Page 59 of Four Fiances & I

“Last night, I agreed with you; I believed I was to blame for everything that had happened with Jazzy. I wasn’t arguing that part. It was the fact you tried to stop Maximus from going to see his fiancée when you knew he wouldn’t want to be alone after everything that had happened in that arena. You thought you could control everything, including our relationships with Jaz. It was you who drilled into us how important it was to never do that; then you did it to the point I thought Maximus was going to punch you,” Jason sighs as he rubs his own face, hissing as he catches his nose.

“Look, Jasmine is right; we have all been blaming ourselves for everything that happened with Taylor and our parents, so we all missed the bigger picture. Us turning against each other was exactly what the arseholes would have wanted. They wanted to destroy us and are succeeding from the grave.” He stops in front of me again, places a hand on my shoulder, and starts leading me to the sofas.

“Let's sit down like we said we would, and you are going to start from the beginning and tell me what's been going through that head of yours. Then we are going to decide on the next step in how to deal with all the shit we learnt last night before filling Jazzy in on everything.”

* * *

It’s five to ten when I stand to get another cup of coffee. We haven’t managed to get through much, thanks to my mini freak-out, which took up a lot of our time. We were then interrupted by Mrs Brown, who came in and left a hot tray of breakfast bits for us all, guessing we would be hungover. She was furious when she saw our faces. She even hit us with her tea towel, scolding us for fighting. We didn’t dare point out it was with each other. Whenever Mrs Brown acts just like a mother to us, which in all fairness is most days, it makes me miss our mother even more.

“Our lives would be so different if Mum were still alive,” I say out loud without thinking. Jason looks at me and smiles a little.

“Mrs Brown got you thinking about her?”

I nod, sipping my drink, not focusing on anything other than trying to remember how she looked or sounded.

“I don’t remember her voice,” I admit. “I will never forget the way she smiled, but I can’t remember how she sounded.”

“I do,” Jason says, looking into the corner of the wall where a picture of her is next to one of the four of us with Jasmine. “Do you remember that song she used to always sing?” I shake my head, but I do remember; it's one thing I will never forget. “I do,” he continues, turning his attention to the picture of Jasmine and Verity dancing. “I had forgotten too until I heard Jazzy humming it to herself the other day. It was like it opened a floodgate, and all the memories of Mum came back to me. Her baking in the kitchen, planting in the garden, and cleaning around the house with Mrs Brown. She used to sing it everywhere, especially when he wasn’t home.”

I shake my head, looking into my mug.

“I don’t remember.” I do; I just don’t want to. It’s always been something I refuse to reflect on. It’s too painful to think about, so I pretend it never existed.

“You will, maybe, when you are in a better place.” He looks back over to the photo of our mum and smiles. “I can imagine the fun she would have had with Jazzy. They would have been like two peas in a pod and up to all kinds of mischief, especially once grandkids started arriving.”

“They won’t have any grandparents,” I point out, realising it for the first time.

“No, they won’t. But there again, the ones that could have been alive would never have been allowed access to them anyway.” I can hear the venom in his voice and know he’s right. There was no way I would have allowed Tommy or Carol within ten miles of our kids.

“But they will have four fathers who love them more than anything else in this world.” Without meaning to, this has brought us around to another conversation I wanted to have with him.

“Do you think Jasmine still needs us to be her daddies?”

Jason's eyes widen for a second before a small smile appears.

“Did she scare you that bad last night?”

“You didn’t see the worst of it. She ripped me a new one, stitched me up, then ripped me open all over again!”

Jason laughs, trying to hide the smug look on his face.

“Yeah, she was brutal from what I saw.” He finishes his coffee and places the mug in front of him before putting an arm over the back of the sofa he’s sitting on. “Do you want to still be her daddy?”

“Of course I do! But she has grown so much in the last nine months; I don’t know if she needs us like she did.” I lean back into my own sofa and try to relax.

“When we decided to take on that role, she was lost, and we knew she needed guidance, even if it was much more than we originally realised.” Jason nods but doesn’t say anything signally for me to continue. “But now she’s thriving. She is smashing every goal she makes, whether it’s with her personal growth, dancing or the fact that she will stand up for what she wants now. As Terry said, everyone knows she’s becoming just as scary as we are.”

“If not more,” Jason laughs. I can’t help laughing in agreement.

“She’s amazing, and I worry that she thinks we want to control her, or we are holding her back.”

“She doesn’t, and I don’t think she would let us hold her back.”

“I know that deep down, and you know that, but it doesn’t stop me from worrying.” I rub my face and regret it as I hit a bruise. “Last night, when she told me to shut up and that for the duration of the night, I wasn’t her daddy, I was just Christian, and she was Jasmine, it hit me hard how much she might not be Jasmine the rest of the time. She might be the woman we think she should be, the one we moulded her into.”

“Then ask her, Christian. I know I will love her the same as if I’m her daddy or just her husband. The twins will love her the same as well, will you?”

“Of course I will. Whether I’m her daddy or not, she’s my whole world!”

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