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‘I suppose being engaged to Nicholas Kaden, you become kind of immune to celebrity,’ Lisa suggested.
‘I guess so. The thing is, I don’t even think of Nick as a celebrity. He’s just, you know, normal,’ Freya said. She looked over to where Nicholas was helping Sam, Brian and Casey light the barbeque.
‘Believe me, honey, there aren’t many “normal” men on the planet that look as good as he does,’ Lisa told her.
‘Oh don’t tell him that. I don’t want him getting the idea that he’s handsome or anything,’ Freya joked with a smile.
‘So, when are you two going to get married? Have you talked about a date yet? And where do you think you’ll do it? You know if you live in Mayleaf, you get to have a wedding in the square if you want it,’ Jolie said.
‘Oh, we haven’t really talked about a date. We’re just so busy, there hasn’t been time to think about it.’
She hadn’t thought about it. Not at all. Was that strange? When she’d accepted his proposal, she’d accepted because she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, but the actual getting married part she hadn’t really considered. What did she want and when did she want it? She knew there was barely a gap in her diary for the next six months.
‘I remember when Sam asked me to marry him. I said I wasn’t going to get engaged to him until we’d set a date for the wedding. Long engagements are just a man’s way of putting off the big day if you ask me,’ Jolie remarked to the group.
‘Well, we haven’t had a long engagement yet. I mean, we’ve only been engaged six months or so,’ Freya answered. Why did she feel like she had to justify why they hadn’t set a date?
‘Oh Freya, I wasn’t meaning Nick was trying to put things off. Me and my big mouth! No, I just meant that for me, a long engagement was out of the question. Well, I was pregnant with twins,’ Jolie explained with a laugh.
‘Are children something else we should have had by now?’ Freya asked.
Their faces told her they weren’t sure if she was joking. She laughed and they relaxed.
‘My advice: leave off having kids for a few years. Your life’s not your own once they’re here,’ Jolie said.
The others at the table all nodded.
‘Or better still, don’t have them at all. They mess up your house and they don’t understand the importance of not covering Mommy with sticky finger marks before she goes to work,’ Lisa added.
‘How old are your children?’ Freya asked her.
‘Seventeen and nineteen and the sticky hands and messy house still applies.’
8
It was gone midnight when the party drew to a close and everyone began to leave.
‘Brian’s asleep in the dog kennel, Sam. He can’t stay there; he’ll freeze to death,’ Jolie told her husband as he said goodbye to his guests.
‘Oh my God this is the fourth “Brian Episode” of the night! I’m just going to take a picture,’ Freya announced. She hurried back through the house and out to the garden.
‘Freya really does take photographs of everything, doesn’t she?’ Jolie remarked as Sam followed Freya in a bid to wake Brian up.
‘Yes she does,’ Nicholas replied with a smile.
‘She’s very talented. I saw the photographs she took of the Christian Fathers bridges. They’re beautiful,’ Jolie told him.
‘She has a thing about those bridges. Some things she sees, she just gets taken with and she kind of immerses herself in them. Put it this way: she gets more excited photographing those bridges than she did taking pictures of Kiefer Sutherland in the buff,’ Nicholas tried to explain.
‘An unnatural reaction, I would say.’
‘Unusual I admit, but I’m not sure the same would apply if it were Bruce Willis with no clothes on.’
Freya returned, a smile on her face and her small digital camera in her hand.
‘You should have seen Brian. He had his head in Rusty’s biscuit bowl and a bone in his hand.’
‘Has Sam woken him up yet? I could really do without him staying over tonight. We have to be up early in the morning,’ Jolie said, looking at her watch.
