Chapter 10 - Unexpected Visitors

Glynnis grows up.

She still has a funny-looking nose, but she's learned to embrace her quirks. Her eyes are all Rhiannon's with how languid and drowsy and heavy-lidded that they are. Once again, there's no real party, not with Rhiannon being huge and ungainly again, but Rhiannon orders a cake anyway.

If there's anything they can agree on, it's a mutual love for cake.

They eat quietly, ignoring the putrid dish in front of Glynnis. The laundry is piling up. The appliances are disgustingly messy. Dishes are stacked high in the sink. But Rhiannon's doing the best she can. Glynnis seems to accept that.

"Hey, Mom?"

"Yeah, Glyn?"

"Am I ever actually gonna meet these guys that keep knocking you up, or are you purposely keeping them out of the apartment?"

Rhiannon almost chokes on her cake. She looks up at Glynnis with slightly narrowed eyes, but Glyn simply stares back passively. She's developed Rhiannon's direct method of speaking.

"...that's my prerogative. And you can just forget about it." She heaves herself out of her chair with a sigh. "It's not gonna happen again. Don't you worry."

The twins have a birthday as well!

Athena...

...and Tiara.

Rhiannon and Glynnis take a tag-team approach to raising the twins.

Both girls are surprisingly receptive to it. Athena leaps ahead of Tiara in development with no time at all, which makes Glynnis feel a little awkward, and she masters talking in no time at all. "Why do you think she's like that?" Glyn asks Rhiannon warily.

Rhi simply shrugs. "Must just be a genius or something."

Count on Rhiannon to go into labor that very day. Glynnis is rather used to the process now.

"Don't worry, Mom, I've got the kids, no worries."

"You'd better!" Rhi yells threateningly as she hobbles out the door as quickly as she can.

One last daughter: Naomi Toft. After this, Rhiannon's sworn to purchase a supply of condoms and to keep them handy at all times. This is just ridiculous. But they'll manage somehow. They always do.

When she arrives home, however, she isn't expecting her welcome home gift.

"Holy shit." Rhiannon grabs at her chest as Matthew turns to look at her with an amused smile. "You scared the...how did you even get up...I..." Eventually she gives up on speaking. She slides past him without hesitation, every inch of her body having lost its sinuous grace in favor for jerky and exhausted movements.

"You're not...happy to see me?"

"I'ma shoot straight with you, Hamming, I don't really give a shit about you one way or the other unless you've got a hamburger on you." She carefully lays Naomi in her crib before smoothing her hair over her shoulder and looking at Matthew with a quirked brow. "No?" She shakes her head. "Then no, I'm not that happy to see you."

Matthew chuckles as he walks past her and shakes his head as well. "I come here to see my firstborn child and you treat me like I'm nothing. That's nice, Rhiannon."

She's so exhausted that she almost can't bring herself to care that he knows. Almost. She rubs her forehead and nearly topples over, just barely managing to catch herself on Naomi's crib. "How...how'd you know?"

"I didn't, really." He inspects her apartment furnishings, sparse as they are, and Rhiannon watches his progress with slightly flushed cheeks. "But the timing sure was funny, wasn't it? What do you want?"

"Excuse me?"

"To keep this quiet. Money? Fame? Fortune."

"All I fucking want is a NAP," Rhiannon snaps, glaring at him. "I don't know if you've ever squeezed a watermelon out of your penis, but it ain't that pleasant. And for your information," she continues, stumbling into the living room further. "I wasn't gonna tell a damn person. I already got three other kids. Imagine how it already looks. Any credibility I ever had's gone."

Matthew stares at her, solid and expressionless beyond his eyebrow slowly lifting. "...I see."

"Now if you don't mind getting the hell out of here, I need sleep."

He shakes his head. "Your oldest daughter needs her sleep too...and you need someone to take care of your younger daughters tonight. I'm not going anywhere."

Rhiannon stares back at him long and hard before she simply shakes her head and goes to her bedroom. "Fine. Whatever. Have it your way. But you better not steal anything."

He doesn't. He lets his insomnia get the best of him and stays up the entire night, reading her small selection of books.

Glynnis is the first up the next day, and she enters the living room to pluck Athena out of her crib. "So," she murmurs, utterly unimpressed by the celebrity in the living room. "Which one of these belongs to you?"

He chuckles and gets up, wandering over to the babies. He leans over Naomi's crib and nods toward her. "This one."

"Hmm." Glynnis leans over the crib and studies Naomi. "I could see that. She's got your cheeks."

"You think so?"

"Yeah." Glynnis stares at Naomi for a few moments longer before she turns and makes her way to the refrigerator to prepare a bottle for the sniffling Athena. "By the way...you do anything to my mother, and I'll make it so you can't ever father a kid again."

Matthew looks at Glyn with wide eyes, mouth open in surprise, before he clears his throat. "Erm...yes, well."

He likes this family, he decides. Especially this baby right here in front of him. Awesome.

Rhiannon has barely stirred before Matthew enters her bedroom, eyebrow quirked with a mischievous smirk. "I don't suppose it's time for a repeat performance, is it?"

Rhiannon rubs at her eyes with a sigh. "What do you want, Hamming?"

"I don't really know, actually." He approaches her. His sunglasses hide his eyes, and it more than unnerves Rhiannon. It makes her feel all the more exposed right here in nothing but her underwear. "Some fun? Something new and interesting? A chance to see where you go in the entertainment world?"

Rhiannon snorts and shakes her head. "Boy, you ain't seen my stretchmarks, have you?"

His head slowly tilts downward as if his eyes are following the path of her body. "No." His voice is low and soft, warm, dripping caramel. "No. This is the first time I've ever seen your body, actually. And I'm quite enamored with what I see."

The control is slipping out of her fingers. Rhiannon snaps toward it as quickly as she can, desperate.

"If you're just looking to get laid, you don't need to butter me up like that, Hamming. Just a kiss's good enough."

"I don't butter anyone up, Toft, not unless I'm getting a movie role out of it." He smirks at her before he jerks his head toward the door. "Get dressed. We're going out for brunch."

"...b-but why?"

He shrugs. "Because I stayed up all night feeding and snuggling your kids and I'm hungry?" He pops the lapels of his suit playfully. "I'm Matthew Hamming. Since when do I need a reason?"

Glynnis is dubbed babysitter. She watches Matthew closely as he leads Rhiannon out the door after their plans are explained. She still means what she said.

Rhiannon personally feels as awkward as hell...but something's gotta give eventually, right?

-----

FINALLY all the kids are born. And all girls too, haha. Fair enough.

For anyone curious, Tiara was the first of the twins born, so she's technically the second child and therefore the heir. Her traits are Virtuoso and Artistic. Athena's are Genius and Loner, I think. I can't remember. I've completely forgotten Naomi's, so those will come later, haha.

And Matthew really WAS an unexpected guest. OTL I expected him to show up at the hospital when Rhiannon gave birth, but nope, he was randomly standing in the apartment when I switched back there as Rhiannon was coming home. It was kind of freaky. I just assume that Glynnis peeked out the door when the doorbell rang, saw the equivalent of our Hugh Jackman, and was just like "...-shrugs and opens door- Come in. Don't mess anything up."

A quick side note: I really enjoyed writing Rhi's shift in dialect. xD Normally I imagine her having a really husky, cultured kind of voice, but her backstory relates to her growing up in the projects before deciding to get herself out of it using her beauty to gain her power, so I always imagine her to switch back into a ghetto twang when she's particularly stressed, tired, or angry. Just an added bonus for you.