So first of all, can I just start by sending out a HUGE thank you to everybody who reviewed Chapter 13. Thank you all so much! I can't believe I got 9 reviews on a single chapter - wow, so thanks!
Also, make sure you read the A/N at the bottom of the chapter for an exciting announcement...
Chapter 14:
It was the morning after Romeo & Indi's reuniting dinner date at Angelo's where the couple had mutually agreed to give their marriage another shot and end their break, resulting in Romeo coming home for the first time in three weeks.
Romeo trotted out of their bedroom quietly, sneaking into the kitchen where the other members of the Walker family were eating.
"Look what the cat dragged in!" Dex announced, noticing his sister's husband presence first, but prompting the other two to look up at him with a smile in Sid's case and a smirking grin from Sasha.
"No need to thank me…" Sasha declared proudly before walking off confidently to her room, making Romeo roll his eyes, as a cover for his gratitude that he kept concealed to prevent Sasha from getting a big head.
Romeo walked over to the fridge, pulling out a few eggs, along with the butter and milk, before grabbing a fry pan from the cupboard. Cracking the eggs and putting the pan on heat, he began cooking the eggs, in between toasting some bread that he had retrieved.
Putting his mug that he'd been drinking from at the table into the sink, Sid slapped the back of Romeo's shoulder as he walked up behind him. "So you're back mate?"
After flipping the eggs and nodding, Romeo looked up at him with a smiling reply. "Yeah."
"I'm glad you two've worked things out. Good on you for persisting with it" Sid responded with an acknowledging nod before leaving Romeo to continue cooking.
Finishing the eggs, which he divided between two plates, along with the toast that he buttered, Romeo finished off by making a cup of coffee and a cup of tea. Putting the two plates and two cups on a breakfast tray which was rarely used, he carried the small meal to his bedroom where he'd been ten minutes earlier, setting the tray on one of the bedside tables.
He climbed back into bed, pulling the blanket up and pressed several soft kisses into his wife's hair in an attempt to wake her up gently. After several minutes she started stirring, mumbling softly before her eyes finally opened to her husband who was looking down at her toweringly from where he was sitting up in bed beside her.
"Hey" she said softly, a smile spreading across her face.
"Morning sleeping beauty. How'd you sleep?"
She sat up and gave him a kiss. "Really well. But waking up has been better."
"Good…" he acknowledged with a smile before turning and grabbing the breakfast tray. Hope this can make it even better still."
Indi's face lit up with excitement at being spoiled, not remembering the last time she'd been made breakfast in bed. "Aw! That's so sweet!"
"There's not much choice, sorry" he added, gesturing to the eggs and toast, passing the tray to her.
She smiled, kissing his cheek anyway. "This is great."
Moving slightly, Indi rested her back against Romeo, sitting up against him as the two began eating the meal, slowly, in between lots of side-tracked kisses, embraces and "I love you's'.
#
Later that day, after a continuation of varying ways to show their affection for each other, both privately and publicly in front of other put-off members of the Walker family, Romeo had to leave for work. Dex had caught a lift into town with him to help tutor Lottie, leaving Sid and his two daughters at the Farm House.
Indi was sitting at the dining table working on her laptop and Sasha was eating her lunch next to her in silence. The girls were being cautious to be quiet, knowing Sid was trying to sleep in preparation for his night-shift later that day.
"Can you help me do the dishes once I'm finished this, Indi?" Sasha asked, pointing to her half-eaten sandwich that was sitting on her plate.
"If I have to" Indi agreed unenthusiastically, but obligingly as Sasha kept eating her sandwich, as quickly as possible almost as if thinking that if she wasn't quick enough, then the agreement would vanish.
Taking her plate to the sink along with a couple of others in the room, Sasha started getting the hot soapy water running, rinsing off all the dishes quickly as Indi shut her laptop, getting up to join her.
"Do you want to wash or wipe?"
Indi replied almost the split second that Sasha finished speaking: "Wash!"
"Alright" Sasha nodded, putting down the dish she was rinsing off to grab a tea towel from the other side of the room. "Do you have to work today? I only checked my timetable. I didn't see yours."
Shaking her head, Indi smiled at the reminder. "Nope, it's an R.D.O for me."
"Jealous…" Sasha whined, letting out a groan. "I regret asking now. I've got night shift and lock up."
"Ha, ha. I think I might enjoy watching a movie with that husband of mine tonight … but I'll be thinking about you!"
Sasha rolled her eyes irritably as she turned her back to face Indi, but continuing to wipe the wet dishes and put them away.
After that, Indi tried starting up a couple of other conversations with her younger sister to make the time go faster, which although she replied to, were all short lived.
Finally, finishing washing her last dish, Indi let the water out of the sink before wiping the benches and as she rung out the excess water from the dish cloth she felt a strong, unmistakable movement from her stomach.
Letting out a small gasp as she panicked at first, Indi instantly clutched her stomach in fear with a pounding heart before a smile spread across her face.
Before seeing the smile, only seeing the clutching and hearing the worrying gasp, Sasha faced her sister quickly with wide eyes, grasping her arm supportively. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"
Leaving one of her clutched hands still on her stomach Indi nodded quickly, and grabbed her sisters hand that was on her own arm with her other hand, dragging it to join hers on her ever-growing baby belly.
"The baby's kicking! That's its first kick!" Indi exclaimed with excitement as the worry on Sasha's face was replaced with a much more confident smile.
The girls stood close together with both Indi and Sasha's hands pressed onto Indi's stomach as they waited impatiently with the seconds in between the second kick feeling like hours, until finally simultaneous smiles erupted again, along with bouncing squeals.
Feeling the final light kick to finish off, the girl's excitement continued, gradually getting louder and louder until an unhappy father walked into the room.
"What on earth is going on girls? You know that I'm trying to sleep!"
"It's kicking!" Sasha managed to let out in between her excitement, pointing to Indi's baby belly.
A smile passed over Sid's face too, before the grumpiness kicked in again. "That's great. But please be quieter" he lectured, before walking back out of the room again leaving Sasha & Indi to proceed to babble in excitement, wishing to feel it again.
#
Meanwhile, at the same time, Romeo was bored out of his brains at work. Rush hour had just finished and Angelo's was slow, with only the occasional customer coming in to order.
He re-re-wiped a few tables just to do something, with two other male employees filling salt and pepper shakers and Heath, being the Braxton representative, was in the kitchen with a few of the chefs, likely eating as he had been for most of Romeo's shift so far.
He let out a sigh, collapsing into one of the seats and giving himself a short break considering the fact that at present, there were no customers currently in the restaurant.
Standing by the cash register, one of his colleagues, Drew, let out a short cough which prompted Romeo to look around and just see the side of the other guy, Yabba, leaning over to him with both their arms close as they noticeably exchanged something. However, with the bar covering in between Romeo and the other guys, covering their hands, he didn't know what exactly it was, all he knew was it was more than suspicious.
Getting up and guiltily continuing to clean tables, Romeo couldn't shake what he'd just seen as he tried to come to a conclusion, both rational and drastic as to what an explanation for that exchange had been about, but nothing seemed to make sense… Well no sense legally anyway.
He considered whether he should make a passing comment to Brax about it the next time he saw him around or something, but he didn't have any evidence of it, or any possible leads. It was just suspicious.
In the end Romeo decided to brush it off, thinking it was all perfectly innocent and just coincidental. But then again, the last time he'd had sneaky suspicions at work, it turned out that Stu Henderson had been murdered…
#
Leaving Angelo's after his shift finished later that day, Romeo went straight home and arrived home around 6:30, just before dinner time.
Walking in the front door, Romeo braced himself as he heard the running steps of his wife pelting towards him, before she threw herself into him as they reached each other.
Romeo kissed the top of her hair as she wrapped her arms around his waist, digging her head into his chest. "Careful. I'm sure catapulting into me can't be good for the baby."
She nodded in acknowledgement, before erupting into a similar excitement like she had earlier that day with Sasha.
"The baby kicked today, Romeo! Me and Sasha both felt it!"
He smiled enthusiastically before feeling a tiny bit sad from missing out. "Really? That's awesome! Has it kicked again since?"
"No it hasn't. Maybe it was waiting for you to get home…" she smiled.
"Mm, maybe" Romeo replied, pressing another kiss into her hair before turning both of their attention to the pizza box in his other hand which he began waving around. "I gotcha some leftover's by the way. A couple of people didn't collect their orders."
Extracting her arms from Romeo's waist, she eagerly snatched the box off him, opening and leaving him standing in the hallway alone. "Ooh! I love you!" she exclaimed as she smelt the wafts of gourmet pizza.
"Do you love me or the pizza?"
"Hmm, both, but the pizza's kinda got an advantage over you right now" she smirked teasingly as he just laughed, following her through to the kitchen as she tucked into the pizza, but he changed his mind.
Sniffing his black work shirt, Romeo started walking back to the hallway towards the bathroom. "I might go have a shower."
"Good idea. I was about to say that you were start to smell like an interesting combination of olives and chips."
He laughed to himself as entered the bathroom, leaving his wife to demolish the pizza.
#
By the time Romeo had come back out, shaking his hair dry with his hands, there were only a few of the smallest pieces of the meal left for him.
"Thanks for saving me some. It might be too much" he laughed, jokingly.
She kissed his cheek as she walked past him holding a stack of DVD's as she sat down on the couch, sprawling the cases over the coffee table. "You're welcome. Besides, I'm pulling out munchies now so you can fill up on that."
"It's all good" he replied, following Indi over and sitting down next to her on the lounge, wrapping an arm around her back as she studied the DVD cases.
"Anyway, I was thinking you, me, movie?"
He nodded, beginning to rub circles on her back where his hand was still present. "Sounding good…"
"But what one? You're probably not all too keen on a chick flick, right? And I'm not really feeling like a horror…"
"Well that pretty much leaves a Doco or Disney!" he chuckled with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Not that there's a problem with those options, but how about drama?" she asked, her hand gliding over to one of the DVD's furthest from her.
He nodded again, removing his hand from her back and standing up, taking the DVD cover they'd chosen over to the TV with him.
After setting the movie up and returning to the couch for the couple to get comfy, Romeo laid on his side towards the back half of the couch with Indi reclined in front of him. She rested her head on one of his arms which was acting as a pillow, as he wrapped his other arm around her waist and stomach, holding her as an extra protection from falling off the couch.
Smoothing her hair and stroking it to behind her ear, Romeo leant down, whispering in it and seizing the opportunity to kiss her cheek while their faces were so close too. "Love you."
"Love you too" she acknowledged, tilting her arm behind her to pat his shoulder, all while not looking away from the TV. "But shhh. The movie's starting babe."
He quietly complied, continuing to stroke and smooth her hair but focusing on the movie also.
#
Several hours later including the time allowed pausing the movie when Sasha and Dex came home; Romeo and Indi had just finished the final scenes and credits of the film… Well Romeo had and Indi had listened half-consciously, from where she was now facing away from Romeo, her back to the TV and curled into his body.
Laying there in silence, Romeo considered getting up and carrying his possibly sleeping wife to their room, but due to lack of motivation, tiredness and the chance she was already asleep, Romeo stayed put, closing his eyes in the beginning attempt to drift off himself before being woken by mumbled speech. "Is the movie finished?"
"Mmm."
"Okay…" she replied, yawning, despite the fact she was almost asleep already.
Forcing his eyes open, knowing his next question wouldn't stand a chance of being heard aloud if he didn't, Romeo yawned also, due to the contagiousness of Indi's action. "Did you want me to take you to bed?"
"Nah… Let's stay here."
"Okay" he said nodding rigidly as his neck already started to feel cricked from the makeshift bed and squashed positions. "We are gonna be so sore in the morning…"
"Live a little, Romeo. One night out here won't wreck our backs" Indi quipped. By now, the two were becoming more awake, their eyes more alert and their speech clearer, faster and less slurred. "How did the movie end anyway? Did she end up finding the dude?"
"Course. 5 minutes into it you could tell she would."
Indi coughed jokingly. "Cough, cough, cynic!"
Rolling his eyes, he couldn't help but smirk.
"What? I just appreciate a good movie… Nothing wrong with that."
"And despise all others!" she laughed, her voice raising more with each word she spoke.
Moving his head closer to hers, despite the fact that they were already only centimeters apart in their embrace where they faced each other, Romeo gave her a quick kiss. "Shhh. It's late. You'll wake the others."
"Alright. 'Night Romeo."
"Goodnight. Sleep well beautiful" he replied with another kiss, stroking her cheek with his hand while they did so, before his hand trailed down to her stomach, which his hand rubbed gently. "And what about you? No kicks for me yet, hey? How about a goodnight kick for daddy?"
Indi laughed at him, secretly awed by his sweetness as she rubbed her baby bump too.
"Maybe the baby doesn't like you… I don't blame it!"
"Hey!"
She continued laughing, before remembering what Romeo had said earlier about keeping quiet for the others who were sleeping in their consecutive rooms. "I'm kidding… You know we both love you."
"Apparently" he smirked in response.
Her lips transferred to a joking pout. "That the way you wanna play it? Fine, night then."
"You know I'm just teasing…"
She nodded, yawning as she realized she was more tired than what she thought.
"Sweet dreams" he said with a final kiss on her cheek before she shuffled close to him to use his chest as a pillow. "I love you."
"Love you too."
So there you have it. What did you think of that one? I would be so stoked if I got the same response as I did in the last chapter!
Anyway, another important matter. In a couple chapters time, Indi and Romeo are going to find out the gender of the baby, but I'm about as clueless as they are! I can't decide whether I want it to be a boy or a girl and so I thought I'd hand it over to my beautiful reviewers to decide. You can vote over the next 2 chapters in your reviews and I've also set up a poll on the top of my profile which you can vote in.
Vote in both because remember that the gender with the most votes overall wins! :D
Next chapter:
# Romeo decides to tell Brax about his suspicions over what he saw at work.
# Indi receives a worrying phone call from Lindsay.