“Then we’d better buy double the ice cream from now on.” She giggled, “You know how possessive you get over ice cream.” I laughed lightly and relaxed in her arms. “I want it to be positive.”
I felt surprised by her statement, but I wasn’t entirely against it either. “For both of us?”
“One hundred percent.” She smiled. “I love you, Angel Eyes. I can’t imagine a better way to go through this than with you at my side.”
“Even if I’m not pregnant, I’ll still be at your side. I love you so much, baby.”
She took a deep breath, and I forced myself to push the fear down to let the tiny bit of excitement I felt underneath it, free to burn brighter.
“Let’s look together.” She picked up her test, and I picked up mine. I would have hesitated, but with the more time that passed, the more cautiously excited I got.
I pulled the wrapper off and read the words written out digitally on the screen.
Pregnant.
Hannah squealed excitedly next to me and showed me her test as she looked at mine. She was pregnant, too.
“Holy fuck.”
“Two babies!” She screamed, dropping the test and hugging me. “We’re going to be moms! Together!”
“Holy fuck.” I repeated, but at least that time I managed to smile afterward.
She giggled and hugged me tighter. “I know it’s a lot, but we’ll figure it out. I promise. Love conquers just about everything else in the world and we have a lot of love in this house.”
“Yes, we do.” I gentled and relaxed a little. “We sure fucking do.”
It had been a wild week since finding out both Hannah and I were pregnant, to say the least. We each made appointments with an OB, started taking vitamins full of things neither of us could pronounce, and spent a lot of time staring off into the distance.
We both tried to figure out what the future was going to look like for our family as a whole, but also for our relationships individually.
I fucking loved Hannah, and having such a monumental event happening at the same time for both of us made me fall even deeper in love with her. It rocked me to my very core every time I imagined her holding her little baby in her arms, who had Brody’s dark eyes or Knox’s sandy blonde hair. I ached to embrace her nurturing instincts and let them ease some of the worry in my heart. To be honest, I was just as excited to hold my baby in my arms, even though I was also afraid.
I had great parents growing up; they loved each other intensely and never shied away from showing that love around me and my siblings. But it just didn’t feel like I was embracing the prospect of motherhood as quickly or as naturally as Hannah was.
And then there was the anxiety of wondering what the guys would say when they found out. Hannah and I agreed immediately that we didn’t want to tell them over the phone. And short of packing up and flying to a random drag strip in the middle of the country somewhere to tell them face to face, we were stuck keeping it a secret for a few days.
But the night that Brody and Knox were due home was upon us, and the butterflies in my stomach were making me nauseous. I didn’t think it was just the morning sickness that started the other day, either.
There was the fear of rejection in my heart, and I couldn’t relax until we shared the news with them. My entire adult life, I had an exit strategy in place in case someone fucked me up. The only time it had failed me was with Sydney and I wasn’t trying to compare the situations, but old scars were hard to heal.
“Are you okay?” Hannah asked, sliding her hands around my hips as I stood motionless at the kitchen sink, staring out the window toward the driveway.
“Yeah.” I smiled, pulling her arms around my stomach as she rested her chin on my shoulder. “You?”
“I feel like I’m going to poop my pants.” She deadpanned, “But that could have been the three billion tacos I ate for lunch.”
I smirked and turned, leaning back against the sink as we held each other. “That most definitely could be it.”
“I love you.” She stated plainly. She’d been doing it repeatedly lately like she could feel the fears in my heart, even though I never spoke of them. Scars were a weird kind of thing to live with, and a weirder thing to love someone with them.
“I love you too,” I whispered, kissing her lips lightly and leaning my forehead against hers. We stayed like that for a long time, breathing each other in and centering ourselves.
Noise from the front of the house drew our attention, and we both looked out the window where Knox and Brody were getting out of Brody’s truck and stretching out their sore muscles before jogging up the steps.
“Are you nervous?” Hannah whispered, pulling me through the house to the living room, where she had a whole thing planned.
“No,” I replied firmly, trying to force myself to believe it. “Because I have you. And you have me.”
She beamed over at me with all of her golden perfection and slid her hand in mine as the kitchen door opened, banging against the wall in Knox’s haste to get inside.
“Sweethearts!” He bellowed, “We’re home!”
“In here.” Hannah sang back, and they both rounded the corner, pausing when they saw us standing there together, hand in hand.
“Ooh,” Knox grinned, leaning into Brody’s shoulder. “Do you think whatever they have planned is kinky?”
Brody scoffed and took a step forward, but I held my hand out first, making him stop.
“Not so fast,” I ordered, and they both raised eyebrows at me in surprise. “Hannah has something she wants to tell you first.”
She was literally bouncing from foot to foot, and I knew she was going to burst at the seams if she didn’t get it out. She raised her hands into the air and screamed, “We’re pregnant!” Which wasn’t at all what we rehearsed and I tipped my head back, laughing at the chaos those words were going to cause.
Both the guys’ jaws dropped in surprise as they looked back and forth like they couldn’t comprehend her words, so she rubbed her hand over her stomach, visually showing them.
Knox moved first, lunging for her, pulling her into his arms, and swinging her around in the middle of the room, “You’re pregnant?” He cheered, laughing and kissing her all over.
