𝐿𝒾𝓏𝓏𝒾𝑒 ۶ৎ

At one point he tried lingering outside the door to see if he could hear what you were talking about, but a treacherous creaky floorboard gave him away and he had to escape the scene before either of you caught him red handed. 

Eventually, he was too hungry to keep hiding away. He had to interrupt out of fear of starving to death if he didn’t. 

He knocked first, but he knew it wasn’t a good sign when your voices died down the moment he walked into the room. Either you were talking about him, or you were talking about something you didn’t want him to know about. If he was being totally honest with himself, he didn’t know which one was worse. All he did know was that he didn’t like being ganged up on like this. And he was going to spiral, hard. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, trying to ignore the way his heart was racing uncomfortably. 

His mum smiled. “Nothing. Just talking.”

Part of him was screaming at him to leave the room. The air was almost suffocating and he had a strong feeling that was due to him ruining the moment. 

“Shall I leave?” 

You shook your head, patting the space next to you on the sofa for him to join. The evil smile on your face didn’t do much to calm his nerves. You knew this was going to drive him crazy for as long as you refused to tell him what was happening. “We were pretty much done. Come join us. What’s up?”

“Uh, I was just getting hungry. Wondered what everyone wanted to do?” He shuffled over hesitantly, sitting down stiffly in the seat next to you. He nearly flinched every time a bit of you accidentally touched him. You shouldn’t have taken so much joy in that fact, but seeing him wound up like this was a little bit hilarious. 

Alfie didn’t bring it up again until you were laid next to each other in bed much, much later. You were scrolling through your phone aimlessly, and you’d thought he was doing the same. Really he’d just been staring blankly at his screen for a while as he worked up the courage to ask you. 

“So, what were you and mum talking about?”

You rolled your eyes, laughing quietly. You knew something was on his mind when he’d been quiet for too long, you just hadn’t expected him to be thinking about this hours later. “It was nothing. Why are you so worried about it?”

He shrugged, trying to act like he didn’t care. “I’m not.” It was slowly eating away at him every time he thought about it. He wanted to let it go, he really did, but there was a tiny voice in the back of his head saying he couldn’t. In an ideal world he would roll over, close his eyes and go straight to sleep to forget about it. But even when he turned his back to you, it was like he could still hear the way you and his mum were laughing without him. 

With a huff he turned to face you again, being met with the same amused grin you’d been wearing for most of the night. “Why won’t you just tell me?” 

You rolled your eyes. “Why are you assuming we were talking shit about you? We could have been on about anything.” 

“Because you always talk shit about me. I know you, and I know that look on your face. You’re guilty, but you won’t admit it.” He was getting pretty passionate about this. 

Any other day you might have teased him and kept this up for as long as possible, but all the wine you’d been drinking with his mum had made you tired. You just wanted to go to sleep, not reassure your big man baby that you still loved him and wouldn’t dream of slagging him off with his mum. 

“Is there something we should have been talking about?”

He shook his head. “No! Obviously not, I just–” he groaned into his hands. He hated how much you were getting under his skin. You were probably doing this on purpose. “Can you just tell me if you were talking about me?” 

You rolled over, bringing the covers up to your chin and letting your eyes finally close. If he wanted to keep spiralling, he could do it quietly while you slept. “Nope. Goodnight, Alf.”

the sight of arabella standing right beside your bed shocked you to your core. seriously, your heart rate spiked dangerously at just her silhouette being on show.

“mummy?” she croaked.

“jesus christ, bella!” you hissed, sitting up and reaching over to flick your lamp on.

it illuminated the room in a sudden flash, making you both wince.

arabella had tears down her face and she was clutching her little cow pillow pet.

“what’s wrong, chick?” you frowned.

“i miss daddy.” she cried, face screwing up with a fresh wave of tears.

you sighed and hooked your hands under her armpits, lifting her into bed with you and cuddling her on your lap.

“i miss daddy too.” you hummed, flattening your palm over her hair. “but he already said goodnight to you.”

another round of hiccuping cries came from her as her fist clenching around your shirt.

“okay, baby. it’s okay.” you whispered, rocking her gently. “there we go, shhh.”

“call daddy.” she sniffled wetly.

“okay, let’s try call daddy.” you reached over to your bedside table, retrieving your phone and opening it.

arabella stared at the screen, watching your every move as you opened your contacts and pressed facetime on ‘alfie❤️’.

it rang a few times before the call connected and your boyfriends face took over the screen.

“alright, girl? why you up?” he asked with the sound of loud chatter and cutlery clattering in the background.

“someone missed you.” you sighed, panning the camera to arabella.

“alright, AB? why you waking your mummy up?”

“miss you daddy.” arabella pouted, reaching for the phone like it meant she would’ve been able to grab at him.

“oh, i miss you too, darlin’. two more days, yeah? can you be brave like that for me? and for mummy?”

her pout deepened and she rubbed at her eyes, blatantly overtired.

“come now.”

alfie laughed, throwing his head back, “i can’t come back now baby, i’m having my dinner.”

“please.” she whimpered.

“two days, okay? i promise.”

“two.”

“yeah. one, two. good?”

“okay.”

“good girl, bells. i’ll see you soon okay? love you lots and sleep well. behave for mummy, yeah?”

“love you too, daddy.”

you turned the phone away from her face and spoke to him a little longer before calling it a night once more.

arabella was now half asleep on the other side of your bed, her head pressed against her pillow pet.

you sighed, flicking your lamp off and leaving her there, deciding not to go through the hassle of getting her back into her own bed.

in the dark, she shuffled closer, sprawling herself out across you.

ALFIE NEVER THOUGHT you would’ve been a topic of discussion on the podcast. You were a secret that he didn’t want to risk outing, so he made sure to skate around the conversations of partners and dates.

It wasn’t even like you were dating, but you were something. Whether that was because you were the mother of his child or for an entirely different reason was up to you and him to decide, but it wasn’t up for public scrutiny or debate.

You made your own content, majorly around being a young mum and the support that was around for you at the time, things you found that helped and anymore big sister advice that people requested on, so you having a child wasn’t the secret, it was more so the fact that he was a dad — more importantly, the dad.

Chip and Cal knew, of course, but that was still something he felt unsure of.

They didn’t find out voluntarily. They’d come over unannounced once and seen a couple baby toys strewn about his floor since he’d had the weekend with the little one.

He made them swear they wouldn’t tell anyone, not Stan, not any of the other YouTube lot. Not even their fiancées.

The secrecy of him being a father and you being the mother was for a reason. For your own safety. He didn’t want any of his fans harassing you or your kid just purely based on the fact you had some relations to him that didn’t suit their narrative.

So when Max Khadar began speaking about you, Alfie couldn’t help but get a little bit protective.

“Nah, that girl … What's her name … ohhh what is it.” Max muttered, “The one with the kid …”

“There’s a lot of girls that have kids.” Chip laughed.

“Reader! Reader!” Max exclaimed as your name finally came to him.

“Oh, her, right.” Cal nodded, giving Alfie a quick side glance to try and get the gist of how the younger man was feeling.

He seemed to have zoned in on Max’s face, paying an intense amount of detail to every little expression the guest made.

“What about her?”

Max gaped as he looked at Cal, a smirk on his face, “Are you joking? Bro, she’s leng.”

The boys across from him began laughing hysterically at the tone in which Max had expressed his physical admiration for you. Alfie wasn’t as amused, but he gave a short chuckle to not look too out of place.

“You fancy her?” Cal pushed.

“Fancy? Bro, I wanna take her out. You know, nice dinner, then go back to hers— ahhh man, she’s so bad. So bad.”

“Why are you fantasising about her right now?” Chip guffawed, crossing one leg over the other.

“This is nothing.” Max waved his hands about dramatically, “Trust, I wanna give her another kid.”

“Alright, bro, chill.” Alfie laughed it off, trying to act like he was preventing his friend from getting into trouble rather than trying to shut him up before he said something that really made his blood boil.

“There’s nothing chill about her.” Max shook his head, “She is … ‘coz there’s levels to it. You’ve got fit,” He put his hand down before putting his other one way higher in the air, “And you’ve got leng. Reader is up here. Genuinely, I-I-I-“

Alfie began mimicking his stutter, slyly taking the piss out of him. Cal and Chip cackled.

“I would have bare kids with her. A whole football team. Trust, I’m on that.”

“You’re on that?” Cal challenged, “What, have you DM’d her?”

Max just shrugged.

“Have you actually?” Alfie asked, though his tone reeked of a serious energy.

So much for being low-key.

Alfie kind of hoped that you would’ve told him if someone from an adjacent circle had DM’d you in a romantic or sexual manner, but he could also recognise that just because you had a child together, didn’t mean that he had any claim over you.

Not unless he did something about that, of course.

“Why you pressed? Chill.” Max put a hand out in his direction, “Nah, I haven’t, but I will.”

“Swear she’s got a fella.” Alfie hummed, sitting back and playing with the wiring of his mic.

“Say wallahi.” His face fell dramatically.

“I dunno.” He shrugged, “I swore she made a video saying, like, ‘get ready with me for a date’.”

Yes, Alfie had most of your videos memorised, and yes that video was when you went around to his for dinner.

“Yeah … you’re on that.” Max gave him a knowing smile, “That was you, bro. She went on that date with you.”

“What?” Alfie laughed, pinching his nose bridge, “No she didn’t.”

“You’re the dad too, I know it.”

“Shut the fuck up, bro.”

Alfie was getting slightly annoyed.

It was one thing to assume you were dating, but to say he was the dad (joking, or not) was pushing it. He knew if one person theorised it, then another would, and another and another until it became a rumour that either of you would have to address.

When that episode dropped and all the clipping accounts got to work, it was a nightmare.

Having you send him one of the clips on Instagram and nothing else was enough to send his heart rate through the roof.

alfiebuttle: just ignore it x

yourusername: oh yeah i’ll just ignore people talking about wanting to shag me and talking about you being matilda’s dad

yourusername: thanks for standing up for me btw really liked that you let him say he wants to impregnate me

alfiebuttle: i didn’t know what to say without it being obvious x

alfiebuttle: are you actually mad? x

Alfie watched the text bubble appear, waver for a little while before disappearing completely. He sighed before typing another message.

alfiebuttle: i’m sorry x

yourusername: whatever, just do your damage control

He sent a quick red heart before going through the main clipping accounts and dropping a few nonchalant comments along the lines of ‘you guys are so dramatic😹’ or ‘chill i was just guessing’.

He didn't think it’d do much, but he felt that remaining completely silent was more guilty.

After he was done reposting and commenting, he dropped you another message

alfiebuttle: everything okay tonight? x

alfiebuttle: how is she x

yourusername: she’s ok, proper tired today x

When he received a picture of his two-year-old daughter sat on the floor, beaming up at the camera, his heart melted and a grin overtook his face without him being able to control it.

alfiebuttle: ❤️❤️❤️

alfiebuttle: did you take her out? x

yourusername: yeah, went park for a little bit ‘coz she kept fussing x

alfiebuttle: cute, lmk when u go next. i’ll come x

yourusername: what if someone sees x

alfiebuttle: shit yeah 🫤

yourusername: its alright u can come round for tea tomorrow, she’s been missing you x