Drake ✔️

Chapter 30

Shay

"Dude, I was gonna go for a smoke with Brent like a half hour ago. Is this gonna take much longer?" I say to Jax with a sigh as I lean back against the crib in the baby's room. Or is it a bassinette? Whatever the fuck she called it; the thing the kid's gonna sleep in. 

"Hang on, I just have one more outfit I wanna show you!" Jax chirps excitedly from inside the closet. She promised everybody she wasn't gonna go overboard buying clothes for the baby (leave some room for gifts, you know?) but she has totally gone overboard already. We got pinks, blues, lemons, creams and whites here. An assortment of high-end baby clothes that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. And I'm talking back when Annette did my shopping. 

"How cute is this!?" Jax exclaims, brandishing a size zero to three months pink baby dress in my face. I catch the tag, fucking Gucci?! She's buying her baby Gucci clothes, clothes that are barely gonna last three months and will never see the light of day if the baby's a boy. 

"Jax, you need to calm down." I murmur as she holds the dress up to the light, beaming at it. 

"Oh, whatever Taylor Swift. Stop being such a party pooper." She says as she hangs the dress back up on the pink side of the closet. Baby's wardrobe is perfectly categorised by colour and style, of course. 

"I'm not the one being a party pooper." I point out with a laugh. "You hear that music coming from downstairs? You hear all those people talking? That's a party and it's happening right now. Your party. We should be celebrating your new status as a home owner, not rifling through clothes you aren't even gonna need for another six or seven months."

"I'm excited." She defends herself, closing the closet and smiling around at me. "No one else accepted my invitation to come up and see the cute outfits I've bought. Thank you for humouring me."

"Humouring you? Girl you dragged me up here against my will." 

"You're my baby's aunt, your involvement is required." Jax smiles, taking my hand and walking me back out into the hallway. At long last! "And speaking of family... I think I'm getting somewhere on the Axel front. With Penn, you know?"

I do know. We've discussed this at length since Jax and Drake went out to South Bridge to visit my cousin. I was so thrilled when she told me Penn drove them out there, and he even considered taking Drake's place in the visit session. But he couldn't do it, he wasn't ready, which I get. Jax is holding out hope that Penn will feel ready in time. 

"He considering a visit?" I ask as we walk towards the staircase together. I haven't mentioned the visit to Penn myself because I don't wanna push him where Axel's concerned. I'll leave all the pushing to the girl that's carrying his child. And his heart.  

"Not exactly. Not yet, anyway. I know he wants to see him, though. I think a non-prison environment might work better, but obviously we don't know when Axel's gonna get out so that's a bit of a non-starter at this point." Jax says thoughtfully. 

"Why would a non-prison environment be better?" I ask with a frown. Surely Penn's first face off with Axel since the Radium Room should take place in a secure, highly monitored location? I mean, the guards have guns, you know? They keep that shit under control. 

"Well, besides the Radium Room, the last time Penn and Axel sat across from a table and talked to each other was when they were both in juvie. That was such a long time ago and a lot has happened since. Maybe the prison visit environment would hit a little too close to home for Penn? I don't know, just a thought."

Damn, maybe she has a point. That never even occurred to me. I just figured Penn wasn't ready to see Axel on account of how much he wants him to burn in hell for the rest of eternity. But Jax could be right.