Carnage: Book #1 The Story Of Us (Volume 1)(177)

Sean is biting down on his bottom lip as he looks across at me. “Is it safe for you to fly?”

I shrug my shoulders. “I can call the doctors tomorrow and find out, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be fine, it’s not like it’s a long flight.”

“You two have a photo shoot Monday don’t forget,” Len looks from me to Sean as he speaks. “I don’t think it would be a good idea to cancel, go and do the shoot, show a united front and then disappear for a couple of weeks, I can deal with whatever else you have booked.”

“Portugal it is then.” Sean smiles across to where I’m sitting in the sunshine, it’s a beautiful day, my family are all here, I’m pregnant with a healthy baby and I love my Husband beyond measure. All of our dreams, everything that Sean and I hoped would happen in our lives, have been far exceeded. Carnage have become more successful than any of us could ever have thought possible, from the four boys in a band, practising in the summer house of our old back garden, they are now known across the world and have had hits right across the planet and we are all basically living the dream and I’m not going to let Whorely and her shit once again spoil my life.

Rather than run the gauntlet of the press at our gates, my family all stay over Saturday night and I love every second of having our home filled with the sound of laughing and talking, kids shouting and screaming, they have put the pool to good use and even the sounds of the splashes as they jump in and out make me smile. By Saturday evening, everyone is in the pool apart from my two youngest nieces who are passed out and sleeping soundly in their baby buggies, right where we can see them. My Mum is in the kitchen with Sam, Bailey’s partner; cooking God knows what to feed us all, we would normally call out for a takeaway of some kind but it’s just too much hassle with the twenty or so photographers parked at our gates.

I climb out of the pool and watch Sean with Ziggy on his shoulders, who’s throwing a Frisbee to his brother Jimmy, who’s on Lennon’s shoulders and his cousin Joe, who’s on Marley’s shoulders. Connie, Annie and Paige are using my Dad and Bailey as a spring board and diving into the water. As I watch, I suddenly see the resemblance between me and Paige that my family are always telling me is there. She’s tall for her age and skinny, she has Len’s dark skin and hair but with the most amazing blue eyes. When I was younger, I always thought my eyes looked odd against my olive skin and chestnut hair but on Paige, they look stunning, my hand instinctively goes to my belly as I wonder what I’m carrying inside me. After what happened with my last pregnancy, I just want a healthy baby and I’m pretty sure Sean feels the same way. I look up as I hear Paige shriek as she is thrown in the air by my Dad and is caught by Bailey, he and Sam have a little boy called Freddie who’s just a couple of months old and in his baby capsule in the kitchen with my Mum and Sam.

As I watch the kids all play, it strikes me that Sean and I weren’t much older than my nieces and nephews when we met, were we really so young? Just children and yet I knew, we both knew, at eleven and thirteen, our eyes met that very first time and we both felt something that neither of us had any understanding of. How many people on this planet find that? How many ever have that connection with another person, ever? Let alone go on to marry, have a family together and live the life that we have. Okay, things have been rough at times, a four year separation; my stupid, stupid mistake with Cam; and the loss of our baby were tough times, but on the whole, we have been so lucky. We’ve survived everything that’s been thrown at us and still love each other in a way that most people will never comprehend, even our families still laugh with the way that we are with each other, how intense our feelings have remained and as if to prove a point, I look up and toward Sean, because I just know that his eyes are on me.