- Text Size +

 

 

The weekend was causing him to go prematurely bald, he just knew it. Without Justin there, none of the babies wanted to sleep. He ended up with five children in bed with him. Three of them turned sideways and kicked him all night. It was Sunday night and he expected Justin any time now. One thing he was sure of, he could not be the single father of eighteen. He thought ten was bad, but it was a piece of cake compared to eighteen.

His phone rang, making him groan when he saw who it was.

“What?” he growled.

“Well, hello to you too. I just wanted to let you know, I don’t think the boy will be anyone’s problem for a while,” John said, he could hear dogs barking in the background.

“What do you mean? You didn’t do anything stupid did you?” He assumed John would just scare the kid but maybe his druggie of a nephew misunderstood what he was supposed to do.

“Nah, man, I got here to give him a little knock or two. Just as I got here though, he was being dragged out of his house by two cops, he was crying like a little bitch.”

“Do you know what for?”

“I couldn’t very well go up to the cops and ask them. The mom was screaming that her boy was innocent, and you can’t trust whores. So, probably something like that.”

“Thanks, I’ll send the rest of the money.” Just because he wasn’t able to do anything didn’t mean he wasn’t going to and deserved his pay for it.

“Yeah, can you just send it to Macy for the kid? I’ll just end up blowing it all.”

“Sure.” Macy was John’s ex-wife; they had a little girl, but she didn’t allow John to see her. Sometimes when he knew she was in a tight spot he’d send her some money. She also worked for his agency as a receptionist. “Bye.”

There was a knock on his door as he was finishing some work that he had been unable to do with all the kids. They were napping now, and he had a video monitor in the babies’ room.

“What?” he demanded.

“Just me,” he heard Justin say.

Leaning back in his chair, he threw his pen down on his desk. “Well, what are you doing? Waiting for an invitation?”

Justin stepped in and looked a little paler than usual. Maybe something really was wrong.

“How were the kids?” Justin asked, taking a seat on his leather sofa.

“All alive and accounted for. So, are you ready to tell me what the fuck happened?”

“Not yet. Sorry, my head is just all over the place. I promise when I decide what I’m going to do I’ll tell you.”

“Fine.” There wasn’t much else he could say. He couldn’t make Justin talk to him.

“Have you got all the Christmas shopping done?”

“Yes.” He knew he was being short, but he really didn’t care. If Justin wanted to keep secrets that was his business.

“We volunteer at the food bank every Christmas. Usually, we do it for Thanksgiving too but because Debbie had asked, I couldn’t turn her down.”

“My kids usually do fundraisers throughout the year and donate, I’m not sure if they’ve done it this year. I’ve been distracted. I’ll have to ask Gus.” They had started doing it when Gus was six and found out other kids weren’t as fortunate as him and his siblings. It broke his heart, so he wanted to give all his presents to other children. Lindsay thought it was sweet so that’s what he did. After that, Brian told him he could fundraise through the year and donate that to children in need. As one of the children who used to be in need, it did make him feel good.

“I’m pregnant,” Justin blurted out.

Out of everything that he could have said, that hadn’t occurred to him. “But we used protection.”

“They don’t work all the time.”

Brian studied Justin suspiciously. He was sure that Lindsay had trapped him with Gus and continued to secure that he wouldn’t leave with each child. Was Justin doing the same?

“Right.”

“I’m going to terminate and take the risk to sterilize myself. I couldn’t risk it before because I was all my kids had. But now that we’re married, I know if I die, they aren’t going to be left alone.”

“Absolutely fucking not. You are not going to risk your life to sterilize yourself. You’re not leaving me with eight more kids that I didn’t fucking want.”

The words were out of his mouth before he realized what he was saying. They were all true, but he hadn’t meant to be so blunt. Justin looked like he had just been punched.

“Right. I guess that’s that. The termination isn’t as dangerous, so I’ll get that taken care of tomorrow. I’m going to take Bea, Hannah, and Leia to the mall so they can see Santa. I’ve already taken Lucas, Logan, Alicia, and Mitch. The other kids don’t want to see him, I tried to convince the teens it would be a cute picture, but they wouldn’t budge. Also, Lucas is spending the night with Ted and Blake the night of Christmas.”

“Why?”

“Because Ted wants his son to spend some time with him. I’m not going to keep Ted and Lucas from bonding.”

Justin got up and left the room. Brian thought about following but he thought that would look desperate. Hours later Justin and the kids were back, and his husband was pointedly ignoring him like a fucking child.

They were eating dinner at the extra-long table that Brian had custom built for them. Justin had made dinner; he had taken over the lion’s share of cooking and cleaning since he quit his job. During the weekday he could paint to his heart’s content. Brian had to admit, his husband was incredibly talented.

“Dad,” Nina said awkwardly.

“Yeah,” Justin said. Brian noticed his husband wasn’t eating, just pushing his food around his plate.

“I did something, and I don’t want you to be mad.”

The once loud table had quietened, with almost all eyes on Nina.

“I can’t promise I won’t be upset but I’ll listen to whatever you tell me,” Justin told her. His husband was much better with the whole comforting the kids thing.

“I called Papa.”

Brian noticed Krista and Freddie both look down at their plates, it seemed Nina wasn’t alone in this endeavor.

“Alright. I can understand why you did. How is he?”

“He’s getting married. He wants us in the wedding,” Freddie said.

The expression that fell over Justin’s face was disbelief. “That’s great. I’ve always told you that if you wanted a relationship with him, I would do anything in my power to help.”

“Can he come visit the day after Christmas?” Nina asked.

“No,” Justin answered quickly. “We are celebrating Sadie and Adam’s birthdays on that day. Any other day will be fine but that day we’re celebrating as a family.”

There were some annoyed looks, but they nodded. It was decided the kids would celebrate New Years Eve with their other father and his fiancé Greg. Brian couldn’t wait to meet the infamous Ian. Stealing his own children’s vacation money, a real winner there. He was worried that Krista, Nina, Freddie, and Hannah would be hurt by him again. Being raised by a drunk who only cared about himself, he knew the damage a father could do on a child’s psyche.

 


“WAKE UP! SANTA’S BEEN HERE!”

“That’s one of yours. Mine know better,” Brian said, turning over in bed.

“I didn’t know I married Ebenezer Scrooge,” Justin said with a laugh. He had decided to forgive Brian for being an ass because he would need all the support he could get with the termination and seeing Ethan again. Hannah hadn’t even met her sperm donor. At least he tried in the beginning with the three older children but when Justin reached out to Ethan’s mom to let him know he was a father again. Two days later he was sent a text by her saying that Ethan didn’t want anything to do with her. Justin kept the text, he didn’t know why but he did, she was never going to see it.

“How can I be Scrooge? I spent a fortune on presents for eighteen kids.”

“Did you get everything set up last night?” Justin asked.

Justin took everyone over ten to volunteer at the food bank. Brian kept the smaller ones in the room with him while he wrapped presents and told them he was taking them to drop them off for kids in need. There were those presents there too, and the littles loved helping wrap them.

Sitting up, he looked blearily at the door that they had left unlocked for this very reason. Two little boys were standing there, bouncing on their toes. They were wearing matching jammies. Justin had thought it would be cute if they all had the same pjs for Christmas Eve. He was shocked he only had one hold out until Brian told Gus to put on the damn outfit and smile. So, now he had a picture of seven smiling children, one crying baby, four children with their tongues out, three flipping the bird, two pretending a noose was around their necks, one giving the double bird. Then there was his husband who stood there in the pjs and glared at the camera. This picture wasn’t the one for social media. It was for the photo album to be hidden until he dies, and the kids have a good laugh about it in thirty years.

“All right go downstairs and wait for us. You can wake the older kids but not the babies,” Justin told Lucas and Logan.

They closed his door, and he heard their thundering feet on the hardwood running down the hallway.

“Did you call the insurance company?” Brian asked as he got up.

“Yes. He’s insured.”

Gus had been begging for a motorcycle since he was twelve Brian said. Since he would be eighteen in a few months, they decided to get him one. The boy even had a motorcycle license that he got the year before. It wasn’t a new bike, but Gus hadn’t wanted a new one. He wanted a Triumph Tiger and that’s what he got.

“Good, I put together too many bicycles last night, I don’t want to deal with that too.”

“You know you could have gotten them already put together at the store, right?”

“I ordered them online. How was I to know they required assembly.”

“Don’t make me point out the assembly required mark on the website’s page.”

Brian glared at him, and Justin glared right back. Brian was acting like this was his first-time doing Christmas for a big family. He had ten kids by himself for three years since Lindsay died.

Justin washed his face, brushed his teeth, brushed his hair, and then went downstairs leaving Brian bitching about only getting an hour of sleep. Justin only got an hour of sleep too he had been getting everything ready for Christmas dinner, but you didn’t see him whining worse than Bea.

Going into the babies’ room, Hannah and Bea were already awake. Gently he woke Leia up and he cleaned them up and put their matching jammies on. Bea still wore diapers, but Hannah and Leia weren’t out of the accident at night stage. He had just put on some of their normal nightclothes for bed, not wanting the matching jammies to get dirty.

When he finally got the three little girls downstairs Brian was already down there but not wearing his matching pjs.

“Where is your pjs?” he asked his husband.

“Garbage?”

“You threw them away?”

“You said one picture that happened last night.”

“Fine.” Justin gave up when most of the kids came downstairs without their matching pjs. Brian’s kids really, his own were wearing their matching pjs like they had since Nina was born.

It was a feeding frenzy after that. Gifts were ripped open; paper was thrown around the room. Some gifts landed well, some didn’t. Brian had gotten Krista a tennis bracelet and Nina the full series in hardback of Krista’s favorite book series. The girls took care of that and just switched. Then there was Mitch and Lucas’s main presents, the bike with Mitch’s name was too small and the one with Lucas’s was too big. Another switch and everyone was happy, he guessed.

 


The birthday party went well and now it was New Year’s eve. They were expecting Ethan and his fiancé Greg any time now. He could tell how nervous his three oldest were. Hannah didn’t really understand what was going on. Gus and Eric were watching the other kids in the gym, playing a movie on the projector. Ethan was a known flight risk; they couldn’t overwhelm him.

“You don’t have to stick around,” he told Brian for the tenth time.

“Oh, I’m staying around. I have to meet the asshole that abandoned his kids and then stole their money.” Brian’s arms were crossed over his chest.

“Please, just don’t. Ethan isn’t going to win any father of the year awards, but he is their father.”

“Has he been paying child support?”

“I don’t need it.”

“That’s not what I asked, and you did need it when they were small. How is he coming in now after you’ve done all the child rearing being their father?”

They were in the kitchen so the kids couldn’t hear them bicker about Ethan. Something they had been doing since Nina brought his ex up before Christmas. He didn’t know if it was jealousy or just anger at what Ethan did to his children, but Brian was not a fan.

When the doorbell sounded through the house, he jumped a little. It would be the first time he saw Ethan in four years, the last time he fell back in bed with him after a ridiculously short time. He was ashamed of himself but couldn’t picture his life without Hannah.

No one had answered the door by the time he and Brian got to the door.

“Why are we just standing here?” Brian asked.

“I was nervous,” Krista said.

“Now or never,” Justin said as he opened the door.

Justin saw his ex and his ex’s fiancé and did his best not to laugh. Ethan had always been into guys that was around his same body type and height. His ex didn’t want anyone he was dating to be taller than him. This was quite a shock to say the least. Greg had to be six-six if not taller. Ethan looked practically tiny compared to him.

“Come in. I’m so glad you could make it,” Justin said, allowing the two in.

Not only was Greg quite a bit taller but he wore thick glasses and was almost completely bald except an unfortunate combover. If Justin were to guess, Greg was about fifty and not bad looking if it wasn’t for the combover.

“Hey Pop,” Freddie said, giving Ethan a nod, too cool to show emotion.

Nina and Krista awkwardly hugged their other father. Ethan smiled at them, and Justin could still read him after all these years. He was up to something.

“This is Greg Norwood, my fiancé.”

There was fun and light talk for about ten minutes until Ethan asked to talk with him privately. Justin thought it was something to do with visitation or something. Brian begrudgingly let them go speak alone.

“The kids are so excited you came. They really missed you,” Justin said.

“I missed them too. That’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Justin shook his head. “You lost me.”

Ethan pulled and envelope out of his coat pocket and handed it to Justin. “What’s this?” he said, taking the envelope.

“It’s a court summons. I’m going for full custody of Hannah.”

Justin sat down hard on the chair. “I’m sorry, I just misheard you. What did you say?”

“I’m going for custody of Hannah. My lawyer says with your track record, sleeping around even being a rent boy, I have a good case. You getting married to a man with ten kids made it even better for me. No judge in their right mind would let you keep her when she has a chance to live with me. She’ll be cared for like she’s not here. I bet she never gets any time alone with you. Now she won’t need to, she’ll have me and Greg.”

“You’re not taking my daughter.”

“Our daughter.”

“You’ve never even met her before tonight.”

“She’ll have a better life with me and Greg. I’m going to make sure of that.”

“You haven’t said anything about the older kids. Don’t you want them too?”

“They are settled with you. I don’t want to disturb them.”

“No.”

“You don’t have a choice. She’s my daughter and I can provide a better home for her than you. Now I’m going to spend some time with my children. I’ll see you in court.”

 

 

You must login (register) to review.