Worry Rock

I was one of those pregnant women who loved to be pregnant.

Meaning, I loved every single thing about it. I loved my growing stomach, I loved the feeling of my baby kicking all the time, I loved the amount of time I slept during the day, the sleepless nights, the sex, the eating—everything. I loved being pregnant.

A lot of women when they’re pregnant are miserable due to mood swings and insecurities. They hated growing a larger stomach and had constant morning sickness, making it so they couldn’t eat or even smell certain foods. They were miserable ninety-percent of the time. They were now Billie Joe Armstrong.

He wasn’t miserable, per say, but he had all of the above. His sickness, as the weeks went on got more frequent and the poor man found himself hugging the porcelain bowl a lot more than either of us had expected. When we went at sixteen weeks for my sonogram, Billie Joe had of course brought it up. Our doctor had simply grinned and then laughed at my poor, pale husband.

“It’s completely normal. Sometimes the sympathy pregnancy symptoms can be worse than the actual pregnancy.”

“Whoopty-fucking-doo,” Billie Joe hissed as he sat down next to me. “Don’t I feel fucking lucky?” He turned to rest his forehead on my shoulder. I grinned as I gently stroked the back of his head.

“Have you spoken to your baby yet?” Alicia asked while leaning against the counter next to us. At that, both Billie Joe and I turned to look at our doctor in surprise. She laughed. “I’m taking that as a no?”

"Well, we have," I stated, "but--,"

“Can he hear us?” Billie Joe interrupted, finishing my sentence.

Alicia nodded. “Yes, of course.” She smiled at the two of us. “He seems to be moving right along.”

And that would explain why now, at seventeen weeks pregnant, I was lying in bed with my husband straddling one of my legs, his face buried into my stomach as he spoke with the earphones up against it next to him while he went through songs on his iPod. “Billie,” I called.

Billie Joe lifted his head slightly while looking up at me from the under his eyelashes. “What?” He asked while shifting to sit up so he could see my face.

“Don’t let him listen to any songs with swear words in them. I’d like to keep it PG since he’s still only a fetus.”

I watched as a large grin broke out on my husband’s face while his nose scrunched slightly and his eyes narrowed in amusement. He gently kissed my stomach and nodded. “I know, I’m just introducing him to the right music.”

I snorted loudly while Billie Joe continued to grin. He handed his iPod to me to let me chose the next songs while he stuck one earphone in his ear, placing the other back on my stomach. “Alright,” he murmured into my stomach, “kick if you like it, little man. Now, it’s your mom choosing the music so don’t be surprised if it’s some weird shi—crap from my iPod.” He gasped and bit down on his tongue tightly to stop himself from cursing as I kneed him in the balls. “Alright, alright, I’m sorry. Zach, your mom has fantastic taste in music so listen closely.” Billie Joe continued to explain each and every song that I had flipped to on the iPod, occasionally telling me to skip since he knew the songs better than I did. Eventually, my husband sat up and crawled up next to where my head rested on a pillow. He dropped down next to me and wrapped both arms around my torso. “I think that’s enough music lecturing for one day.”

I laughed as Billie Joe stretched out next to me on the bed and dropped his iPod onto the wooden floors beneath our bed. “I think because you’ve done nothing but play rock music for him since Alicia told us to talk to him, he’s going to grow up and become rebellious and listen to nothing but 50 Cent, Eminem, and etcetera.”

Billie Joe scowled. “That’s not funny, Joe. I’ll fucking kick him out of the house at age twelve if he listens to that shit. He’ll be out of the goddamn streets rapping for money.”

I burst into a fit of giggles. “You’d disown our son if he decided to be different in this family and enjoy a different style of music?”

“If he likes country, fine. Pop, fine. Techno, fine. If he likes Rap music yes, I will fucking disown him because he will be going against everything I stand for.”

“It’s a type of music you damn dictator—and you wondered why Sydney was so bossy with you when she was pushing you up the stairs so you’d apologize to me!”

I pulled myself up to a sitting position while my husband tightened his grip around me and groaned loudly in protest. “She’s a goddamn dictator, Joe. I swear to god if she ever hates me I’m screwed. You’ll wake up one morning to see her fucking cooking “bacon” to find it’s really Sliced Billie Joe Armstrong—where the fuck are you going?”

Billie Joe sat up and tried to grab onto my wrist as I pulled my tank top over my head and put on a bra, I turned to look at him, but stepped out of his reach. “Do my breasts look bigger?” I asked.

“They look delicious—where the fuck are you going? Why oh why are you putting on a bra?”

“Delicious isn’t the answer I was going for,” I muttered. “I was just wondering if they had swelled because they’re sensitive as hell.”

“They look great, baby. As good as or better than before. I love your boobs and I always have. Now where the fuck are you going? Why are you getting dressed now?”

I turned my attention from my chest to my spluttering husband who was now getting up and off the bed while hastily pulling up his falling boxers. I pulled open a drawer to pull out a pair of gym shorts [seeing as my regular shorts that didn’t stretched were way too tight by now] and went to change into them, however Billie Joe ripped them from my grip. I jumped and turned to look at him in confusion. “What?” I asked.

“Where are you going?” He asked slowly, as if I was a bit slow and had trouble understanding him.

“Oh,” I sighed, “I’m going to Travis’s for a few hours.”

Billie Joe’s face contorted to confusion. “Travis’s? Why?”

I shrugged and grabbed my shorts once I realized that his grip on them had loosened. I rolled my eyes as I changed into them while my husband continued to stand next to me and watch me dress, though protesting the whole time. “Why are you going there? I liked what we were doing this morning.” Billie Joe picked up my hand, placed it in his own and began to try to pull me back over to the bed. “Come on. Sydney’s in school, it’s just me you and Zach. But really, me and you. In a few months we’ll be begging for this time and you’ll be regretting leaving me to go to his house,” he whined.

“Maybe you should call Mike and Tre, on that note,” I suggested.

Billie Joe cocked an eyebrow. “Why the hell would I want to do that?”

I laughed while pulling on my shorts. “Because they’re your best friends and band mates?” When my husband continued to give me a blank look, obviously not understand what I was getting at, I rolled my eyes. “Billie, do they know that we’re having another baby?”

“Does Travis know?” He bickered.

“I don’t know,” I muttered, “he may, considering he was the one who called you when I was getting sick. He may have figured—,”

“I meant have you told him?” Billie Joe interrupted.

“Oh. Oh, no.” Billie Joe went to speak, but I held up a hand to silence him and I continued. “However, that’s what I’m going over to say.”

Wordlessly, the rock star standing before me turned around and grabbed the house phone from its charger next to our bed. He grabbed my hand and placed it in it. “That is how you tell someone you’re pregnant, Joe. You don’t need to fuckin’ sit down and explain it all to them. You don’t need to sit Travis down like we did with Sydney. He’s a little older than fourteen, babe.”

“Really?” I gasped. “Oh man, you mean he’s been lying to me? That bastard!”

Billie Joe sighed and ran a hand through his brown hair hastily, pausing to tug on it a few times. “Joe, why can’t you stay here? I want to spend time with you.”

I flicked on the light to the walk-in closet and stepped in, my husband fast on my heels. When I heard the door to the closet close, I groaned and turned to face him. “Billie, we’re together every day and every night—,”

“When I’m not on tour,” he interrupted. "Or at Adeline."

“Which you haven’t been on for a good two years and you're hardly ever at Adeline, Adrienne does just about everything there and seldom calls you to come in.”

“I’m in the studio all the time when I’m home,” he argued.

“The studio that you had built in downstairs, yes, you are,” I agreed, “and half the time you pull me down there with you. If you mean the other studio, where you Mike and Tre all meet up, well, you haven’t been there for a month or so.” I sighed as I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Baby, stop whining. I’ll be home around three or four.”

“But Sydney’s home then!” He moaned. “We won’t be alone.”

I rolled my eyes and went back searching for my shoes on one of the racks that were in the back of the closet. “Cry me a river, darling. Why can’t we do what we were doing this morning when she’s home? We weren’t having sex; we were “bonding” with Zach. You were threatening to kick him out when he’s not even a teenager if he likes rap music. What have we done today that we can’t do when Sydney’s home?”

“I may want sex by then,” he mumbled, shuffling his feet. “In fact, I think I want it now.” I turned and looked over my shoulder at my husband to see him grabbing himself through his boxers and rolled my eyes. “You can’t go now, I want sex, see?”

I chuckled while rolling my eyes again, pulling my flip flops out from a rack. “So do what you did before you met me.”

“Are you suggesting I jack off?” He paused and leant back against the hanging clothes, “because this conversation can go two ways. Or three, if you’ll just stay here.” A wild grin suddenly spread over his face. “Joe, let’s have closet sex. We haven’t done that in a while—oh come on! Don’t you remember last time?”

“You mean when you tripped over the pair of pants you left on the floor here because you were too lazy to pick up and we both fell?” I asked sarcastically. “Yeah, hon. I’ve still got the scar on my elbow where a hanger that you also left out cut me.”

Billie Joe lifted a hand and rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh, that was last time, huh?” He chuckled. “Funny, I forgot about that.”

I laughed mockingly. “Go figure.” My husband grinned sheepishly as he stepped closer to me and wrapped both arms around my body. He pulled me against him and gently pressed his lips to my neck, sucking lightly. Back during the first few times the rock star and I had ever had sex he had realized what a turn on it was to me. I giggled as he slowly moved his lips up and down my neck, biting occasionally. “Are you trying to give me a hickey in hopes that I won’t go because I don’t want Travis to see it?”

“Mmmhm,” he hummed.

I snickered and gently pushed him back, however his lips didn’t detach themselves from my neck. “I have cover-up, baby. And I don’t see as to why you think Travis would care about a hickey when I’m telling him that I’m pregnant.”

“Because he can see a hickey,” he mumbled, his voice muffled by my skin, “and since you’re so goddamn pale, it’ll stand out like hell—taunting him since I gave it to you.”

I rolled my eyes while stepping forward to push my husband up against the back wall of the closet so that I could push against him to get him off of me. “Think of our daughter, Beej. She’s been traumatized enough for this month, possibly even year.”

At that, Billie Joe pulled his lips from my neck. He lifted a hand from around my waist and wiped away the saliva, then chuckled. “Alright, you’re right with that one. I think we’re lucky she hasn’t gauged her eyes out yet.” I giggled while he grinned. “You have to go?” He mumbled after a minute. I nodded and he exhaled heavily. “But what if I get sick?” He asked, pouting. “I get sick a lot, Joe. Shouldn’t you be here to hold me? I like to be held when I’m sick.”

“You’ve barely gotten sick this morning.” Billie Joe opened his mouth and took the hand that he had just used to wipe the saliva off my neck. He stuck out one finger and his tongue and then winked as he went to shove his finger in his throat. My eyes widened as he did so and I grabbed his arm, pulling his finger from his mouth. “What are you, crazy?”

My husband shrugged. “I guess so; I mean you spend every day with me so you’d know better than me.”

I scowled while lacing my fingers with the one that he had just shoved into his mouth. “Don’t be an asshole, Bill. Making yourself puke is pathetic.” I kissed just to the right of his lips. “I love you. I’ll be home soon.”

+++

Travis eyed me suspiciously as I stepped into the entryway to his large home, wearing the sweater that he had let me borrow earlier that year. “You’re really wearing a sweater?” He asked with a laugh. I looked up to sleee him wearing a t-shirt and shorts, but nothing else. “It’s burning out, Mand.”

“I know,” I stated with a grin as I stepped inside. “But I had the A/C on and Billie let me take the Lexus. I’m not sure if you’ve ever been in it, but that car has the most kickass air conditioning ever. I feel like I’m back in Connecticut.” I shrugged. “And I wanted to give you it back, so I figured I’d wear it over.” I bent over to the best of my ability and pulled Travis’s sweater over my head and off, leaving me in my tank top and gym shorts. Travis grinned and reached out to take his sweater. I stood up straighter and pulled my tank top down over my protruding stomach before outstretching my arm to allow him to take his sweater. However, all he seemed to be able to do was stare with his mouth hanging open. I cocked an eyebrow as if I was confused at his reaction and then looked down at my stomach. “Oh,” I mumbled, “I meant to ask—have I gained weight recently, do you think?”

Travis continued to stare at my stomach in shock and then up at me. “I don’t want to ask a question and then get beaten for it,” he admitted.

I laughed while placing my hands on my stomach. “I won’t be offended, really.”

Travis smirked slightly. I looked down at his hands to see him twisting the sweatshirt I had just given back to him nervously, wringing it out as if it was full of water. “Have you started drinking beer—a lot?”

I gasped loudly and whacked Travis’s shoulder as hard as I could while he started to laugh, thankfully lighting the mood. “You asshole!”

Travis continued to laugh as I continued to hit his arms as hard as I could. “What?” He cried out. “Alright, alright I’m sorry!” I slowly stopped hitting him and he slowly stopped laughing. He eventually dropped his sweater and grabbed onto both of my hands to stop me from hitting him. We both eventually stopped moving and only looked at each other.

“I’m pregnant,” I finally stated.

Travis chuckled nervously, his grip on my hands tightening slightly. “With what, twins?”

I giggled at that and tore my hands from his to wrap around his neck as I hugged him. “I’m seventeen weeks pregnant,” I admitted into his neck while hugging him. “I’ve been pregnant since the real beginning of May or late April, I can’t honestly remember the date they told us. I’m sure Billie can—oh god, Travis, he’s ecstatic. We both are. I wasn’t sure I wanted this baby at first, I mean obviously, with the birth control and all but apparently that didn’t matter because I am four months pregnant.”

“May?” Travis repeated, somehow picking words up from my babbling. “How since May? Didn’t you begin taking the pills then?”

“Around,” I agreed, “I don’t know, though! What confuses me most is when we went to the hospital when Billie Joe set up the appointment, they had no idea. I would have figured they would have seen that I was actually pregnant.”

“Maybe they figured you knew? They’re all lazy sonofabitch’s here. Who the hell knows—oh god, Mand. I’m so happy for you.” He pressed his lips to my cheek, a full grin on his face. “I was worried about you and Billie ever since you told him about the birth control. You and your husband are both stubborn as hell.” I nodded slowly, not bothering to deny it anymore as Travis lead me through his large house and into the kitchen. He chuckled. “I’m probably going to regret asking this, but are you hungry?”

“Oh my god,” I gasped, completely ignoring his comment about regretting asking, “I really am. Like, I could eat so much right now. I’m always hungry.” I rolled my eyes. “And now with Billie’s problems, we’re going through so much food within a week at my house.”

“Billie’s problems?” He asked, opening up the fridge.

I burst into a fit of giggles, catching Travis’s attention. He turned to look at me over my shoulder and cocked an eyebrow at my laughter.
“My house is psychotic at this point, Trav. We took Sydney to Los Angeles for her birthday, right?” I asked rhetorically. Travis nodded. “Alright, well, within like the first two nights of being there, Billie Joe got real sick. Like, we were lying in bed talking and he got up and ran to the bathroom.”

“Drinking again?” Travis smirked.

I knew that despite the fact that Travis claimed to have nothing against my husband and that it really was only Billie Joe holding a grudge, there was something there, or else the offensive comments that he sometimes made would have never been thought of. All I could really do, however, was thank god that Travis was in basically no way even almost like my husband and didn’t whine while insulting him.

Though, I loved Billie Joe and his whining despite the fact that he was the biggest pain in my ass—like every husband to any woman.

I smiled slightly. “Actually, no. No! No, Travis, get this.” I laughed. “My husband has sympathy pregnancy.”

Travis winced as he turned away from the fridge. “Ouch,” he mumbled, “isn’t that basically pregnancy for men but without actually having the kid?”

I giggled furiously while nodding. “Yeah. He’s been vomiting constantly—in fact he can’t even smoke anymore. He had to fully quit smoking because every time he even lights one he has to run to the bathroom. He eats just as much as I do. We fight constantly because we’ve both got mood swings and his stomach is, well, turning slightly roundish, as if he has a baby bump.”

Travis’s lips pulled up into a smile as he snickered. “That sucks,” he chuckled, “poor bastard. That’s suicide in the shape of a child.”

I nodded again while Travis motioned for me to come over and look at the fridge. I got up off my stool and walked over to the fridge, looking in it. The whole time I stood there, searching with my eyes, I could feel Travis’s eyes on my stomach. Eventually, I turned and looked up from the fridge. “Yes?”

Travis smiled sheepishly. “It’s just so weird to see you like that. When we met, you were pregnant with Sydney but only a month or two and I moved here after she was born. And well, uh, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t expect you to show up here with well…you know.” He ghosted his hand over my growing stomach, still smiling sheepishly.

I sighed and turned so that my back was pressed up against the freezer, crossing my arms over my chest. “I feel so big already,” I admitted openly. “I try not to say much because I know Billie now feels the same way and he’ll argue with me all night and day about me being big. He tells me constantly that I look beautiful, but I just feel so damn insecure about myself and I know he’s only trying to help.”

“You do look beautiful,” Travis insisted while closing the fridge so that he could lean up against it with his arm while facing me. He smiled sympathetically at me. “You really do, Mand. You look great pregnant and you’re not at all huge. Granted, I won’t lie and say you don’t look pregnant, but you look fantastic. You’ve got that glow to you that everyone has always said pregnant women get.”

The all-too familiar sensation of tears building in my eyes swept over me and I began to hastily wipe away the tears that were threatening to fall. In shock, Travis pushed himself off of the fridge and wrapped both arms around my large body. I rested my head on his shoulder, the tears falling freely now. “I’m sorry,” I choked out. “Really, I am. I cry all the time now. I don’t think there’s a day I’ve gone recently where I don’t. All I do now is eat, sleep, cry and complain. It’s terrible, Travis! I don’t know how Billie puts up with me but he does.”

Travis laughed softly into my hair while rubbing my back affectionately. “I’m sure he understands, especially with this sympathy pregnancy and all. Is he like this, too?”

“Sometimes,” I mumbled, my voice muffled, “He gets frustrated really easily. Like, the other night I sent him out for shit at like two in the morning and he was saying how he was snapping at the people who worked there and getting all worked up because he couldn’t find it. When we were in LA and he went to CVS for Nicorette, he had to sit down in an isle because he was getting aggravated and was pacing and swearing. He’s incredibly irritable while all I do is cry,” I laughed pathetically into his embrace, “we’re like the perfect example of to not run a family when the wife is pregnant.”

Travis continued to laugh into my hair while also continuing to rub my back in hopes that it would calm me down. “Does Sydney know, or does she just think her parents have gone off the deep end?”

“Oh god,” I muttered, “she found out. She realized it as soon as she saw my stomach beginning to grow back at three months. First damn night in LA and she comes downstairs and asks if I’m pregnant.”

“Ouch.”

“Unbelievably. We confirmed it and she pretty much said ‘thanks for clearing that up’ and went upstairs.”

Travis winced. “Ouch. Is she alright now, though?”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah. In fact, the next morning Billie and I fought over the fact that he had to go to CVS for nicorette--,” Travis snickered while I laughed, “don’t ask, really. But when he got back, Sydney started apparently “beating” him as he called it and yelling at him to apologize to me.”

Travis laughed. “Good girl.”

I giggled. “I know. That’s what I said as Billie complained.” I smiled into his neck. “You should have seen the look on his face when I told him.”

“That you were pregnant?” Travis inquired.

“Yeah,” I confirmed. I laughed. “When I told him, he almost literally bounced up from the bed. He was so happy—we both are.”

I could feel Travis grin against me while still holding me. “And I’m so happy for the both of you. Have you got any idea what it is? A boy or a girl?”

“I’m not far enough yet to know the sex, but I’ve got a real strong inkling that it’s a he.” As soon as those words left my mouth, I pulled out of Travis’s embrace, grinning like a fool as I placed my hands on my stomach. Travis cocked an eyebrow, watching wordlessly as I rubbed my stomach. After a few seconds, I grabbed his hands and placed them right where Zach was kicking.

Travis stared down at my stomach, much as Sydney had when she felt Zach kick for the first time on Billie’s and my anniversary. He then looked up at me, his mouth dropped in shock. “Is, he uh, is he moving?”

I giggled while nodding, also placing my hands on my stomach. “He’s been moving for a good few weeks now. He actually started to move on my anniversary when I was trying to put on eyeliner. He moves a lot now. Like, all the time. Especially when Billie and I talk to him.”

“Have you named him?” Travis asked, not moving his hands from my stomach.

“I didn’t tell you?” I asked. Travis shook his head slowly while I tried my best to remember if I had or not. I thought that that was the first thing I had told him. “Billie picked the name if he turns out to be a she—Savannah Ann Armstrong.”

“That’s cute,” Travis complimented.

I grinned. “Thanks. And well, I picked his name. Zachary Andrew Armstrong.”

“That’s also adorable,” Travis stated. “It’ll match him well. Andrew after your husband’s father?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I figured he’d like that and I thought it was cute. It rolls off the tongue easily.”

Travis nodded while his eyes stayed glued to my stomach. He laughed as he felt Zachary kick again. “I still can’t believe you’re four months pregnant, sweetheart.” He laughed. “Just a while ago you came here crying on how you didn’t want to be pregnant.”

“I know,” I laughed. “I think about that now a lot and I feel terrible. Especially now that Billie’s just so happy—and well, I am too, of course. If I had gotten pregnant back in February like Billie wanted me to, I’d be ready to pop right now.” I sighed softly and ran a hand through my long hair. “I’m just so worried that when he comes out there’s going to be something that’s wrong because of how Billie and I were May through August. I mean, you remember how I was in July when I told him how I was on birth control. I was depressed. And before that, oh god before that! When I was on birth control—not to mention I was on birth control!” I sighed softly while Travis pulled me back into a comforting embrace. “I was on birth control while my baby was growing and I continued to take it. Do you think that can hurt him?”

“Have they told you that there’s anything wrong with him?” Travis asked.

“No,” I admitted, “they’ve said time and time again that he’s perfectly healthy.”

“Then he’s perfectly healthy,” Travis concluded, kissing the top of my head. “I can understand why you’re so worried, but think about it this way—there are many mothers who drink and smoke and shit when they’re pregnant and there’s still times when the baby comes out healthy despite the shit they put them through. You have done none of that. You smoked once back in April when your husband fucked up and none since. You don’t smoke, and neither can your husband from what you’ve said anymore. You don’t drink, in fact I think the last time that you actually had alcohol was New Years a few years ago that you told me about.” His hands gently caressed my stomach. “You have no reason to worry, hon.”

I sighed softly into his chest and nodded. “What ever would I do without you, Trav?” I asked after a moment.

Travis chuckled. “You’d make your husband suicidal, darling. At least, that’s my best guess.”

I pulled away from my best friend’s comforting grip and laughed. “No! That’s not true!” I hesitated and rubbed my stomach affectionately. “Actually, it probably is,” I admitted. “Sorry.”

Travis chuckled again, pulling me back closer to him. “I’m not complaining, I was just answering your question truthfully.” He kissed my cheek.

I giggled and kissed his cheek back before once again pulling away, only slowly now. As I pulled out of his grip and went to open the fridge, Travis’s arm wrapped around my wrist, catching me. I turned and cocked an eyebrow, a sudden fear that he’d want to talk about the “almost-kiss” we shared back about a month ago. Though, I was pretty sure that he realized as much as I did that I had been upset and it was nothing.

Travis pushed the hair from the side of my neck and then pulled away, letting out a cackle. I lifted my hand to my neck, my eyebrow still cocked. “What is so funny?”

Travis continued to laugh, shaking his head. I scowled loudly as he pushed the hair from my neck once again. “Jesus, Mandy, how old are you and your husband—please don’t tell me that that’s a hickey.”