My dear little broccolis 💚💚💚
💚 So remember that this pic is RATED M, and it is not only for the sexy times. Some dark moments will be approached in this story, and they can trigger some people. This is a fair warning to remind you that this story sets place in a dark world, which means it is bound to mountains dark themes.
Love, Mina 💚💚💚
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Chapter 38: Birthday Morning (2,7K)
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💚 So here comes the important Author's note. When I first started thinking about this story, I had planned for Christian to die at that moment. He and Ana would have gone further into their relationship, the big L would have been exchanged, and Christian would have had proposed when he would have come back. But of course, that never would have occurred since he was killed, and Ana would have been left alone, learning a couple of months later that she was pregnant with his kid. I actually had a whole skeleton for that particular storyline, and it would have been very angsty, but beautiful. But then … I changed my mind, and I decided to write the story we have now (hence this particular epilogue). I am still going to write my angst at some point, but Christian isn't going to die and leave a pregnant Ana. So … I just wanted to let you know how the story could have turned out if I had started writing it a few days earlier, and well … let me know what you think.
💚Also, the chapter isn't as short as I thought it would be, so that's a good thing. And before anyone tries to say it's filler, it's not. Something important is evoked in this chapter, that will impact the story at some point. So …
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Gail's PoV
Gail was icing the muffins she made for Miss Ana's birthday all the while listening to some R&B music in her iPod. It was still rather early, and Miss Ana was not a morning person. As for Mister Steele, she had barely seen him during the last past three weeks, which wasn't so bad all in all. More than once, her boss scared her, and she had found herself impatiently waiting for the moment he would die and his daughter would take over the household.
He wasn't a violent person, and he paid her more than well. Thanks to him, she could put both her twins in private schools, which she would never have been able to do if she wasn't working for the Steele family. After all, being a single mother was usually known to be tough on the money.
Mr Steele had provided Gail with a small space in his mansion, where her kids and she could live, and no matter how scared she could be of her boss, she knew that at least her children were somewhere safe. She wasn't some dense woman and knew perfectly well what kind of activity Raymond Steele gave into, and maybe this was why she was scared of him. More than once, she had to clean blood out of his shirt, or out of his basement's floor, confirming to her that Raymond Steele was not a man to disappoint.
Still, in the few years that she had been working for him, she had learnt to keep her apprehensions to herself. The few times he had seen her sons, he had been extremely pleasant to them, which didn't come as a surprise to her. Raymond was a scary man, a man who did not hesitate to resolve to murder, but he loved children. She could tell whenever one of his Godchild would drop by, and she could tell even more by the way he and his daughter were.
Gail had seen Mr Steele interrupt countless meetings just because his daughter needed him, even if it was just to help her reach a book on the top shelf of her library. She had seen her boss go out of his way to give his daughter what she wanted. In all honesty, she thought that, no matter how nice she was, Miss Ana was a bit of a spoiled child. Whatever her demand was, Gail had never heard Mr Steele say no to his daughter.
And her birthday was the latest example. The trip she had planned had been cancelled, and so she had decided to go to Vegas. To which she asked her Dad to come along, despite the fact that he was still grieving and probably not in the mood to party and celebrate. And to no one's surprise, Mr Steele said yes to his daughter.
"Muffins?" Mr Steele asked behind her, making her jump slightly before she retrieved her earbuds.
"I figured that since I was not going to bake the cake this year, I should at least bake some muffins for her birthday," Gail explained. Mr Steele nodded, snatching a muffin out of the plate, and she smiled to herself.
Miss Ana had declared war on her father's diet a few months ago, controlling the amount of sugar and fat he ate, and every time she would sleep out of the house, Mr Steele would ask for a fat meal. So he was probably enjoying this little dose of sugar before his daughter nagged him about it. And though she never said anything, Gail thought it was sweet of Miss Ana to look after her father's health like that.
She picked up the tray with water and freshly squeezed orange juice to put in in the dining-room, but there, she dropped it, screaming her lungs out and rushing out of the room. Within a second, Mr Steele was by her side, his gun out while she was clutching her heart, and she simply pointed the dining room, where there was a ghost sitting on a chair.
When her breathing had calmed down a few seconds later, she peeked through the door and saw that the ghost was still there, looking at Mr Steele with a smirk, before he folded the newspaper and put it down on the table. So this is where the newspaper went, she thought
"You need to have a talk with Luke, it was way too easy for me to break into your house," Mr Grey said in a voice that sounded nothing like a ghost.
Mr Steele looked at him, before putting his gun down, and walking to his right-hand man. Though she knew nothing about business, or about mobsters, Gail was clever enough to know that Christian Grey was Raymond Steele second in rank. She was also clever enough to know that no matter how cold her boos could appear to one, he deeply cared for the young man, and she was actually ready to put her hand to the test to say that he loved him.
She had heard that Mr Grey had been killed, which explained why her boss had been in a sullen mood for the past three weeks. Now that she was thinking of it, she felt stupid to have reacted like that. But seeing a dead man sitting casually at the dinner table could be spooky to anyone.
"Is this really the first thing you're going to tell me? My security system is lacking." As he said those words, Mr Grey got up, and the two men embraced with much macho and testosterone. When Mr Steele tapped on Mr Grey's back, the latter one made a face of discomfort and sat back in his chair.
"So what happened?" Mr Steele asked, and Gail judged that their moment of intimacy had passed and that she could enter the room without them feeling embarrassed by their display of feelings. though, if her opinion was asked, more feelings could have been shown that a simple embrace.
"I got lucky," Mr Grey said while Gail crouched and picked up the biggest pieces of glass. She felt the two men looking at her, but ignored it, like she always did.
"We will have breakfast in the kitchen, Gail. Three people."
She nodded, still picking up while Mr Grey explained that he had been lucky enough to have been fished out by a doctor of some sort. When she had taken most of the pieces of glass, she left to go back to the kitchen, not without warning the men to be careful at the tiny pieces of glass still there, as well as that puddle of orange juice.
In the kitchen, she dressed the table for three, squeezing new oranges. As she did so, her thoughts wandered to the not-so-dead Mr Grey. She wondered if she would have been sensitive to his charm if she had been younger, and without kids to think about. He was tall, handsome, his face always nicely shaven. But then, she realised with horror that, though he looked nothing like him, Christian Grey reminded her too much of Raymond Steele. He was scary as well.
In all the years, she had been working here, and she had seen him come to the mansion to be with their boss, she had never seen him smile. Not even a smile out of politeness. The only 'smiles' she ever saw on his lips were smirks, and she never qualified those as smiles. A smirk wasn't genuine, unlike a smile.
There was also that aura around Mr Grey. He wasn't someone to mess with, she could tell that much. Even if he had always been polite with her, and never raised his voice at her, she knew that she wouldn't feel comfortable around him.
Once the table was ready and only waiting for people to sit there and eat, Gail took the mop and went back to the dining-room to announce breakfast was ready. She knew that Mr Steele liked to wake his daughter up on her birthday, so she did not rob him of that. But before she could say anything, she noticed that all the small pieces of glass had been gathered on the fashion page of the newspaper. The two men were talking about Vegas (Mr Grey apparently tagging along on the trip), completely ignorant of her, but Gail knew for a fact that her boss did not do it.
"Breakfast is ready," She said, making the two men turn their heads to her. Mr Steele got up with the young man, and said,
"Go wait in the kitchen, I'll wake Ana up.
Mr Raymond left, and before doing the same, Mr Grey stopped at Gail's level and told her, "Sorry for the scare. I thought Raymond would be there before you."
"It's okay," She stuttered, and after he left, she mopped the mess and picked up the newspaper filled with glass.
When she went back to the kitchen, Miss Ana was still not there, but her father had joined Mr Grey, and the two of them were talking the status of various schools in China. Gail served her boss his coffee while he took yet another muffin, and she was about to serve Mr Grey as well when he stopped her with a shake of his head.
"Christian belongs to that strange species that doesn't drink coffee," Mr Steele explained, making Gail inwardly smile. More than once, his daughter had complained about not understanding people who did not drink coffee, and when he was saying stuff like that, it was when their similarity was shown best.
Gail went to the stove to boil some water, when Miss Ana came into the room, rubbing her eyes and her hair all messed up. She sat at her place. Barely aware of her surroundings, but when her eyes on Mr Grey, sleep suddenly disappeared from her face, all blood leaving in an instant. And at this right moment, Gail knew she didn't overreact when she thought she had seen a ghost. Miss Ana was clearly having the same experience.
"Christian … I thought you were dead," She squeaked. As Gail had expected it, Mr Grey did not seem surprised by her reaction, barely acknowledging her presence.
"It appears that everyone thought so," He simply said, drinking a glass of water.
The water whistled, and Gail took it out of the fire, and after she poured some in Mr Grey's mug, she started making her way out of the kitchen, when Ana said, "Why don't you sit with us, Gail? The more the merrier."
She glanced at the girl's father who simply showed a chair to her, and so she sat next to Miss Ana, wishing that she had left before the girl came in. She felt awkward and out of her place.
"So, Ana, I was telling Christian that he is coming with us to Vegas."
"Why?" She squinted her eyes at her father.
"We have some business to attend to."
"You promised! You promised that you would spend the day with me!" She accused, using her spoon to accentuate her words.
"I will spend the day with you. But the day after, I have a small meeting that will barely last a couple of hours."
The young girl nodded while Gail silently ate a muffin. For a little while, they all ate with only Ana talking about how she was excited to see Eric Clapton that very same night. The day before, Gail had asked the young Steele why she didn't go that day, so she would really celebrate her birthday in Vegas, and she said that she wanted to play, and she didn't want to have to fight if she one but was not fully twenty-one yet. Which Gail found funny, because Miss Ana had been drinking for as long as she had been working here, and she never seemed to think about the age limit in that case.
Suddenly, Miss Ana reached for the muffin her father took, glaring at him as she darkly said, "It's your fourth muffin. The doctor said to watch your sugar intake."
"Sweetheart, it's your birthday."
"Yeah. My birthday. On your birthday, I will let you gorge yourself like Gargantua. meanwhile, you live like a monk."
And there it was, the first genuine smile Gail ever saw on Mr Grey's face. It was brief, and she doubted anyone even saw it, but it had been there. A small smile at the banter between daughter and father.
Mr Steele was about to argue like he often did when his daughter interfered with the way he ate, but she stopped him, "I swear Dad if you die of some stupid disease, I will never forgive you! I won't go to your funeral, I won't visit your grave, and I will never talk about you to your grandchildren!"
"One muffin isn't going to kill me," Mr Raymond reasoned like he did so many times, and oddly, this time, Miss Ana caved. She pushed the plate of muffin toward her father, though she was glaring at him. And just like that, she won, he put back down the muffin with a loud sigh but earning a bright smile from his daughter.
"Anyway, what is my present?" She eagerly asked, and for one, Gail was curious. She knew that Raymond Steele was extravagant, and she had no idea what he had thought he would give his daughter for her twenty-first birthday.
"It's a surprise," He smugly replied, making his daughter sigh in defeat. Mr Grey suddenly looked at his watch, before getting up, and saying,
"I should get going. I have a lot to do before takeoff."
"Didn't you just come back from a trip? What more can you pack?" Miss Ana asked with disbelief, and her father answered for Mr Grey.
"Maybe he wants to pay a visit to his friends who thought he was dead before embarking on another plane…"
"Oh."
Mr Grey politely nodded at the table as he said, "I'll see you at the airport." He turned to her. "Gail."
"Don't forget to bring me a gift," Miss Ana sing-sang as he left the room, making her father roll his eyes at her. She had always liked gifts, and though she liked Christmas, birthdays were her favourite days.
"What? I think it's completely normal for him to buy me a gift. I mean, it's my birthday," She said with an innocent smile. "So … you must be happy he's not dead after all…"
"I am. I'm actually glad that he survived. I did not like the consequences that his death was putting in my life," Mr Steele said, looking at his daughter straight in the eyes. She stared back, gulping down her last muffin, and then she got up, and turned around the table to kiss her father's cheek as she said,
"Well, good thing he is alive. Now, I can go to Peru again."
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‼️PLEASE DON'T BE A SILENT READER AND LEAVE A REVIEW
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💚Your thoughts and opinions are always welcomed💚
💚So, I know you wanted the reunion between Christian and Raymond to be emotional and all, but we are talking about two men who spend their lives keeping their feelings to themselves .. so that bro hug was the best we were going to get. No tears, no stutter, and no gasp. Sorry, but I don't see Raymond or Christian do any of that for each other, it's not how I wrote them. Remember that when Magnus shared his most intimate and painful memories with Christian , Christian was stone cold, when Magnus is his best friend, so, yeah, that's how they are.
~ Anyway, question time:
💚What did you think of the reunion between Raymond and Christian ?
💚What do you think Raymond's birthday present will be?
💚 What did you think about Gail? She won't be an important character, but I am curious about what you think of her.
💚What did you think of this chapter overall? And what do you think will happen next?
💚What was your favourite part?
💚Anyway, E L James owns the names of the characters from the Fifty Shades franchise, everything else is mine.
‼️FOR REVIEWERS‼️
I am so sorry,I know I said I would answer, but I need to stop updating at godforsaken hours
Love, Mina💚💚💚
