Page 92 of The Final Beat

Her face was blank, giving me no indication at all on how she was feeling. “Are you mad, happy, sad, shocked, what?”

“I’m not sad,” she replied. “I am a bit mad with your super sperm, though. I mean if we’d wanted more then we would’ve planned it better. Not such a huge gap.”

“True, but it is quite exciting to think about having a baby in the house again.” My stomach was on a rollercoaster and my heart had picked up speed at the idea.

Amber bit her lip. “How do you think Jude and Levi will take it?”

I grinned. “They’ll love it. They’ve always wanted a little sister.”

“It might be another boy.”

Horror flashed across both our faces. The boys were good now but had been horrors as toddlers. Twin whirlwinds were tiring and for five years all we’d craved was a full night’s sleep.

“Oh shit,” Amber gasped. “What if it’s twins again?”

I suddenly felt like I might puke. “Nope,” I ground out. “It can’t be. Life couldn’t be that cruel.”

“I’m not sure Beau will ever forgive Jude for shitting inside his guitar.”

I nodded. “And Elliot is still traumatised by Levi drawing on his face with a permanent marker.”

“To be fair,” Amber said, reaching for her glass of water, “Elliot should have known better than to fall asleep while the twins were in the house.”

“Also, to be fair, who buys permanent markers when you have kids?”

“And who leaves their office door open with the markers on the desk?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “All Elliot’s own fault.”

We looked at each other and both started grinning.

“It might be good fun,” I suggested. “Creating chaos again.”

Amber nodded. “It might.” She moved to wrap her arms around me, burying her face in my chest. “I mean, the boys are different now. They’re much better behaved than they were. In fact, they’re angels.”

I frowned. “Well, I wouldn’t quite go that far.”

“Almost angels.”

She was right, they still had their moments but were much better behaved than they ever used to be. Bar the odd accident of smashing Joey’s new Range Rover’s windscreen with a cricket ball only the week before.

“We will be okay,” I said, holding Amber closer. “We’ve been through worse than having another demon child.”

We had. Everything that she’d gone through with Jimmy was worse. The press attention after he died was worse. It had meant us having a secret wedding when the boys were eight months old. It had been intimate and beautiful, married by candlelight in a tiny little church in Scotland. Afterwards, the wedding party of just forty people, had eaten a roast chicken dinner in a room at a local pub, followed by music and dancing until the early hours of the morning. We’d loved every single minute of it and the press had no idea. Still didn’t, always speculating whether we were married or not despite the sparkling diamond rings that Amber wore.

“Okay,” Amber said, looking up at me with a smile. “We’re doing this, but if this child turns out to be another nightmare, you’re in charge of discipline.” When I grinned, she rolled her eyes. “On second thoughts, maybe we’ll just send it to boarding school.”

We both started to laugh, and I knew we’d be fine. We had each other, we had our kids, and we had our extended family.

“Auntie Mo is going to start knitting up a storm,” Amber said.

“She’s going to be happy, though, babe. Just like I am.” I kissed her softly. “I love you, Mrs Dwyer.”

She sighed and wrapped her arms tighter around me. “Yeah, I love you, too. So much.”

I kissed the top of her head and rested my hand on her lower back, bare due to the extremely low cut of her dress.

“You know,” I whispered in her ear, “if you weren’t already pregnant I think you might be by the end of tonight.”

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