We're Young and in Love

Chapter 17

We’re Going Round in Circles.

Josh’s pov

I open the door to find Vic’s back to me, he turns around smiling he’s brilliant smile and the first thing I notice is his new hair cut.
“You cut your hair?” I say in shock, my mouth dropping open. His long beautiful curls which used to flow down past his shoulders are now short curls that now scoop just under his strong chin.
“Yeah, I needed a change.” he smiles like a little kid and I can’t help but notice a new positive vibe shining from out of him.
I wasn’t sure what I thought of it, he looked different, very different and it wasn’t just from the hair cut. He seemed happy but he seem like he was trying to be secretive about something.

“You look great anyway.” I say, complimenting him.
“Thanks, I feel great.” His smiles widen and I can’t help but notice how much his appearance and attitude has change greatly since the last time I saw him which was only last week.

“Come in, Oli’s getting Hannah dressed upstairs, they’ll be down in a minute.” I say stepping aside, letting Vic in and walking into our kitchen living room space. I pick up Hannah’s baby bag and place it on the kitchen counter and begin telling Vic where everything is.

“I’ve packed Hannah’s bag for you and everything she’s going to need for today. I’ve packed extra just incase, because you never know. Her teething powder-“
“Josh calm down, I’m sure I’ll manage.” He chuckles when he eyes up the over packed bag.
“I know but I don’t want you to struggle.” I say softly, not wanting him to catch on at how much of a nervous wreck I am. I’ve been going out of my mind all morning at how Hannah is going to react to all this… or worse, how am I going to react to it all when she’s gone.

“I’ll be fine, we’re going to have lots of fun today.” He assures me, placing his hand on my shoulder and giving me a soft smile for some comfort.
I return the smile and choose not to throw my overprotective parental rules at him, that’s probably not a good idea right now. And besides, he knows how protective I am of her so I know he wouldn’t do anything to against it.
“So, what do you have planned?”

“No funny business, Fuentes.” We both turn our heads to the stern voice behind us and I see Oli has entered the room with Hannah sat on his hip, clutching onto her yellow duck teddy.

I see Oli glaring at Vic from a cross the room, of course he would have to say something to worsen everything, like this isn’t going to be hard enough without the awkward tension adding to it. Could the two of them ever be in the same room together and not say a snide comment to one another for once in their lives?

“What exactly do you think I’m going to do to her?” Vic scoffs and I’m relieved that Vic isn’t offended by his comment.
Oli didn’t like the idea of Vic babysitting Hannah for the whole day, he wanted Tom to do it but he had a date and I felt bad for him to have to cancel because I knew he really liked the girl. And besides, Vic offered to do it last week and he is really the only few people I do trust to be alone with Hannah anyway.

“I’m serious Vic.” Oli warns but Vic just rolls his eyes, not letting the smile from earlier not once leave his face. Why is he so happy? It can’t be because he’s babysitting Hannah today… no, there’s so much more behind that smile and my curiosity is getting the better of me. I want to know the reason what has made my best friend constantly smiling like the annoying Cheshire cat.

“ViVi.” Hannah squeals, stretching her little arm out to Vic when here eyes land on him but Oli takes her hand and puts it down, not ready to hand her over to him just yet. I sigh lightly to myself, I guess he’s finding it just as hard as me to hand her over for the day, we haven’t done anything like this before and its such a big step for us and so god damn nerve wracking. How do parents do this all the time?

Silence soon fell upon the three of us and if I didn’t double check everything over with Vic again with the baby bag, I would definitely lose my mind.

“Well you already have mine and Oli’s number if you need to get hold of us and I’ve written down my mums number and Tom’s too incase you can’t get hold of us-“
“Josh, seriously relax. You two just focus on each other, this day is suppose to be about the both of you.”

Fuck why is he being so mature and supported of us? It’s strange seeing him like this. It’s nice but strange. After today we really need to arrange a day to spend together so I can find out what’s brought out this bright and happy side of him.

I sigh heavily because I knew I was worrying about everything, I haven’t been apart from my little girl and even though she was going to be in safe hands I was still so bloody nervous.

“Right, well we better say our goodbyes then.” I say, hinting at Oli to say his goodbye to Hannah.

Oli wraps his arm around her and kisses her head softly before handing her over to me. I take her and give her a big hug and I can’t help but get all emotional. I pull back and look down at her adorable cute face with watery eyes and she just smiles back at me. She has no idea what’s going on but I hope she don’t hate me for it.

“You be a good girl for your uncle Vic okay? And don’t miss me and daddy O too much, we’ll see you later on tonight and I’ll give you lots and lots of cuddles to make up for it, so don’t you worry Pipsqueak.” I sniff, accidently letting a tear roll down my cheek.

“Aw Josh, come on don’t cry.” Vic says. Placing a hand on my shoulder as another tear fell from my eyes.
“I can’t help it. I didn’t think it would be this hard to be away from her.” I sob, kissing her hair. I’ve never been apart from her before and the feeling was horrible.
Oli walks over to me and snakes an arm around my waist and kisses my cheek in comfort.
“I’m sure Vic will understand if you’re not ready to be away from her yet. If you want babe, we can just stay in and have a family day instead?” Oli suggests and even though it does sound like a nice idea, I shake my head and sigh.
“No, I need to do this. It will be good for both of us to get a little distance… even if it is really hard.”

“I promise you, she’s in safe hands.” Vic promises and I wipe my eyes with my sleeve.
“I know she is, Vic. I don’t doubt you at all.” I give Vic a small smile to assure him. I kiss Hannah one last time and reluctantly pass her over to Vic and my heart literally breaks.

He takes her and smiles widely at her who causes her to blush and hide her face in his shoulder.
“We’re going to have so much fun that your not even going to realise your without your daddies.” He coos and she giggles in reply.

My heart clenches at his words but I’m distracted at the way Hannah admires him so much. She’s not even phase that I’m not holding her, her eyes are fixed on Vic’s face and she tangle’s her little hand in his short curls and smiles.

Vic puts the baby bag over his shoulder and adjusts Hannah on his hip before turning back round to us.

“Please try not to worry so much about us; everything is going to be ok. And you two just have fun and enjoy yourselves today and I’ll be back around dinner time.” Vic smiles to reassure us and I smile and nod back in reply because if I spoke I’d probably starting balling my eyes out again and not let them leave.

I stand and watch them from the window, watching Vic strap Hannah into the car seat and pulling out of our drive and driving away until there out of sight. I feel my eyes go teary again and I know any second now I’m going to turn into an emotional sobbing mess.

“If he knows what’s best for him he won’t do anything stupid.” Oli says, appearing next to me and his words were enough to set me off.
“Oli please, don’t say that. I’m enough of a mess as it is and I don’t need you adding to my worries!” I choke, turning round scolding him and making his eyes go wide with shock at my reaction.

“Your right, I’m sorry.” He says pulling me in for a hug when he sees my eyes water up again. Fuck, I really had no idea I was going to react this badly being away from Hannah and it hasn’t even been two minutes yet!
I rest my head on Oli’s shoulder and sob as he rubs his hand up and down my back lovingly which kinds of surprises me because we’ve haven’t really been affectionate to each other lately. But this felt nice. This is what today is all about.

“So what’s our plan for today then, love?” Oli says and I pull away from him and wipe my eyes.

We’ve been so concerned and trying to organise everything about leaving Hannah that we didn’t even plan anything to do for ourselves for today. Which was kind of the whole point.

“Err, we didn’t really plan anything did we? What do you want to do?”
Oli just shrugs in reply, we were still being distance with each other and it felt like we haven’t talked properly in forever. We’ve been using Hannah or work as an excuse not to communicate… which is terrible really. We were just standing in the corridor not saying anything, which isn’t exactly a good start to spending time to ourselves.

“Are you hungry? How about we go out for lunch and go from there?” Oli suggests breaking the silence.
“Yeah sure, that sounds good to me.” I nod grabbing my leather jacket as Oli picks up his car keys and we head out to the car.

~~

We ended up at this new burger restaurant in town, we’ve wanted to go here for ages but because of Oli working and everything else which has been going on we didn’t get the chance until now.

“Josh, would you please put down your phone and eat your food before it gets cold.” Oli says in annoyance at me.
I’ve texted Vic about five times since we got here and that’s not including the three times I texted him in the car on the way here. And when I’m not texting him I’m constantly looking at my phone incase he’s trying to get hold of me and I accidently miss his call or text. I haven’t once paid attention to the main reason why we have come here and that’s to focus on Oli and I, no wonder he’s getting annoyed with me.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I just hope Hannah is okay.”
“Stop being so paranoid, you’re getting on my nerves.” He complains and I instantly take offends at what he just said and frown at him. Getting on his nerves, is he for real? This is our daughter I’m worrying about for crying out loud!
“Well sorry for worrying about our daughter.” I snap, making him whip his head up from his food and gape at me. His hands gripped tightly around his knife and folk and I knew his aggressiveness would come out now.
“If you’re so worried about her being with Vic then you shouldn’t have let him babysit her in the first place! I told you I wanted Tom to look after her!” he whispers harshly so the people sat around us wouldn’t hear us arguing.

“This has nothing to do with Vic or our daughter’s safety. It’s to do with the fact that I’m worried about her being away from me!” I snap, glaring at him.
“You know how extremely clingy she is to me and all I can think about is her being in fits of tears without me!”
How could he not know that? He should know that this is extremely hard for me and I can’t just switch off my emotions and stop worrying and caring for our daughter like he obviously can.

“You’re such a fucking drama queen. Just eat your food and chill out.” He hisses and I feel everything in me snap and I hit my fist on the table in anger.
“I’m not being a drama queen! Sorry I’m not as cold as ice as you are who doesn’t seem to give a fuck about our daughter’s wellbeing.”
His eyes darken and immediately I knew I’d said too much but he pissed me off and to be honest, it was true.
“Whatever.” He huffs, rolling his eyes and picking up his bottle of beer and taking a drink. He leans back in his chair annoyed and pulls out his phone and starts avoiding me.

He really has no idea what it feels like. I spend every minute of everyday with our little girl and we’ve both grown so ridiculously clingy to each other that it’s killing me to be away from her right now. My mind is constantly nagging me, thinking how much she might be missing me, is she crying for me? Does Vic know how to calm her when she gets fussy? Does he know she likes it when you sing to her? Does he know to make sure to keep her yellow duck with her at all times? Just every tiny detail was going through my head and I wished Vic just gave me the chance to explain this all to him so my mind would at least be a little bit at ease. Now my husband is having ago at me for worrying so much. I wish people could just let me do my parental job so I know what’s best for my child, instead of them lecturing me being an annoying overprotective parent.

I was about to say something to Oli again but my phone beeps and I immediately pick it up and open the text message when I see Vic’s name on my screen. It opens up to a photo of Vic holding Hannah who has chocolate ice cream all around her mouth and they’re both grinning from ear to ear. I can’t help but laugh and sigh from relief when I see that’s she okay and enjoying herself with Vic, maybe I am just being stupidly paranoid and overprotective.

“Babe look.” I stretch my arm out across the table and show Oli the photo on my phone, forgetting the previous argument we just had. He smiles a little but it quickly disappears and he looks up and frowns at me.

“See she’s fine, can you relax now?” I pull my arm back and ignore him and continue staring down at the photo. I’m glad I packed some extra clothes in her baby bag because she’s definitely going to need changing after that ice cream, I chuckle to myself.

When I inspect the photo some more I notice that Vic hasn’t taken the photo himself. It’s a full view photo which means someone else has taken the photo of them. Is he with someone? He didn’t mention anything about someone else tagging along with him today or did he just ask a random stranger to take the photo?

“I wonder who took the photo of them.” I mumble, not realising I said it out loud.
“I really don’t care.”
Oli says sitting back in his chair looking very bored and his body language showing that he really didn’t give a shit either.
“Oli, you don’t have to be like that.”
“I came out to have lunch with my husband and enjoy myself but its been anything but enjoyable. I don’t want to talk about Vic or who he might be with or to be constantly reminded that our daughter might be missing us. You’re the one who’s been non stop going on about us spending alone time together and now that we are we’re spending it arguing or talking about Vic!” he admits frustratingly and I can’t help but feel a little guilty. Today is about us, I should stop bringing up other people and ignoring him.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I won’t mention it anymore ok.” I smile, putting my phone down and giving him my full attention.
“I’m getting another beer, do you want one?” he asks.
“You’re getting another one?” I ask a little surprised. Oli usually has no more than one, he stopped the reckless drinking years ago when he started going therapy and started sorting himself out. So for him to have another beer is a little concerning…

“Are you being fucking serious? Yes I want another beer, don’t you dare start your nagging shit Josh.”
“I was only saying-“
“Well don’t!” he hisses, this time his loud voice made a couple heads turn and stare at us. I shift uncomfortably in my seat not know where to look because I felt so embarrassed by the scene we’ve caused.
It must have annoyed Oli because he pushed out his chair about to get up and leave but I reach for his hand and stop him from getting up.
“No no, please don’t go. I’m sorry Oli, I didn’t mean it.” I beg not wanting today to turn into a complete disaster because of me.
He removes his hand from my grasp and lets out a loud sigh as he pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Josh, for once can you just stop with the constant nagging. It’s impossible to enjoy myself or do anything with you when you keep opening your big mouth and constantly nag me over the tiniest things.”

It took everything in me not to comment back with something sassy and whiney which would only worsen the whole situation. But to be honest, it hurt what he said but it was true though. I’m always ruining things for us because I don’t know when to keep my mouth shut and I can see Oli has had enough of it. If I don’t learn to control it, I’m going to end up doing some serious damage to our marriage and I would never forgive myself if I did.

“I’m sorry. I won’t say anything else to upset you. Let’s just finish our meal and you can order as many beers as you want.” I whisper, ducking my head down and poking at the chips on my plate with my folk. I could feel myself getting upset and I really didn’t want to while we were still sitting in the restaurant.

Oli places his hand on top of mine and stroke my knuckles gently as he sighs and I slowly glance up to meet his eyes.

“I didn’t mean to upset you love, but please, can we just try and enjoy ourselves.” He says. His eyes now softer than before and I knew he didn’t want us to fight anymore.

I bite my lip and nod at him, not wanting to say anything incase I accidently let something stupid slip which would piss him off even more and make him leave.