A Blooming Rose

Chapter 17

There's thirty of us here. I know I've said it one too many times but thirty. When we all walked into the fancy dressy restaurant together, the man was in complete shock till dad gave him his name. He immediately lead us to our tables. Yes, they had to quite literally push together seven tables together to make enough space for us all to comfortably sit.

We all ordered our food one by one and I'm pretty sure the poor waiter was stressed over whether or not he got all our orders correct.

I'm pretty sure they had the entire kitchen staff and then some working to get our food out on time. Fairly enough, they returned twenty minutes large with eight trolleys full of food. The waiter looked stressed since he forgot whose was whose but we immediately eased his mind by simply taking the plates and passing them down the table to whoever's it was.

Once everyone had their food in front of them, dad stood up from the head of the table and tapped a spoon on his wine glass that had water in it.

"This dinner is for our kids working as hard as they do." He said as we all cheersed and took a sip.

"And to dad for surviving brain surgery." I grinned as I held my wine glass up. Don't worry it has apple juice in it.

We all cheered and clapped before digging in to our food. The entire table was full of light chatter with occasional jokes thrown in the air. The kids were all sat close to one another which was not a very smart idea since I could make out that they were playing a game. One by one, they crawled underneath the table and poked our legs till Elijah grabbed Easton and Hayden.

Unfortunately for them, their game was cut short as their parents quite literally pinned them down with a glare.

Winking at Hayley, I watched as she downed her glass of water discreetly put her glass on the floor. I did the same with my apple juice and looked over at Emma and Val. The two girls gave me a confused look before I motioned for them to go under the table.

The two of them managed to slip away while their parents ate and crawled under the table. I felt the glass being taken from my fingers and judging by Hayley's face, they took hers too.

Dropping my fork, I bent down to 'pick it up' and watched Emma and Val both crawled over to me.

"It's a little hot in here don't you think girls?" I winked as they shot each other a knowing look before taking the ice out of the glass.

Hayley and I watched as the two of them made their way over to four pairs of legs. Mason, Aiden, Noah, and Max.

I bit my lip to drop the laughter from bubbling out and patiently watched as they dropped the ice cubes in their socks before running back to their seats.

Hayley and I popped our heads back up just in time to see the four men leap out of their seats squealing like little girls.

"What the fudge?!" Aiden squealed as he jumped a good couple of feet in the air.

"My ankles are being bitten off!" Max yelled as he kicked his feet in air.

"Why the fuck is it so wet and slippery?!" Mason said as he reached down to pull the ice out.

"That's what she said." I blurted out as Hayley burst into a fit of laughter.

"I've got frostbite, my toes are going to fall off." Noah cried as the four of them caught the attention of every single person sitting in the restaurant.

There wasn't a single head that was not looking in our direction. A lot of people looked amused, some looked confused, while others looked annoyed. I could see one man in particular who looked as though he'd have smoke shooting out of his ears and nostrils. His entire bald head turned red.