It had been a little over three months since the babies were born. John finally stopped staying over at Lita's house like he told her he would. But he still found his way to her house in the middle of the night because she called him multiple times when Audrey just wouldn't stop crying without him. After the first couple of times, Lita suggested he leave one of his shirts there so that whenever she tried to get Audrey to stop crying when she woke up in the middle of the night, she could put it on so Audrey could smell his scent and think it was him. It actually worked which she was happy about.
Lita went back to work about two weeks ago, she took two more weeks off in addition to the eight weeks Stephanie had given her. She still didn't want to leave the babies but she knew she had to get back to work, so her mom came over before Lita went to work and stayed with the twins until she came back for the first week or so. But she knew she couldn't put a burden on her mom forever and needed to find a daycare for them when she was at work. Fortunately for her, she found a home daycare she was comfortable with. She liked it better than the daycare centers her and John looked at because she thought they would get more attention compared to the daycare center where there would be more kids and possibly less attention. It was the first day she wasn't able to pick them up from daycare and she kept thinking about them. She usually got off around five but she was finishing last minute stuff for Stephanie. She looked at the time and saw it was five thirty, it was around the time John was supposed to pick them up so decided to call him and ask him if he did that yet.
"I picked them up. We're almost home." That's the way John answered the phone.
"If you're on your way home, why are you using the phone? Don't drive and use the phone when they're in there with you. I don't care what you do when it's just you in the car but don't do that when they're with you."
He rolled his eyes. "Thanks for your concern. I have both hands on the wheel. You're on speaker."
"I don't care if I'm on speaker while you're driving. Talking to someone can distract you."
"So I'm going to hang up on you now. Sound good?"
"Yes. Call me when you get back to your place. I'll pick them up after I get done from here. Shouldn't be that long. Don't forget to change and feed them if they need it. And-"
"Li. I know what I'm doin'. I am their father. I have taken care of them before."
"Just trying to make sure. Bye."
"Okay. Bye." They hung up the phone. "You're mommy is crazy," John said glancing through the rear view mirror.
"Hey Li. You're still here?" Her sister-in-law asked about five minutes later as she made her way to the red-heads desk.
"No, I'm at home, this is my ghost you see."
"Smart ass," she muttered under her breath. "I thought you would have been home by now?"
Lita shook her head finishing up her work. "I'm almost done then I'm out of here."
"I was about to head out but I'll just wait for you."
"Why? It's not like we came here together."
"I know. But I want to see my niece and nephew. It's been a while. I know they miss their Aunty Vicki."
It was quiet again as Lita continued what she was doing and then finished it. "Alright," she started to say looking up at the raven-haired woman, "I just have to get these papers to Stephanie and we can leave." She left and returned in two minutes. "Let's go. We have to go to John's place, they're with him since he picked them up."
"They didn't move yet?"
Lita knew who Victoria meant by they, she meant John and Maria. She fought the urge to roll her eyes as the two made it to their cars which they always parked next to one another. "No. They haven't found a place close by. John doesn't want to move too far from work or from the twins."
"They're about to get married in two weeks."
Lita shrugged. She really didn't care about this at all. "Yea well, I think Maria stays with him now at his and Randy's apartment. Her lease ended or something at her own apartment. I don't really care." She started to laugh when she remembered something. "Randy is so sick of her, it's funny. He actually came over the other night because he was getting really annoyed by her and he just wanted to strangle her."
"I thought he actually liked her."
"I mean, he doesn't dislike her but there are times where he finds her irritating. That's not surprising."
"Oh," was all Victoria said. She wanted to say more, like talk about Lita's dislike for Maria but she knew the red-head wouldn't like it. They went into their separate cars and made their way to John's place. They met up in the parking lot and started walking up to his apartment. They knocked and much to Lita's chagrin, Maria let them in.
"Hi," she smiled at them and let them in.
"Hi," the two replied following Maria to the room John was in with the twins.
"Mommy's here," John told his two children who he was playing with while the two were lying on the bed.
"So is Aunty Vicki," Victoria said as she went over and picked up Andrew and started talking to him.
"Great," Lita started to say, "They're awake. Hopefully they'll sleep through most of the night. They're starting to do that. I love it." She turned her attention to John. "Did you-"
"Yes. They're fed, they're changed." Lita nodded.
"It's cool how Andrew has hazel eyes like yours and Audrey has blue eyes like John's," Maria said speaking to Lita. "They're twins and yet they have the different eye colors."
Lita tried not to roll her eyes at the younger woman. "They're fraternal twins, not identical. So it's not cool, it's normal."
"I still think it's cool."
"Of course you do," Lita muttered under her breath which didn't go unheard by anyone else in the room.
"And how both of their hair is brown. Neither of them has red hair like yours."
Lita fought the urge to just laugh at what Maria just said. "Red is not my natural hair color. You do realize I dye it?"
"Oh, I didn't know that."
Lita had to bite her lip from saying something to the younger woman. "Alright, we're going to leave now. Vicki, could you take Andrew since you're already holding him?" The older woman nodded. "Great, I'll take Audrey and their bag." She then turned her attention to John, "Put the car seats back in your car for next time. You never know when you're going to need it like today."
"You're actin' like I don't know what I'm doin," He said trying to take the bag from her. "Just give it to me, I'll help you. That bag is heavy, you can't possibly carry it and Audrey at the same time."
She glared at him. "Are you calling me weak? I have done it before." He rolled his eyes but didn't say anything. After a minute, she gave in and just gave it to him and let him take the bag, she knew he had an ulterior motive to take the bag.
"Bye." She said to Maria and then leaving after Victoria was already on her way, with John following so he could help her.
"Could you try bein' nicer to Maria?" John asked after they left the apartment and started walking to her car. Ah, there was that ulterior motive.
"I was nice. I could have said a lot of things to her about that hair color comment, but I didn't. How could she not know I dye my hair? It's been a different shade of red for the past few years. Is she that stupid and clueless? I didn't say anything to her, therefore I'm nice."
"Yea, I don't think of that as nice."
"I do." She said as she put Audrey in her car seat making sure it was secured. "Vicky, you need help?" She asked as she saw her sister-in-law struggling a bit.
"Uh, no. There, I'm done. He's safe and sound."
"Great. Are you coming with me or are you going home?"
"I think I should just head home. See you tomorrow at work. Bye." With that said, she left.
"So," John started to say, "Are you going to be nicer to her?"
"I am nice to her." John rolled his eyes. "Why does it matter if I'm nice to her or not? I don't like her, she doesn't like me, it's whatever really. It doesn't matter."
"I would actually like it if you two would get along. She's actually nice to you."
Lita snorted while heading to the driver's seat of the car when she made sure the twins were in their seats safely. "Not going to happen."
"Why not."
"Just because. I have to go now. Bye." She drove off with John standing behind wondering why Lita really didn't like his fiance at all. She never really was nice to Maria even after Maria tried to get along with her. He wondered what that was about.
Lita finally put the twins down for their afternoon nap the following Saturday. It took forever to put them down in her mind. They were fussy but they just didn't want to sleep. She was about to shut the door slightly to their room until she heard the door bell. I'm going to kill whoever that is if they wake up, she thought as she looked inside the room and and noticed neither of them woke up. She quickly headed down the stairs to open the door before whoever it was could ring the doorbell again.
"You have a key. Why would you ring the doorbell? They just fell asleep. I was seriously going to kill you if they woke up," she said when she opened the door and saw John who just rolled his eyes.
"I forgot it."
"How convenient. What do you want?" She said as she moved from the doorway so he could enter.
"Someone is feisty today."
Lita sighed as she sat down on the couch with John following suit. "I'm just really tired. I was just about to do some work for Stephanie while they were playing in their swings. They were actually good when I was doing other stuff around the house but once work time hit, Andrew wanted to cry. Finally put Andrew down, then Audrey wanted to cry which woke him up. Basically, two hours later and they're finally asleep. This thing for Stephanie is only going to take an hour, probably less, so I'm trying to get it done before they wake up again."
"Why didn't you call me if you needed to do some work? I would have came and helped you with them."
"You told me you and Maria were doing last minute things for the wedding this weekend since it's in two week. I didn't want to interrupt you." Actually, I could care less if I did that.
John shrugged. "Not a big deal. It's like I wasn't even there. I don't know why I had to go with her. She had her mom and Candice."
She fought the urge to roll her eyes. She wanted to puke. "I don't care. Really, I don't. Not even the slightest bit, so spare me the details."
"What's your problem?" John asked confused. "Every time anyone brings up the wedding you go into full bitch mode." She ignored him and continued working on something for her boss on her laptop. "You still don't like Maria?"
She looked up at him for a second and then looked back down concentrating on her work. "It's been two days since we last had this conversation. You really think my opinion on her is going to change that fast? It's your life. I don't care who you marry." Liar. You can't even look him in the eyes and say that.
"Just stop what you're doing for a second so we can have a real conversation about this."
She didn't stop, she kept continuing. "Nothing to talk about."
He rolled his eyes. "Are you still set on not coming to the wedding?"
She nodded. "I told you that last week. I can't find someone to look after the twins. My parents won't be in town, I'm not going to ask them to ruin their plans just for me."
"But-"
"We already went over this," she said interrupting him and finally looking away from her work, "They can't even understand what's going on so it's okay if they aren't there. I'm not going to come and just leave them with some random person I don't know. I'm not going to bring them because I don't want them to be around random people who will probably touch them and transfer their germs and possibly get them sick. I don't want them around a crowd just yet, they're still young for that."
"They go to daycare."
"That's necessary. I can't have my mom always looking over them. They just started this week. There are only three other kids there. Plus I'm sure Maria doesn't want crying babies to ruin her wedding."
"She's not like that."
"Yes she is. She's a total bitch." She then returned her attention back to her work.
"She has been nothing but nice to you the past couple of months."
"Past couple of months. Where was this niceness before? It's all fake. She probably already knew that Candice is the whore that slept with Christian and then-"
"What?" John interrupted her with a mixture of confusion and shock. This was the first time he heard about Candice being the one that slept with Christian the night Lita told him she was pregnant.
She glanced over at him. "Yea, it was Candice. And she just pretended she didn't know that night when I came to yell at you and Randy for punching Christian."
"Maybe she didn't know."
She couldn't fight it anymore and rolled her eyes. "Bullshit. She's a bitch, just like Candice. But she just hides it better."
"I would appreciate it if you stopped calling her that."
"I really don't care." She realized she wasn't going to get work done with John adamant on having this conversation with her so she just stopped what she was doing and walked away towards the backyard, she needed some fresh air.
"What's your problem?" He said following her. "Why don't you like her?"
"I already t-"
"No you didn't," he interrupted. "There has to be another reason."
"We are not having this discussion."
"So there is another reason? Okay, would you like to tell me."
"Just leave it! Please!" She was really getting irritated by this conversation.
"No."
"You don't want to hear it."
"I'm askin' so obviously I do."
Lita shook her head. "Trust me, you don't."
"Trust me, I do." She was quiet just staring ahead at the trees, he was getting annoyed. "Would you just tell me so this can end."
"It's not easy. It's not going to end." She whispered which made him turn her around now that she was facing him. "Don't touch me."
"Something's wrong. What is it? You're worryin' me now."
"Nothing!"
"Obviously you're lying!"
That did it. She couldn't hold it in any longer. "I love you!" Too bad he was just another clueless guy who didn't really understand what she meant when she said those words.
"Okay? Is that all?" He said confused, he didn't understand why this was a big deal, "I mean, I love you too. You're-"
"No you idiot!" She was really annoyed by all of this. She finally admitted it and he was just as clueless as always. "You are so stupid! You know that? I'm in love with you! I hate the fact that you're marrying Maria! I have always disliked her but now I have a reason to genuinely hate her! Why the hell would I want to go to the wedding of the person that I'm in love with?! Why would I like someone who is marrying the person I'm in love with?! Tell me that!" He was quiet and shocked by her revelation. "Told you you didn't want to know." She tried to walk past him but he just grabbed her arm.
"Wait a damn minute!" She could sense the anger in his voice. "How are you going to drop that bombshell on me and then just try to leave? How the hell can you just tell me you're in love with me two weeks before I get married? Why... why didn't you just tell me?"
"You're the one who wouldn't leave me alone until I told you the truth. It wouldn't have mattered either way if I told you before," she said as she took her arm out of his grasp, still facing the other way.
"Is this why you asked me to have a baby with you?"
Those words finally made her face him. "Excuse me?" If she was shocked he would say that then she was definitely not prepared for the next words that left his mouth.
"Did you just ask me to have a baby with you so that we would always be stuck together no matter what? Are you just using the twins as an excuse so I'll always have to be around?" She couldn't answer, she was in total shock that he would ask her that. "Answer me," he said sternly while glaring at her.
"Are you serious right now?" She asked after her initial shock wore off.
"Are you serious? Did you just bring two babies in the world just so we would always be linked somehow. Are you really that pathetic?"
She slapped him as hard as she could with tears flowing down her face once those words left his mouth. "Get the hell out of my house right now!"
He regretted what he said but he wasn't going to admit it and apologize. He was angry with what she just told him. Why would she tell him this now? "I came to see my children."
"I don't give a damn!" She said glaring back at him. "Get the hell out of my house right now!" she repeated. "I don't ever want to see you or talk to you again! Leave!" She knew that wasn't possible because they did have two kids together, she couldn't keep him away from them and vice versa, but she was beyond angry with what he just accused of her.
"This is your own fault," he said leaving the backyard so he could get in the house, get his keys, and leave just like she demanded.
"I hate you! I don't even know what I saw you in the first place! Go to hell!" She yelled following him and then slamming the door when he left. She couldn't believe what just happened. She couldn't believe he accused her of trying to get him stuck with her. I hate him, I hate him so much, she tried to convince herself. Too bad it didn't help whatsoever.
Thanks for reading. Thanks for the reviews.
See, wasn't that fun? Cue the 'John is an asshole' comments. lol. Remember that there are three (possibly four) more chapters left before you get pissed off at me for that. Save it for the ending if you don't like the ending. Who knows, he might realize he was an asshole for saying that to her and maybe something else? Or not. I don't know...