Caesar leapt onto the bed with a snarl and Rowan swung the baseball bat at him which was adult size and a deadly little Donner of a weapon. Niall caught hold of the bat before it could smash Caesar in the head, plucking it clean out of Rowan’s hands – although he held on for a good few seconds, hanging right in the air with his feet kicking before he lost his grip and fell back onto the bed.
“Don’t hit him like that,” Niall growled, throwing the bat up towards the ceiling so it spun in a circle before he caught it again. “Hit him like this.” He raised it above his head and Caesar gasped, running from the room while Niall took chase, their laughter carrying back to us a beat later.
“Uncle Jack, can you do the danger swing again?” Rowan asked, jumping off the bed and tugging on Jack’s sleeve insistently.
“Your mama told you you’re not allowed to do that again, niño salvaje,” Mateo said with a grin as Jack scooped Rowan into his arms.
“But Mom won’t even know about it,” Rowan said with a look of mischief about him. “Swing me, Uncle Jack!” he begged.
“Danger swing! Danger swing!” the little toddler MJ ran into the room chanting, absolutely covered from head to toe in what looked like blood.
“Uh oh – the little one has killed someone. We’d better help hide the body,” I breathed.
Jack took hold of Rowan’s ankles and wrists in two hands and started swinging him around the room, so high he almost hit the ceiling as he whooped in joy.
Mateo hurried over to MJ with me, bending down and sniffing him. “Strawberries.” He frowned.
“Oh, fuck!” Tatum cried from downstairs.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” MJ echoed brightly, marching back out of the room, his blond hair stuck to his head from all the red gloop.
“Fuckety fuck a fucking duck,” I laughed, prancing after him then scooping him up in my arms and balancing my ass on the shiny banister that curved downstairs.
“Weeeeee!” MJ cried as I kicked off from the stairs and we went whizzing down towards the bottom floor.
Mateo ran full pelt after us as the end of the banister loomed, catching us both in his arms before we could go smash and bang.
My Dead Man kept his hand on my lower back as we headed into the kitchen and I found a massive red cake smashed all over the floor, part of a squid’s head still made from the icing at one end, but it looked like the rest had been jumped on. A lot. I kinda wanted to jump on it too, so I set MJ down and hurried forward to dive headfirst into the mess.
Kyan came striding into the room, all muscles and tattoos and cocky grin before he spotted the mess and his face fell. “Oh man,” he groaned. “What happened?”
“MJ.” Tatum bit her lip as she laughed then hurried forward to pick up the little toddler as I crept closer to the sticky mess, peeling off my socks as I went. “You wild little thing. Did you smash all this cake, you naughty boy?” He nodded as she kissed his cheek, no sign of anger in her eyes as she hugged him tight.
Tatum was the best mom I knew. I mean, I didn’t know many moms. In fact, she might be the only mom I knew, and she was also my first proper, for-true best girlfriend. She liked my crazy, she even had a little crazy of her own in her soul, and whenever we were together, we got up to a bunch of chaos that left our men chasing around after us. It was the best. Like one time, we went out drinking, stole a boat from a guy who’d groped my ass, and drove it out to sea. We’d been having so much fun with the beer we’d found onboard that we hadn’t noticed when the wind had picked up and a storm had blown in, the hours ticking on by.
Saint had tracked us with some fancy fandangle he made Tatum carry around and they’d all shown up on his big ol’ speedboat, looking to spank us and drag us home. I hadn’t minded the spanking, or the bit where Niall had made me promise I would keep one of Saint’s tracking fandagles on me too while he was buried deep inside me, holding me on the edge of bliss. That was the easiest promise I’d ever made.
“I’d better get him changed,” Tatum said. “I guess that’s the surprise for Saint’s birthday ruined.”
“Wait, wasn’t Saint the one watching MJ?” Kyan asked suspiciously.
“Oh dear,” Saint said lightly as he entered the room. “Whatever has happened?”
I looked to him just as I slid my right foot deep into the smooshy cake and found him offering Kyan a smirk.
“You did this,” Kyan hissed, pointing in accusation.
“Perhaps. But you let Mateo forge a blade in our house, and now it is lodged several inches deep in my cedarwood decking,” Saint said with a shrug.
He was so…scary. Like a good scary. Like he might just eat you alive in the night scary. He was extra on edge when we came to stay too, probably because things got broken a lot when we were around. But what was the fun in keeping everything whole? Some things looked much better in pieces.
I jumped fully into the cake and giggled as it squished between my toes, flapping my arms like a bird and drawing Saint’s attention to me, his right eye twitching a little.
“Please desist,” he asked, but I kept jumping and kicking up cake everywhere, splattering it all over the pristine kitchen and beckoning Mateo over to me.
“Come on, Dead Man! Jump with me. Take your socks and shoes off, it feels better that way!” I cried, my laughter carrying up, up and away, and an answering cry came back to me from a room upstairs.
“Great, now Beau is awake,” Saint growled, carving a hand over his face while Kyan laughed at me. “Stop her,” he commanded Mateo, but my Dead Man just slid off his own socks and came to join me in the cake.
“I’m on it!” another of Tatum’s men called from upstairs and I jumped faster and faster up and down, holding Mateo’s hands and making him jump too.
Kyan started pulling off his own socks and Saint swung a finger onto him.
“Don’t you dare, brother,” Saint hissed. “You need to clean up this mess and fix my decking.”
“Or, I could jump in this cake,” Kyan said with a wolf’s grin before leaping into the cake beside us and jumping up and down too, causing Saint’s jaw to grind.
“Come on Saint!” I yelled. “Come play squishy-jumpy!”
“I will not play squishy-jumpy,” he said coolly.
Kyan dropped down, scooping up a big blob of cake in his hand and hurling it at Saint, hitting him squarely in the centre of his crisp white shirt. Saint’s upper lip peeled back and I squealed a laugh, dropping down as he came striding towards us all angry-like just as Niall came chasing Cesar down the stairs with the baseball bat still raised over his head.
Cesar darted past us, but Niall’s foot slipped on a rogue piece of cake and he went crashing into Saint, sending him flying forward and landing right on the floor, his face slamming into the icing squid head. Saint pushed himself half way up with a snarl on his lips and I thought I was genuinely about to be murdered for good this time, but it was so damn funny seeing all that red icing and the big squid eye now stuck to his forehead that instead of running for my life, I started laughing.
“Oops, sorry fella. Oh hey! Cake!” Niall grabbed some from the floor, shoving it into his mouth while Saint glared at him and I laughed so hard my sides hurt.