7. Frankie
Chapter 7
Frankie
Two Years Later
“ M amamamama mamamamama.”
“That’s you, my bean ádh.”
“It’s too early.” I roll over and bury my face into the hard chest of my annoyingly, chuckling husband. “Why are they awake?”
Declan digs his magic fingers into my shoulders and the relief is instantaneous. It’s like he has a road map of all my tension spots memorized. “It’s ‘cause they love their ma.”
“They just want to be fed.” My head rolls back and I pucker my lips for a quick kiss before I roll back over and haul my ass out of bed.
“They get that from me!” Declan exclaims, super proud of himself. He burrows back down in his pillow, but I put a stop to his attempt at sneaking a few more minutes of sleep. I pull the comforter and top sheet off the end of the bed and walk away with my loot. “Hey!” he calls out. “Bring that back, bean olc.”
“I’ll show you ‘evil woman’ if you don’t get your happy arse out of that bed and help me change and feed your daughters, Declan Michael Kelly.”
When Declan and I reconnected two years ago, after he woke up from his fainting spell, our lives did a complete one-eighty. Once I was able to explain to him the confusion I had when I saw him ‘kiss’ another woman, who I didn’t know was his sister, he gave me the run-down of his equally crap-tastic waste of a day.
What started as a misunderstanding on both our sides has turned into our greatest blessings.
Twins.
Two babies.
Two girls.
Maeve Francesca and Sloane Kiera are our pride and joys.
They were born naturally, delivered by their da, on our bathroom floor, at thirty-five weeks gestation. We came home from dinner where I had been hiding what I thought were Braxton Hicks contractions for a couple hours, when my water broke all over the new tile Declan and Luke had installed a month before. Thirty minutes and countless pushes later, we had two squirmy and screaming babies in our arms—and they were perfect.
We did get some assistance from the EMTs who appeared just after Maeve made her screaming dive into the world, but once they saw how calm and prepared Declan was, they mostly stayed back and let him help me. They checked both girls, and myself, just as a precaution, but they were hands off until it came time to take us to the hospital for more thorough checkups. It definitely wasn’t in my birthing plan to deliver the twins at home, but I was not running the show that day, they were… and that hasn’t changed.
“Good morning, my little good luck charms,” I announce to the girls as I walk into their room. “Do you two know what time it is?”
“We’re still a few years away from that, bean ádh.” Declan says through a yawn. “The book I was reading yesterday said they won’t learn the concept of time until they’re at least five.”
“Don’t listen to your da, girls,” I tell them as I pick up Sloane and Declan grabs Maeve. “We’ll have you two reading a clock before you turn two in seven months. That way you’ll know what time it is and when it’s too early to wake up your parents.”
“If only we could be so lucky,” Declan mutters through another yawn.
“Oh, you silly man, we have all the luck in the world,” I say as I press a kiss to his shoulder as we work as a team to dress our babies for the new day. “Between your lucky bar and my lucky penny, we will always be lucky in love.”