"Is Mr Baptiste your boyfriend?"
Katy paused, her fork halfway to her mouth as she stared at her daughter. "What?"
"Amy said Mr Baptiste is your boyfriend. Is he?"
"No!" Katy turned and scowled at her sister. "Amy doesn't know what she's talking about."
"I do know." The eleven-year-old said, sending her a sarcastic smile.
"I told you he wasn't." Ruby shot back at her aunt smugly. "Charlie's dad is her boyfriend."
"What?" Her mother asked again. "No, Ruby, I don't have a boyfriend."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't. I don't need a boyfriend and I've got far too much to do to even think about it."
"Charlie's dad won't even talk to her anymore, stupid." Amy told Ruby, rolling her eyes. "Haven't you noticed?"
Katy scowled at her. "Amy!"
"What?" Amy asked, arching an eyebrow at her. "Why has Mr Baptiste got a photo of you on his phone if he's not your boyfriend?"
"What?" Katy asked for the third time, blinking in complete confusion.
"Yeah, he has." Her sister persisted. "We saw it. His lock screen is a picture of you and him."
"Fucking idiot." The young woman muttered under her breath. Seeing the children looking at her, she shrugged. "He's not my boyfriend."
"But–"
"Drop it, Ruby."
As her eldest daughter huffed and dropped her gaze to her dinner, Katy caught Tina's eyes across the table. Seeing the brunette smirking at her, the younger woman glared at her for a moment, before raising her glass and taking a large gulp of wine. Making a mental note to tell Isaac to be more careful – she didn't want people getting wind of anything before she was ready to tell them, especially not her daughters – Katy quickly turned the conversation round to the end of year play that the children were all involved in.
The rest of dinner past relatively smoothly before Katy sent Matthew and the twins to get ready for bed and the older three into the living room to watch TV. Tina grinned and took over the washing up as Katy's phone beeped, alerting to her to a text message. Seeing the smirk creeping over the blonde's lips, the older woman chuckled.
"That the not-boyfriend?"
"You can shut up and all." Katy told her, arching an eyebrow. "I don't need this crap, Tina."
"Hey!" Her friend held up her hands defensively. "I'm only winding you up. I know exactly what's going on." When the blonde huffed at her, she shrugged. "So, which one was it? Isaac or Graham?"
"Isaac, actually," Katy admitted, "but it doesn't mean he's my boyfriend."
"Whatever you say."
"Oi!"
Tina laughed, throwing the dishcloth at her and raising her eyebrows teasingly as she headed upstairs to get ready for work.
A couple of days passed calmly with Matthew and Ricky living with Katy, Tina and the girls and Amy flitting backwards and forwards between her mother's flat and her sister's house. As the end of the week neared, the blonde found herself with mixed emotions. She was looking forward to having a couple less children under her feet all the time, but she was wary about confronting her parents. She knew she needed to do it, but she had no idea how they would take the conversation.
"Is it today we get to talk to Aunty Lauren and Louie?" Sophie asked, leaning against the arm of the sofa and looking sideways at her mother.
Katy jumped and glanced up from the invoice she had been frowning at, blinking several times at her daughter's question. It took her a moment or two to realise what she'd been asked and a further moment to glance at the date and time on her phone to check.
"Yeah… in about a quarter of an hour." She answered at last, earning a small cheer and a fist pump from the five-year-old.
As Sophie bounced away to tell her sisters and uncles, Katy pulled her laptop towards her and opened up the video chat programme ready to accept the incoming call from her cousin when Lauren was ready to speak to them. It had been a while since they'd spoken face-to-face and Katy knew that it was mostly because her cousin was hoping for an update on Whitney's situation, but the blonde had absolutely nothing to tell her.
"Is it time?" Matthew asked, skidding into the room with the others on his heels.
Pointing towards the laptop set up on the coffee table and aimed at the sofa, Katy moved over so that the children could pile onto the cushions and fight over who got to sit in the middle. Rolling her eyes, the blonde carried on checking through the R&R invoices until she heard the sound of the video call coming through and leant across to accept it.
Waiting until the children had finished talking and bombarding Lauren and Louie with questions, Katy nudged them over and waved as soon as she came into view. For a while they talked about the children and school and work, until Lauren and Katy sent the children away and settled down for a proper conversation.
"I can't tell you anything about Whitney." Katy said quickly, pre-empting the question. "She's home, but she won't really speak to me and I had a bust up with her brief. He's a waste of space, Laur. He's a creep and I don't trust him, but Whitney does."
"So what are you doing about it?"
"What can I do about it? You know Whit."
"Yeah, I do… we've seen her through some scrapes over the last ten years."
"We've seen each other through some dodgy scrapes." Katy pointed out. "And we really have got ourselves into some situations, ain't we?"
"Jake, Steven, Nathan, Rob, Lee, that Connor… I think we all had things with Tyler, Peter and Joey…"
"Oh god." Katy put her head in her hands. "How pathetic is it that most of our lowest moments revolve around a bloke?"
"I mean, that's not even the whole list, is it?"
"Right, enough!" The blonde laughed, shaking her head. "I don't like this trip down memory lane much. So, what's new with you on the man front?"
As Lauren launched into telling her about a guy she was seeing, making it clear that she wasn't sure whether it was serious enough to go anywhere, Katy zoned out a little. She knew that, at some point, her cousin would return the question and she wasn't entirely sure what to tell her. As much as she hated to admit it, Isaac was starting to worm his way into her thoughts much more often than she was comfortable with.
"Shit!" Katy spotted the time. "I've gotta go in a bit, sorry, babe. I've gotta pick up Amy from her mate's house."
"Yeah? Why?"
"Mum and Dad are off on holiday and Rox is working at the club, so–"
"Jack and Ronnie are on holiday? Together?"
"Uhh…" A guilty look crossed the blonde's face for a moment. "Maybe?"
"I thought Uncle Jack was still with Denise?" Seeing the expression on Katy's face, Lauren's eyebrows shot up. "No way!"
"Lauren, honestly, I have no idea what's going on." Katy admitted. "They had a bit of a thing before, which apparently was over, but Mum told me she was going to see a mate and Dad said he had a training course at Hendon. Bit of a coincidence, don't you think?"
"Oh, they're definitely together wherever they are." Lauren agreed with a nod. "What are you gonna do?"
"I dunno…"
"How would you feel if they officially got back together?"
"They're my parents, Laur… I'd love it."
"You think it would actually work?"
Katy sighed, shaking her head slightly. "I have absolutely no idea. I want to think it will… I just want them to be happy; Mum especially after everything. I think they need each other. Like… how often have they been on and off? They're just better when they're together."
"That go for you and Tyler, too?"
Katy scowled at her. "No, it definitely does not. Dad never threatened Mum to get custody, did he?"
"To be fair, you were almost eighteen when you met them… he might have done if you were younger."
"That really isn't helping."
"I thought you were doing mediation?"
"Yeah… that was a fucking disaster." Katy told her with a shrug. "He's just incapable of being reasonable and seeing sense."
"So what happens now?"
"I hand over to Ritchie and she'll deal with whoever Tyler's hired. If that doesn't work, it'll have to go to court."
"Is that what you want?"
Katy frowned. "Of course not. I didn't start this, Lauren."
"But the Mitchell in you won't let you end it."
"It's not about my pride, Lauren… it's about my girls. Staying with me is the best thing for them, so I'm gonna fight him for as long as it takes."
There was a pause. "You sure you can win this, K? I mean… I don't wanna see you get hurt. What with your family and your past and stuff…"
"None of that's got anything to do with it." Katy told her firmly. "Everything I do is for the girls. They've got a good home, everything they could possibly need, people around them who love them… they're my world and I refuse to let him ruin things."