a sense of peace she couldn't really understand. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked. "Not really." She quickly wiped a tear from her eyes before it slipped and got his attention. She sighed, looked up at him and gave him a weak smile. "Alright then. We can sit here all day, looking at that garden without saying anything. I don't mind." She couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not, but chose not to think too much about it. His hand was still holding hers and she leaned into him as it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Everything with him just felt effortlessly right, she thought. They remained like that for several moments, his back pressed against the lifted trunk of the car and his head resting on his shoulder. He was still rubbing her hands, and staring ahead. "
She couldn't wait for dinner to finally be over. Sitting beside Asher after his promises of what the night was going to be like was proving to be difficult. He didn't even have to do anything to get her on edge, just having him there, watching her was enough. His chef, a mature woman who reminded her a lot of her grandma, served the food. It felt awkward for her having to sit there and have someone as old as her serve her food but the woman was just as nice as her grandma if not more. "This is all I've ever wanted for you, son. I'm so proud," the chef said, unable to hold it in any longer. "Well, better get used to it because it's going to last for a very long time," Asher responded and a warm fuzzy feeling engulfed her. Even if deep down she didn't believe it, hearing him say it made her feel all kinds of good. "I'm so happy to hear that. I'll be willing to work every single day to fatten up these little munchkins over here," she continued, filling up Danny and Damien's plates.
The room was dark, but she could make out a figure in the corner of the room walking toward her. It was the hooded man and she thought she could see him smiling menacingly down at her as he walked closer and closer. Her first instinct was of course to move, run away, defend herself, understand what the heck was going on, but her limbs and every other part of her remained unmoving and useless by her side. She tried to scream but couldn't, only watching in horror as he came slowly but steadily. Her heart was pounding but even her fear of being under the mercy of the hooded man didn't give her enough adrenaline to immediately spring into action. She thought she saw him holding something in his hand, a weapon, a knife perhaps. She kept trying to scream, the worst scenarios filling her mind. Just when she thought it would be the end, she felt hands over her body, but these ones were not wielding weapons, they were calm and tender. "Hey, hey, relax. You're just having sleep paralysis. Wha
As they were driven home in his rolls Royce, Anne leaned her head on his shoulder at the back of the car, wishing their little trip there would never end. She was not so happy she would be leaving that day with her children, especially since she and Asher had just officially become a couple the night before. It felt different thinking he was now her boyfriend, but it was a good kind of different. It already felt like they'd been dating for a while already, but having the name made it all so special. Asher pulled her in a for a kiss and she wrapped her arms around him, slipping her tongue into his and taking control of the kiss. Ever since they'd become official, they'd kissed over a hundred times already and each one felt better than the last. "I'm gonna miss you," she said, burying her face into his chest to keep from crying. Anyone who saw them would think she was departing forever and would never see him again. "Ssh. I'm going to make sure you see me each and every single day
"Where are you going? You just got back," her grandma asked, concerned. she'd just managed to lift her head from the boxes to notice her grand daughter was getting ready to leave the house. "I need to go to work," she responded. "And the kids need to go to school." "What? Today?" her grandma asked, as if she'd just been told she was going to sell the house. "You never give yourself a rest and that's not fair. You don't even want to spend time with your nana. And you're also pushing the boys away from me as well.* "I'm sorry, but they've missed enough days at school and I've equally missed enough days at the bakery. Besides, I've been resting for days. It's time to actually put myself to good use. Boys, get ready. The old woman sighed and shook her head."It's no winning with you. You just got back today and instead of giving yourself the day of and giving me all the details you know I so desperately crave, you decide to go to a work that doesn't even need you. Is that fair?" "G