When Everything Gets Crazy, I Get Lost In You.

Austin and Jackie don't get home until 11:30. They were supposed to just go out to dinner and Jackie was supposed to tell him about the twins. I have no clue what they were actually doing this whole time.

Austin didn't say anything to us when they got home. He just went back to the bedroom while Jackie thanked us for staying with the baby.

Adam and I get back to our house about twenty minutes after Jackie and Austin came home. Jack is still awake when we come in the house, in the kitchen cooking something.

"Where were you two all night, the strip club? he asks.

"Oh yeah, you know it. Sophie was up on the bar dancing, and I was fighting off all the guys who were trying to tip her," Adam says. Jack grins, still looking down at the food he's preparing.

"Sounds fun. I'm sure I would have liked to have been there."

"No you don't. Truth is we've been over at Austin and Jackie's all night, babysitting so she could break the news to him that she's having two babies and not just one," I say.

"He's the baby daddy for both, right?" I smack him on the arm and both he and Adam laugh.

"Twins, asshole."

"Hey I was just checking. Those things happen, you know. You watch TV." I roll my eyes.

"I'm going to bed." I'm not really wanting to finish this already weird conversation.

I give Adam a kiss and walk to the bedroom with Mabel hot on my heels. She jumps up on the bed and watches as I smoke my last cigarette of the night, and change into a pair of black lace bikini-briefs and a black tank top to sleep in. Once I'm dressed I put the cigarette out and rub lotion on my arms and legs, then crawl into bed.

Adam comes into bed about an hour later, crawling in beside me and putting his arm around my waist.

"Love you, Butterfly," he whispers to me.

"I love you."

The next morning I wake up to the sound of Mabel growling quietly from where she's laying at my feet. Adam must hear it too because as soon as I open my eyes, he lifts his head up from his pillow.

"What are you doing, Austin?" he asks, sleepily, but calm. I lift my own head and see Austin walking slowly around the end of the bed. He stops when he hears Adam's voice.

"Your dog is a fucking bitch, man. I thought she was going to attack me." I look down at Mabel. She's now happily smiling her dog smile, standing at the end of the bed, looking to be pet.

"She's just a little weary of people sneaking into her room when her parents are sleeping," Adam says, reaching down and petting her rear end. Her tail wags happily. "You're not a bitch, are you baby?"

"How did you get in here anyway?" he asks. He's taking this a lot better than I would have given him credit for, so I'm just gonna stay quiet and let him handle this.

"Oh, Jackie let me in," Austin says.

"Our Jackie? Please tell me our Jackie."

"Of course your Jackie. Mine is at home." Adam blows out a sigh of relief and lays back on his back, regarding me for the first time.

"We really need to have a talk with him about who he is allowed to let in the house at certain times of the day," he says.

"What time is it?" I ask.

"Too early for what I fear is coming."

"At least we're not naked."

"What is good about that? The only good reason to be up this early, involves being naked." I give him a sympathetic smile, then turn my attention back to Austin, who is now petting Mabel.

Adam pulls himself out of bed and I watch as he pulls on a pair of khaki cargo shorts, and a v-neck t-shirt that he covers with a zip-up hooded sweatshirt. He puts a Yankees cap backwards on his head.

"Babe will you hand me my robe?" I ask him. He grabs my black silk robe from where it's hanging on the desk chair, and hands it to me.

Austin follows behind him as he walks out of the room, and Adam doesn't really seem to notice. He's not really a morning person unless he's had his coffee, which I assume is where he's going right now. I put on my robe which doesn't even come down to my knees, and follow them out a few seconds later.

Adam stops in the kitchen and Austin, not seeing this coming, crashes into him. Adam turns around quickly.

"What are you doing?" he's talking fast, so I know he's getting annoyed.

"Sorry, Adz."

"Just, take a few steps back." Since Austin is like, as tall as a basketball player, his few steps take him halfway across the kitchen.

"That's perfect." He pours two cups of coffee that Jack made this morning.

"Coffee, Steen?" Adam asks.

"Sure."

"Help yourself." Austin gives him a dirty look then gets up to get a cup.

Adam hands me the second cup of coffee and a kiss, then he sits down on the couch.

"So, what's the problem that brought you to our house, sneaking in our bedroom, so early this morning?" he asks Austin. I sit down on the arm of the couch and take a sip of my coffee, watching as Austin pours cream and sugar in his.

"Well, I assume you two already know that she's having twins."

"She mentioned it."

"What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?"

"What? Twins?"

"Yeah! I mean, I'm excited and all, but we're not rich and we have a hard enough of a time making it with one kid. And now she's talking about having to get a bigger house and all this shit."

"Well, you knew you were going to have to move eventually, Steener," Adam says. "You couldn't live in that apartment forever."

"I know that. But the kid we already have isn't even a year old yet."

"They'll be close in age. It'll be fun, like with me and Mike. I loved having him be my age so we could go through all the same things at the same time."

"Yeah, it's good to have your kids all be close in age. You won't have to worry about changing diapers when you're old," Adam pipes in.

"I don't know why she even had to go off of her birth control in the first place. We already have one screaming, spending machine."

"Did you tell her any of this?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

"No. She's so excited. And I acted like an ass lastnight when she told me. She wouldn't even look at me. That's why I didn't talk to you guys lastnight. We kind of got into a fight."

"Define kind of," Adam says.

"She got up and left me in the restaurant." He grimaces and Austin continues.

"She went out and sat in the car until I came out, then we fought in the car."

"So you're still fighting now?" I say.

"Yeah. She told me to get out this morning until I could stop being an insensitive clod."

"Clod?" Adam asks.

"Yeah, that and she was beyond yelling."

"It's never good when they're beyond yelling." I flash him a look and he holds up his hands in surrender.

"So I was thinking, Sophie..."

"Here we go."

"Maybe you guys could come over and help me talk my way out of this one." Jack comes out of his room with his book bag over his shoulder.

"I'm out of here," he says to us.

"Oh no, no, no," Adam says quickly. I reach out and snag him by the strap on his bag, forcing him to stop. He sighs and turns around to face us.

"What?"

"First, drop the attitude," Adam says. "And second, what's with you letting this riff raff in the house and letting him wander around unsupervised?"

"You would have let him in."

"Not the point. Do you know how early it is?" Jack looks down at his boots and tries to stifle a grin, but fails, coming back up with that irresistible smile that makes me melt anytime I see it.

"Sorry, Adam. I promise I won't let anyone in the house before you guys get up."

"Good. Now get out of here." I pull him down by his bag strap and give him a kiss on the cheek.

After he leaves, Austin goes back to his crisis.

"So what do you say?"

"I'm not even dressed yet."

"Well go get dressed then." I sigh and haul myself up off the arm of the couch, dropping my coffee cup off on the kitchen counter.

I get dressed quickly and put on a quick swipe of make-up, and take my time doing my hair, hoping that Adam can figure out some way to get Austin out of here without me having to leave.

As I'm coming back out of the bedroom the doorbell rings, so I walk over to answer it. Adam's youngest brother Cale, is on the other side. He gives me his little crooked smile and steps in towards me a little.

"Hey sissy," he says to me, giving me a one armed hug that I return just as Adam comes around the corner with Austin on his tail.

"What are you doing here?" I ask him.

"I called lastnight and Adam said that he would help me record my bass solo's." I vaguely remember the phone ringing after I went to bed.

"So are we going or what?" Austin says to me. I ignore him and look to Adam.

"You're not coming with me?" I whine to him.

"Hey, they're your friends."

"They're your friends too, Adam."

"Yeah, but I haven't signed on to help them with every little problem they have. Plus, I already told Caley that I would help him with his solos."

"Fine," I say with a head shake. I grab my purse and keys off the side table by the door.

"Come on Austin!" I say, stomping out the door. I get in my car and motion for Austin to get in the passenger side.

"Oh, so we're taking your car."

"This is unbelievable. He couldn't even come with me. I mean, we're supposed to be a team here. That's what marriage is, Austin, teamwork!" I say quickly, backing out of the driveway probably a little faster than recommended.

"What the fuck is that? I understand that he already told Cale that he would help him, which he never told me about either, by the way, but seriously, he could have at least made an effort to come."

"I'm sorry," he says quietly.

"You should be sorry, because it's your sorry ass that keeps getting me into these things!" He's silent.

"If you would just learn how to communicate with your wife I wouldn't have to deal with this! This right here, is why I can't have children. Because I have to continue to raise all of the ADULTS in my life!" I whip into the apartment complex and park next to Jackie's car.

We both get out and walk up to the apartment without saying another word to each other. I've probably scared Austin half to death, but whatever. I'm a woman on the edge right now and I have no time to be dealing with him.

He keys us into the apartment and I follow him in.

"Jackie?" he says carefully into the apartment.

"What?!" she snaps back.

"Sophie's here." She looks up when we come into the living room. Little Austin is swinging in his little swing. I wave at him when I walk in, and he just stares at me with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open. I think it's a baby thing to look at everything like it's a double rainbow or something.

"What did he tell you?" she asks me as I sit down on the couch across from her.

"Enough," I say with a shrug.

"She called me an insensitive clod!" Austin yelps from the kitchen.

"You were being a clod, you deserved it."

"I was not being a clod."

"Yes you were."

"No I wasn't."

"Yes you were."

"Oh for fucks sake, you two!" I yell. They both stop yelling at each other and look at me.

"Who is the adult here and who is the kid? Because right now, that baby over there is being more mature than you two are." They both look over at Little Austin and he looks at them with the same open mouthed look he gave me when I came in earlier. I shake my head in disgust.

"You already have one baby, and like it or not, you're having two more. And they're going to be here before you know it, so you better start getting used to the idea, otherwise you're fucked." They look at each other and Jackie crosses her arms over her chest.

"I just don't know how we're going to afford it," Austin says.

"Well, you're just going to have to buckle down and do it. You don't have a choice, the way I see it."

"We could ask my mom for some money," Jackie suggests quietly.

"There you go."

"We still have to go over there and tell her about the twins, and we have to tell your mom and dad."

"We should do that today."

"Why wait?" I say merrily, thinking that I've gotten this whole thing solved... I tune out of their conversation for a second and look at my phone which is ringing in a text message.

"Sophie can take him," I hear Jackie say. I look up suddenly.

"What?"

"You can take Little Austin with you while we go over to our parents house and tell them the news, and ask them for a loan."

"Uh..."

"You're the greatest, Sophie!" she says, wrapping her arms tightly around my neck. I pat her back a little. "I can't thank you enough for always being here for us. You're like our marriage counselor."

"Uh huh." She stands up then and runs over and picks the baby up out of his swing. I stand up and she practically shoves him into my arms. She runs around quickly grabbing things and shoving them into a bag.

"Austin, go put his car seat in her car."

"What?" I say, a little panicked." He grabs up my keys from where I tossed them on their coffee table and heads out the door.

"Jackie, is there really a reason that you can't take Little Austin with you to your parents houses?"

"It'll just be easier this way. So we won't have to worry about him if something happens over there and one of them doesn't take it so well." She goes back to picking up toys and things for him.

"What are you doing?" I ask her.

"Ooh shit, diapers. I almost forgot the diapers." I feel the color drain from my face.

"I'm sure it would be fine," I tell her.

"You're going to need diaper's, silly."

"No, I mean taking him to your parents house."

"It'll be fun. You can have some bonding time with your little God son." Austin re-enters the apartment and tosses my keys at me.

"You're all good. Babe, you ready to go?" he says to Jackie.

"Yeah," she tells him with a smile.

"Um." He puts his arm around her shoulders.

"Thanks again, Soph." They walk out the door and leave me there with the baby and the diaper bag.

"Um... what the hell just happened?" I say to no one in particular. The baby wiggles in my arms and grabs my hair, pulling it a little. I remove his hands from my hair and walk over to the window, and watch as Austin and Jackie drive away.

"Oh my God, oh my God." I pick up the bag and leave the apartment, making sure to lock up behind me.

When I get down to my car I realize that I have no idea how to put the baby in his car seat. I set him down in it and try to figure out all the straps and buckles. I pull the seat belt over the seat and bonk him in the head with the hard metal part. He starts crying immediately.

"Oh, oh no. Don't cry, honey. I'm sorry." I rub his stomach with my hand and kiss his head, and he stops crying.

"Oh thank God." After about ten minutes I finally figure out how to secure him in the seat, then I put his diaper bag in the back seat.

"OK, baby. Here we go," I say as I buckle my own seat belt. I look at him in my rear view mirror and he appears to be asleep.

"Please don't be dead." I watch him for a few seconds, half convinced that I killed him when I knocked his little brain with the seat belt. Once I'm convinced that he is in fact breathing, I drive off, dialing Adam on my cell phone.

"Hello?" he says, answering after what feels like 100 rings.

"Babe, I have a baby in my car and I don't know what to do with it. You have to help me!" I cry.

"Who's baby?" he asks, never missing a beat. I pause. Unbelievable.

"My baby, Adam. I just picked him up from his father's house." He's laughing. "Jackie and Austin's baby, who do you think?!"

"Alright, just calm down."

"Don't say that to me. I've already nearly killed him."

"How did you do that?"

"I hit him in the head."

"Babe."

"I didn't mean it!" I can almost see the smile on his face.

"You better not be laughing at me!"

"I'm not, I promise. So what are you going to do with him?"

"I don't know."

"Well you can't bring him here."

"Why not?"

"We're recording. It's loud and we need it quiet. Cale can't turn in bass solo's with a baby crying in the background."

"What am I supposed to do then?!"

"I don't know. Call Billie. She'll know."

"OK, bye." I hang up and dial Billie's number. She doesn't answer and I don't bother leaving a message. I try my sister, figuring she probably knows a lot about babies, but she doesn't answer either. Fuck. And that's when I see a familiar house. I slam on the brakes, missing the driveway by a couple feet. I slam the car into reverse and pull into the driveway.

I get the baby out of his car seat and walk up to the front door with him on my hip. Neil answers after a few seconds, wearing dark colored jeans, a black t-shirt and a black cap covering his shaggy blonde hair. He stares out at me for a second, and I can tell he's trying to come up with something smart to say. It's not everyday an opportunity like this presents itself to Neil.

"Nice baby. Does Adam know about this?"

"Fuck you. Is Janin home?"

"Yeah, we're looking for Roo's baby chicken."

"Are you serious?"

"Does that sound like something I made up?"

I follow him in the house, which is completely quiet.

"Where's Roo?"

"Kindergarten."

"Why does she have a baby chicken?"

"I don't know. She's supposed to raise it and write a report about it, or some shit."

"And now it's missing?"

"Yeah, the little fucker got out of the cage and tipped over a brand new bottle of nail polish. Now we can't find it anywhere. It chirped non-fucking-stop all day, now do you think it will chirp? No."

"Wow."

"Yeah. So what's with the baby?" I explain to him the situation with Austin and Jackie and why I have their baby. We put the baby, who is sleeping again, in the nursery with Neil's brand new baby, then we come back downstairs to continue the search for the baby chick.

"Do you see any little chick prints in nail polish anywhere?" I ask him.

"No. The polish dried when he walked across the Modern Drummer magazine." I try not to laugh, and get down on my hands and knees.

"Does it have a name?" He grunts.

"Lady."

"Here Lady," I call out softly. He looks at me like I'm insane as I pull up the dust ruffle on the couch and look under it.

"There it is!" I scream and the chick takes off in the opposite direction. "Get it, get it, get it!" Neil literally jumps over me and runs to the other side of the couch to try and head off the chick. I watch as it runs through his legs and under a chair. I crawl over and lift the ruffle up on the chair, and Neil stands on the other side of it.

"It's okay, Lady. You can come out," I coo at it, reaching under the chair and carefully closing my hand around it's fuzzy body. It pecks at my hand and I drop it.

"Owwww!!" I yelp and it takes off again. Neil runs after it and trips over a lamp cord, bringing the lamp crashing down.

"Fuck!" he yells. I get up and we tag team the chick, trapping it under the lamp shade. I reach in and pick up the chick, and follow Neil over to it's cage.

"What's that noise? Did you find the chick?" Janin asks, coming down the stairs.

"Yeah, we found it." I carefully drop the chick in it's cage and watch as Neil locks it in.

"Fucking chicken."

The three of us hang out and Janin tells me what to do with Little Austin while his parents are gone, then by the grace of God, Jackie calls and tells me that they're home and I can bring the baby home anytime I want to. That would mean immediately.

After I drop the baby off and threaten Austin's life if he ever calls me again, I start driving back home. I pick up a pizza on my way, and when I get home I see that Cale's car is still in the driveway.

I walk into the house and deposit the pizza on the counter, then go downstairs where I find them sitting around, drinking beer and smoking. They look up at me when I come in, and I sit on Adam's lap.

"Did you get everything figured out?" Adam asks me.

"Yes, and I told Austin that if he ever called or came over here again he wouldn't be physically able to have any more kids." Both guys laugh.

"I know you had plans for today, but you could have made some effort to come with me today," I tell him.

"I know, I'm sorry. But I am glad you got them all figured out again."

"Me too. I need to start hiring out my services. I'm always counseling their marriage. Don't they know I could be counseling my own marriage?" He laughs and gives me a kiss.

"We're all good, then?"

"We're all good. I brought home pizza."

"We're definitely all good," Cale says.