A/N I know I've said it before, but thank you all again for the reviews! I love them so much and they really keep me going!

Disclaimer: All mine? Yeah, nah.

SPOV

I really wasn't sure what made my night more, Eric telling me he loved me or Eric telling me he was getting up early to go for a run with Calvin. OK, it was probably the fact Eric loved me that was the best bit of the barbecue, but boy it was going to be funny to see him struggle out of bed at the crack of dawn to go running.

I don't know why Eric was so worried we weren't going to get fed; when we got back to where the food was being laid out there was steak everywhere. Sarah and family finally arrived, in a great commotion, as Eric and I went to get something to eat, so if anyone had noticed our absence they didn't really get a chance to say anything. Thankfully someone (probably Judith) had thought to get Amelia a plate of food and she was munching happily on a sausage. Felicia seemed to be warming up to everyone and was sitting at Lorena's feet saying "Bub" while watching to see what was going to happen next.

What did happen next was that Aunty Sarah went over to pick her up and she burst into tears again, which made Lorena smirk like there was no tomorrow. I had to go over and take my child off them before Felicia exploded because I'd abandoned her. Good thing she wasn't like that with Eric, because we had to eat in shifts holding her on our laps until she calmed down a bit.

I let Eric eat first and when he lent over to take Felicia off me so I could finally get to my dinner he kissed me behind the ear and whispered "You love me" before sitting back smiling. I rolled my eyes at him. "Yeah, well you can tell that by the fact that I let you eat first."

"No. I can tell by the fact that you told me" Eric replied, trying to stop Felicia grabbing his sunglasses again. He needed to find a better place for them than tucked in the neck of his shirt. I reached over and took them off him then stuck them in my bag which was under the chair I was sitting on.

"Thank you" Eric said, while Felicia just looked annoyed. Eric looked at her and said "See? That's why I love your mother. She's very helpful."

I couldn't really say a lot to that because I had a mouthful of steak, so I mumbled a general 'mmm-hmm' in his direction and gave him a thumbs-up.

Amelia appeared at that point. She was mostly covered in tomato sauce now. But needed more bread. And more sauce. So I stood up to help her before sitting back down. I sighed. Barbecues always seemed like a great family event, but somehow I always ended up eating cold chewy steak and covered in tomato sauce fingerprints.

I looked around at everyone else. Calvin was moving the last of the meat off the grill and onto the platters, while being talked at by his incredibly boring friend Charles. Sarah was telling Judith the long involved story as to why they were so late, and why Matt wasn't there (some 'workplace' injury) and proffering the watermelon she'd brought at a roadside stall on the way over. After all, she was supposed to be providing dessert. Good thing Judith had a 'back-up' pavlova in the kitchen.

Portia was boring Lorena with a story about the last church social she'd been to and how invaluable Portia had been in its organisation. Glen was sitting there with a plate piled high with steak, most of which I suspected he wouldn't eat but which Portia would take home for sandwiches later on. Stuffed in her handbag. Sarah's four kids were clustered around the food table randomly helping themselves. Thank God we'd already eaten because they were poking a lot of the food. And one of them was sneezing.

Jessica and Amelia were over feeding bits of sausage to the poor kitten. Or possibly throwing sausage at the kitten. While giggling a lot. I nudged Eric and sent him over to make sure they were behaving. He tried to argue that if the kitten didn't learn to run now it was just a candidate for natural selection, but he went. Eventually.

I just wished the whole thing would be over soon. At least Eric had dialled down the glances he was giving Charles now that he had turned his attention back to Portia, who appeared to be explaining how important she was to him. I wondered if maybe Eric was right and he was trying to find some poor unsuspecting woman to shack up with so he could stay here. Well, I figured if he had to live with Portia maybe he deserved residency as a reward. She was hard work.

Finally everyone was fed and dessert was served. The watermelon was popular with the kids at least. The pavlova was popular with Eric who told me it was a big meringue, like I'd never seen one before in my life. I'd seen one at just about every barbecue I'd ever been to, and every Christmas function. I'm kind of over them. But I said I'd make him one sometime if he really liked them. "Because you love me?" he asked.

"Because I'm a sucker for the puppy-dog eyes, probably."

"Yeah, that'll work too" he said, as he disappeared off to get seconds.

Once the food was done we could move inside for presents. My kids got plastic crap, which was fine because I gave their kids plastic crap. Lorena looked like the nightie I'd bought her might explode. She gave me the world's ugliest vase; it was probably from the $2 shop.

Sarah made fudge for all the adults. She'd either miscalculated or just had spare because Eric got some as well as me, which he was pleased about. Also in addition to giving me a rather nice photo frame, Judith and Calvin gave him the traditional sampler box of biscuits. I had to explain to Eric how every after-Christmas camping holiday ended up with Jason and I trying to eat all the best biscuits out of the sampler and how there'd be tears and fights if things weren't divided up evenly. And after about a month there were only the really boring ones left to feed to the birds. Eric promised to share the good ones with me without me having to threaten to hide his cricket bat. This might have meant more if he actually owned a cricket bat.

Portia said she forgot to bring my present with her. That was possibly a blessing.

After the general mayhem was over and the discarded wrapping paper was cleared away, Judith and Sarah went to organise tea and coffee. The night was nearly over and I was really looking forward to just going home.

Even Amelia was quite quiet on the way home, exhausted by her time bossing Jessica around. Eric was quiet too, and I wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. I hadn't noticed him bossing anyone so I had no idea what his reason might be. Probably best not to think too hard about what might be going through his head, I'd drive myself crazy.

We got everyone in the house and I sent Amelia off to change into her nightie, which she whinged about as she really wanted to stay in her dress. I went into the living room to turn off the radio, I'd borrowed an old trick of my mother's and left the radio on so any crazy Christmas-present thieves would think someone was home. Yeah, I had no idea if it would work. Mum was full of ideas like that though. Like you never have a For Sale sign outside your house in case someone turns up with a moving van and burgles you while your neighbours think you picked a random Wednesday afternoon to move. I wondered what dumb things I could pass on to Amelia and Felicia.

When I got there though, still with Felicia attached to my hip because I was too scared to put her down, the Opshop song from the TV ads came on. I stopped to listen. After a few seconds Eric came into the room and just stopped and looked at me, like he was trying to figure out what I was doing. "Oh, I love this song" I said, and moved to turn off the radio.

"Hang on. Do you want to dance then?" he asked. I gestured the half-asleep baby I was cuddling. "Um, can't really." "Come on" he said "she can dance too." He held out his hand.

So I put my one free hand on his shoulder and got as close as we could and we kind of moved from side to side. "I don't really know this song" Eric said.

"No, well it's a New Zealand song so you probably wouldn't. It got very popular when they used in the New Zealand Post ads, the ones that always make me cry."

"You cry at television ads?" Bum, I thought, shouldn't have mentioned that.

"Well motherhood makes you stupid sometimes."

Eric frowned. "You're not stupid."

"Hormonal then. A slave to your emotions. Whatever."

"I want to see these ads."

"Yeah, they don't play them anymore. We'd have to look on the internet."

At that point Amelia appeared, having finally relented and put on the Strawberry Shortcake nightie I'd put out for her, and she wanted to join in too. So Eric picked her up and we sort of shuffled around a bit in a group with Amelia giggling away, which prompted Felicia to wake up a bit and giggle too.

"Sorry" I said to Eric.

"What about?"

"Well, the dancing was a nice thought, but I'm not sure you really meant to include these two as well. Amelia, don't pull on Felicia's arm like that, it's actually attached."

"No, it's good. I kind of like it."

Well he was nice for saying so but I couldn't believe he'd be serious. I mean I love my kids, but even I could recognise that at this point in the day they were sticky and annoying.

The song had finished so I went off to get everyone off to bed. When I got back Eric was setting up his laptop and said he wanted to see the ads that made me cry. Oh terrific, I thought. Let's see if Sookie will cry. But I said OK and sat in his lap to watch the screen.

EPOV

Sookie telling me she loved me made the night really, because hanging with Bill's weird fucking family was not the way I would have chosen to spend the evening. Those women were lunatics. Calvin was OK, although I'm not sure what possessed me to agree to go running with him. I blame the fact I was a bit distracted by worrying about Sookie at the time.

As nice as it was though to hear her say she loved me, I was a bit fucking worried about what was supposed to happen next. Did she expect some big romantic gesture from me? I didn't fucking have a clue. I'd never got this far with anyone before. What the fuck did you do?

I could ask her to marry me? I wasn't quite sure we were on the same page with that one though. I still remembered the bit where I got yelled at for letting people think we were married. Would an actual proposal first make a difference?

And then I ran out of time to think anymore because we were home and there was a car stacked with the contents of a fucking toy store to unpack.

Sookie was in the living room when I found her looking really depressed about something. Apparently it was something to do with the song that was playing and some advertisements. I hoped it was nothing to do with me. Maybe I was supposed to do something else? The only thing I could think of was asking her to dance, which was a bit fucking awkward once we had two small girls dancing with us as well. But it was nice with the four of us. Once Amelia calmed down a bit and stopped trying to poke her sister.

When the kids were in bed I got Sookie to show me what these ads were, because I was really fucking curious about what could make her cry. She rolled her eyes and tried to talk me out of it, but I really wanted to know. So she found them and we watched the first one, with Sookie sitting on my lap with her head on my shoulder. It seemed to be about some guy telling his father he'd had a kid. I could kind of see why that might get to a woman who'd lost her parents before she had a baby. I snuck at look to see if she was crying but she just glared at me and said "What?"

Then we watched the second one, which had some guy picking his daughter up from school with ice creams. It took a bit longer to work this one out. And then it became clear around the time I heard Sookie sniff loudly and felt something wet hit my chest. Yeah, she had little girls who had no dad.

The ad finished playing. "They're so manipulative" Sookie said, sniffing again.

"Yep. Shameless." I agreed while rubbing her back and hoping she wouldn't progress into full-on sobbing. She sighed and started to sit up, looking resigned.

"It's OK." I said. "Um, I love them too…"

Sookie just went very still. And then she put her head on my chest and started crying again. Shit, I really had to stop making her cry.

"Yeah, don't cry. It's OK" I said, hoping that for once that would work.

"It's just the hormones. Fucking PMT" she said in reply, without stopping.

"So it's OK then? That I said that?"

Sookie looked at me with a blotchy, wet face. "Of course it's OK. It's just…not what I thought I might get in life. And I'm a little overwhelmed right now."

"Oh. Good overwhelmed or bad overwhelmed?"

"Good. I guess. Mostly just overwhelmed."

I wasn't sure what else to say so I kissed her. And then I kissed her some more. And then I picked her up, which caused Sookie to start worrying about me dropping her, but I got her to the bedroom and put her on the bed and just kept kissing her.

SPOV

I hate my hormones sometimes. Every month I turn into an emotional mess. I wasn't sure what was worse, those stupid ads setting me off again, or crying because Eric said he loved my kids too. God, I was a wuss. Where was Jason to punch me in the arm and tell me to harden up when I needed him?

Eric obviously decided that punching me wasn't going to snap me out of it and went for overwhelming me with passion instead. There was a lot of kissing. A lot of really good kissing. We ended up in the bedroom and I really liked where all this was going.

Eric was working on getting my bra off when he suddenly pulled back. "Did it come?" he asked.

"Oh…yeah. Just."

"Oh, so. There's no sex?" Eric asked, while dropping his head to tongue my nipple.

"Well…" I was torn between my natural reaction to say no and my reaction to what Eric was doing which was screaming yes.

"I'll be gentle" he said, looking up at me.

"Oh, I know. It's not that. It's just a bit…yuck."

"Yuck?"

"Yeah…don't you think?"

Eric shrugged. "I don't think so."

"You don't?"

"Well, if it's going to happen every month I think…I don't know. It's a shame not to celebrate the fact you love me anyway. Unless you're, um, sore or anything?"

"Well, so far I'm not really crampy. I guess I got the headache instead."

"So?"

"Um. OK. I'll just go and get a towel" I said, throwing my shirt back on.

"Do you have a towel for every occasion?" Eric asked as I left the bedroom.

"Pretty much."

True to his word Eric was very gentle, he was lovely. And I loved him. And he loved me. Which he told me repeatedly while we were making love.

Afterwards, when we were lying in bed, he turned to me and said "See I can tell you I love you now without you thinking it's some weird sex thing."

"Yeah, 'cos that would have got me into bed so much faster. You being any more stalker-ish than you already were."

He shrugged. "Some women want that."

"I'm not some women."

"I know. You're my woman."

"You're just lucky I'm too tired to lecture you on what's wrong with that statement."

"Yeah, maybe you could lecture me in the morning. I'm pretty tired too."

"Shut up and go to sleep then." I snuggled into his side. "Night."

"Night. I love you, Sookie."

"Yeah, love you too."

OK, so probably lots and lots of you won't have heard the song or seen the ads. So this is the first ad -

http:/www (dot) youtube (dot) com/watch?v=xAi4YIeHxJM

This is the second ad -

http:/www (dot) youtube (dot) com/watch?v=18hFlFT8ErE

And if you want to just hear the song (which is kind of appropriate for them in this chapter) here's the video -

http:/www (dot) youtube (dot) com/watch?v=dX7MktaEMh0

Thanks for reading!