Page 79 of The Trouble With Love

‘We thought we’d come over and eat all your chocolate, and then go back to Mum and Dad’s and eat all theirs,’ Cerys stripped the outer layer of clothing off the twins, like a very experienced ape peeling bananas.

Nick hugged me. ‘Thanks for the books, Holl. Not sure when I’m going to get time to read them, though.’ He waved a hand at the twins.

‘That’s why I gave you books. They don’t go off.’ I found my arms suddenly full of Freya, touchingly dressed in a stretch-suit that I had given her. ‘So, how are you both?’

‘I’m ninety per cent tits, and he has his moments,’ Cerys carried Zac through into the living room, pausing only to grab a handful of dates from a bowl on the side. ‘Other than that, we’re good.’

Nick rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, I’ve had a couple of not such good days, but we’re pretty busy, you know? Not a lot of time to be anything other than running from place to place and mopping.’ He smiled at me, relaxed and happy. ‘Honest, Holl, there is a lot of mopping.’

‘I can tell.’ Freya had dribbled down my arm. ‘She’s worse than Rufus. But prettier, obviously,’ I added quickly. ‘Not so, you know, sticky.’

‘Nicky! Can you get me the changing bag?’ Cerys called through. ‘And find out where he’s hidden the chocolate!’

Nicholas gave me the grin again. His hair was growing out of the self-trimmed-fringe-and-mullet style he’d always had, and with his blue eyes not pulled into their customary wary squint, he looked less like a careworn elf and more like a pin-up.

‘Nicky, eh? Looking good, bro.’ I patted his shoulder.

‘Yeah. I know,’ he said, enigmatically, gave me another, rather secretive, grin and went out to the car to fetch another mule-load of child-paraphernalia.

Kai and Eve returned from their tour of the house and greeted Cerys with delight. Eve was still getting her head around the whole having a family thing, but she had embraced the idea with considerable enthusiasm and already carried pictures of the twins in her purse. Kai was . . . well, he was working on finally being someone’s son. I couldn’t exactly say that he’d welcomed Eve with open arms, but he was doing his best, and getting better at it with each meeting. Cerys was so fuddled with new-motherhood that Kai’s somewhat edited revelations about the existence of her grandmother had been taken on board with barely a murmur.

‘Hey Kai, if you are any kind of decent human being you will have chocolate somewhere. Holly, tell me he’s got chocolate somewhere, before my life becomes not worth living.’ Cerys poured Zac into the unresisting arms of his great-grandmother and necked the dates. ‘I am permanently starving, but I’m losing weight like a Slimming World champion, I guess that’s the advantage of breastfeeding, please don’t hate me.’

‘I know where all the food is, I bought it. Kai still hasn’t quite got a handle on Christmas,’ I said, pulling a tin of biscuits out of a cupboard. ‘He’s a bit out of practice on it.’

‘But he’s getting plenty of practice with you.’ Cerys levered the lid off the tin. ‘And it’s not just the sex either, is it? Oh, come on, Holl, I’ve seen his face, the way he looks at you, he almost seems normal when you’re around.’

‘Oy, don’t take all the shortbread,’ Kai himself appeared, helping Nicholas to lug two changing bags and a rolled up changing mat into the room. ‘And, for your information, madam, I’m as normal as they come.’

Cerys opened her mouth. I could almost see the single entendre hovering, then she noticed Eve and pursed her lips tightly.

‘Holly and I are working on it,’ he said conversationally, ‘but I think she’s still got issues.’

‘Well of course she has.’ The words came from Nick, on his knees on the rug, unfurling the twins’ activity playmat under the Christmas tree. ‘She’s spent all her time looking after me and going out with twats.’

‘Nicholas!’ I covered Freya’s ears. ‘Children present.’

‘Stop trying to change the subject, Holl.’ He straightened up and flipped his lengthening hair from his eyes. ‘You know it’s true. You only went out with disposable gits. You’ve never had a proper boyfriend, a nice one.’

‘I never wanted one,’ I stared at this new, assertive version of my brother.

‘I think you did. Deep down. You just hid what you really wanted behind the sex, so you never had to deal with them rejecting you. Because you always put me first, didn’t you?’

‘No, I . . .’

Kai’s eyes were like two cinders against my skin. Burning. I couldn’t meet them.

‘Holly. I think you need to talk to Nicholas.’

Eve cleared her throat. ‘I think the pudding is boiling over,’ she said. ‘In the kitchen.’

‘Yes.’ Cerys slid Freya from my arms. ‘In the kitchen. Pudding. Boiling over. Yes.’ She nudged Kai.

‘What? What pudding . . . oh. In the kitchen. Yes.’ And the three of them managed the most unsubtle ‘leaving them alone together’ manoeuvre in the history of sibling relationships, with Freya’s rather traumatised wails being cut off by the slam of the heavy oak door as they sealed themselves in, away from any fallout.

‘As a matter of interest, and before this goes any further, is there a pudding?’ Nick asked, folding his arms across his chest.

‘There is. In the microwave.’

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