Chapter 17 Lucy #2
But seeing something or not, surely her body should feel different, right?
Sore boobs. A rounder stomach. Unruly hair sprouting from somewhere.
Anything? Granted with all the fancy math with pregnancy, she’d only be considered six weeks at this point, but still …
shouldn’t something signal that this was reality?
I’m pregnant. Yes, they’d been prepping for almost a year. And been talking about it for two thousand years prior. She thought she knew what she would feel like at this moment, but until it happened, obviously she didn’t.
A knock sounded on the door. ‘Luce? You good in there?’ Drew asked.
‘Yep, good! Just one more sec.’ Her brain was murky and fuzzy, and she needed the men to leave so she could process what the hell this wet throat, short breath situation was all about.
She’d never describe herself as stoic, but she hadn’t cried since she was a kid. And now, all she wanted to do was sob.
She loved Drew. She loved Mason. But she didn’t want to do this alone.
She needed more.
This moment was huge, and yes, she had the guys, but she needed to share it with her person.
With someone more than her dad, who’d only give one or two supportive comments.
Someone other than the superficial relationships at work, or cousins who were busy juggling careers and families.
She couldn’t have her mom. The pit grew, deep, swallowing her whole.
She wanted Jade. No, wait. She needed Jade.
Once the secondary test showed the positive lines, she flung open the door and faced an elated Drew, whose face dropped. ‘Oh God. Are you having second thoughts?’ He held her shoulders and Superman-laser-gazed into her eyes.
She struggled to maintain eye contact. And she hated herself for putting the slightest doubt into his mind. She refused to ruin this moment for him by having a rare heart-to-heart and revealing all the sad feelings she wasn’t supposed to be having.
‘No, stop it.’ She swatted at his hand. ‘I’m totally fine. It’s just all super emotional right now. I’m sure it’s all the hormones and shots and … well … this.’ She waved her hand over her stomach.
‘Same.’ His chest lifted and he eased out a breath. ‘I can’t believe we did it.’
Mason rounded the corner and rubbed his hands together. ‘Okay, what do you need? Food? Let’s go for dinner and celebrate!’
The last thing she needed at this moment was dinner.
Ugh, what she would give to be in the mood to celebrate what was so deeply deserving of celebration.
She hated that this moment was not what the dads planned.
But she knew herself well enough to know that tonight she couldn’t take a loud restaurant and the men gushing.
The energy she’d spend to fake it would make her crack.
She yawned and threw her hands over her head.
‘Ah. I’m so tired. But you guys go. Go celebrate. Snap me a gram-worthy pic.’
Drew cocked his head without a word, knowing damn well she loved food as much as she loved Chucky, and rarely gave up the opportunity to eat out. ‘No way. This is a group effort. Come on. We can go to the cities, stay local, seriously whatever. We have to celebrate. This is huge.’
Ugh. She didn’t want to ruin this for him.
‘A woman in my condition cannot just go traipsing around the town.’ She added a British flair to her voice in an attempt to cut the questioning look.
‘Seriously. I really, really want you guys to go enjoy this huge moment, but I’m dead tired from today.
’ She refrained from pulling out some emotional baby-puppet strings and saying something like she was worried about overexerting the growing cells.
Her efforts must’ve worked because Drew and Mason eyed each other with raised shoulders.
‘Cool?’ She moved into the living room and plopped on the couch. Chucky nuzzled up to her legs. She stroked his fur, which held a superpower level of calming antidote, and soon she relaxed.
Mason’s forehead creased as he stared at Lucy. ‘We need to do something for you. Anything you want.’
This notion of Mason ‘taking care of his family’ and ‘repaying debts’ – even though she’d explained to him a hundred times it wasn’t necessary – was clearly killing him. His face screamed ‘help me help you’. She had to put him out of his misery.
‘Oh! I know. I will love you forever no matter what, but I will double love you if you can run to the store and get me one pint of Chunky Monkey, and one pint of Chocolate Truffle.’ Her stomach was turning so much that the idea of ice cream made her queasy.
‘Is that okay? I don’t want to hold up your dinner plans. ’
Relief flushed Mason’s face. ‘Absolutely. Want salt and vinegar chips, too?’
She grinned. ‘You guys seriously know me to a terrifying level.’
‘Drew, you coming?’ Mason asked as he stuffed his phone and keys into his pocket.
‘Nah, I’ll stay with Luce until you get back.’
For the first time ever, a slight thread of disappointment weaved through her. Go with your husband!! she wanted to scream. Her thoughts couldn’t process with him here.
As Mason’s car backed out the driveway, Drew sank into the couch and slung an arm across the overstuffed pillow. ‘Thanks for sending Mason on that mission. I think he would’ve crumbled without some kind of assignment.’
‘No idea what you mean.’ Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
He tapped his fingers against the back of the couch, his freckles spreading as he smiled. ‘Well, Luce, like it or not, we’re bonded for life.’
She smiled at the sweet sentiment. To her, though, the pregnancy wasn’t what bonded them.
It was him biking over in the rain with his rickety green ten-speed the night her mom died and staying with her all night.
It was her clinging to him like he was a lifesaver when they snuck his dad’s old DVD of Blair Witch Project and scared themselves to death when they were twelve.
It was him buying her strawberry cotton candy when he was at the fair while she was grounded and tapping on her window to sneak it to her.
The pregnancy was just another layer of lifetime bonding glue.
‘You gonna tell Jade?’ he asked.
Even though Lucy and Jade were hard-locked in the friend zone, she and Drew had talked about Jade a lot.
A few weeks ago, they all finally met at a bowling alley and the guys liked Jade immediately.
Which was not a surprise. Anyone who meets Jade loves her in a snap.
Jade and Drew bonded over the buffalo cauliflower appetisers (what’s the point unless it’s chicken, Lucy had complained).
And Jade and Mason hit it off when they both refused to wear the bowling alley shoes and droned on about various communicable diseases.
‘Are you cool if I tell her, like, right away?’ Lucy asked.
Drew tapped on his crossed leg. ‘It’s your story as much as it is ours. Please don’t forget that. Your body, your choice, on everything. Including who you want to tell and when.’
‘As notarised and filed with two different law firms. Got it.’ She grabbed the remote. ‘GiGi’s?’
‘Your obsession with The Golden Girls is for the record books,’ Drew said. Chucky snorted at the perfect time, drawing a giggle from Lucy. ‘Do you think you’ll change from your self-proclaimed Rose to Dorothy or Blanche while rocking your pregnancy?’
‘Maybe I’ll become Sophia. Who knows?’ Lucy cracked a grin and tapped the power on. The moment Drew shifted his focus to the television, her mouth faded into a straight line. She wasn’t sure if she’d change characters, but one thing was certain. Things were already changing.
***
An hour after the guys left, Lucy’s heart leapt at the sound of a knock on the door. Skipped heartbeats aren’t good, right? She’d probably already damaged some of the belly cells.
‘Hey, you! Missed you.’ Jade stepped into the house and wiped her Doc Martens on the mat. Her hair had switched from lavender to a mix of deep cinnamon and sunset gold. Lucy decided on the spot that no colour in existence could look bad on Jade.
‘Hey!’ Lucy reached up for a hug and squeezed. ‘Missed you, too.’
‘I was talking to the dog.’ Jade set her keys on the side table.
Lucy groaned. ‘And here I was about to tell you how much I love the new hair colour, but I’m withholding my compliment ’cause you suck.’
Jade patted the top of her head. ‘Fall colours. Gotta keep up with the trends. And if I want to make my end-of-the-year goal, I need to encourage my clients to spice up their colour routine.’ Jade scratched behind Chucky’s ears. ‘So, what’s up? You said I had to come over right away.’
‘Um, pretty sure my text said if you had nothing going on, you could come hang out.’ Lucy dug out the tub of Chunky Monkey, Jade’s favourite, and offered her a spoon.
Lucy preferred Chocolate Truffle, but she loved the little routine they’d built of sharing bites out of the same tub.
And yes, it was dumb, and yes, so very sixth grade of her, but it forced their heads close together, and Lucy could indulge in the fantasy of Jade leaning in for a kiss.
‘Fair.’ Jade leaned against the counter and crossed her ankles. She dug into the ice cream and wrapped her full lips around the spoon. Lucy ripped away her gaze.
‘So, I’ve got something to tell you.’ Lucy placed the spoon on the counter.
Jade’s smiled dropped. ‘Yeah?’
Today was a freakishly warm mid-October evening, but everything was so hot.
Lucy’s cheeks burned, and the ice cream was not helping cool her mouth down enough.
‘I’m, um. I’m pregnant.’ Saying the words out loud to someone else landed her reality with a thud.
I’m actually, genuinely, not hypothetically, for real this time pregnant.
Jade’s eyes went wide, and her chest lifted like she sucked in a breath but didn’t release. Lucy couldn’t interpret anything behind her expression. After what felt like the longest few seconds of her life, Jade pulled Lucy in for a tight hug.
‘You’re going to be the best damn oven that bun has ever seen. I’m so happy for you all.’ Jade stepped back and stared at Lucy’s belly. ‘Why do I have a weird urge to touch your stomach? Don’t let me be one of them.’
‘One of who?’
‘You know, the people that feel entitled to rub a woman’s belly if she’s pregnant.’
‘You can rub this bad boy anytime.’ Lucy patted her stomach. ‘It doesn’t even belong to me. Property of two queens from the Greater Twin Cities area.’
Jade shook her head. ‘Everything about that statement is so wrong.’ She grabbed the spoons and ice cream and jutted her chin towards the sliding glass door. ‘Want to sit outside?’
Like Pavlov’s dog, when Lucy unlocked the door, Chucky dashed outside and tumbled in the grass. A smattering of moths flew in the moonlit air. Lucy followed Jade to the swinging bench and tucked her legs under her butt.
Everything was different. Lucy knew it would be, but it was really, really different.
The rickety wooden seat swung in a hypnotic rhythm as silence filled the space. Jade dug into the dessert and took a hefty spoonful. ‘Okay, tell me everything. How did the dads react? Total freak-out? Was Mason super chill? Did Drew bawl? Or in a shocking twist, the other way around?’
Lucy was in a dream. That’s what this was …
Jade was here, next to her, but she was foggy and fragmented.
She needed to tell Jade how she felt, how she loved that Jade was here, but she wanted Jade here with her.
Not as a friend, not as a buddy. Lucy wanted her arms, and love and heart, and why did this all have to crash on her tonight of all nights?
Jade’s words lingered in the air, just like the moths, and she continued peppering Lucy with questions about how Lucy’s dad felt, how Lucy felt, if she felt anything different in her belly.
Lucy’s gaze floated to the north star. She mumbled responses but couldn’t form anything super coherent.
The star seemed to flicker broader, wider than she’d seen before, and she wondered for a moment if that was her mom winking at her from wherever she was.
A spoon waved in front of her face, and Lucy blinked back to reality.
‘Hey, you good?’
No. ‘Yep.’ She was lost, scared, and felt more alone than she’d ever felt before.
But she was also happy. She needed physical touch right now more than anything, but Jade normally shrank back when Lucy reached for a hug.
Lucy wanted to hear everything would be fine.
She wanted Jade to snap her out of whatever was happening right now.
The bench stopped swinging. ‘Are you crying?’ Jade’s gaze flashed across Lucy’s face.
‘Nah, must be the allergies.’ Her eyes filled, threatening to overflow. One more word and Lucy was sure the salty-tear floodgate would fly open.
Maybe Jade could sense this, or maybe she needed touch as well, but she inched towards Lucy and draped her arm across the back of the swing.
Lucy gratefully accepted her silent invitation and snuggled against her chest. She melted into Jade’s comforting embrace, indulging in her warm body and musky citrus scent.
Moments passed in silence, the only sound, the chain squeaking against the swing, and the grass squishing under Chucky’s rolls.
The fear and trepidation within Lucy seemed to drift away, and her stomach loosened.
She wasn’t sure how long they sat there, but the moon moved behind the trees.
Finally, an exhausted Chucky flopped on the deck.
‘Thank you for being here,’ Lucy whispered. Jade planted a kiss on her head, and Lucy savoured the soft touch.
Jade patted Lucy on the arm and gave her a gentle squeeze. ‘I will always be here.’
Lucy wasn’t sure what power those words held, but her chin trembled against their intention.