Chapter 19 - Part I

The month of October started as calmly as the previous three months went by. I was at the PPH, and had just wrapped up another interview with a new author.

I sighed and got up from my desk. I desperately wanted to go home.

How quickly the three months went by was something absolutely beyond me. Raine and Ryan had mastered the art of wriggling, crawling and rolling. Like every set of twins, they seemed to have that telepathic connection too, and it did cause me a lot of trouble.

Terrence's house was big, and it only added to all the problems. We had been careful in babyproofing the house, and took down every object that could be counted as capable of injuring the kids. They moved so fast, that sometimes Terrence and I wondered how they could easily wriggle out of our hold.

Troublemakers. Absolutely mischievous troublemakers. They were polar opposites of each other yet stuck together perfectly and wouldn't even want to fall asleep without the other. They had managed to learn a lot of things in the past few months along with crawling, flipping and sitting.

First of all, they had learnt how to make mommy run around the house like the madwoman she was, and make her keep screaming their names as she chased them. They loved it, and what was worse, they both took off in opposite directions. I actually had to do a furniture-benefit analysis to check on which side, the furniture had more chances to get ruined.

I still remembered that one day, oh God.

*I had been working on my laptop peacefully, under the secure illusion that Raine and Ryan were asleep. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the baby monitor squeaked beside me and I could hear scraping sounds from the nursery. Terrence was in his study, doing his work, so I was alone.

*The scraping sound was scary and I hadn't known what to make of it.

*"Ryan? Raine?" I called out, but this time, not even the monitor squeaked anything. The scraping sounds had stopped and now I was more scared than ever, hoping that a thief didn't break in.

*I padded noiselessly and swiftly towards the door to the nursery, waiting for any kind of sound or movement to give away what was happening inside, but everything was eerily silent.

*I immediately grabbed the door knob and pulled the door open.

*I gasped.

*The cribs had been shifted towards the spare bed and were empty. Completely empty. My eyes roamed around the room to find any signs of the twins but met with absolutely nothing and my heart was now pounding furiously in my chest. I wanted to scream and call for Terrence but I couldn't open my mouth. I was on the verge of passing out due to panic just when -

*- I had felt something touch my feet.

*I had jumped a feet high in the air and screamed, falling back on the floor right on my ass. I contemplated screaming again, but just then, squeals and giggles erupted right in front of me, and I found two little brats crawling out of the nursery with an unbabylike speed.

*"You brats! Come back here right now!" I screamed after them, my face completely red.

*Raine and Ryan just giggled and crawled out quickly, while I was still in shock - on my ass - with the death scare they had given me.

*I scrambled to my feet quickly and hollered, "Raine! Ryan! Come here, now! You are supposed to be sleeping!"

*I came out of the bedroom just in time to see the two splitting in different directions, giggling to themselves. This was something they always did when mommy was out to chase them, and this way, they managed to make me run around the house twice over.

*It was all worth it, though, because the smile those two had on their faces when they got caught, and their giggles were so damn beautiful that I wanted to cuddle them forever.

*Ryan had ventured towards the kitchen whereas Raine had found refuge somewhere in the living room. Hoping that Raine stayed where ever she was, I had sought out Ryan, and it didn't take ages for me to find him besides the refrigerator.

*He had squealed when he saw me coming towards him, and I laughed evilly, rubbing my palms as he backed towards the scribbled walls.

*"Ha ha ha ha ha, now Mommy's going to catch little Ryan!"

*All he did was grin, and he held up a crayon to me - the one he had lost a few days ago and had thrown a tantrum over.

*My heart had melted.

*I cooed and picked him up while he busied himself with the crayon. Terrence had bought them for the twins a few weeks back, when the twins had taken it upon themselves to enhance their brain to hand coordination by tearing off the expensive leather and all the fabrics they found around themselves.

*You could say that nearly all the walls in the house had been scribbled and were colourful, but till a certain height. You would find handprints too, but Terrence was to be blamed for that. One hour of my absence and I came back to find Terrence and the twins covered in paint, all of them get grinning at me and forcing me to join.

*I still remember how both of them had taken each one of my hand and taught me how to drip it in the paint and press my palm on the wall.

*Now, I had Raine to find too.

*"Rainie, Rainie, my little baby, where are you?" I had slowly tiptoed in the living room with Ryan in my arms. I set him down on the couch, trusting him to take his time with the reunion of him and his beloved crayon.

*"Rainie baby, come to Mommy." I sang aloud again, hearing a little giggle behind another couch.

*I slowly tiptoed there, but Raine took off in another direction.

*"Raine! Raine! Stop! Oh f - ouch!"

*I had stubbed my poor little toe against the table.

*"Gotcha!"

*I looked up and smiled when I found Terrence grabbing Raine up and swinging her around before pulling her squirming form to him.

*"Giving trouble to mommy, aren't you two?" He came and sat down next to Ryan who was only too willing to get on daddy's lap.

*"Oh, you found it." Terrence grinned when Ryan held up his crayon with pride.

*Look Daddy, look! I found it!

*I fell back on the couch beside him, "They are going to scare me to death one day." I rubbed my face.

*He laughed and I scowled at him. "When you screamed the first time, I thought Raine or Ryan had peed on your laptop, again. But then I heard you scream a few more times and wondered what was up. I came down and found something familiar to Tom and Jerry."

*I sighed, "We disturbed you, didn't we?"

*He clucked his tongue, "No, baby. I was done anyways. Now let's put them to sleep again, and then we can talk about what had happened."

Once, they had been playing in my room and I was keeping an eye on them. Around that time, someone had arrived at the door to deliver something for Terrence. When I had come back to the room, the twins were nowhere to be found.

After searching the entire house, even the gardens, I had gone into full on panic mode. I called Terrence and Beckett, and was sobbing all the time we spent finding them. When after hours of searching they were still not found, I had broken down and Terrence had to carry my poor self to the bedroom. At that time, he had realised that in the whole fiasco, we had failed to hear the soft blabbers that seemed to come from somewhere near the bathroom.

We finally found them both sitting inside my suitcase - which had been kept there since my honeymoon weekend - and I almost sobbed in relief when both of them grinned up at me, with their blue eyes tinkling with mischief.

Not to forget that Raine was playing with my red underwear and Ryan seemed to have one of my bra's strap hanging off his ear.

Terrence had laughed out so loudly then, and picked both of them up and put them to sleep after I fed them. Later that night, I found the bed next to me empty, and when I searched the nursery, it was empty too. But when I went into the kitchen, I wasn't surprised to find Terrence, Raine and Ryan sharing a chocolate cake that we had all baked earlier that day.

And those two had barely started teething.

No matter how much Raine and Ryan created a chaos in the house, they still loved the time they spent with me and Terrence. Most of the time Terrence and I snuggled up to each other, with the twins in front of us babbling about the things that were beyond comprehending. I especially loved the time I breastfed them: How their blue eyes stared up at me as they suckled and how they slowly closed those blue beauties as they fell asleep.

God, I never wanted things to change. I loved Terrence and my babies so much.

Speaking of Terrence - we somehow managed to not let our hectic routine come in between our time together, no matter whatever we were doing; All thanks to our stamina. We fucked a lot, I mean a lot. We started right in the morning, just after we had had breakfast, when we showered together. And then it happened to be somewhere in the noon, when Terrence came back home with the excuse of wanting to eat home-cooked food.

We did eat, of course, but not before he fucked my brains out.

And then when he came back from work, we took a relaxing bath together, and sometimes Raine and Ryan joined us too. We went another round after dinner, once Raine and Ryan fell asleep.

It was during the weekends when we made sweet love to each other, savouring every kiss, every moment and every touch.

Only one thing was left in the whole equation. I still hadn't declared my love to him. I was waiting for the right moment, but it never seemed to come along.

It was safe to say that my relationship with Terrence was sailing smoothly, but I couldn't say the same about Allie. When Terrence and I had returned from our lovely weekend, we realised that the atmosphere in the house - at least around Allie and Aaron - had been awkward as hell. We let it pass, because we both didn't want to make them feel even more tensed up.

A week later, I was not-so-surprised when I heard the Allie and Darren had broken up. Even though she had stressed on the fact that Darren was moving to a city a few states away and they both weren't ready to make a long distance relationship work, I had an inkling that Aaron was one of the hidden reasons why Allie had broken up with Darren.

She could lead on a poor guy only so much till she realised that she still felt for Aaron.

I hadn't been more wrong when I had thought that things between both the ex-lovers was going to get better. They were still awkward around each other and avoided each other at all costs. Terrence sometimes confessed how Aaron shared his desperation with him, because now that Allie refused to even squeak out a word, Aaron knew that their relationship was far from moving ahead.

At the moment, I was heading towards Terrence's car where Dan was waiting inside to drive me back home from the Powers' Publishing House. Allie had called me that there was a meeting that needed to be taken care of urgently and that was why I had to go to the workplace today. I usually worked from home, but this time I thought I could make arrangements for a daycare facility in the publishing house too. Terrence happily insisted on staying back and taking care of those pumpkins, along with Jenny, of course. Since John was currently away, sorting out his property matters among his sons, I always volunteered to keep her distracted. I was always slightly afraid to let her stay alone all day long.

I hurried inside the car and smiled at Dan, who grinned back at me, "Where to, Ma'am!"

I rolled my eyes, "Home, of course!"

"Is there anywhere else you need to be at, first?" He asked as he pulled out of the parking lot slowly.

"No. Nowhere. Raine and Ryan are waiting for me. I need to go to them right away."

"Well..." He trailed off as he looked at me in the rear view mirror nervously, "Some of the roads are blocked today. We might have to take a longer route. And I haven't had lunch today."

My eyes that had shot up in annoyance before now softened at him. Aw, poor guy. "Let's go to the nearest food joint first. Fill up your tummy and then we'll get back home." I said to him and his grin was back.

"You're the best!"

*******************

Forty five minutes later, we finally reached home. My brows furrowed the moment I saw that all the lights at the house were off, but then I just shrugged and thought that perhaps, Terrence had taken Jenny and the kids to the park.

"No one at home?" Dan asked me as he parked the car right where he had stopped.

I just shrugged in reply.

"Let me take those files. You look tired." He offered when he stepped out, "You fed me so much today, the least thing I can do to help you is be a gentleman and carry your things for you."

I gave him a confused look but smiled anyways, and handed the files to him.

I opened the door and stepped inside, still confused at the entire darkness and how the clicking of my heels echoed all around. Terrence always kept at least one light on when he left the-

I heard a loud burp. And then a giggle. And then another voice joining the childish giggles.

I heard a loud sigh, and then a lot of chuckles and giggles echoed in the empty house.

Fuck! Ghosts!

Horror seized me and my heart went into overdrive. Oh my god! What if the ghosts ate up Raine, Ryan, Jenny and Terrence? I stumbled back in fear for a moment and then screamed loudly when I felt a hand close around my leg, followed by a tug on my pencil skirt.

No, no, no, no! I kept screaming loudly.

Laughter echoed in the house and suddenly the lights switched on. My jaw dropped open when my eyes roamed on the redecorated house, looking as if it was someone's birthday. There was a huge cake, a table set out in the middle with Raine and Ryan seated up on it and a three tiered cake right in between them.

The cake looked delicious.

I immediately scowled when I found every person still laughing at me hysterically. Allie was holding her stomach as she rolled on the floor in tears.

Terrence wheezed out as he laughed, "Alyssa..." He laughed again, "Your face!" And he burst out again.

"Priceless!" Allie breathed out as she laughed, "God! Alyssa! Do you still believe in ghosts!"

"Of course, not!" I snapped, but that seemed to only make them laugh more.

Raine and Ryan, finding everyone else laughing, started laughing too, throwing their heads back with such a force that they almost toppled over. Thankfully Xavier, who was grinning at me cheekily, caught them before they hurt themselves.

When finally all of them managed to compose themselves, I asked a question which made them crack up even more.

"What is going on here? Is it anyone's birthday today?"

"Momo..." Ryan giggled and started laughing as Xavier cracked up again.

Terrence finally managed to make his way towards me and pulled me into a bone crushing hug, "Trust you to forget your own birthday, Alyssa."

Oh shit? It was Twentieth of October, already?

I pushed him away and smacked him on his chest, "Aren't you all supposed to scream, 'Surprise!'?"

They all fell silent for a moment and it was Lucy who muttered, "Shit! We were supposed to scream, scare her and then throw cake on her face! We messed it up!"

"No problem, honey! I've got it!"

And before I knew, my face was entirely covered with cake, courtesy to Jenny for having a lovely aim.

The cake was really, really tasty. Chocolate chip all the way and oh my god, I could die in the chocolate heaven. The cake slowly slid down my face, and I kept staring at all of them who were waiting for my reaction.

"The cake's like heaven!" I squealed loudly, "Where did you get that from?!"

They all laughed, again.

"I baked it, with Raine and Ryan." Terrence chuckled, and before he knew, I had thrown myself at him.

Lord, those hormones. Was I PMSing?

In no time, we were both making out, our tongues tasting the amazing cake together and I knew I was getting that cake smudged all over his face. The rest of the cake was forgotten when I found that Terrence tasted much more addictive and better than that cake.

I was about to moan when Terrence abruptly pulled away and murmured against my lips, "Yeah, that cake was really tasty."

"I know right, I know." I grinned.

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