Worry Rock

You know that expression, whenever you want to find something it can’t be found, and when you’ve moved on its found? It seemed to be biting us in the butt.

When you’re trying to get pregnant, most people buy about fifteen pregnancy tests at once and must check every time after they have sex. Sadly, that was Billie Joe and I. So desperate after what seemed thousands of failed attempts to have another child as soon as we could.

But when there is only one chance a month to get it right, we couldn’t seem to. Granted, we had only just started trying, truthfully, but the months seemed longer and the one week seemed shorter.

Billie Joe slowly rolled off of me, his body resting next to mine as we both lay on our back. He sighed loudly, sucking in a large amount of air as he wiped a bead of sweat that was slowly rolling down his forehead. He closed his eyes slowly and ran a hand through his dark, damp hair. “Fuck,” he breathed out, not knowing what else to say.

“Mmm,” I hummed in agreement, licking my bottom lip.

A long, comfortable silence overcame the both of us, both of our bodies calming down from the sexual romp we had just had as soon as our daughter had gotten on the bus. It had been like that for the past few weeks, both of us sneaking as many romps as we could during the day and even night.

We hadn’t told anyone about us trying to get me pregnant again. Because truthfully, both of us didn’t want to hear what everyone would say. It was our decision, and not theirs to control. We didn’t tell Sydney for the sake of her own imagination. We’d tell everyone when it was confirmed that I was pregnant, if I got pregnant. Not when we were trying to get me pregnant.

“When was the last time you took the pill?” My husband asked, looking over at me.

I shrugged, moving to rest my head on his chest. “Not lately. Probably a few weeks before your birthday. I haven’t taken it since you told me you wanted a kid.”

“Kay,” he murmured, running a hand idly through my dark hair. “Just…making sure. Feels like we’ve been trying for fucking years.”

I laughed as I ran a hand down his multi-colored tattooed chest, tracing a circle around his nipple. “It’s March,” I said gently. “That’s only one month we’ve been trying, and I’m not due til’ next week.”

“It should work then, right?” he asked, his eyes fixated on the wooden beams that ran across the ceiling.

I shrugged. “I’d think so, but I’m not a doctor. I know the simple things. You get a man and a woman, they fuck and a baby pops out nine months later.”

Billie Joe laughed, hugging me closer to him. “Well with talk like that, you’d pass as a doctor.”

I giggled. “I know,” I said, playing along as I curled up more against his side, moving my leg to that it was tangled within his own. “But they’re all just so jealous of my capability to be one, so they reject me every time.”

He started to laugh again, leaning his head closer to mine. We shared a sweet, small kiss as he gently laid his head on my shoulder. “I love this,” he admitted with a shy smile as he gestured to him and me before resting his hand over my waist. “Just laying here. You and I together in bed all morning after the kid goes for school,” his lips gently grazed my ear, “Trying to make more.”

A shiver ran down my spine as I turned to face him. I went to say something, only to be cut off by his soft lips pressing themselves against my own. “You’re cheesy,” I cooed with an innocent smile, “but I love it.”

Billie Joe grinned widely, showing his crooked, slightly yellow teeth. I watched as his grin slowly turned to a slight painful frown. I arched an eyebrow slowly, confused by his sudden change in attitude. “Joe,” he murmured his voice barely above a whisper, “What if it doesn’t work?”

Way to think negative, Billie.

I shrugged and pulled my hair to one side of my face. Billie Joe looked over at me, as if he were waiting for an answer. “Why wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “but it just seems that we’re trying so hard that it won’t.”

I pushed my body closer to his on the mattress and wrapped and shifted onto my stomach. I dropped an arm to across his stomach and leaned up to kiss the bottom of his chin. “I think you need to be more of an optimist instead of a pessimist. Life works out how it’s supposed to be.”

“You sound like you’re going all spiritual on me,” he growled. I couldn’t help but start laughing, in which made Billie Joe crack a grin. I rested my upper-body on Billie Joe’s belly, and folded my arms, placing them on his chest with my head on them. He slowly lifted an arm and draped it across my bare back. “I love you, Joe,” he breathed out as his eyes closed. I smiled gently and moved my head to kiss his chest, just above his nipple. “Do you think Sydney would mind us having another baby?” he asked slowly, one of his eyes opening. “I mean…she’s been an only child…would it bother her, do you think?”

“It shouldn’t,” I said with a shrug, “I enjoyed having a brother.”

“And my brothers and sisters didn’t hate me too much.”

I laughed at Billie Joe’s remark about his family and shook my head. “What are you saying?” I asked gently, sitting up slightly, although not much since Billie Joe pulled me back down, comfortable as we were. “You think we should run the idea by her?”

He shrugged and then nodded slightly. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

“I’m betting,” I mumbled, tapping a finger against my chin, “That the only words she’d hear are We’re trying to have another baby and be immediately disgusted.” Billie Joe arched an eyebrow. “She’d know that her parents were having sex many times, darling. No thirteen, turning fourteen year old would ever want to know that. Especially girls.”

“So you think,” he pondered, “that we just knock you up and then tell her?”

“We could act like it was a surprise.”

Billie Joe snorted loudly. “Oh that’d work great.” He paused and then fixed his voice to imitate a woman, “Oh my god, Sydney! Your father accidentally knocked me up while we were having sex right after you went to school one morning, since we do it every day!"

I sat up more and wrapped the duvet around my chest as I whacked him. He started laughing as I rolled my eyes at him and slowly crawled off the bed, pulling the cover off the bed and off of him, leaving only his naked body on the mattress, the rest of the covers having fallen off the bed during the night.

I grinned flirtatiously at him and winked before wolf whistling. Billie Joe’s cheeks flushed pink as he pulled his body up into a sitting position. He crawled off of the bed as I turned to open the bathroom door and threw his body onto mine, knocking both of us onto the wooden floors.

We both lay there for a moment, the duvet wrapped tightly around me as Billie Joe was still naked. He moved his head slightly so that he could see me and he grinned after puckering his lips. He continued to stare at me for a moment before I turned to look at him. “What?” I asked lightly.

“Were you going to take a shower?” he asked, the corners of his lips twisting into a mischievous smile, a glint in his eyes from the dirty thoughts that were entering his mind.

I wriggled my eyebrows and stuck my tongue out. “Maybe. Because you know,” I said, mustering up a seductive tone, “I was in the mood for a hot, steamy shower-“

Before I could continue, my lips were being pulled apart by another pair, Billie Joe’s mouth over my own. He groaned into the kiss, his fingers slowly creeping underneath the duvet. A cool hand slid up my thigh and Billie Joe pulled away for a moment and let out a long breath before he turned back to pull us back into another heated kiss.

I placed my hand on his chest and shook my head as I still tried to gather a breath. My eyes connected with his for a short moment before I turned to look back at the bathroom door. Billie Joe stared at me with dazed and slightly confused eyes before he got the message. His pink lips formed into a full grin as he scrambled upwards slightly. He grabbed onto the duvet that was slowly falling off of my body and pulled it back around him and around me so that our bodies were both pressed together inside of it.

Billie Joe’s rough hands gently slid around my body to my back and he pulled both of us, letting one hand go of me to grab the end of the duvet as we both stumbled back and crashed into the bathroom door, it flying open and us falling in and onto the tiled floor. We both started laughing as we both lay on the bathroom floor, both of us tangled together.

My head rolled back and I looked at the shower and then to him, wriggling my eyebrows. Billie Joe grinned furiously as we both clambered up. He stumbled over to the shower to turn it on as I turned back around to close and lock the bathroom door, the whole time both of us giggling like teenagers.

***

Billie Joe sat leaning over the island in the kitchen, a newspaper clutched in his hand. It was hard to keep his mind off of what was going on upstairs, but he really was trying. It was hard to, though, especially when the ‘what-ifs’ started to enter his mind. He didn’t dare tell his wife about the dream he had had the other night of her running down the stairs to tell him that it had worked. He knew it would just put a non-needed mood over the Armstrong household.

There was a soft patter of footsteps down the stairs and into the kitchen. The mid-forty year old sat up straighter and turned around to look at an obviously unhappy female that entered the kitchen. He forced a sincere smile as I trudged over and into his arms. “No go?” he asked softly.

“No,” I murmured, my words muffled by his t-shirt.

He expected it, but it didn’t stop his heart from dropping slightly. “You sure?” he asked, a slight glimmer of hope in his voice.

“I got my period this morning,” I mumbled. “I’m more positive than I want to be.”

“It’s alright, darling,” he said sweetly as he wrapped two arms around me and pulled me onto his back. “S’not like I’m dying. We have plenty of time.”

“I don’t want plenty of time,” I huffed like a small child. “I want to get pregnant, Billie.”

“Trust me, me too, darling.”

There was a silence in the Armstrong house for a moment, Billie Joe and I being the only one’s home as Sydney was already in school. “I’m a terrible wife,” I spat angrily to myself, catching Billie Joe off guard.

“Excuse me?” he asked slowly.

“I can’t even get pregnant for you,” I muttered angrily, “Jesus. Two months worth of trying and I’ve failed both fucking times.”

Billie Joe stared at me, puzzled. “Joe…Joe, s’alright.”

“No it’s not,” I said rudely, “I can’t even get pregnant. Yet, you and Adrienne had another kid so easily.”

That hit a sore spot. His jaw tightened as his pupils dilated. “I don’t see what that has to do with this.” His voice was calm although I could tell that he was disgusted with what I had just said.

“It has a lot to do, Billie. You must think I’m pathetic.” I rolled my eyes, a few tears leaking out from the bottom. “Adie got pregnant quickly with Jacob, only a few years after Joey. But thirteen years later after having Sydney I cannot.”

“You’re two completely different people, Joe,” he snipped.

“I know, Billie. And I agree, we are.”

“Then I don’t see the problem.”

I sighed heavily and shook my head. Billie Joe stared at me curiously. “I bet if you were still with her and wanted a kid she’d be pregnant by now.”

Billie Joe scowled at me. “Don’t, Joe.”

“I’m not doing anything, Billie,” I spat. “I’m stating the truth.”

“No you’re not,” he hissed, throwing the newspaper onto the counter roughly. “You’re stating shitty things inside your mind to piss me and you off.”

“No,” I whispered. “You had two kids so easily with her. We’ve had one.”

“Big fucking deal,” he snapped at me, “I’m fucking warning you, Joe. Don’t you dare start to compare yourself to Adie. Don’t you fucking dare. She is my ex-fucking wife. You are two fucking different people. Stop trying to make yourself feel like shit. You’re worse than a goddamn teenager.”

I just stared at him for a moment, surprised by his outburst. “Are you yelling at me because you’re angry, or because you know it’s true?”

He pushed me off of his lap rudely and stood up. “I’m yelling at you because you’re being a fucking teenager, and I refuse to speak to you when you’re like this. I’ll hold you and help you when you’re upset over not getting pregnant, but comparing yourself to my ex-wife is where I draw the fucking line.”

I had an emotionless expression on my face as he slumped back down onto the stool, disgusted with me in how the conversation went. The beeping of the dryer went off, saving me from an extremely awkward and uncomfortable silence.

I wiped my eyes briskly and stepped out of the kitchen, making my way towards the laundry room.

It’s called PMS, Billie.

***

My legs were folded underneath me as I sat on the floor. Charlie was sound asleep in my lap and I was folding one of Billie Joe’s Adeline t-shirts. Charlie lifted his small head slowly and dragged his tongue up my arm before resting his head on it. I smiled softly and leant down to kiss it.

Charlie looked back up at me once more before he stood up, yawned, and then hopped down from my lap and trotted over to his bed. I stood up slowly and gathered a pile of clothes to carry up to our bedroom to then sort into the dressers.

I steadied myself out and regained my balance. As I went to take a step I felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around my waist and the back of my body being pulled up against another. I felt myself sigh as the grip became tighter and Billie Joe’s face came into view from the side of my eyes. He lifted my shirt with his thumb and placed his cool hands against my stomach before burying his head into the crook of my neck. He had been avoiding me completely that whole afternoon by staying in the studio. “I want to know something,” he murmured, his lips gently grazing the skin on my neck.

“Okay,” I said softly as my eyes slowly looked upon his face.

“Do you compare yourself to Adie a lot?”

“No,” I stated simply.

And it was true. I never did. We weren’t similar enough to compare to, to begin with, and it was rather of a waste of time to compare myself to her. We were different, along with the other billions of people that lived on the earth. “Then why are you now?” he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders and turned to face him. He pressed his lips hesitantly against my own. “You don’t’ know how long it took me to have Joey and Jacob, and neither do I,” he paused and smiled slightly. “Darling, the point is, I was so angry with you because I never want you to compare yourself to anyone…as completely cheesy that sounds.”

I smiled sadly as I leant down to place the folded laundry onto the ground before being taken back into his arms. “It’s hard not to,” I admitted as I buried my head into his shoulder. “I know you want a child—,”

“Yes,” he said, cutting me off, “But because you’re not getting pregnant right away…baby, that’s no reason to start…eh,” he thought for a moment, trying to find the right words, “...Putting yourself down.”

I just nodded as if I were Sydney being scolded at. “I love you, baby,” he cooed.

My lips parted and formed into a smile as I leaned against him and touched his lips to my own. Billie smiled into the short yet sweet kiss and wrapped his arms around me tighter. His lips lightly fluttered up and down my neck, being careful that we never got any farther because of the fact that our daughter would be home.

Billie Joe’s lips found my own once again and he gently slid his tongue past my own lips, a growl of arousal arising in the back of his throat as he moved his hand upwards to cup my cheek. It took both of us the greatest amount of willpower to pull our bodies off and away from each others as we heard the front door open, signaling that Sydney had walked in. When the door closed, Billie Joe finally pulled his mouth off of mine and grinned. “We’ll finish this later,” he whispered into my ear, placing a gentle kiss on my neck. I just nodded, my eyes closed somewhat.

I don't know, I'm still a little wild and crazy
Baby let me finish it later, I just love it when you -- Oh don't touch me there