When Everything Gets Crazy, I Get Lost In You.

I pull my car into the driveway and park behind Adam's brand new charcoal gray colored BMW. He just got the car a couple of days ago. I've been out at meetings all morning and am just now getting back home. One of the meetings was with Jack's probation officer and the judge who processed his case about getting his probation dropped a little early. After some pretty good convincing on my part, the judge agreed. So I'm pretty damn pleased with myself at the moment.

It's been about two weeks since Jack and Nikki got into it over here that night. About two days after it happened she called and asked Adam and I if we could lend her some money so she could go up to a Friends place in Madison for a few weeks to get her act together. We talked it over with Jack and he agreed that it was probably a good idea for her to cancel any classes she had and just get away for a while. So we gave her the money and sent her on her way. As far as I know, no one has heard from her since. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I walk into the house and toss my keys on the sideboard with Adam's, drop my purse on the ground next to the table, kick out of my shoes, and shrug out of my jacket and hang it in the closet. I can hear Adam in the living room talking to someone, but I can't tell who.

When I walk into the living room I see Adam and my niece, Kya, sitting on their knees in front of the coffee table. There is a bunch of paper all over the table and two glasses of foggy looking water with a bunch of paint brushes sticking out of them.

"Hello," I say to them when I come in. Kya immediately stands up and runs over to me, along with the dogs.

"Aunt Sophie!" I pick her up and hug her tightly against my chest.

"Hello my girl. What are you doing here?" I ask her, looking over her shoulder at Adam, who is still kneeling on the floor.

"Liv brought her by this afternoon. Said she had to go do some things and Royston couldn't watch her. I told her that I would take her."

"So you and Uncle Adz have been hanging out here all day?" I say to Kya.

"Yup!" she says with a smile.

"We've been painting," Adam says to me as I set her down.

"I can see that." He stands up for the first time and I take in his faded jeans and white t-shirt, and the black beanie on his head. He gives me a kiss and sets the painting that he had been working on, on the kitchen counter to dry.

"Ky, are you gonna show Aunt Sophie what you painted?" Adam asks her.

"I don't know where it is," she says. He starts rifling through a bunch of papers until he finds a specific one, then he hands it to her. I crouch down next to her and she hands me a painting of a house with a bunch of people standing outside of it.

"It's beautiful, baby girl."

"Uncle Adam helped me."

"Did he? Well that was nice of him," I say, looking up at Adam who is back at work painting something else. "Who are the people?" I ask her, pointing at the people in the painting.

"That's mommy, and that's daddy, and that's Grammy, and that's you and Uncle Adam and Cracker Jack." As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Adam bursts out laughing, causing her to start laughing. I raise an eyebrow at him.

"Don't teach her that, Babe."

"I didn't say anything. She came up with that on her own."

"I doubt that highly."

"Talk to your brother." I sigh and look down at Kya.

"We don't call Jack that, honey. Just call him Jack from now on, OK?" I say to her gently.

"OK."

"This is a very nice painting, though."

"Thank you," she says shyly. "Do you want to paint with us?"

"Sure, if it's alright with Uncle Adam." She turns and looks over her shoulder at Adam, and he smiles at her.

"I think that would be OK," he says. "Now come over here and help me draw this for Aunt Sophie." She gets up and goes over to him, and he sits her down on his knees and hands her a paint brush.

I sit Indian style and select a fresh piece of paper, and wet a brush and dip it in some red paint. I look up at Adam and Kya and see that she is painting something on her paper, and he has his hand wrapped gently around her little arm, helping to guide the brush over the paper. He glances over at me and grins and I smile back, then he goes back to watching her.

"Who's that for?" I ask them.

"Someone special," Adam answers.

"Really? A pretty girl?"

"A beautiful woman."

"Ooh. Well you better treat her good."

"I've been trying." Kya looks up at him and smiles, and he laughs a little.

"How did your meeting go this morning?" he asks me.

"Good, he's done."

"Well that's good. One less thing he has to worry about right now."

"Has he heard from her?"

"She called this morning while you were gone, and wanted him to come over because she wanted to talk to him in person. He asked me what he should do and I told him that it probably wouldn't hurt to hear what she had to say. Since she has apparently been trying to straighten herself out, ya know?" I nod and keep painting.

"So she's home now?"

"Yeah, apparently she came back lastnight."

"I see."

When we finish painting, I take Kya into our room and put in Lady and the Tramp for her, and put a blanket on her so she can watch the movie and hopefully take a nap before Liv comes back to pick her up. I watch the movie with her for about five minutes before she falls asleep, then I go back out to the living room. Adam is there cleaning up all the crap from painting, so I help him clean up. When we're done we hang out for about an hour, then Liv comes to get Kya. Since she's still sleeping, we all hang out and talk for awhile.

About ten minutes after Liv gets there, Jack comes home. He stomps through the living room and into the kitchen, slamming the fridge door open and taking a bottle of water out before slamming it shut again, not saying a word to any of us. He opens a cupboard and takes out a glass, then slams to door shut loudly.

"You wanna keep it down? Kya is sleeping in the other room," Adam snaps at him.

"Sorry."

"I went to the meeting about your probation this morning," I say to him, hoping to get him off of whatever he's pissed about. "and your probation term has officially been canceled."

"Yay," he mumbles, not sounding especially enthused. He walks away from all of us and heads down to the basement by himself.

"What was his problem?" Liv asks when he's gone.

"I don't know. I'd better go see what's up," Adam says, turning and going downstairs too.

"Oh boy," I say to Liv.

"It'll be fine. So, your birthday is coming up in a couple days. Any big romantic plans with the hubby?"

"I doubt it. We'll probably just hang around here or something."

"Lock all the doors, shut off the phones, close all the curtains... and have hot naked birthday sex all night long." I roll my eyes.

"Is that all you think about, Liv?"

"What? You have a hot ass husband, I just think that you know, your birthday is coming up. Maybe you need to shake the bed a little, if you know what I mean."

"I do know what you mean. You do realize that the bed that you're suggesting we shake, is the same bed your daughter is sleeping on right now, right?"

"Why do you have to make everything so dirty?"

"And my 'hot ass husband'? What is that?"

"You know what I mean. How do you feel about being tied up?"

"Oh my God."

"It's a simple question."

"I don't know. I don't think I would be opposed to it, but I like to use my hands."

"How about Adam? Do you think he'd like to be tied up?"

"I doubt it. He's very hands on. Why do you ask?"

"It was something I read. How about being spanked?"

"Why are you so interested in my sex life?"

"I'm just interested. Like I said, something I read in a magazine that said something about couples who experiment in the bedroom, stay together longer or something like that. I don't know. So how about spanking?"

"I don't know... What about you? Do you like it?"

"I like being tickled."

"Oh my God! Liv!" She bursts out laughing.

She's still laughing five minutes later when Adam comes back upstairs. He stomps into the kitchen, much like Jack did earlier, and grabs a bottle of water.

"Either of you have a joint? Or a hypodermic needle?" he asks.

"Fresh out," Liv says.

"Not funny, Babe." He gives me a stressed out look.

"Sorry."

"How about a cigarette?" Liv suggests.

"That might have to work," he says, reaching into the back pocket of his jeans.

"What did he say?" I ask him as he lights up. He inhales and lets the smoke come out of his nose before he speaks.

"Nikki told Jack that she thinks she might be pregnant, and that if she is it might not be his kid."

"What?!" Liv says loudly.

"Oh my God," I say. He nods.

"Yup."

"Oh my fucking God," I say again, plunking down on the couch.

"That poor kid. It's not like he isn't going through enough with that girl right now, then he finds out that he might not only be a father, but that his girl fucked around on him," Liv says.

"It's fucked that's for sure," Adam says. "I mean, what the fuck are we gonna do now?" I can tell he's freaked.

"Why are you flipping out? It's Jack's problem," Liv says to him.

"Think about it, Liv. Who do you think is going to be taking care of that kid, if it does in fact turn out to be Jack's?"

"You and me," I say from the couch.

"Exactly. Nikki and Jack sure as fuck can't take care of a kid right now. They can't even be in a fucking relationship that's healthy. And I'm not even ready to have a kid of my own, let alone raise theirs," he says, smashing his cigarette into an ashtray. "Son of a bitch."

"Listen, you can't be flipping out right now. You guys don't even know if she's pregnant yet."

"Oh my God, Babe. I can't even believe this is happening," I say to Adam, putting my head in my hands. I can hear Adam and Liv talking, but I'm not paying attention to what they're saying.

"Hey baby," I hear Adam say and I look up to see a sleepy looking Kya emerging from the bedroom. Adam goes to her and picks her up, and she clings to him for a minute before he passes her off to Liv.

"Alright, well we should get going and let you two deal with things," Liv says. I nod and stand up and go over to her, giving them both hugs. Adam and I walk them to the door and after they're gone, we go back into the living room.

I go over and stand in front of the french doors looking out at the gray sky that's hanging over the dreary atmosphere. I place my hands on my lower back and Adam comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, resting his lips on my shoulder.

"What are we going to do, fly girl?" I clear my throat and turn around to face him. I prop my elbows up on his shoulders, and give him a kiss that makes him smile when we part.

"Hmm," he sighs. I take his hand and smile up at him.

"Let's go see Jack," I say, leading him towards the basement.

When we get downstairs we find Jack sitting on the couch smoking a cigarette. He looks up at us when he hears us come in.

I sit on the couch next to him and he puts his arm around my shoulders casually, and I put my arm around his waist. Adam sits on the arm of the couch at the opposite end that we're sitting on. Jack sighs, blowing a line of smoke out of his mouth.

"I guess we're supposed to talk about our feelings now, huh?" Jack says, kind of sarcastically. Adam grins a little and lights a cigarette.

"Not if you don't want to," I say.

"She said that she didn't do any drugs at all when she was in Madison, so that's good I guess."

"Yeah, that's really good."

"She said that it was nothing. That the guy that she was with, was just a nobody. But they slept together anyways," he says, his voice full of disgust.

"Who just does that anyways? What kind of guy would just, take advantage like that? I just can't imagine being that close to someone that you don't even know, you know? And what's wrong with her?"

"Sometimes you just lose yourself, Jack. And you don't know yourself anymore, and you want to push away everything and everyone that you know," I say.

"I know I waited to long to tell her that I loved her. That's why she did all of this; because I made her question herself."

"Don't blame yourself for this. It's nobodies fault except for those involved. And in this case, it's Nikki." I notice that during conversations like this, Adam never really has much to say. He just listens and takes everything in, adding his input every now and again.

"See, you say things like that and it makes me feel like you're speaking from experience or something," Jack says. I hear Adam snort and I figure that it's probably time to come clean with Jack about some things.

I sit up and turn so that I'm sitting on the edge of the couch, facing him.

"I should probably tell you some things about my past, and things that I did and maybe it will help you deal with this thing that you're dealing with now."

"I don't see how it could make it any worse," he mutters, leaning forward to put out his cigarette in the ashtray that's on the coffee table.

"Before I met Adam, I had a fiance named John." he flicks his glance up to me, like he's already putting this puzzle together. I sigh.

"We had been together for a really long time, or at least it felt like a really long time. And, we lived together and we made a bunch of plans for the future or whatever. And it wasn't one of those, wake up one day and you realize that your life is fucked up kind of things, because it wasn't. My life was pretty great if you think about it. Good guy, good job, good apartment, good friends and family. All was well on the outside, but gradually it all started to dawn on me that maybe I wasn't really that happy, and if I wasn't that happy now even though I had everything I ever wanted, then how was the rest of my life going to be? I'd be fucking, reaching for the gun sooner or later, you know?" I stop talking for a second to light myself a cigarette, taking a long drag from it before I go on.

"Long story short, I cheated on John."

"With Adam?" Jack asks.

"Yes."

"Wow."

"And none of it was John's fault, you know? He was just doing everything he knew how to do to make me happy, and to make a good life for us. It just wasn't working for me. I didn't do it to hurt him or anything like that. It just happened."

"How did he find out?"

"He saw my car parked at the hotel where Adam and I would meet up a lot. Actually, his friend saw it, and together they put two and two together but never said anything. He wanted to catch me in the act or something. Then one night I was late getting home from work and he accused me of cheating on him. I was innocent that night, but I couldn't take lying to him anymore. I broke down and confessed to him."

"What did he do when you told him?"

"He freaked the fuck out," I say with a little laugh.

"Everyone has their own reactions, and he was an Italian like me, a natural hot head to begin with, ya know? So he screamed and called me horrible names, and threw things and broke things. Then he threw me out of the apartment. The rest is history."

"What did you do?" Adam asks Jack, speaking for the first time. Jack chuckles a little to himself.

"Nothing that dramatic. I just said, 'oh,'" he laughs. "And she's like, sitting there looking at me, and she asked me if I heard her and I said yeah. But I just sat there not saying anything. I was just in shock, I think. And I was all out of words from the other night, ya know? I didn't know what to say. She told me that she was gonna go to the hospital and take a pregnancy test, and I just told her to figure it out and let me know."

"That's good, that you didn't freak out, ya know? As good as it feels to yell and scream, it would have done nothing in that situation. She knows you well enough to know that what she did was wrong, and that it hurt you."

"The thing is, I don't care how she's feeling. I don't give a fuck if she's hurt or scared or stressed out. Right now, I'm feeling like if she is pregnant and it's his, I don't want anything to do with her."

"I'm not gonna tell you what to do, Jack, but if that's how it turns out, I think that would probably be for the best," Adam says. "Because if she were to have some other dickheads kid and get back with you, just imagine all the other shit that's gonna bring up in the future. Nothing good can come of that."

"Fuck that, I will not raise someone elses kid. If it's mine, then fine I'll step up and do the right thing, but if it's not then, fuck them all. Let them go have their happy little family, and I'll just go do my own thing on my own like I always have my whole life."

"With us of course," I say.

"Well of course," he says with a grin. Both Adam and I smile.

"As long as you know what you want, man," Adam says to him.

"I think I do."

"And what are you going to do if she's not pregnant, knowing what you do?" I ask. He blows out a sigh.

"I love her, and I really do want to work things out with her. If she's having some other guys baby, then it will never happen. I can't get over that, but I might be able to get over being walked on," he says with snort. I lean in and give him a kiss on the forehead.

"I love you."

"I love you guys too. Thank you, for once again being there for me like you always are."

"Anytime, Cracker Jack," Adam says.

"Oh my God, I forgot to tell Liv about that," I say.

"What?" Jack asks.

"Earlier before you got home, Kya had this painting and it was Adam and me and my mom and stuff, and she was telling me all of the people in it, and she points one person out and she says, 'Cracker Jack,'"

"Oh nice." Adam starts laughing, and Jack shakes his head.

"That's all Mike, you know," he says.

"Well at first I thought it was Adam, but then I thought about Mike."

"What a jackass," Adam says.

We hang out in the basement for the rest of the night, then we go upstairs and I make dinner and we watch Kya's movie that she left in our DVD player. When it's over we all go into our rooms.

Adam is laying in bed fully dressed still when I come in from washing my make up off in the bathroom. I crawl into bed next to him and snuggle up close to him. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me into his chest, kissing the top of my head.