“You have more than enough space for it,” she agreed. “The children will have an entire wing of the house with a hangout area, if you like the sound of that.”
“Oh yes.” I nodded in excitement.
I couldn’t help but be excited as we continued to talk about everything else for over an hour, and before I knew it, she was standing up and looking towards the boys. “How about I come over next week, sometime in the morning, and we can have a larger family meeting? I will have some concrete ideas by then, and once we get those down, we can inform the contractors. Despite the size of this project, I think we will get it done by the new year, if not sooner.”
I darted forward and gave her a hug despite it being unprofessional. She returned the hug before pulling back with an affectionate smile and said goodbye to the boys. I let out a happy sigh and nearly floated towards the table and sat down, unable to help the smile on my face.
“Good meeting?” Sterling asked.
“The best,” I admitted and then blushed.
“What?” King asked curiously.
I leaned against the table, tilting my head as I tried to consider how to bring this up without being a total weirdo. Sterling was now sitting down, the others still not paying attention fully, immersed in some big conversation about the game on television. Which was good. I could barely deal with the two of them in this conversation, let alone all six.
“So, she was asking me questions and I told her I want a bedroom to fit all of us,” I began, King sitting and nodding as if I was saying something completely reasonable. “And then, she asked me how many bedrooms we needed for future children.” I nibbled my lip.
Sterling froze as King continued to look at me, completely unperturbed. “I hope you told her ten.”
Sterling barked out a laugh as Yates walked over with the others. “What’s going on?”
“The designer asked Dahlia how many bedrooms we need for the kids,” Sterling explained.
“How many did you tell her?” Lincoln asked curiously.
“I said ten would be a good number,” King pointed out.
Dermot let out a hum of agreement. “If that’s what Dahlia wants, I wouldn’t complain.”
“Then again, fifteen is a rugby team…” Lincoln mused.
They were joking, right?
I blinked, my eyes darting between all of them, as Stratton came up behind me and leaned against the back of the chair, pressing a kiss to my shoulder, amusement radiating off of him.
Yates was watching me as he arched a brow. “What did you say, Dahlia?”
These men were crazy. That was the only explanation for it. What group of guys were invested in not only locking me down but also having a ton of kids with me? Like ‘Hey, Dahlia, let’s have ten kids if you want.’ I mean, I did want to have a lot of kids, but I really did not expect them to be so damn excited about it.
I felt like I was going to one day get used to them being like this, and then when we interacted with anyone outside of our family, they were going to think we were insane.
Okay, to be fair, we were insane, but that wasn’t the point.
“Well…” I inhaled sharply before rattling off my thoughts, “I had said at least six, and then she said six bedrooms and a bunk room and I said ‘let’s make it eight,’ plus the bunk room…mostly because I had no idea you freakin’ nutjobs would think it’s a good idea to have ten flippin’ kids!”
Silence filled the space before King broke out into a chuckle, followed by Dermot making another comment about a football team. The others were talking animatedly, and I just stared at them, not understanding how I didn’t see the truth in how crazy they were until now.
“Eight sounds about right,” Sterling agreed, drawing my attention.
“Whatever you’ll give us.” Stratton kissed my shoulder.
The other conversation broke through as Yates said, “May have to start soon for that to happen.”
“Yates!” My eyes went wide, though I was secretly loving this.
“What, bunny?” His lips pressed up. “You accept that I literally stalk you, and somehow me wanting to get you pregnant is shocking?”
“I mean, yeah, a bit!” I squeaked.