Do I Wanna Know? || Ashton Irwin

8

Eli and Ella chose to go to a playground next, so from the restaurant we walked to the nearest indoor playground that we could find online. I kept a close eye on the twins, who were walking in front of me. Beside me, Ashton pushed the stroller with Jack in it. He wanted to see if he could feel like a cool dad while pushing a stroller, but I think he was just enjoying all of the swooning looks he was getting from women as we walked.

"I could get used to this!" Ashton began sauntering like he was going down a catwalk, sassy hair flips and all.

Lunch with Ashton and the kids went well, he'd ditched the cocky temper and joked around with me like he used to. I felt at home, but something in the back of my mind was telling me that this wouldn't last long. Nothing good ever did. The feeling in my gut was causing my mind to run wild, I almost feel dizzy. Perhaps it was because I had not taken my dose of medicine to sort me out for the day or I could use that in place of the reality that Ashton was making me feel this way.

We entered the facility and were met with children's screams and laughter, it was deafening. Ashton encouraged the kids to go on and play after he took their coats and folded them neatly, placing them in Jack's stroller after I plucked him from it and fed him.

"Your phone's vibrated at least a hundred times. You should check it." Ashton started digging through my coat pocket to find my phone.

"It's just work emails, stuff that can wait until tomorrow." I assured him, standing up and swaying with Jack as I fed him, smiling down at him. I needed to unsync my emails from being sent to my phone, they were much more of a disturbance than an advantage now. I almost felt like the emails coming through were attempting to distract me from the kids. The emails must want me to mess up, they were taunting me.

Kids ran past me at full speed. I couldn't remember having that much energy for it felt like a lifetime since I'd felt energized to sprint around carelessly and laugh like I didn't have a care in the world.

"You've done really well with the kids so far." Ashton stood by my side, gently brushing the little bit of hair Jack had.

I didn't feel as if I'd made any progress with the kids. I still felt like a mess. Sure, I made sure they went to school, they were fed, they bathed, they slept, I spent as much time with them as I could, but was that really enough? There was so much more I could be doing, but I didn't know what. Maybe I could find a group of mom's to join and get advice from them, or do some research. Who knows? There has got to be at least a couple of people who were in the same position as myself that could help me. I needed all the help I could get because talking on the role of Mommy would never be easy.

"Do you really think so?"

"I'm no professional, but they appear to be responding to you very well." Ashton helpfully pulled out a cloth, throwing it over his shoulder and taking Jack from me to burp him. When I came to my senses, realizing how natural all of this was, I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach a million times. "I think they've adjusted to New York life quickly."

For all I knew, the twins believed they were here visiting. Eli still asked when Ana and Jack were going to pick them up. He asked every night before he went to sleep. I continued to spit lie after lie, despite telling myself that I'd stop. I knew the kids needed to know the actual truth, instead of being blinded by their family's lies so they weren't hurt. But I believed we were only hurting them more by continuously lying to them for our own good.

"How are you and erm, Richard?" Ashton flinched at the intensity of the baby's burp. He didn't hand the baby over even when he was done burping him. From what Luke's told me, Ashton had been obsessed with Jack since he was born. The entire band were obsessed with the kids, so much that Calum and Michael were even eager to have kids of their own...not together, obviously.

"He's away right now." I waved to Ella who was waving from the top of the slide she sat upon.

"On a business trip?"

"He found something of ours - you and me - he got upset. We fought and he decided to leave."

"For good?" There was a hint of hopefulness in Ashton's voice, even his eyes were hopeful. "What did he find?"

"I don't know the length of his departure." I shrugged. "He found a letter in one of the books."

"You still have them?" He sounded very surprised. Like he expected me to get rid of them after the last letter. I kept all the letters except the last excruciating letter. It would be a bad omen to keep that last letter. I wouldn't admit it most of the time, but I could be obsessively into believing the oddest things were superstitious.

"I've considered taking them out of the books and putting them away, but I chose to leave them there and now here I am." It wasn't necessarily a bad thing to be in this position right now. I was glad I had kept the letters in the books because if I didn't, I would not be here with Ashton.

ok so i know this was a terrible update but guys im going to see fall out boy in a few hours ahhhh so this update turned out bad bc im trying to get ready for the concert and idk sorry this sucked :(