Time for a Sign

I stood in front of the mirror with my jeans undone as I tried not to cry. Stupid baby ruining all my wardrobe choices.

I tried for a third time to pull the button and button hole together, but it was no use. These jeans were probably never going to fit me again, and they were my favourite pair too.

Pat walked into the bedroom and saw me pouting. "What's wrong?"

I wiped the tears from my eyes. "I'm too fat for my jeans," I answered, my voice cracking. He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, putting his hands on my growing belly.

"You're not fat, Alecia. You're having a baby and you look beautiful. Now stop stressing and put this on," he said, pulling out the dress I wore to the barbeque.

"But Jessy said I had to wear pants."

"Then tell Jessy to take you shopping, I'm sure she'll get a kick out of that."

I gave Pat a kiss before slipping the dress over my head, my bump more pronounced in the dress than it was a few weeks ago. It had been three weeks since we had announced that we were expecting and it seems like we chose a good time because since then it seemed like the baby wouldn't stop growing. There was absolutely no hiding it now.

I fixed up my hair and decided to forgo any makeup, still feeling fragile from my clothing meltdown.

I drove to Jessy's place and she opened the door in a hurry, seemingly frazzled as I could hear Connor having a tantrum in the background.

"Oh good you're here! Wait, I thought I told you to wear pants," Jessy said, sounding as irritated as she looked. I couldn't help it as I burst into tears again, still emotional over the loss of my ability to wear pants. I felt bad for Jessy and Garrett, having to deal with a crying Connor as well as my tears.

"I can't wear anything anymore, I hate this," I cried as I collapsed into Jessy's arms. She rubbed my back soothingly, her mothering skills showing.

"Sweetheart, it's okay. We'll go shopping and find you some pants and stuff before we do what I planned, we have some time."

I nodded through my tears and Jessy pulled me in and handed me some tissues as she took me into the living room. I wiped my tears away as Garrett came back into the room, Connor's cries and screams could be heard from his nursery.

"This is what you have to look forward to," Garrett said to me, flopping down on the couch.

"Are you kidding? Any kid of Pat's is going to have to keep up with him, you two will be fine," Jessy reassured me. I looked down at my stomach, unable to imagine life with anyone other than just Pat and I.

"So what are you two up to today?" Garrett asked.

"It's a surprise, but first we have to take Alecia shopping," Jessy said.

"Shopping? Why do you need to go shopping?" Garrett asked me. I held up my hand.

"Don't even ask."

* * * * *

Today was definitely not a good day. Usually I would need a coffee to get me through any kind of shopping, but of course being pregnant meant a veto on all caffeine.

"Come on, decaf tastes the exact same as regular coffee," Jessy tried to persuade me. I shook my head.

"It's not the taste, it's the way that coffee perks me up and makes me feel better. Decaf isn't coffee," I protested. Jessy rolled her eyes and ordered her own coffee as I looked through the Starbucks menu for something that would keep me somewhat satisfied.

"Uh, I'll have a venti Strawberries and Cream frappucino without the cream," I said, still looking at the menu.

"Sure. Just a name?" The girl at the counter asked.

"Alecia," I replied, a look of recognition coming across the girl's face.

"You're Pat's wife, right?" she asked me and I just looked to Jessy for help. I hadn't expected this since the band had died down a little, but apparently there were still some hardcore fans out there.

"Um, I guess?" I answered, suddenly more aware of myself. Her eyes flickered down to my stomach and they widened slightly before telling me how much my drink was. I paid quickly and waited by the side with Jessy. We received our drinks shortly and Jessy pulled me to our first stop.

"Well, there's no keeping it from anyone now, as soon as you get home it'll be all over the internet," Jessy groaned and I felt the blood drain from my face.

"Are you serious?"

Jessy nodded. "When I got pregnant with Connor, fans found out while they were on tour and someone asked Garrett about it the same night it was figured out and it confused the hell out of him. These girls can't keep secrets, so you might want to warn Pat for the incoming shit storm."

I gulped and pulled out my phone, scrolling through my contacts to find Pat's number. Why did I have to go out in public?

"Hey baby, what's up?" he answered the phone, sounding way too cheery for my liking.

"Someone knows," was all I said.

"What do you mean 'someone knows'?"

"We went into Starbucks and one of your fans recognised me. It's not that hard to notice that I'm pregnant now," I explained, scared that he would get angry.

"Why is that so bad?" he asked, completely calm.

"I just thought I should warn you in case you get fans asking you about it, Jessy told me what happened with Garrett when she was pregnant with Connor."

Pat chuckled. "That was pretty funny to watch, he looked so lost and confused. It's alright, people are going to find out sooner or later."

"Oh. Okay. You're not mad?"

"Of course not. You can't hide it forever. Was that all you were calling me for?"

"Yeah, I'll let you get back to what you were doing."

"I'm helping Garrett look after Connor. He thinks it will be good practice for when our kid has toddler tantrums, but Connor has nothing on me."

I giggled. "That's what I thought. I'd better get back to shopping, I'll see you this afternoon?"

"Of course, see you then. I love you."

"Love you too." I hung up and resumed the coffee-less torture Jessy called shopping.

* * * * *

An hour later we were thankfully done buying maternity clothes and Jessy drove us over to John and Rebekah's place so I could change and we could pick Rebekah up for whatever it was she had planned for us.

I wasn't prepared for Rebekah to squeal as I walked out in a shirt and shorts, bombarding me with a hug before pulling back and putting her hands on my belly.

"You seriously look adorable, I can't wait to have kids one day," she gushed as John raised an eyebrow and took a sip of his coffee. I glared at him, able to smell it from the side of the room I was on.

"You have no idea how much I hate you right now," I told him through squinted eyes.

"What the hell did I do?"

Jessy rolled her eyes. "Alecia wants coffee but she can't have it. I told her to get decaf but she wouldn't listen."

"It's not the same thing," John and I said at the same time. He looked at me before turning back to Jessy.

"Please just drive safely, I would like to see my girlfriend again after today."

Jessy just rolled her eyes and dragged us both out to her car, Rebekah yelled a "bye!" over her shoulder before the door shut behind her and within minutes, we were on our way to Jessy's surprise destination.

"So, I'm guessing that things between you and John are back to normal?" Jessy asked Rebekah, who was sitting in the back seat after so graciously offering the front seat to the 'expectant mother'.

Rebekah made a weird noise and I turned to look back at her. "Well, not exactly. Like, we sleep together in the same bed and the sex is as amazing as it always has been-"

"Bek, he's my best friend, please spare me the gory details," Jessy gagged. Rebekah ignored her as she continued.

"He's just still acting funny around me. Whenever we go somewhere he'll hesitate before we go and he never lets me see anything that he buys anymore. I'm scared that he has someone on the side. What if he's hesitating because he doesn't want to see them in public or what if he's buying gifts for her instead of me?"

"Okay Rebekah, let me stop you right there. I've known John for a very long time and let me tell you, even if he's not satisfied with you, he wouldn't cheat on you. If he's still having sex with you then you seriously have nothing to worry about. He's probably just planning a surprise for you or something," Jessy calmed her down.

"Well our anniversary is in a couple of weeks and he wasn't like this before his birthday..."

"See? It's nothing big. He's probably just worried he's going to leave his dentures at home, old man he is."

"Hey, I'll have you know that while he may be thirty, he's like a twenty-one year old in bed," Rebekah said with a smirk on her face.

"Okay, ew, I'm going to erase that from my mind and we're going to move on from this conversation."

* * * * *

After an hour of singing along to cheesy songs at the top of our lungs and several bathroom breaks, mostly for me, we arrived at our destination.

"Jessy, it's a park. I would have been fine wearing a skirt," I told her, feeling exhausted that we had shopped all for nothing.

"It's not just a park. Come on, we're a bit early," Jessy said, winking at Rebekah.

"If that's the case, can we please go get food? I'm so hungry I could throw up," I complained.

We walked down the street and got In-N-Out, even though I knew Pat would kill me if he knew I was eating it.

We returned to the park nearly an hour later and there were a fair few more people there now. One girl walked past wearing one of The Maine's shirts, and then I saw another couple of girls wearing the same shirt.

"Jessy? What the hell is going on?" I asked her.

"You'll see in a few minutes," she smirked, pulling me to the side of the group, "Now sit down and relax."

It took the whole few minutes for me to be able to sit down comfortably and by then he had drawn a small amount of attention as the girls were whispering and looking at us.

There was a sudden cheer from the crowd of girls and my jaw dropped as I saw John walk to the front of the group with a small stool, Kennedy, Garrett and Jared followed with acoustic guitars and stools and then my own husband arrived, carrying his box drum.

"How the hell did Pat manage to keep this a secret from me?" I hissed to Jessy, who snickered at my disbelief.

"They threatened to kick him out of the band if he told you."

I sat in awe as The Maine played a small acoustic set, the crowd of girls clapping and singing along. After half an hour, they paused to take a break and let John say something to the crowd.

"Alright, so here's the situation. We have a full van of merch back in the car park and normally we wouldn't pressure anyone into buying it, but we're going to need your support here. In six months, there is going to be a new member of the 8123 family. However, this one isn't a musician."

My hand flew to my mouth in shock as Pat pinpointed me and gave me a beaming smile.

"This person is going to be very special to all of us, but especially Pat and his wife Alecia, since this person is going to be their first child. So we as a band have all decided that we're going to donate all the profits from all our merch sales not only today but on our upcoming tours to the Kirch family, to help them with their growing family."

I couldn't stop the tears that began to come out of my eyes and I wiped them away as quickly as they would appear. I was so shocked, amazed and thankful that I didn't actually have any words. I caught Pat's eye again and he smiled, mouthing an 'I love you' over the top of the crowd to me.

"Come on Alecia, get up here," John said, causing most of the girls to turn and find me.

"I don't think I can get up," I laughed through my tears, causing Jessy and Rebekah to laugh from beside me. Jessy stood and held her hands out to help me stand up and I went up the front, hugging John as he held his arms out to me.

"You have no idea how much this means to me," I told him, still in shock.

"Hey, we're all a family, we look out for each other. It's the least we could do," he shrugged. I pulled away to find Pat, who was as ecstatic as I was.

I gave him a playful slap on the shoulder. "That's for keeping this whole thing a secret from me," I said, making the girls sitting in the front row laugh.

"You have no idea how hard it was, I nearly caved so many times."

I laughed then pulled him into a tight hug. "Thank you so much. My day has been pretty average, but now it's great."

"We all know how hard you've been working to get a promotion so we can afford everything so we're taking some of the stress off you. Now go sit back down with Jessy and Rebekah so we can finish our set."

"Before we play our last song, I have one more thing I'd like to say," John started, looking around at the audience. "Rebekah, come up here."

Jessy, Rebekah and I all looked at each other, confused. If Jessy wasn't in on it then this must have been a surprise to everyone, even the boys were looking at each other as if to ask what was going on.

John stood up from his stool and reached into his pocket before bending down onto one knee. I heard Jessy let out a squeal from the back of the crowd and my eyes widened in shock.

Rebekah, of course, reacted by crying before John could even get a word out.

"Rebekah, you are the absolute light of my life. I never thought I could love anyone as much as I do to you. Will you make me the happiest I've been and do me the honour of marrying me and becoming my wife?"

Rebekah couldn't even speak, instead she only nodded and John's face lit up as the crowd of girls cheered as he slipped a massive diamond ring onto her ring finger.

Once she had managed to pry herself away from her now-fiancé, Jessy and I attacked her in a group hug and John sat back on his stool to begin the last song. "This one's called 'Whoever She Is' and it's for you, Rebekah. I love you."

He started playing and we stayed up the front, clapping once they had finished and John reminded the crowd that they would be selling merch from the van as soon as they had packed up.

People were coming up and congratulating both Rebekah and I while buying merch from John and Pat in the back of the van.

We all stuck around until the last fan left and John thumbed through the notes he had collected.

"We have more than enough merch to get us through the first leg of the tour, so here," John said, wrapping a rubber band around the notes before handing it to me, "This is to start you guys off. After the first tour we'll have to deduct enough to order more merch for the rest of the tour but the profit from it is all yours."

"I can't thank you guys enough, honestly," I said, looking around at all of them, "You have no idea how much it means to me that you're helping us out."

"Well as much as we would like to take credit, it wasn't our idea," John said.

I furrowed my brow in confusion. "Whose was it then?"

"Halvo noticed during your time together that you were always tired and worn out and he suggested that the band did something to help you guys out financially so you don't push yourself too hard," Pat explained.

I felt incredibly touched that not only did Eric notice that I had been exhausting myself, still aiming for this promotion, but he had decided to do something about it.

"Remind me to buy his lunch next week. We really appreciate this, guys, thank you again, so much," I said, still extremely grateful.

Once the van had been all packed up, we all got into our respective cars, John driving the van back to the studio with the instruments, stools and merch in the back and Rebekah in the front, Jessy and Garrett in Jessy's car and Pat had brought his car to take us straight home.

On the drive home I counted the money John had handed me, my eyes widening when I realised that there was close to $700 in the stack.

"Remind me to open up a new account on Monday to put this in," I said to Pat.

"Well, uh, we've already taken the liberty of doing that for you, I think you'll find that it'll increase a lot more than you expect it to."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, over the last week or so we've been putting together an EP, which has been specially made to contribute to our baby account. We're going to release it in a couple of months and we've already set up for the profits to be transferred straight into the account."

"I kind of feel bad for taking everyone's money, you guys have worked so hard on this," I said, feeling slightly guilty.

"Everyone knows how hard you've been working and we want to take some of the stress off you. Stress isn't healthy for the baby and everyone wants to make sure that the baby comes safely. We're all a family, so we look out for each other."

I realised that my family was never just me and Pat, or even me and Eric, it was all of my friends as well and I couldn't have picked a better group of people to be my family.