Here I Am, There You Are

I always missed the winters back in Baltimore. They were always perfect for nice and cozy moments. The perks of being LA was that it was always relatively warm, there was no snow on the roads, and the sun was usually shining. But how was that supposed to feel normal? No matter how long I lived in that warmer climate, I grew up in the freezing cold, smashing the ice on my car windows. Luckily, I still had my parents who lived on the east coast and who gladly wanted me over for the festive period.

I was wearing a nice large comfortable knitted sweater, some nice warm white socks, and to combat how warm I was making myself, shorts. We were inside anyway, shorts were fully acceptable. Especially since I was sitting on the floor with Jack right next to the fireplace that was radiating heat. I was sitting in between his legs, which he had up, his arms wrapped around my body as I leaned into his chest.

My entire family was here. Ethan was to our left, also on the floor, but on a pillow and resting against the couch instead of a wall like Jack. My parents were sitting up on the couch, both with a glass of wine in their hands. Even Anna and her husband, Chris, were here, also sitting on the couch, but the other section. It really was a full house. We rarely got that anymore. It was something to celebrate, which was exactly what we were doing that evening. Ethan had come back for his Christmas break a week ago, Chris and Anna had arrived a few days ago, and now Jack and I were here as well.

I felt so content sitting there. Everything was just going well recently. Jack and I had not had a single regret about getting married. If anything, it made us even more affectionate. And we also got some great nights out of it. I had also gone through the process of changing my name, so I was now officially Rachel Barakat. It was on all my IDs as proof.

“Guys, we’ve got something we want to tell you,” Anna spoke up after there had been some silence.

She waited until she got all of us to look at her and was certain that she had everybody’s attention. Once she knew, she shared a look with Chris and smiled. I was fully expecting her to tell us that they were getting a dog or moving or something. Anna did like making things just a tad dramatic. It was just how she was and I had had my entire life to adapt to it.

But then she announced, “I’m pregnant!”

My eyes went wide and Jack shifted to sit up straighter. That definitely was a shock. Not because it was strange, just because I would have thought she would want to turn that into an entire spectacle and not just tell us with the use of some simple words. My mom gasped in excitement and started shedding a few tears. My dad was grinning brightly as well, not getting as emotional, but also definitely ecstatic.

“No way!” Jack was the first of us to respond.

“Congrats,” I added with a smile. But it felt different. I couldn’t really match the happiness at that moment. Not now, at least.

“That’s such a co–” Jack started, but I quickly slapped my hand over his mouth to stop him from finishing his thought.

Instead, I finally got over the hump and continued to gush over Anna and her news. “This is so exciting!”

Everybody only gave us a few confused looks. They were judgemental enough for me to drop my hand from Jack’s face, but not disgusted enough for me to try to play it off any further. Luckily nobody stopped to wonder what I was doing and kept congratulating Anna and fussing over her. That was the important part, making this moment about Anna.

But Jack had to ruin it.

“Rachel’s pregnant as well,” he blurted out, making all the eyes shift to us again.

"Jack!" I yelped and shifted to glare at him, forcing his arms off me.

“What?” He defended himself. “When else were you thinking of telling them now?”

I mean, he had a point. We initially had this whole plan to announce it. It included a picture frame that we were going to give my parents and the word ‘grandchild’. Nothing too big. We were going to tell everybody the next day, just give ourselves the first day to arrive, unpack, and get some rest. But if we were suddenly going to come with it the next day now, it wouldn’t have the same effect. It would be confusing because of Anna’s announcement and it would also seem like we were trying to one-up her. That definitely wasn’t the case.

“Oh my god!” Anna yelled in a high pitched voice and rushed over to my side, hugging me so tightly I nearly toppled over. “We’re both going to have babies at the same time!”

“I’m pregnant too!” Ethan decided to shout, wanting in on some of the action.

“I don’t know what you’ve been doing with Chase,” my dad laughed loudly, enjoying Ethan’s joke just a little too much, “but that is not how this works.”

“Wait, how far along are you?” Anna asked me, finally giving me some space and taking a glance at my stomach, ignoring the commotion Ethan had caused.

“Sixteen weeks.” I shrugged. I knew you couldn’t tell that I was pregnant yet. It only looked like I had gained a bit of weight, but even that was barely visible with the sweater I wore.

“What, really?” She looked taken aback as if expecting a whole different answer. “I’m only five weeks in.”

Even my mom looked shocked despite her elation. It was more of a ‘how dare you keep this amazing surprise from me’ kind of shock than a ‘what the fuck’ kind of shock. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

I wasn’t sure if I should answer truthfully, but I decided to go for it in the end. “I got pregnant like right after our wedding, but had a miscarriage at six weeks. We wanted to wait awhile before announcing it this time, just in case.”

“Oh…” Anna’s happiness started fading away.

“Don’t worry,” I took hold of her hand and gave it a quick squeeze, “it doesn’t happen to everyone.”

“You never told me about any of this.” My mom frowned.

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” I realised.

Honestly, it had never crossed my mind to call her back then. Jack and I worked through it together and were there for each other every step of the way. Yes, it was quite a sad point in our lives, but we also knew that things like that happened and that we’d get a second chance. We were just super lucky that that chance came so soon after. It had been such a happy surprise for us that it pulled us through our grief in no time. We really were lucky, and I knew others had such a hard time compared to us that I didn’t want to take it for granted.

“How does it feel to know you’re getting two grandchildren?” Jack changed the subject before the entire mood was ruined.

There was no need to feel sorry for us. We didn’t need to scare Anna. And we didn’t need my mom more worried about why I didn’t tell her instead of being happy that she was going to be a grandmother in a matter of months.

“I’m so excited, but I’m getting so old!” My mom replied with some laughter.

For the rest of the evening, Anna kept asking me questions about being pregnant as if I could answer them. Yes, I was further along than her, but I didn’t know shit either. I was taking things as they were coming. This was also my first pregnancy, I had no idea what was normal and what wasn’t. I didn’t know what to expect either. There were already huge differences between things my mom always told me about, the things she experienced in all three of her pregnancies, and the way I was experiencing things.

One of those things was cravings. My mom didn’t get them until she was over halfway along. I started getting them the day before I even took the pregnancy test that turned out to be positive. They would hit me at the weirdest of times, and they would hit me hard. Morning sickness, however, had not been ruining my days… yet.

Jack and I didn’t wait much longer until we went to bed. Although our biological clocks were still set on pacific time, and so it felt like it was three hours earlier than it actually was, we were still very tired. It’s what travelling and carrying-slash-creating another human being did to you. Jack practically experiences some symptoms with me, including the slap in the face that was fatigue.

Being tired and actually falling asleep, however, are two very different activities.

We got ready for bed and climbed in. Jack and I started the night off with some subtle cuddling, but as time passed and he fell asleep, he turned away from me. I laid there on my back with my eyes closed, hoping for the sleep to hit me. But it just never did. I tried and tried until another hour had passed. I contemplated what to do. The light in the hallway was still on, so there were others still awake. I had to do something, though.

“Jack?” I said out loud in my normal speaking voice, suddenly knowing exactly what it was that I needed.

He grumbled back some nonsense, obviously just woken by me.

“I can’t sleep,” I stated.

He turned around so he was facing me and shuffled closer. Although he was still half asleep, he started pressing kisses all over the side of my face. On my cheek, on my temple, just below my eye, etcetera. He then also slipped his hand underneath my shirt and slowly brushed his hand over my stomach in circles, still continuing his kisses. It was like the non-sexual version of initiating sex without aiming for sex.

“Just close your eyes and count down,” he mumbled and laid his head on my pillow, his slow breath grazing my skin.

“No,” I sighed and shook my head, “that’s not working.”

All he could do was hum in response.

“You’re going to hate me,” I told him, still not bothering to lower my voice.

He nuzzled his nose against my ear. “I could never.”

“I really need pizza with a shit-ton of black olives,” I confessed.

“Black olives?”

“Yeah. I don’t know why, I don’t know what for. I’ve never liked them on pizza, but it’s just needed now.”

He groaned and turned to lay on his back, rubbing his eyes. “Where in the fuck did this craving come from?”

“Your cheese puff.” To anybody else, that wouldn’t have made sense. But we had started calling the baby cheese puff. It started as a joke when we were unsure about how to refer to it since it was the nickname I had once given Jack jokingly as well. Somehow it stuck this time.

“My cheese puff? We both did this.” He dropped his hands from his face and before I could even reply, he sat up. “Alright, olive pizza it is.”

I couldn’t stop the giddy grin on my face. The only thing better than getting food was getting food you were absolutely dying for. Jack regretfully got out of bed and sloppily reached around to put on some sweatpants and a t-shirt. I swung my legs out of bed and got up as well, a lot more chipper and awake than him. Afterall, I wasn’t the one who was just rudely awakened for something as stupid as pizza with olives.

Jack grabbed his wallet and keys from the small vanity in my room and stuffed them in his pockets before pulling his phone from the charger as well. He followed closely behind me, looking for a place that would be close by and open right now while I left the room and went downstairs.

There were indeed still a few lights on and I soon found out the only people stil awake were Anna and my mom. They were still in the living room in slight darkness because the main lights were off, but the warm yellow toned standing lamps were still illuminating everything. It really was a nice warm cosy feeling. My mom and sister were just sitting there on the couch talking to each other, making me hope we were interupting anything. I needed that pizza too much to walk away.

“You guys are still awake?” My mom frowned as she heard us come down the stairs.

“Barely,” Jack grumbled with a jawn, going to the front door and forcing his shoes on.

He wasn’t mad at me in anyway, he was just exhausted and still in the process of properly waking up. It almost seemed like he was the one that was pregnant and would get so tired that he could barely function. I didn’t even wake him up frequently either, so there wasn’t much sleep he missed out on. He’d take every opportunity to nap with me when I felt like I needed one.

I just kissed his cheek to thank him as he put on his coat. “I can come with you.”

“No, it’s cold outside. I’ll be back in a bit.” He shook his head and pecked me on the lips before leaving the house.

Once the door closed, I was left the shrug and join Anna and my mom on the couch while I was waiting for him to return. They stayed silent for a while, staring me down as I sat down and pulled my legs up, making sure the large shirt I was wearing did still cover everything.

“Where’s he going?” my mom finally asked.

I started grinning, thinking about the food again. “He’s getting me pizza.”

“Didn’t I feed you enough?” Her tone had a hint of worry. Afterall, she didn’t know both Anna and I were pregnant when we had dinner, she could only be afraid that she didn’t make enough food.

“No, no,” I assured her, “I’m not hungry. I just really want pizza, I couldn’t sleep.”

“He’s getting you pizza…” Anna sighed, her face resting on her fist, causing her whole left cheek to be squished.

I raised my eyebrows at her, surprised by how upset she seemed. “What’s up with you? Pregnancy hormones or is something truly wrong?”

“I want Chris to get me pizza as well!” She groaned and slumped even more.

“You’ve also started getting weird cravings early on?” I was actually pretty excited that I wasn’t the only one experiencing them so early.

“No,” she scoffed and glared at me a little. “It’s just the thought that counts.”

“Okay, I’m confused.”

She threw down her arms in frustration, almost mad at me for not understanding her cryptic wording. “Jack goes out to get you pizza because you want some in the middle of the night while Chris isn’t even the tinniest bit excited!”

“I’m sure that isn’t true,” I shook my head. This seemed a lot more like pregnancy hormones. How did I know? I had moods exactly like this as well sometimes. “He might just need some time to process it, you’re only a few weeks in.”

She now suddenly seemed to get upset again. “Did Jack also take a while?”

I now regretted going down this path. I was only going to make things worse. But I also wasn’t going to lie about my relationship. “Well, no–”

She whined loudly.

“–but,” I continued, hoping to be able to reason with her, “we did talk about this for the longest time, even before we moved in together. This has been our plan for quite some time. After a few years of waiting, I’m sure it’s pretty difficult to be anything but excited. How long have you guys been planning?”

“Umm…” She squinted her eyes, preparing herself for bad reactions. “We’ve talked about it, but this wasn’t exactly planned…”

“Well, that kind of does it then, doesn’t it? Just give him a bit to wrap his head around it.”

“When I was pregnant with Ethan, your dad also needed a second,” my mom added, taking us back a bit. I wasn’t exactly expecting her to add her own experience as well. “You know we love you all, but he’s much younger, that doesn’t exactly scream planned, does it?”

She was right. I technically always knew. He did join us all quite a lot later. Considering Anna and I were two years apart, it definitely was strange. Still, hearing my mom say it outloud was quite the shocker. Part of me always still wanted to believe that they just wanted another baby at that time. Obviously, they didn’t mind, they always loved Ethan, even before he was born, but still.

“I’m sure that if I had gotten pregnant before we got married, both Jack and I would have been more shocked and unsure about what to do than now.” I felt like I needed to say it so she wouldn’t think that our relationship was perfect. The timing just happened to be perfect now. I was also sure that if I hadn’t gotten pregnant again so soon, things would have gone very differently.

“Sex before marriage is a sin…” Anna mumbled, thinking over everything we said.

I snorted, “you’re the one telling me.”

“Shut up.” She gave me a soft annoyed push before worrying again. “What if Chris doesn’t come around?”

I sighed, “if you’re really that concerned, you’re just going to have to talk to him, tell him how you feel, try to understand what he’s feeling.”

She hummed and nodded. “I guess… although I do wish I had somebody like Jack who is immediately excited.”

“I’m sorry,” I patted her shoulder a few times, “but he’s taken.”

She breathed out heavily and pushed herself back further into the couch. “Did you ever think you’d be here right now?”

“Married and having a baby with Jack?” I asked, getting single nod from her. “No, not at all. If you had told sixteen-year-old me, I would have wondered where I made a mistake. Not because I thought it would have been a horrible thing, but just because I never thought of him that way until we started dating.”

“I always liked Jack,” my mom butted in, remembering the days when we were all much younger. This was over fifteen years ago. “You know, I always thought you guys would have ended up together back then. He just looked at you in this specific way, but as you said, you didn’t look at him the same way. I forgot all about it until you showed up one day hand-in-hand with him.”

“If we had dated back in high school – or even after that – it would have been a disaster!” I laughed, clapping my hands together. “He was way too busy with All Time Low, and I was way too busy getting my education and moving up to my dream job. When we actually started dating, we already had our careers sorted out. I mean… sort of… but we don’t mention that.”

There was a pleasant silence that my mom decided to break. “I really hope one of you has a girl.”

Both Anna and I looked at her, very startled. It was a mixture of confusion and a sort of negative awe. First of all, why would she have a preference for a gender? And second of all, why was it a girl?

“I just have boxes of all your old toys left in the attic,” she defended herself when she saw our reactions, “I’d love to get rid of them.”

“We can still give the dolls to our kids if we only have boys,” Anna countered.

“You’re not wrong there…” she noticed her mistake and I could see the regret spread across her face. “Remember when Ethan would not let go of that one doll you all had when he was four?”

“I was pissed when you gave that doll to Anna!” I laughed, remembering exactly which one she was talking about. It had never been one of my favourite toys, but I hated giving things away back then, especially if it was to Anna. She would steal so many things that were mine already. “But I give you full permission to hand it down to your kids.”

“Are you sure? It was yours originally,” she checked.

“Yeah, of course. I’ve got other things I can hand down.”

“Maybe we should let Ethan keep it for whenever he had kids. He was obsessed with that thing.”

We continued to sit there and talk about random things. There was a lot of reminiscing, thinking back to the years when we were kids, but also thinking about things that had happened just months ago. A lot of the times, it often came back to us being pregnant. My mom loved asking us questions and telling us about her own experiences. It made me both look forward to the next few months and absolutely dread everything that was coming all at the same time.

It took Jack a total of forty-five minutes to come back. We were just talking and laughing when he suddenly came through the front door, holding a single pizza box in his hands. He looked absolutely freezing despite the coat he was wearing. Before he even took off the coat and his shoes, he came up to me and handed me the box, kissing the top of my head.

I opened the box excitedly and saw a pizza absolutely covered in black olives. There was barely any empty space that had just cheese and tomato sauce. It was absolutely perfect. It was even better than anything I could have imagined.

“You are literally the best,” I gushed, immediately picking up a slice, taking a huge bite. Everything about it was so satisfying. What would have usually repulsed me was now hitting the right spot. It could have easily been my new favourite food.

Jack put his coat back up on the rack and kicked off his shoes before sitting next to me. “I better be, I went through a lot of effort to get that.”

“Thank you.” I grinned and pecked him on the lips.

He scrunched up his nose at the contact. “Gross, you taste like olives.”

“Want a slice?” I offered, nudging the box in his direction and happily eating some more.

“No,” he looked very concerned for his own wellbeing, “I don’t want olives with pizza. This is one food I will refuse to ever eat.”

“More for me.” I shrugged, probably eating way too quickly.

“Would you like some wine, Jack?” My mom offered. About half way through our conversation before Jack came back, she had gone up to open a bottle for herself.

“I’m good, thanks,” he declined and put his head on my shoulder.

“You’re allowed to go to bed you know,” I told him with my mouth full. “You don’t need to stay up. I know I rudely woke you up.”

His eyes already started getting a little heavy. “No, I don’t want to go without you.”

“I’m going to be a while,” I pointed out.

He shook his head and sneaked his arms around my waist, almost hugging me.

“I can go to bed by myself, I’m not going to keep you up.”

“I’ll stay up with you,” he tried to convince me, but his eyes closed.

“You know I won’t be able to carry you upstairs if you fall asleep.”

He hummed in response and mumbled softly, “cheese puff.”

And then he was completely gone, breathing heavily as he slipped into a deep sleep.

–––––

A lot had happened since Jack had told my family that I was pregnant. It was only about three months later, meaning I was now 26 weeks pregnant. We had called Jack’s family to announce it to them as well. His parents were all the way in another country and his siblings were just a bit too far away for us to go on a road trip in the cold slippery conditions. While all our family knew, or at least close family, I didn’t know how much further the news spread, we had not yet announced it on social media. It had been a decision we made because we didn’t want to get bombared by things.

I just wanted to keep it quiet for a little while. It wasn’t that I wasn’t excited, because I really was, I just wasn’t ready yet for all the talking that would happen. Jack couldn’t just simply tell the word that he was having a child. There would be articles upon articles, people trying to reach out to us, and even the people who would be livid about it. That, and the fact that All Time Low was coming out with another album, had caused us to stay silent. Jack was busy promoting that album, and we didn’t want it getting in the way of that and shows.

But the world had changed since then. Jack wasn’t out playing the many shows they had planned after the album release. We were stuck at home, living our lives inside. Everybody in LA was ever since we were told to quarantine. On one hand, it was nice to have Jack at home, especially since you could definitely tell that I was pregnant now and it was becoming difficult to do some things. On the other, though, I was upset for him. He was so excited to get out and play shows, and now he was at home with nothing to do.

I still had a lot of work to do. Despite everything that was happening, our magazine was not stopping. However, things were also changing there. Everybody was working from home, all our meetings were online, and new arrangements had to be made. Certain articles couldn’t be published anymore, photoshoots were cancelled, advertisements were being pulled. It was all my responsibility and I worked so much overtime. But I was just glad to still have a job.

I had my last meeting for the day right after lunch, which I did still have a set time for. Technically, my work day wasn’t done yet. I still had other things left to do. But I decided I needed a little break to keep myself sane. I needed to move around a little, take my mind of the work I was trying to do, and see what else was going on around our house.

I saved my latest work and set the laptop to sleep before I rolled my chair back and stood up. The first thing I did was stretch, catching my appearance in the mirror. My hair was up in a messy bun, I was wearing a large All Time Low t-shirt that engulfed my gym shorts, nothing on my feet, and my bump was sticking out. I really didn’t look work ready, but that was the perk of usually being the boss at the meetings. There was nobody to look down at me for not looking as professional as I usually did. If anything, it made everybody else feel more comfortable dressing down as well. I was stuck at home and pregnant, it just wasn’t really my priority, and I felt like nobody had to worry about that now.

I opened the door to the small bedroom we had turned into our designated office and went to go downstairs. Once I was going down the steps, I heard Jack’s voice, like he was talking on the phone. It wasn't until I was actually downstairs that I remembered it was past two o’clock and that Jack was doing a livestream with the others from the band. Just based on how loud his voice was, I could tell that he had opted to sit in our open more formal living room instead of the TV room, which actually had doors you could shut. I figured that if Jack was dumb enough to not find a secluded space, then it wasn’t my fault if I accidentally interrupted.

I walked past him, catching a quick glimpse of the rest of the band on his laptop screen, and made sure to stay just out of frame. He still looked up at me with a big grin while I responded with a short wave, going straight for the kitchen. I contemplated making myself some tea or coffee, but decided against it. It was pretty warm in LA and I was already sweating, even the idea of drinking anything hot was making me feel like I’d overheat. Being pregnant didn’t help with that either.

I opted to check out the fridge instead. There were lots of different snacks, leftovers, and unopened packets of food. It was difficult to find something that screamed ‘eat me’ or ‘drink me’ at me, though. I settled on a carrot. Why a carrot? I didn’t know at all, but I was eating it and it was pretty satisfying. I just hummed along with the song in my head and closed the fridge, deciding to leave the kitchen again before I started rummaging through all the cupboards.

As soon as I left the kitchen, Jack’s eyes were on me again. With the song still stuck in my head, I did a little dance. Nothing much, just some shaking with my shoulders and a few steps with my feet. It wasn’t like I could do any more. There was literally another human being in the way.

“What are you doing?” Jack laughed, shaking his head at me.

Instead of explaining my actions, I pulled out the shirt I was wearing and screamed, “Wake up sunshine, somebody loves you!”

Afterall, the shirt was the reason why that song was stuck in my head. The phrase ‘Wake up sunshine’ was written on it so largely that I couldn’t ignore it. It was there, constantly reminding me that the song was there and that it was good.

“Our number one fan,” Jack grinned back, completely neglecting his livestream.

“No,” I corrected him and pointed at my bump, “he’s going to be your biggest fan.”

“Cheese puff might be, or he’ll be a rebel and hate our music. Either way, you’re still the biggest fan now.”

“I’m sure there are people out there who will beg to differ,” I chuckled, taking a bite from the carrot in my hand.

Jack briefly glanced back at his laptop screen before directing his gaze back to me. “Wanna join for a bit?”

I looked down at my bump and back up at him, raising my eyebrows. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Circumstances have changed, there’s no real reason to hide it anymore.” He shrugged. “Unless you don’t want anybody to know, of course.”

I thought about it for a second. He was right. All we were doing was sitting at home, there wasn’t really a reason to keep it from their fans anymore. Of course, Alex, Rian, Zack, and their crew already knew all about it. So this wouldn’t be the time they found out. The only thing we’d be getting was comments online from fans.

“Fine,” I agreed and crossed my arms, “but only if we have sex later.”

Jack’s eyes went very wide. “I almost unmuted my microphone before you said that. But I can definitely keep that promise.”

He turned back to his screen and clicked something. “Calm your titties, I was muted for a reason. I was talking to my wife… my wiiiife.” He pulled out an earphone and held it out for me. “They’re calling out for you.”

I took a deep breath in before walking up and taking the earphone from him. It wouldn’t have been so nerve wracking if this wouldn’t be the first time people would see that I was pregnant. Still, I put the earphone in my ear and sat down next to Jack on our large couch.

“Rachel!” Rian immediately yelled out.

“Hey!” I greeted back with a little wave.

“How’s everything? How are you dealing?” Alex asked, rubbing his chin.

“Pretty well, actually,” I admitted, knowing that there were so many people who were seriously struggling right now. “I’ve still got my job. I took a paycut so we can continue to pay people like interns and stuff even though I work so many hours overtime now. But it’s what’s important.”

“You took a paycut?” He repeated in what seemed a little like surprise.

“Yeah, there’s people out there who need it more than us right now.”

“Wow, I commend you for that.”

“You really shouldn’t. It’s the right thing to do.” I shrugged and brought my carrot up to my mouth again, snapping another piece off.

Jack looked at me weirdly and started laughing. “Why are you eating a carrot?”

“Why are you drinking at three?” I shot back with a similar judgmental look even though I really didn’t give a shit. “What are you drinking anyway?”

Instead of letting him answer, I reached over his legs and grabbed one of the bottles he had in his assortment. It was a wine bottle. I read the label and immediately remembered what this live stream was technically centered around. They didn’t really talk much about it, but it was the reason why they were drinking in the first place.

I turned the bottle so it was facing the camera and put on my best fake commercial smile, selling it with a very rehearsed and monotone voice. “Everything is Wine. Buy it for all of your wine needs. Tastes like wine, smells like wine, and even looks like wine. It’s probably great.”

“At least be a little more enthusiastic, Rachel!” Alex clapped his hands together, thinking it was funny despite his response.

“I don’t drink, remember?”

“I was just about to say,” Rian interjected, drinking from his own tumbler, “you shouldn’t be drinking.”

“I’ve had friends and family ask me if it’s difficult to not drink now, but I didn’t drink before either. It’s really not that hard not to drink anything with alcohol.”

“Agree to disagree,” Jack said sheepishly and sipped his white claw, which he was obsessed with for some reason. He claimed they were amazing, but I had no way of knowing.

“Our fridge is just full of white claws and carrots–”

Before I could finish my joke, Jack suddenly screamed as our back door started opening. Olive came barreling inside, barking at us excitedly, Ethan taking his own time to walk inside normally and even close the door behind him as well. He had Olive’s leash in his hands and was in the process of taking off his sunglasses.

“I swear to god, Jack. At this rate, you’re going to make me go into premature labour,” I sighed, my one ear ringing without the slight protection of the earphone.

“I’m not that scary looking, am I?” Ethan defended with mock offense and started leading Olive away to the front hall to feed her, meaning he briefly appeared on screen.

Alex gasped dramatically and accused us, “do you have guests over?!”

I scoffed. “That’s my brother. He was supposed to go on spring break with his college friends, but decided not to go… unlike the others. So he came over here instead because it’s easier for him, and now we’re all stuck together.”

“Another good thing? Why won’t you give me anything to judge you for?” Alex sighed in frustration.

“Judge me for the fact that I’ve gotta get back to work,” I countered, seeing that my short break had become thirty minutes long.

“Oh, man, how dare you!”

“I’m sorry, I’ll try to do better next time.”

“Well, it was nice to talk to you!”

“Yeah, it was good seeing you guys. Bye!” I handed back the earphone to Jack.

He put it in his ear and pulled me back to kiss me before letting me go. Although I said I was going to go back to work, I first went to check up on Ethan and Olive to see how they were doing.

That evening, Jack and I decided to fully announce that we were having a baby on social media. People had already started sharing screenshots and comments about what they had seen on the livestream. There were full on debates on whether or not I was pregnant. It wasn’t that obvious with the shirt I wore and we never explicitly said anything. However, the photo Jack posted of me on the couch in my pajamas and my shirt lifted a bit said enough. Then, the ultrasound I posted solidified it all.

People went wild.