Cadenbury Town Does Halloween (Cadenbury Town #7)

Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

A dhan catches up with me a few moments later. I grin as he walks beside me.

“Am I really sleeping on the sofa?”

I burst out laughing and nudge his arm. “I might be nice and let you sleep in the bed,” I look at Connie. “What do you think princess?”

Connie just smiles and grabs my fingers and starts mouthing it.

Adhan brushes a hand over her head. “Do you ever think about having children?”

“Umm, not really. I’m happy to be an uncle,” I look at Adhan. “Do you want more children?”

Adhan shakes his head and it looks like he breathes a sigh of relief and slips his arm around my waist, tucking me against him. “No, I have Alfred and I couldn’t be more proud of him. Like you, I am happy to be an uncle. I would have had more if you wanted to though.”

“To be honest since I knew I was gay I never even considered having children. I knew my parents secretly wanted me to have some, but they never put any pressure on me, and now they have Nora and Connie to spoil and whatever other children come into the family.”

“I wonder how long it will be before Titus and Kean look at adopting.”

“How do you know they haven’t started?” I ask him.

“You’re right, knowing them they probably have. Look there, the kiosk sells fish and chips. Shall I get lunch for everyone?”

“Yeah, you might need to text someone to come and help carry the boxes and drinks.”

“I’ll message Al and Justice to come and help.”

“Message Temp as well, see if he’s okay with fish and chips.”

Adhan nods and does just that. It doesn’t take long for Temp to reply. “Temp said yummy . I just messaged Alfred to come and help.”

“It might take a while to cook our order and I'm pretty sure Nora will want chicken nuggets.”

“Wait here and I’ll place the order,” Adhan says, joining the queue.

I look down at Connie and she is drooling all over me. I should be freaked out, but this is Connie. I can cope for now. I turn around so she can see the sea and watch the surfers. I walk to the stone wall that separates the path from the beach.

“Look at them princess, all those people having fun out there surfing. If I tried that I’d be in the water so much I’d probably become a mermaid.”

“I think you mean merman,” a lady says from beside me.

“I’ll stick with mermaid thanks,” I tell her. Really is it any of her business? I look and internally sigh, she looks like a total Karen and I should know. I’ve dealt with them before. Indeed Alfred and I tag-teamed one once when a lady walked into the tearoom and took offence to Miles being in there. Neither Alfred nor I were very professional in our handling of her, but we had fun, and Adhan pretty much scared her into leaving. He then told me not to teach his son how to be a diva.

The lady sniffs, looks around and suddenly says, “That’s disgusting.”

I look at her. “What is?”

“Those two there, holding hands.”

I look to where she’s pointing and see Justice and Alfred walking our way, holding hands, laughing together. I smile happily. “Why is that disgusting?” I ask her.

“Because it’s wrong.”

“Says who?”

“Everyone,” she snaps.

“Well not everyone, I don’t think it’s wrong,” I tell her.

She turns and sneers at me, looking me up and down. “No, you wouldn’t.”

Justice and Alfred walk closer.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” she tells them, looking back.

“Why?” Alfred asks her. “Don’t tell me my flies are undone?” he looks down to check.

I snort out a laugh, as does Justice.

“No, you’re safe Al,” I tell him.

“Why am I not surprised that you know these people,” she says in an annoyed tone and sneering.

I stand up straighter. “These people as you call them are my stepson and his husband, and I can guarantee they are a hundred percent nicer than you will ever be. So take your hate-filled, spinster self and crawl back into your troll hole, where you can spew your hatred to your cats.”

The woman gasps and opens her mouth to probably spout more hate.

“Whatever you’re about to say, I wouldn’t,” Adhan warns from beside me.

The woman shows a surprising sense and scurries away, not looking back.

“Stepson?” Alfred says, laughing at me.

I shrug. “Well, you kind of are.”

“Aww shucks, love you, Pops,” he says, one arm hugging me.

“I love you too, Pops,” Justice says, smiling widely.

I shake my head at them and pass Connie to Adhan. “I’m off to wash my hands. Look after the princess for me.”

We walk back to join the others, loaded down with boxes of food and a bag full of bottles of water. I’m not sure the poor kiosk people have ever had such a large order for one group before.

We reach the others and hand out food boxes and drinks, and Sal collects Connie so he can feed her.

Emily hands out disinfectant wipes, so the others can clean their hands before eating as looking at the buckets, they’ve all caught something.

We’re sat in our deck chairs, most of us have our feet up on the rail, our crab lines still in the water, and we’re happily munching on our fish and chips, or in Nora’s case chicken nuggets. Justice and Alfred are telling the others about the annoying lady and I hear Justice call me ‘Pops,’ there is a moment of silence before everyone descends into laughter.

I look at Adhan. “You don’t really think they’ll keep calling me that do you?”

He nods. “They probably will. After all, you did claim them both.”

“I’ve claimed everyone here,” I point out.

“True, but you are his stepfather.”

“Funnily enough, until I told that troll I was, it never occurred to me,” I say eating a chip.

“I can’t wait to see how this all plays out,” he says with a laugh, looking towards Alfred who is grinning like a loon.

Oh yeah, Alfred and Justice are going to run with this now.

After eating our fish and chips overlooking the water, we tidy up and count how many crabs were caught. Sion won the who caught the first crab. Adhan won the who pulled out the most crabs in one go. Kean won the who caught the most crabs, and Kean and Titus won the duo who caught the most.

I can’t believe how much fun we all had.

We’re just packing up, putting the crabs back in the water and winding up the crab lines when we hear a yell and a scream.

We look down towards the screaming, and dropping everything we rush down the promenade to see if we can help.

A lady is standing by an open gate. We look and see that she is staring at a young woman trying to rescue a frightened dog who is in the sea.

The young woman is slowly walking to the edge of the ledge, all the while talking to the dog, trying to calm it down.

“Stay here,” Kean says walking to the gate.

“Careful, the ledge is slippery,” the lady cautions.

“Thanks,” Kean replies, gently getting onto the ledge, Adhan goes next.

The young lady is reaching out as far as she can, it looks like she’s trying to grab the dog’s collar.

Waves are crashing over the ledge and the dog can’t find anywhere to grip its claws onto, as the stone is covered in slimy green algae.

“Take my hand,” Kean says to the young lady.

I watch her look at Kean and take his outstretched hand.

“I need to lean over further,” I hear her say to Kean.

Adhan grabs the rail and then Kean’s other hand.

“Go for it,” Kean tells her.

“Thanks,” she says, bending further over and snagging the dog’s collar.

I look to the lady stood by the gate. I’m worried about Adhan and Kean, but this lady looks a lot like the young lady. I move to her side. “They’ll have them both safe for you,” I assure her.

“Thank you. I was worried my daughter was going to fall in. She can’t swim and in that coat, she’d sink,” the lady says just as her daughter pulls the dog out.

Kean pulls the young woman back, who still has hold of the dog’s collar.

“Let me take the dog,” Adhan says, letting go of the rail and Kean’s hand and bending down to pick the dog up.

He turns around and hands the dog through the rail to Jude.

Kean turns to the young woman. “Let’s help you up.”

“Thanks, sorry you both got wet, but thanks for your help.”

“No problem,” and with that Kean helps the young woman up the rails and Cam helps her over.

I watch Adhan and Kean climb back up and over the rail.

The dog is safely on its lead and looking wet but with a smile on its face, as if knowing it’s now safe.

“Thank you so much for your help,” the lady says. “She somehow slipped her lead, saw the open gate and jumped on the ledge and into the water.”

“Then she panicked when she realised how strong the undercurrent was and how deep the water was,” the young lady added. “Thanks for helping, I was trying not to fall in, but I couldn’t not help her.”

“We all would have done the same. I’m glad we could help though,” Kean says.

After pretty much all of us patted the dog, we head back to where we left our supplies and finished packing up. I dry Adhan and see Tie has dried Kean

“So that was eventful.” Sal says from beside us. “We probably should have dried that young woman.”

“And how would we explain that?” I say.

“Magic?” Sal replies grinning.

I snort out a laugh and we all head for the cars.

We arrive home a few hours later and Ma and Pa turn up, bringing a birthday cake and presents for Temp. He stammers out a thank you and hugs the stuffing out of both of them.

All in all, spinster troll aside and a drowning dog, we had a really fun day. That’s not to say I ever want to put my hand in a bait bag or actually try crabbing, but it was fun.