CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Sorry I've been out of re-posting for what feels like forever. Reminder; this story is completed and I'm slowly reposting the 118 chapters of it. There will be a big chapter dump today as a pre-birthday present for myself; my birthday is on Monday.

Donna lifts her eyebrow "What are you laughing at?"

"Answer me two questions D." Donna nods "What am I looking at?"

"You're looking at a photo of Jax fucking some random blonde, apparently taken at 230 this morning."

I grimace slightly but nod "Okay, now what am I not seeing?"

Donna takes another look at the photo, spending a few long minutes examining the photo before she shakes her head "I don't know. There's nothing identifiable anywhere in the photo. What am I missing?"

I grin at her "That's exactly it."

"What? Stop speaking in riddles; tell me why you're not furiously stalking around planning ways to skin him alive."

Tapping the photo on my screen I grin at her "This was taken at least a couple of months ago, before he and I ever got together."

Donna lifts her eyebrow again "How do you know that."

"Simple." I smile at her, closing the photo and forwarding the whole email to Patrick asking him to investigate the originating email address. Closing my laptop and getting up I pull her to her feet 'There's no tattoo on his chest."

Donna glances at the computer, her forehead creasing as she thinks about it before she shakes her head laughing "Okay, so I wouldn't have noticed that at all, even if I had him standing in front of me and the photo to one side."

Settling Abel into the capsule I pick him up and wave towards the bags "Can you get them for me please?"

Donna lifts the bags off the table and follows me out the door, snatching the keys from my finger and locking the door behind me then dancing past to unlock the truck, opening the back passenger's door she holds it open while I set Abel's seat into the base making sure the all the locking points click into place. Jiggling the seat Donna laughs at me when I step back and close the door.

Dropping Abel off at the lot I'm surprised how hard it is to leave him behind. Getting back into the driver's seat I sit for a second and look at Donna "How am I going to leave him for 2 weeks when that felt like torture?"

Donna chuckles and turns the radio down a little "The trip away isn't for another few weeks, by then you'll be over sleepless nights and ready for a break."

Waiting till Kip's on his bike behind us I restart the car and pull out of the lot, once we're on the road and I know she won't completely beat me up before speaking "D, he already sleeps through the night, well almost."

Donna glares at me through narrowed eyes "That's just not fair."

Tossing her claimed sunglasses at her I shrug "Guess the sleepless nights will have to wait for the next one."

Donna wiggles her eyebrows "Really, am I hearing the pitter patter of little feet already?"

Shaking my head again I laugh "Not yet. Let me have a few years first."

Donna leans back against the headrest "You might get a year out of Gem before she starts bugging you no end for more, I only got three years cause I gave her two at the same time, she's been on at me for almost as long as Ope about having more."

Parking the car almost 90 minutes later into one of the parks out the front of the furniture warehouse we both jump down, locking the car behind us I wrap my arm around Donna's neck "So, anything in particular you're looking for in styles?"

Donna shrugs "Don't need to get a bed; you already did that for me. I need to get everything new for the rest of the house, other than the kid's room."

I let her pull me around the store and midway through picking a dining suite to go into the dining room and bar stools for the breakfast bar in Piney's house and a shorter version to go with the table in the kitchen she looks over at the kids section and wanders off. Grabbing her hand before she can get to far away I wave my hand in front of her face "D, we'll go there in a second. You've got to pick between these two stools. Do you want the dark wood with black leather for Piney or the light wood with red?"

Donna glances over "Black, he'd hate the red."

"Okay. Dining table, which one?" The two tables she'd been umming and ahhing over for almost 5 minutes are almost identical, the only difference is the square bottoms on the legs on one and the rounded ones on the other. It's been almost easy to ignore Kip who hasn't been more than 4 steps behind us the whole time, it's been interesting watching him though, I've already managed to work out his preferred style of furniture by the things he stops by, almost all of it is wood so dark it's almost black and stainless steel.

"Umm, the one with the same legs as the chairs." The square one I roll my eyes, rewriting down the code I'd already crossed out when Donna changed her mind before seeing the chairs she wanted.

"Okay, kid's stuff seeing I've lost your attention here."

Donna looks over "Sorry S." Walking over to the area of the warehouse filled with various themed bedroom furniture. "I was thinking it might be time to move them into their own rooms, I know I should have a while ago but they're starting school next year too and their personalities seem to be so different now."

I shrug, leaning against a dressing table "It's up to you D; it's not a bad idea to move them into their own rooms when the new house is built, that way change all happens at once. Are you sure you don't want to bring them so they can pick their own beds though?"

Donna shakes her head "No, I already know which ones they'd pick." She picks 7 piece sets for both of them. Ellie's in white wood the dressing table, bedside table, desk, chair, and hideaway bed all decorated with the same bows that are on the end of the bed. By complete contrast the set she picks for Kenny is a natural pine colour, the bunk beds being made up of offset pieces where the bottom one sticks out from the middle of the top, the structure holding the top one in the air is a set of draws and there's an additional dresser that comes with the set and the nightstand tucked in beside the lower bed. The desk and chair are the same almost sharp edged wood.

She grins over at me "That way I can donate the beds they've been using. Maybe we should call past that charity shop on the way back into town and see if they want them?"

I shake my head "D, they'll be closed before we get back to town. And you still have one more thing to pick."

"What?" She looks confused, looking over my shoulder at the list of furniture before she chuckles "Oh right." Heading towards the lounge suites she ends up picking the same L shaped set I did but in a rich brown cloth. While she's looking she also gestures at a weird looking couch which is actually two armchairs joined in the middle by a table. "That would be perfect for Piney."

Jotting it on the bottom of the page "Are you getting anything else for him while you're here?"

She shakes her head "No, he can sort the rest himself. All he has to do is get a bed and a dresser."

Donna's bill ends only being a fraction of mine was the advantage of only buying a few bits for each room. Giving Jax's house as the delivery address we're told it won't be till the following week that everything is brought down on the scheduled out of town run.

Leaving the warehouse the next stop we make is for food, filling ourselves with greasy burgers and fries having to insist to Kip that he needed to eat and didn't have to sit on the other side of the room. Forgoing the manicures and pedicures that would be pure torture for the poor newest Patch for the afternoon showing of a movie labelled as being 'a comedy about two brothers, a girl with a broken heart, a sex tape, and angel and a pig'.

2 hours later we're both laughing our heads off leaving the movie theatre, Kip a step behind us shaking his head in disbelief "I'm telling you D, that 'guy' looked like Clay in a dress!"

Donna nods her chuckles making her shoulders shake "And I bet if you shaved Jax's goatee off he'd look like the other guy."

I shudder "No way in hell are we trying that. But I do have to say this; Jax never has to scream at himself to get hard!"

Donna grimaces at me "Too much info S. Really, way too much info. Where to now?" Kip's nod at it being too much info makes me laugh again and apologise to them both through giggles.

I shrug as we walk back towards the car "Umm, we could go make a start on the rest of the stuff we're both going to need in the houses."

"What stuff?"

"Linen, dinner sets, serving dishes, utensils, glasses, mugs."

"Ugh, I suppose so." Donna doesn't sound enthusiastic about it but pulling into one of the many coffee shops first she brightens when I put a double shot vanilla latte in her hand.

"So where do you want to go?"

Donna shrugs "I don't know. I guess we can go to JC Penny, they'll have everything we need."

I look over at her "Where are they?"

Donna lifts her hand "In Webstertown."

Laughing at her I back out of the car park, 45 minutes later I'm pulling into the closest car park I can get to the entrance we want.

The next two hours are hilariously fun, with both of us needing to completely restock our kitchens, Donna due to vandalism and me due to never having brought dinner sets or anything like that we end up having to take a couple of trips through the checkouts, the first one after finding all the kitchen and dining things, everything from teaspoons to serving platters gets done on the first trip, the second one trip around is spent picking out bedding, towels, facecloths, napkins, tablecloths and placemats for the table.

Loading all the neatly folded tableware into the back of the truck I try and decide what was funnier, the look on the cashiers face when I put up the four square dinner sets in black or when I put up the four of the same ones in white. Donna had even looked at me strangely when I'd put enough place settings in each colour for 32 seats but my shrugging reply of it giving me spares had made her add another one of the pale green set she'd found.

Closing the door again I lock the car and look over at Donna "So we've done kitchen, bathroom, dining room. Is there anything else we need to do?"

Donna shrugs "I have no idea S. Why don't we just go have a wander around and see if there's anything else that jumps out. Ope told me he'll come when we pick out the TV and all that sort of stuff."

I look over at her and blink widely at her for several long seconds till she looks at me and lifts an eyebrow. I stop and lean against the wall "I hadn't even thought about that. We've got Jax's TV which he was going to put into his room but we haven't brought anything like that for the living room."

Donna chuckles "Guess you better tell Jax he can go with Ope and pick them. That gets me out of having to listen to him debate over TV's for hours."

I nod and push off the wall "That sounds like a really good idea."

Our last trip before heading back to Charming we end up in the mall first, stopping for more coffee and cake Donna and I quietly sit at one of the cafe's talking for 20 minutes, I deliberately ignore the phone calls Kip's making to Jax and Opie to let them know what we've been up to, lifting my eyebrows at Donna and shaking my head.

She shrugs "You knew they both would have asked for updates though. And this way they're given the heads up about having to shop for electronics."

Finishing my coffee I stand up and hold out my hand for Donna, she laughs as she jumps to her feet, Kip hurrying after us, slapping his phone closed and putting it into his pocket. The last trip through JC Penney's Donna holds my arm so I don't vanish into the shoes, shaking my head I remind her that I don't have enough space for any more at the moment.

The only things that either of us pick in our last walk through are a few bits of wall decoration, Donna buys 3 big black photo frame collages and a huge mirror that she says she can already see hanging right inside the front door. I end up only picking up a couple of huge tree shaped wall decorations, each of them holding 10 glass cups for candles. Donna makes me put back the photo frames I was looking at.

It's not till after we've paid for the last few things and have put the back in the car that she explains "You're moving house soon, Abel's home coming party is not long after that and your reception, don't be surprised if Gem tries to put a house warming party in there as well in the next couple of months, photo frames, vases, candles all that sort of stuff you'll get as gifts and not to mention you'll probably have some huge wads of cash thrown at you."

I sigh getting back in the truck and starting the engine "True. I wonder if it would be rude of me to do a 'what I want' list."

Donna laughs "Nah, that way at least you'll get what you want. Talk to Gem about it and see what she says though."