Chapter 24 – Jason

I hovered by the front door, having noticed Ella's car pull up out the front. Even though she had a key to my place, I was way to twitchy at the moment to sit still. Even Lucy had noticed it and had tried to calm me down but, despite her best attempts, it did nothing. I waited impatiently, wondering how long it took for them three to come out of the car, and come down the small hill which was paved to my house. It was relatively slippery, having rained during the night, but now it didn't seem too bad. The sun had come out, warming the damp paths and causing a small amount of steam to rise, and it was increasing in heat rapidly. Even so, it wouldn't take too long to get Lily out of her car seat, and walk down that path. I rubbed my foot with my other foot, as Lucy was sitting in the corner of the sofa looking at me over the top.

'You're on edge,' Lucy said to be gently from behind the sofa; keeping a key eye on me but also at the window she was near. I knew she hated meeting new people, and I felt incredibly bad for trapping her in this situation.

'Yeah, I'm terrified,' I said, tapping my foot.

'You're terrified of meeting your Dad?' She asked me, raising an eyebrow.

'Yeah. I wanted to meet him for ages, to know where I came from. What if he isn't anything important and decides he doesn't want to know me. Then I'll have no family at all, really.' I confessed, looking at her and feeling incredibly bad. She had no family, either. Her mum was dead from her father's abuse, and her father and brother were still out there, not in jail and probably beating people up still.

'If he doesn't want to know you, we can be each other's family. We don't need anyone else, it can just be me and you... right?' Lucy whispered, hunching down into the sofa a bit further as I guessed one of our guest had got out the car. I heard Lucy talking to someone on the phone earlier before I went to call up to her, but I had no idea who. But the way she was speaking, it made it seem like she had cut off all previous friends – including the Matthew bloke who thinks I'm a mass murderer because I'm apparently on the Net. Which is bullshit – I'm not anywhere on the Net yet. I haven't had a chance to sign the paperwork (or even read this paperwork) but still.

'Of course it can, love, just me and you.' I bent down to kiss the top of my head as I heard the signature crunch of the gravel by the front door. Quickly I opened the door, revealing Ella in a pair of denim shorts and a vest top with her Nike running shoes on. She had her keys in her hand where she must have been preparing to unlock the door. Normally, when her and Joe come around, I just wait for them to unlock the door themselves. Ella seemed slightly bemused by the waitering I was doing.

'Alright, cos?' Ella said, walking into my house and kicking off her shoes.

'Where's your entourage?' I asked her, not being able to see Lucy. So she had either gone invisible, or had ducked down behind the sofa even further. Or both.

'Do you mean Lily and Joe? They're just coming.' Ella laughed slightly, coming in a bit further to make way. She raised her eyebrow at me and I nodded to the sofa and she gave me a vague nod before closing her eyes, using her gift of projection to double check the sofa. When she came back she pulled a funny face and I raised my eyebrow. I'm guessing she was invisible then. God, what an incredible gift.

'Uncle Jason!' Lily ran in from nowhere and started tugging at my Levi's. I bent down and picked her up, spinning her around as she laughed, her chubby little arms wrapped around my neck gently and the sound of her innocent laughter was almost a glittering of gold dust. She was the most precious thing known to man.

'Hey, Lils, what sweets we got today then?' I asked, laughing at the look Ella gave me.

'You're not meant to be encouraging her, Jason.' Ella lectured me as Lily squirmed slightly, so I put her down on the floor. Ella and I watched Lily as she ran around the other side of the sofa, jumping up and launched herself towards Lucy.

'Lily!' I went to interrupt but heard Lucy's laughter.

'Princess!' Lily laughed, hugging her. Lucy suddenly appeared out of nowhere sitting up straight, awkwardly hugging the girl as if she didn't quite know what to do or if it was okay for her to hug the toddler. She looked over towards Ella, and Ella smiled softly at her and nodded, and Lucy hugged her properly. Huh – is that how females talk? Through minuscule body language? Interesting.

'Sup,' Joe came into my house, closing the door behind him and was already laughing at what Lily had managed to do within the first thirty seconds of her entering that door. Incredible.

You okay with Lily? Do you want me to get her to move? I asked Lucy gently, fully aware that Ella was probably eavesdropping in.

No, she's absolutely fine, thanks. How old is she again?

Nearly three. I answered back as Lily sat next to Lucy, and she smiled at her.

'Can I read you my book,' Lily asked and Lucy nodded timidly. I guess she wasn't used to having kids around – the exact same way I wasn't used to having kids around before Lily was born.

I lived in a world where none of my friends had kids, no one was engaged, we all had other commitments such as jobs, but no one wanted a family. Joe just had to go and change all of that. Admittedly, I stayed friends with everyone from university and our sixth form college school a lot more than he did. Everyone we were friends with from about fourteen through eighteen I still regularly chatted with and we all had a group chat. Joe was included, but I think he's got the chat on permanent mute. All my friends from university dorms or student houses still kept in touch – most had jobs within their degree field and wanted to get experience before a relationship. My other friends from sixth form had jobs as receptionists or bar work or working the summer in Magaluf or whatever. So, there was no kids or wedding rings to be seen. That was until Joe came back from Cornwall with every intention to propose to Ella, his Soulfinder, who was already pregnant with his child.

Our friends from Sixth Form didn't take it too well. They told him he was stupid for settling down at the age of twenty one and was chucking his life away having a child. Joe immediately stuck up for Ella and unborn Lily, and there was a massive argument and I of course sided with Joe. I could see where all the guys were coming from, though, but I knew the added extra's to the story as well. I knew Ella and Joe would never break up, and I saw exactly what they're like together. I knew they were capable of raising a kid perfectly, and they went to prove that. When I visited them a few weeks ago, before I had met Lucy, we took her up to the park to get her energy out, and when Joe was giving Lily a lift, with her sitting on his shoulders clutching dinosaur, and his arm around Ella's shoulder, we just happened to bump straight into the group of friends we had barely spoken too in a few years. There was small talk, but I noticed everyone was looking at Ella and Lily, some with fascination, others with confusion, and one or two with disgust. One particular comment, a side note between two friends left out of the conversation, asked how Joe managed to get someone so hot. Even I had to admit the first time I saw Ella I was amazed at how pretty she was. It was the same effect Lucy had on me, but I had to admit Lucy was just gorgeous. Completely out my league. That night of Whatsapp, everyone apologised to Joe for accusing him of being easy and of being a crap Dad, and whilst he accepted it he was not happy with their behaviour. More and more, I understood why Joe was so annoyed at them for such a long time – because if anyone hurt Lucy now, or threatened too, I would never forgive them.

Even so, when Lily was born I was completely confused about how to even deal with them. Like, they cry a lot and make some foul smelling things and they never seem happy. I of course saw Lily in hospital twice, and then a few days after they brought her home when Ella's family stopped bombarding them. Ella had gone out for a while with Michael leaving Joe and I with the baby. I asked him how he knew what to do and he said he just picked it up, and went to have a shower when Lily was asleep. But the second the shower turned on, Lily started crying. I was bloody useless, but I got there. I learnt myself how to heat the milk properly and how to test the temperature, how to burp a baby and how to change them and quite frankly, I nailed it. Lily was in a weird way my niece now, and the amount of times I've seen her. It was easily four times a week. I knew how to deal with her, how to calm her down and wind her up – Lucy had no idea though. She turned around again to look at us and I nodded at her, smiling slightly.

'Er, okay then.' Lucy said softly, clearing her throat. Lily bounced off the settee and ran to her Frozen backpack, opening the zip and pulling out one of her Disney collection books I brought for her a few months ago – mainly to keep her calm when I was babysitting her. She quickly looked in my fish tank.

'Jason,'

'Yeah, Lils?' I asked, walking over to her and crouching down so I was the same height as her.

'You only have three fishes,' She whispered, pointing to the three fish that were swimming around the tank.

'Nope, there's four, bubbles is in his rock again. Can you see him?' I asked, gesturing to the rock at the bottom of the tank. She knelt down before nodding violent and hugging me tight. I frowned at her slightly, as she went to whisper something to me.

'Is Lucy your princess?' She asked as she hugged me.

'Yeah,' I replied softly and she ran away again to the settee. I turned around to see Lucy, Ella and Joe all looking at me; admiration in Lucy's eyes and a slight baffled look in the others.

'Jason,' Joe said, nodding to upstairs. I nodded – knowing that he wanted to speak to privately but Ella headed upstairs. I guessed the two of them were speaking telepathically about me, or maybe Lucy. Joe followed Ella upstairs and I heard both of them walk into the bedroom.

'I just need to talk to them two about something, will you be okay with Lily for a moment?' I asked Lucy, kneeling by the arm of the settee playing with her brown hair. It went bloody everywhere, but I loved it.

'Er, yeah, you'll just be upstairs yeah?' She asked as Lily curled up next to her slightly.

'Yup, call me and I'll be straight down,' I mumbled to her, kissing her cheek slightly.

'Okay, yeah, I can do that,' She mumbled to herself, leaning forward to kiss me again.

'Cooties,' we both heard Lily mumble, opening her book and sitting with it open on her lap. I laughed slightly, ruffling Lily's hair as Lucy just looked baffled.

Quickly I ran up the stairs to find Ella and Joe together. They were embracing in each other's arms, but the second I came into the room they let go, so only Joe's hand was around Ella's waist. They looked at me for a second, with joint raised eyebrows, as if they were waiting for me to say something to them. I hovered slightly awkwardly – what did they want me to say?

'Your Soulfinder seems nice,' Ella said after a minute or two's complete silence and Joe looked down at her slighty confused. I had assumed both of them would know by now – they're intuition levels is incredibly high – and would have discussed it. I could only assume that look was from Ella being so blunt, and not the shock of the announcement.

'Er, yeah, she is,' I said, closing the door.

'Told you,' Ella said to Joe and he shrugged, kissing the top of her head.

'You didn't tell us,' Joe said and I shrugged.

'I only found out like... four hours ago. You told me three weeks after, you can't play that trick!' I protested, quickly picking up Lucy's bra she left on the floor and tried to hide it in one swift movement under the bed. Thankfully, Joe took that moment to look out the window, but Ella saw what I was doing and raised an eyebrow at me, grinning like the Cheshire cat. 'It's not what you think,' I told her and she nodded, but she didn't believe me.

'You ready to meet your Dad?'

'I'm shitting it,' I owned up.

'It's fair enough though, mate, you have no idea who this blokey is and you thought he was a dick enough to leave you when you were a few days old. You were never to know that it was your Mum that was the dick, and lied.' Joe explained, rubbing Ella's shoulders as she nodded.

'Isaac called me before we left, and he's just as scared. He really does want to know you. You were his first kid and he thought you died. I think he's crapping it more than you are,' Ella added.

'Which is edging on impossible,' Joe furthered and I rolled my eyes.

'No, what we're saying Jason is it may be weird and uncomfortable and awkward at first, but you both wanted to know each other for so long, you'll both figure something out,' Ella concluded and smiled up at Joe.

'He's already got a family, though,'

'He's told Marsha, his wife, about you and she seemed tentative at first but when she realised it was me who found it out told him to go for it. She said you're welcome into their family if that is what you both want, but they haven't told their kids yet. Only the older three would be able to understand it properly, the others are slightly to young.' Ella explained to me and I sat down on the bed, the reality suddenly hitting me. This was actually going to happen. I didn't miss the silent exchange between Ella and Joe before they both came to sit next to me.

'Yeah, it will happen, but isn't this what you wanted?' Joe asked from my right.

'Joe,' Ella said lowly. 'You don't have to go if you don't want too though,' Ella added on my left.

'Yeah but you won't get the same opportunity again. If you wanted to see him after you cancelled this time imagine how crap that'd look,' Joe added.

'However, he might understand. It's a normal reaction to be scared; this is a massive step,'

'Good point, love, but you too can make a massive step back to bed if you're that much of a wuss,' Joe commented from my left and I rolled my eyes.

'Right, I know full well you two are doing good cop bad cop and I see exactly how you get criminals to literally hand over the information you need. Fine, I'll go.' I said, getting up again realising I hadn't heard anyone talk downstairs at all, and I wondered if Lucy was okay with the toddler, but I turned around in time to see Joe and Ella high five. That was there plan all along; to make me willingly go to meet my Dad.