Chapter 31 JP - FRIENDSGIVING GUILT
The next afternoon, we stood on Mer and Colt’s porch holding homemade cookies for a Friendsgiving dinner. We were celebrating a week before Thanksgiving because Piper and Kappy were going back to Michigan to spend the actual holiday with Mrs. Kappers.
As we stood in the lightly falling snow, our warm breaths hung in the air while Christmas lights sparkled around us.
It would’ve been a very beautiful, peaceful moment, if it weren’t for my phone constantly buzzing in my pocket.
It hadn’t stopped going off since we arrived home last night after the basketball game.
Our team group chat was having an absolute field day with the unfortunate kiss cam video.
Ali gave me another look of apology. I moved behind her and rubbed her arm.
Kappy threw the door open, a huge shit-eating grin on his face. “Dude, you’re viral!” He gave me a bone-rattling slap on my good shoulder, making a shock of pain ricochet through my upper body.
“His shoulder!” Ali complained.
Kappy’s face faltered. “Ope, sorry. I just got excited.”
I sighed as I used my good hand to usher Ali into the house. “Excited about what?”
“You’re a meme for icks,” Kappy announced.
“Meme? Icks? What is he saying?” I asked Ali as I shrugged off my coat. I couldn’t fully wear any of my jackets because of my stupid ass sling, and I refused to cut up any clothing for just a few weeks of use.
“They’re here!” Kappy yelled into the house before turning back to me.
“I’m saying that the picture of Ali barfing on you is being used for girls to write their icks.
Wait, here’s an example.” He shoved his phone at my face to show a picture of Ali barfing into the popcorn bucket on my lap.
The text overtop read: When a guy wears skinny jeans.
I swiped through the posts: When a guy is in love with his mommy.
When a guy wears sandals. When a guy hasn’t washed his sheets in months. They went on and on and on.
“Great.” I tossed his phone back at his chest. “We’re a meme for icks,” I told Ali.
Ali walked straight into my chest and laughed against me. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, I guess,” I said with an exaggerated sigh. But in secret, she could barf on me every day for the rest of my life if it meant I’d get to keep holding her.
She pulled back to tell me something, but her phone rang, distracting her. As soon as she pulled it out of her pocket, her face sobered. She stared at her phone as it kept ringing.
“Shouldn't you answer?”
She hesitated. “I guess I should.” She moved away from me, like she needed to put space between us for the call. “Hi mom,” she answered, giving me a sheepish look.
I gave her a small smile and moved further into the house, giving her the space she needed.
“I know, mom,” I heard Ali say gently.
In the kitchen, Mer was chatting away, but I couldn’t quite follow the conversation because I was worried about Ali. After a few minutes, I peeked in the hallway to check on her and hated what I saw. She was leaned up against the wall, her hand on her forehead, looking distressed.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I heard her say before hanging up.
When she joined us in the kitchen, she immediately went to my side and stayed quiet, seemingly lost in thought as everyone talked around us.
I gave her a look, silently asking if everything was okay.
“That little jumbotron video really is making the rounds.” She bit her lip. “Even my mom saw it.”
“Okay,” I trailed off, trying to piece together why that would be a bad thing.
“She thought I was still on tour,” Ali explained. “She’s upset I didn’t tell anyone I was back. She wants me to come home for Thanksgiving.”
“Oh.” My eyebrows pulled together. I rubbed her back. If her mom thought she was still on tour, that meant… “You haven’t told your family you’re pregnant yet.” I didn’t have to ask, I knew from the worry on her face. For some reason, I thought she’d told them over the last couple weeks.
Her face crumpled before she covered it with her hands.
“Hey, it’s okay.” I hugged her into my chest. “Tell her we’ll go. I’d love to stop by Michigan. I haven’t been home for Thanksgiving in years because of hockey.”
She hesitantly looked up at me. “You’ll come?”
“Of course.” I brushed her hair behind her ear.
She nodded, but worry was still written all over her face. “Are you sure? We can just stay here. We don’t have to tell anyone.” She looked down at herself. “Or maybe I could hide it. You think I could?”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. In the last week or so, it became pretty obvious. She was only four months pregnant, but she had two babies in there.
“You’re supposed to say yes.” She practically stomped her foot, making it hard not to laugh. She shot me a dark look to shut me up.
“It’s okay,” I said, rubbing her arms. “They’re going to find out, whether it’s next week or when the babies are here. I think they’ll be more upset if they don't find out until April.”
Holding her temples, she heaved a deep breath. “Okay, yeah, this is just a lot. I want to go back, but…” her voice cracked. She took a second to compose herself. “I’m just nervous.”
I intertwined my fingers with hers. “To tell your parents? Or because of Rossi?”
Her body went rigid when I said his name. I knew she avoided saying it, but that wasn’t necessary.
“I’m not scared of him, and you shouldn’t be either,” I told her. “I'll never leave your side. I’ll never let him near you ever again. Take him off your list right now, okay?”
She closed her eyes and nodded, like she was trying hard to believe me.
“And for what it’s worth, I think your parents will be happy about the babies.” My hand went down to her stomach and a rush of emotions swelled up inside of me. Two babies. Our babies. I couldn’t help but smile. Her family was definitely going to be happy. Who wouldn’t be?
Ali snorted, making me come back down to reality.
I blinked at her. “Why wouldn’t they be happy?” I fished. I tried to read her face. I could only think of one possibility. “Because we’re not married? We could get married?” I offered. “Would that make it better?”
She regarded me with a frown. “JP,” she warned.
Okay. Bad idea.
“Sorry, forget I said that,” I backtracked, trying to fix the situation. “I just don’t know any other reason why they’d be upset? I mean, they’re gonna have grandkids. I’m sure they’ll be really—”
“Woah, you two look way too serious,” Kappy announced, slapping my left shoulder, making pain shoot through my entire upper body again.
“Kappy!” Ali whirled on him. “Next time you hit him, I’ll hit you,” she threatened.
Watching her defend me against Kappy had me stifling a laugh. It was like watching a teeny chihuahua go after a big golden retriever.
“Sorry, sorry. I forgot, I swear.” Kappy lifted his hands in innocence.
Ali rolled her eyes.
“Everything okay?” Piper asked, walking in behind him. She squeezed Ali’s arm and gave her a sympathetic smile. When she turned to me, her smile dropped. She pointed at her eyes, then stabbed her fingers in my direction, telling me she was still watching me.
“We’re good,” Ali said with a forced smile.
“Okay, before the rest of the people get here—” Kappy started.
“Wait, who else is coming?” I interrupted.
“We invited the new kids,” Colt said, walking into the room to take a pan of biscuits out of the oven. “Niko, Nilly, and Zukes,”
“What?” My forehead scrunched as my eyes darted between my best friends. “Why?” I didn’t really have a problem with the rookies anymore, but Niko loved to remind me that he went on a date with Ali every chance he got. He knew it irritated the fuck out of me, which was why he kept doing it.
“Because they’re my new best buds.” Kappy shrugged.
“You barely know them,” I argued.
Colt chuckled. “They’re young and I’m trying to keep them out of trouble. Is that a problem?” he arched an eyebrow. “We invited the whole team over for actual Thanksgiving on Thursday.”
Mer walked into the room and patted her husband’s chest. “Everyone should have a place to go. You guys are coming, right?”
I looked down at Ali. “Actually, I think we might—”
“Guys,” Kappy said, cutting me off, “before everyone else gets here, I really have to say something.” His hands went to his hips. “The guilt’s really been eating at me. I think it’s affecting my health. There’s a reason people shouldn’t keep secrets, ya know?”
I looked at Piper to figure out what this was all about. She sipped her wine at the kitchen island and shrugged, as if saying, don’t ask me.
“Wait.” Colt put a hand up to stop him. “You’re not talking about…” He gave him a look I couldn’t quite decipher.
Kappy communicated back with another look.
“Just shh,” Colt said firmly, which really confused me. What did these two know that I didn’t?
“I can’t shh!” Kappy argued. “I feel too guilty,” he said through gritted teeth.
Colt’s eyes widened. “No,” he said, sounding like a stern father.
Kappy squeezed his eyes shut. “Yes.”
Colt’s face dropped. A second later, he made a move to go after Kappy, but Kappy dodged to the other side of the kitchen. They braced their hands on the large island counter, both flinching in opposite directions.
“What in the world…?” Piper said, her face scrunched in confusion as her eyes darted between the two guys.
Mer’s eyes went to mine. “What’s going on?”
My eyebrows rose, but no words came out. I was just as clueless as the girls.
“What’s going on is… Kappy is shutting up. Right. Now.” Colt grunted before darting toward Kappy again. Kappy evaded him with a girly shriek and moved to the other side of the kitchen.
“JP, I’m sorry, man,” Kappy started. “But back in July, we stole your phone when you were passed out.” Colt tried to catch him again, but Kappy got away just in time.
“Stop talking,” Colt said, bracing his arms on the island again, looking like a predator ready to pounce.
“No, no, don’t stop,” I said, moving between them. I stared at Kappy. Where the hell was he going with this? “Spit it out,” I demanded.
“We booked the cruise for you. There!” Kappy threw his arms up. “I said it! It’s off my conscience!”
“No, I…” I trailed off. I rubbed my forehead as I tried sifting back through my blurry memory of that night.
I couldn’t refute his claim because I couldn’t even remember how I got to bed that night.
But if they booked it, that meant they orchestrated me going to Ali.
And if Ali thought the cruise wasn’t my idea, would it change how she thought about me?
My entire body froze in fear. Ali was probably coming to the same conclusion as me. I was too nervous to look at her.
Colt threw his arms up in the air. “Why, man?” He shook his head. “Everything’s perfect. No one had to know.”
“We just thought you needed some help,” Kappy told me sheepishly.
“It was Hans’ idea. Well, no, he told us to encourage you to go, not make you go.
But you’re stubborn as hell, so we had to make you think it was your idea.
But then you went and knocked up our poor, innocent, little Al Pal.
” His shoulders sagged. “And not even with one baby, with two babies, and the guilt doubled.” He smacked a hand to his forehead.
“I felt like it was all our fault, ya know?” He straightened and pointed an accusing finger at me.
“But you two made the decision to do the no pants dance all on your lonesome! We never said to do that! We wanted you two to talk, not do that. But everything is okay now, right?” Kappy rambled on.
“You’re both happy, right? It all worked out?
And JP, you could’ve canceled the ticket the next morning, but obviously you didn’t want to.
” He made a safe motion like a baseball ump.
“Not our fault!” Kappy blew out a breath and straightened his shirt.
“Wow.” He smiled. “I feel a lot better.” He nodded at everyone, but no one else in the room reciprocated his relief.
I scanned the faces in the kitchen, still too nervous to look at Ali. Mer and Piper were staring in shock, so they obviously had no clue. Colt was staring daggers and muttering threats at Kappy. Kappy was holding his hands up in innocence.
Beside me, Ali’s body started shaking.
If this made her cry, I was going to fucking kill Kap—
“That is too funny,” Ali cackled. She held her stomach. “Oh my God, your face.” She pointed up at me, her eyes dancing with laughter. She tried to take a breath. “I’m going to pee myself,” she exclaimed. She fanned her face and waddled out to the hallway.
Immense relief caved in on me as I watched her go.
When I turned back to the kitchen, everyone in the room was struggling to keep in their laughter.
“Assholes,” I finally said, breaking the last of the tension in the room. My friends all cracked up laughing. I shook my head, trying to keep a straight face. I pointed at all of them. “You’re all assholes.”