“It’s the footy,” said Caleb, looking up at the screen. “I reckon you’ve got a couple of potential Crows players there.”
Lock growled. “Carlton, more like.”
“We ought to toast these two,” said Logan, lifting his glass again. “To the two newest members of the Knight clan.”
So they raised their glasses again and then they raised them to Leonard, because even if he hadn’t sprinkled fairy dust down on them from on high, long ago together with their grandmother, he’d sure set the wheels in motion for what was happening now.
Caleb’s round was next so he took himself off to the bar and Lock went to give him a hand while Dare, Dylan, and Logan took a bathroom break. Then Hannie decided they needed some food to go with all the drinks and took Bella in search of dips and fries, leaving Ava to mind the seats.
It was densely packed at the bar and Dare was back first. She sat herself down next to Ava, her athleticism obvious in the way she controlled her descent, even against a shifting centre of gravity. “It drives me crazy, I swear. I managed all of ten drops, yet the way my bladder was pressing on me, I was expecting Niagara Falls. You’re an artist, I hear,” she continued without missing a beat. “My mum is an artist.”
“Really? What kind?”
“Visual. Sketches a lot of life stuff.”
Ava nodded. “I get that.” Right now she was itching to sketch Dare’s face. Up close, her features were even more striking, the high and wide cheekbones, the straight line nose and the arched brows over aquamarine eyes, and then the unexpected lushness of her mouth in the midst of all those angles. “I bet she loves drawing you.”
Dare gave a very unladylike snort. “Don’t worry, she’s got much more interesting stuff to sketch. I saw the picture you did of Caleb, Dylan passed it on. You’re good. And, uh”—she looked around, only continuing when her eyes fixed on Caleb and Lock, just starting to make their way back from the bar—“who knew my cousin was quite so ripped?”
Ava laughed. As far as she could tell, all the Knight males were ripped and, aside from her baby bump, Dare was obviously keeping herself fit and toned.
“Dang,” she said, her hand on her belly, “here we go again. I swear these little guys are going to kick their way out. I don’t know if I can take another nineteen weeks of this. Mind you, kicking their way out is probably preferable to doing a John Hurt on me.”
“Who?”
“Oh, you know, the guy in Alien who gets infected with the thing growing inside him?”
Ava must have looked blank.
“Oh, well, you probably wouldn’t want to think about having babies anyway, if you had seen it. Though there are times I wonder if the way it isn’t supposed to happen naturally isn’t worse. Ooh, that was a big one.” She looked over at Ava. “Do you want to feel them moving?”
Ava was shocked. To put her hands on Dare’s bump seemed almost an act of intimacy and she’d only just met the woman today.
“Here,” said Dare, making the decision for Ava, taking one of her hands and placing it against her belly.
The fabric was warm against her skin, warmed by the body beneath, but as for movement, she waited and could feel nothing. And then came a cluster of kicks, the staccato beat like a series of firecrackers going off, followed by a movement that felt like one of the babies had stuck out a knee or an elbow and tumbled over right under her hand.
She blinked up at the woman. “Amazing.” It was all of that and more. It was wondrous. And then it went quiet under her hand and she took it away.
“Are you and Caleb planning on having kids anytime soon?” Dare asked, reaching over the table for her glass of water. “It’d be great if our kids could play with your kids, when we could get together that is. Melbourne’s not that far from Adelaide, only an hour’s flight.”
“I don’t know,” Ava said honestly. “We haven’t talked about it.” He knew she had doubts and he understood why and he wasn’t asking anything of her what she wasn’t sure she could give.
“I didn’t want kids,” Dare continued. “At least, I didn’t think I did. Then these two happened along and now I can’t wait to see their faces and hold them in my arms. Funny how things can change when you least expect it, huh?”
And Ava thought about the dark place she’d been, and of the loneliness of her self-imposed isolation, and how now it was like living in a lighted world, where there was so much to experience and so much to feel, and thought, wasn’t that the truth?
Caleb and Lock returned, bearing two trays filled with drinks and a fresh jug of iced water for Dare, the muscles under their rolled up sleeves clearly never off duty. And as Dare got up to head back to Lock, an idea started forming in Ava’s mind.
“You look deep in thought,” Caleb said, as he plonked himself down next to her in the seat Dare had just vacated. “Penny for them?”
“I don’t know. I was just thinking that when I sketched those pictures of you, I had no idea that there was a whole battalion of Knights who’d look so good on the page.”
“Damn straight,” said Logan, returning to the group just ahead of Dylan.
“Yeah, and way more deserving than Caleb too,” his twin said, banging his fist against his chest. “We know you must have needed a barrel load of artistic licence with that one. Time for the real deal.”
Ava smiled, loving the competitiveness between the brothers and their cousins, loving the way they could bag each other when it was clear that respect ran deep. “I’m already itching to
