Chapter 499) Housewarmings, Unruliness and Romance Novel Covers

San Sequoia
Noah Grainger’s new home
Housewarming Party

Holly pulled Noah aside, whisper-yelling at him over the music.

“Noah! Blaine’s here. My parents haven’t met him yet, nor has Alessa’s mom! We need to inch them towards all that or they’ll all get the shock of their lifetimes, we can’t just toss them into the deep end with all his crudeness!”

“Of course he’s here, he’s my grandpa. What do you want me to do about him? Have you met him? I can’t muzzle him. Only grandma can. Talk to her.”

“She is YOUR grandma! YOU talk to her.”

“As soon as that other ring is on your finger, they’ll be YOUR grandparents too. That’s how my family works, Holl. Same goes for Nolan, so best to get them used to it now.”

“Oh boy, you’re right, I’ll try to redirect them away from the door, hoping Blaine will be too distracted. Oh no, he just found them. My poor parents …” Holly cringed and started walking, but Noah pulled his fiancée back.

“Stay! They’re all adults and your parents are pretty cool and definitely not shy. You act like they live at a Tibetian Monastery! If he pisses them off, they’ll let him know. Give them a chance. Worst case scenario would be that your mom slaps my grandpa and he’ll run off crying to my grandma cos he got his feelings hurt. That’s the Cameron-way.”

With a sigh Holly turned to him, snaking her arms around his neck, to kiss him.

Scarlett & Blaine

“… and then the bobcat got stuck with his balls in the electric fence and the farmer says… whoa…” Blaine was interrupted by Scarlett pulling on his arm.

“Sorry, need to borrow my husband for a moment. Come with me, you fiend.”

“But I didn’t finish the joke yet! And fiend? Sounds promising. Are we going to christen our grandson’s new home the right way? Finally!” he joked while following his wife to the terrace.

Scarlett had pulled him off to a quiet corner outside, now turned to him.

“Do we have to have this very conversation every single time before attending a party? NO off-color jokes, NO sexual innuendos, NO baby jokes cos there are just too many pregnant girls present, most definitely NO nookie jokes and for absolutely certain no actual nookie, so just be nice, polite and smile, Blaine. And without fully flashing your fangs, if you please. Just low-key it.”

“Low-key and smiling and not even a quick fuck as a reward? Do I look like a Barbie to you? I am a fuckin’ rock musician, Letty. I am expected to be rude, crude and in-your-face obnoxious, that’s my fuckin’ brand, girl, and 7 kids say that I definitely like sex, so how would that come as a surprise to anyone at this point? I can’t be some lame bobblehead doll now or my ass gets cancelled because too boring. And if I were THAT boring, YOU would cancel my ass too! You need a man like me, cos you are zesty yourself.”

“No argument there, not asking you to be an abstinent Barbie, be Rockstar-Ken, just be handsome and smile, shelf the jokes for tonight.”

“Rockstar-Ken? What the actual fuck have you been smoking, Letty!? Neither you nor I are plain, boring or low-key! People know that when they invite us. And you know Ken has no twig and berries and I happen to know you like my downstairs entertainment section or we wouldn’t have those 7 kids! And those are just the slip-ups! Trying to calculate out the actual number of our naughtinesses over the years and to date would make even the fastest computer explode!”

“And you are impossible. I am trying to blend in here, Blaine. We are invited because we are family, moreover the matriarch and patriarch of the Camerons today. It is only polite to invite us. But there are people here tonight who do not know you and your ways too well. Our grandkids are MORTIFIED of your behavior and your crazy-ass jokes. NOBODY here would cancel you for behaving like a normal person, Blaine.”

“Ah yeah? If I am so horrible, then why do they all keep coming back all the time. We constantly have some of them at our house, half the time we can barely get rid of them, our youngest son plus family recently moved back in, and when we go visit someone somewhere, they all come running. So, how bad can I be, huh? I am entertaining, Letty, that’s all there is to it, and I will go and be entertaining over there, so you can partypoop over here by yourself, you negative Nancy! And no nookie for you tonight.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake Blaine, as if you would turn me down if I … what? Why am I talking about sex now too?! Argh. Anyway, you are conveniently twisting the facts here! Gavin and his family are back because we invited them back, that mansion is way too big for just us, Chandler couldn’t stomach living with vampires or they would have stayed, relatable since you and I tried living in Forgotten Hollow and even we couldn’t stand it there among all those vamps and old crap, we are just too modern-minded. The grandkids are so welcoming because they were raised right by their parents, whom we raised right. At least those we were responsible for.”

“Well, you have your truth and I have mine. I am going back in. Find me when you are ready for a good time again, Scarlett Sourpuss.” Blaine tried to walk off, but Scarlett didn’t let him.

“No, you will not! You will stay right here with me. And if I have to tie you down!”

“Hmmm … I like where this is going. Tell me more, you bondage-vixen …”

“Argh! I need a drink. YOU are driving me to drink, Blaine!”

“I am not above drunk sex either …”

“Stop! Just STOP it or I swear I will drop your pants and spank your naked butt right here in poor Noah’s brandnew backyard and I won’t care if the neighbors hear you screaming!”

“Now we’re talking … hehehehe.”

“Oh my God, I give up. Nope, nope, NOPE!” Scarlett made, turned and walked off.

“Hey wait, where are you going? You didn’t even take my pants off yet! So spank me, oh mighty Spanker!”

Smirking, Blaine followed her to annoy her some more, only to get a rise out of her. She was still his favorite target for his shenanigans. And if anybody could handle it, it had always been her.

Connor & Keira

Connor just left the guest bathroom with Keira, whose face had a slightly greenish tint to it.

“That dang baby! Nobody tells you about THIS!”

“I DID tell you about morning sickness.”

“It’s NOT morning!” Keira grumbled.

“Told you about that too.” Connor shrugged.

“Will you shut up!? I get it, you’re a doctor, you are a genius, you know everything, big whoop! Don’t even talk to me about all you know about pregnancy unless YOU are carrying our child from now on! This is YOUR fault! Get me something to drink, please!” Keira whined as another bout of nausea silenced her, so Connor headed to the kitchen to find something appropriate to drink for his pregnant wife.

Connor & Chase

He ran into his dad in Noah’s kitchen, who clearly was biting back a smile.

“Just get it off your chest dad, before your head explodes.” Connor said without even looking at his father.

“Fun times, huh, son?” Chase snickered.

“Oh yeah, simply hilarious. Was mom like that too?”

“Your mother? No way. She has never been anything but a total pleasure.” Chase said.

“Hm, she’s right behind me, isn’t she? Hi mom.” Connor said while turning around to indeed find his mother.

“Smart boys, both of you. Connor, you wife doesn’t look good at all. That baby is not making it easy on poor Keira, is he?”

“He’s in rare form today. Days are usually pretty okay, but he likes to keep us awake all night long, making his poor momma puke in random intervals and waking her to pee every three minutes – and we are only in the first trimester. We already tried all the usual and safe medications and ginger and all that. Nothing worked. Rohan said that usually by the start of the second trimester this slows down, so here’s to hoping or I’ll be insane by the time we get to delivery day. If Keke hasn’t strangled me for some random reason before then, cos evidently the pregnancy SHE so urgently wanted is now all my fault.”

Giggling, Hailey hugged her son, planting a kiss on his cheek.

“I’ll grab some of the sports drinks here and go check on her. Maybe the woman-to-woman thing will help.”

Once Hailey had headed back downstairs with the drinks, Chase pat his son on the arm.

“I don’t know what to tell ya here, son, except keep your chin up. Wish I could help, but this is just something you both have to get through now. This whole pregnancy thing is a lot easier on the girls when they are vamps. Just saying.”

“Dad, thanks, but Keira and I will stay mortal. Too late now anyway, she’s already knocked up and you know you can’t turn pregnant women. Glad to know you’re happy with fangs again. I never was. I do not want them back. Literally the very last thing I want or need. No way!”

“Well, can’t say I am not happier this way, but not like it was a choice. At least not for me or Colton. We were some of the first to find out about this side-effect when we randomly keeled over and started turning. Your poor mother was the one to find us, luckily she remembered the signs so she called Cesare instead of an ambulance or this would have ended really badly for us. After us, Cesare immediately send out notices to everyone. We didn’t plan on being vamps again, your mom and Maddie just realized quickly they had to act, so they had us turn them after we all went to Cesare and the only reason he allowed it was because he had his hands full with all the chaos the ‘re-turning’ of the unturned now causes him. Who knows, you might still end up reverting back too, since you were born a vamp too. Seems to only affect natural born former vamps.”

“Dad, the reversions have stopped by now. Keira and I were some of the first to get unturned, since hers was mandatory as a former mortal and I just volunteered right away. If I were to revert, it would have happened by now. Do we have a recent tally yet of who all got their fangs back involuntarily?”

“Uh uh, not as far as I heard. Last I was told is that Cesare and Riordan were still working on figuring out the sum of the fallout. Looks like all of your aunts and uncles for sure, the natural born ones at least. I know Caelan’s son Connell is a vamp again too. Seems that the littlest ones and the pre-teens are safe too, we haven’t noticed anything in your sisters or Jasper so far. Really just seems to have affected unturned natural born vampire adults or at least those over the age of 18 or something like that. Which also sucks, means your mother and I will outlive our children one day, which we really don’t like one bit. Cesare is not willing to unturn anyone again, seeing how it only caused chaos. He is trying to figure out how to sell that development to the mortal government. I mean they’re gonna have to live with it and accept it unless they want to start a war, which we both know is not going to happen.”

“Ah yeah … Vampirism, the ultra-fun gift that aaaaaaalways keeps on giving. We should start calling it what it really is, a curse, not a spark. Those werewolves got it right. I can’t wait to listen to Cesare lose his shit about the flood of turn requests for those former mortals who were turned, then unturned, now that their spouses are Fangs again, there’s gonna be a lot of interspecies couples who aren’t happy with their situation. I wouldn’t want Cesare’s job now, that’s for sure. Dealing with the emotion-bomb that is my wife seems like a walk in the park compared to that.”

“Not our problem, thank God, but I’ll guarantee you, Cesare isn’t going to allow any turning or unturning, period, that’s why your mother and Maddie jumped at that right away while Cesare was still too shocked to say no, so at least the four of us could stay together as before. Gotta say though, being mortal was fun while it lasted, at least now I got a better idea what I am talking about, and it wasn’t long enough for me to really get too used to it, but I kinda prefer having my fang-life back. Hey, how’s your cowboy buddy? Surprised you didn’t invite him. Last you mentioned him he was still sulking about AG. Quite something, your cousin. We’ll have a real queen in the family before too long.”

“Jack’s doing great, and this isn’t my party or my house to invite him too, Noah doesn’t know him yet and Jack wouldn’t come anyway, he’s not much for parties. He’s in love again. Crazy story, his new flame is his best friend’s little sister, they dated before, many years ago, but it fizzled out, anyway, she lost a baby and a fiancé just before her wedding some months back, so she is mentally about where Jack is, misery loves company, they spent a lot of time together and well, as things go, old fire got rekindled and now she is pregnant again, this time by our Jack, who is confused A.F., bought a ring and proposed. All that while Liam and Jensen were working on full custody for his teen son, which of course they got for him, so now poor Jack is trying to be a dad to a teen he is still getting to know, and a future husband to his best friend’s little sister, meaning a lot is at stake and he is so worried to screw that up, and he’s an expecting first-time dad, since he was never around for his other son – and all that while trying to work through his decades old trauma.

I’m going out there next weekend to help him rebuild some of his cabin. Let’s just say he still needs a lot more therapy, cos after he got back from that paternity test result disaster at Vivien and Liam’s place, he was so upset that he took his entire property apart. Everything in shambles. He called me from that bar downtown Chestnut Ridge, slobberknocker drunk and totally incoherent so I drove out to get him. He had his son coming for the scheduled visit the next day, so Keira and I had both of them spent that weekend with us.”

“We really raised you right. You are a really good person, Connor. Hoping your twin sisters will turn out like you. Hey, Connor, maybe that Jack will let you ride his horses. If he does, take off your shirt and have someone take a picture and send it to your mother. I keep telling her with that long hair you look like one of those dudes on the cover of those romance novels she and Maddie like to read.”

“Sure dad, you got it.” Connor told him, smiling.

Sometime that next weekend Hailey’s cell phone buzzed with a text from her son …

“Hey mom, these are for you, ask dad what’s up with those, he requested me to do this. Jack was a good sport about it, everyone had a good laugh while we were trying to stage this and I popped my horse-riding cherry on his favorite horse, named Trapper. All the horses kept looking at me as if I was mentally instable when I took my jacket and shirt off in the snow during a break rebuilding Jack’s cabin. Who knew it snows in Chestnut Ridge? Well, guess we all do now.”

“P.S. the things we do for our parents …. I just about froze my nipples off doing this so you could get a chuckle, no worries, Keira just about ripped said nipples off when I got home that night for making her pregnant (even though SHE wanted the kid so badly)! No, she and I are fine, just a bit rough until that baby settles down. 2nd tri starts next week, chances are her stomach will settle down around that time, counting the minutes till then.
Love ya all, Connor.“