AUBREY: AXIS RISING

Book Three

Aubrey :

I heard the front door click open, and felt the warmer summer air waft into the kitchen where I leaned against the counter, watching my smoothie in the food processor as it wended its lovely tannish/ strawberry way into being. The noise of it soothed to a leveled froth, and I stopped it with the press of a button. I expected my husband coming in from his run on the beach.

Instead, I found Ben, his best friend, dressed for some weird reason in saggy butt skinny legged jeans, his boots (which he never wore), and a long sleeved, buttoned up, red and blue plaid blouse. He click-pounded through the tiled hall, I heard his customary sniff--he had a perpetually runny nose, and as he came fully into view, I put on my happy Ben smile.

He was undoubtedly going through some of the hardest times of his life. I felt slightly responsible; if it wasn't for me, and me marrying his best friend, he'd still have all of Rafe, all to himself. After a year of me being in the picture, I'd have thought he'd get over his insecurity and jealousy, and maybe to some extent he had. But there were times I knew the adjustment was still taking its toll.

"Hey, Au-ber-rey." He came right over to me, dropped whatever was in his hands on the counter and literally pinned me to the backsplash-- front on-- at this stage of the pregnancy it was hard to do a front on hug, but he pressed against me-- out of character, I might add. His funny kiss on the corner of my mouth was positively unprecedented, and his left hand on my swollen belly was even more so.

I knew without a doubt, my jealous husband was about to come gliding through our back patio glass doors.

I pressed him away and he laughed oddly, still rubbing my tummy. I didn't want to kick him-- which due to my taekwondo training was my first inclination, because contrary to whatever he was up to-- he was Rafe's best friend and I had learned to trust him. I loved him like a valued brother. And I had plenty of those to choose from.

"Ben!" I managed to laugh, pushing against his chest with both hands. You'd have thought if this was a rather unorthodox but emotional morning greeting he'd have left off by now. A few seconds was ample time. I heard the patio doors.

"Okay, yeah!" Rafe's startled voice caught Ben by surprise. Which was also weird seeing as Ben usually-- always-- mostly-- no, for sure always--came to see Rafe--not me! But I felt the tremor of instant recognition and surprise run through him. And that was embarrassing too, since I shouldn't be able to feel Ben tremor in surprise ever.

Rafe, dark hair cut very short, trimmed to match the startling contrast of facial hair against his paler than tan skin tone, let his piercing blue eyes light on the little tableau in front of the counter. I now had my hands up in a surrender gesture, and my eyes were wide showing my innocence and discomfort.

Ben had only slightly moved, he'd left off the unusual fondling of my baby bump, and our bodies were no longer pressed together, but he stood close enough I could smell his after shave--- or cologne--- or deodorant. He wiped his thick, straight, shoulder length golden blonde hair off his forehead where it had fallen, and swayed backward by a few inches, not enough to appease my husband's well-known proclivity for jealousy.

"Just saying good morning to this lovely lady." Ben said, and his breath was minty fresh in my face, disturbing the thought that he might be drunk.

"Then get the f--- away from my wife." Rafe wasn't about to pull any punches, Ben was in my space, it was clear he wasn't moving out of it quick enough. He came around the counter into the kitchen, hot, sweaty, ripped and ready.

Now Ben backed up, threw up his hands in mock annoyance and lightly danced out of Rafe's way. Rafe bit his lips and lowered his brows, but like me, he trusted Ben, knew him better than the back of his hand, considering they'd been best friends since kindergarten. So, he simply chose to ignore the weird deviation from custom, and slid past me, blocking Ben's view. He got out two tall glasses, and proceeded to pour our smoothies. He then leaned against the counter, his hip pressed close to mine and eyed Ben for possible reasons for the aberration.

"You owe me." I whispered, referring to his cussing—however provoked or startled he'd felt, it was still cussing, and I didn't tolerate it anymore now than I ever had—and Rafe's eyes slid to mine.

"Shit, yeah, I owe you." He set the glass behind us and gripped my chin for a quick and somewhat dirty kiss. Now his eyes slid to Ben's. "Was this what you were after, bro?"

"No, Rafe, she's all yours, I was just saying hello, she looked all domestic and homey when I came in, straight out of a Leave it to Beaver episode."

"And you forgot you're Dennis the Menace and thought you were Walt Cleaver? Isn't that the dad's name, babe?"

"I'm not a fifties sit-com buff like you, bud, I don't know. Look it up." Rafe had an arm around my back as we sipped our smoothies, having not offered any to Ben, who we knew did not want our type of fruit and veggie smoothies--- but preferred protein shakes with berries and peanut butter.

Rafe eyed Ben once more for sudden wife interest; he was always on the lookout for other men's awareness of me, even though I was out to here prego. Then he shoved himself off the counter, with a smoothie mustache clinging to his upper lip. He unexpectedly grabbed Ben in a ballroom dance move--- only Rafe could pull that off, with a guy taller than him—and swung him around the kitchen floor.

"Do doot do do do do doot de do." Rafe was hamming it up to the tune of Leave it To Beaver, something he was really good at, that incredible rich voice of his, even goofing around. Ben was awkward, of course, Ben's not as agile or as prone to sudden fits of ballroom dance as Rafe was.

"It's Ward." I called setting my cell phone back on the counter behind me, and clasping my glass. "Ward Cleaver, and you'd never have seen him fondle June's prego belly, that's for sure."

"Hear that, buddy boy? Never have seen Wart Cleaver fondling his wife's prego belly on national TV." Rafe seriously managed to dip him--- yeah, he dipped Ben backwards like a ballroom dancer, and Ben didn't lose his balance. Either Rafe is that strong, or Ben is more agile than I thought. And then Rafe dumped him.

What can I say? Rafe doesn't usually mess around with other guys handling me. Even Ben had thought it was weird that he didn't get punched in the face, or knocked into the pantry when Rafe first came in. Rafe stepped over his prone form and went to the bottom of the stairs. He looked up--- his eyes catching reflected light from the stained glass window we'd had taken out of my original house next door, and installed here in the same spot. It was a beautiful piece I'd gleaned from a dealer in the UK, and it was old, and well crafted, and it meant something to me.

He cocked his head to one side. "Is it my day, or yours?" The weird early morning light caused shimmers of blue and a kind of faded gold to caress his cheeks.

I finished the smoothie, wiped my lips on a napkin, let my brows rise at his messy mustache, and then waddled by him. I might be only four and a half months pregnant, but I was carrying naturally conceived quints. Yes, you heard right, quintuplets. I am allowed to waddle.

"Mine." I said and started up the carpeted steps, just as the door to Abbie's room opened and she came out dressed in yoga pants and a cute cover up.

Abbie is my niece. She's barely twenty, and has long strawberry blonde hair (not kidding, the real thing, kind of fair, and red and streaked by the sun and I'm not just saying it. It's actually strawberry blonde). She's also our live-in nanny, and we pay her pretty well.

She did just recently take a three-day honeymoon after marrying the drummer's brother.

Ben eyed her in feigned distaste. She and he had some weird 'thing' going on, where they pretended they found each other disgusting. You'd think they were flirting, but then you'd also wonder at his behavior toward me today. So I can't actually say that Ben's flirting with anybody means anything.

"It's my day." Abbie tossed her hair into a messy bun near the top of her head, stretching the purple elastic hair tie that did not match a dang thing she was wearing, and popping a tired grin onto her reddened cheeks. They'd spent all day yesterday on the beach, presumably washing the sunscreen off each other with their lips. "We discussed this. Last night was your last night upstairs. You're moving into Fred's room, and Fred is moving out."

Jeremy—the drummer's guitar playing brother—stumbled to the door dressed unlike his with it wife, in boxer shorts, not actually covering all there was to cover of his V-line, and his facial scruff. That's it. I managed to look away, again with my brows raised. In all last year's previous close quarters—touring with Axis, in a freaking tour bus, for Pete's Sake, I had not been treated to anything quite so indecent.

"Poor form, Batman." Rafe washed our glasses out and put them in the dishwasher. He was referring to the boxers that had the Batman wings and black and yellow motif.

"Oh, sorry." Jeremy replied as he watched Abbie take the stairs with a very sexy wiggle in her hips--- all for him, I assume, but she gained the attention of our single male in the room as well. Jeremy didn't shuffle back the way he'd come. No, he opened the fridge and took out the milk, opened the pantry, took out the cocoa krispies, and waltzed across the kitchen, nudging Rafe aside so he could retrieve a bowl and a spoon.

I was pretty sure Rafe had put a fridge in their apartment already. And I was pretty sure the contractors had finished the apartment like-- yesterday. "What are you doing in our fridge anyway?"

"Yeah, yeah." Jeremy nodded, dumping cocoa krispies in his bowl, splashing them haphazardly onto the counter, and then wiping the excess on the floor. I could understand bleary, but this was downright delinquency. "She was supposed to move it all or fill it all or something, but we got in late."

I turned from the stairs and came back to Rafe, now done with the dishes and annoyed as all heck with the krispies on the floor. "You're going to clean this up right?" Said my husband the clean freak. I'm honestly not sure that Jeremy understood him. We are bilingual in our house, but this wasn't one of those times. I wondered if Jeremy spoke the love language of Rafe is about to wipe my nose in my mess on his floor like a dog?

Even Ben took a step back.

To divert attention, I laughed. "Jeremy, you have about five seconds to clean up your mess, or I'm evicting you and your lovely wife, my niece, and nanny, from our brand new attached apartment. And stay the heck out of my kitchen in the future. You have your own kitchen."

Jeremy's eyes were wounded. I never spoke to him with anything other than sticky sweet love. He was one of my favorites after all, and now he was my nephew-in-law as well. In my defense, I had softened it with a fakey laugh. He now looked at me for signs of seriousness. I let my expression say it all.

So he set his bowl down and dropped to all fours, to clean up his mess, now giving us a very nice view of his butt crack and the gaping place where the rest of him was hiding. I blew out my breath and went out on the patio, Ben followed, and Rafe snorted loudly.

"Dude, go shower and change, and be presentable in our home, okay?" His fakey laugh wasn't as nice as mine. Sex satiated honeymoon or not, Jeremy was acting like the idiot Rafe had just called him. But we still found him refreshingly human and with fond chuckles, all involved exited to the patio.

Ben grabbed the papers he'd been carrying on his way in.

*****