“Oh, you two are back early.” I flicker my eyes between Veronica and Rachel, feeling confused. “Did you find a wedding dress already? That was quick! I was expecting you gone all day. Is everything alright?”
Rachel and Veronica give each other suspect looks before they move silently into the kitchen. Something must be happening here, I can feel a weird zinging in the atmosphere. With a nervous anticipation running through my body, I follow behind them trying to be patient while I prepare to find out the truth.
“So, how was your day out shopping? Did you find anything nice? Anything you want to talk about?” They share that same look again before bursting into odd giggles. They know something, I can see the secret floating between them and I desperately want to be let in on it. “What is going on here? Will you just tell me already?”
“I erm, I haven’t been feeling so well recently, and so I erm, I decided to do a test. To find out…”
“A test?” I furrow my eyebrows. “What the hell did you do a test for? Like, at the doctors?”
She pulls something out of her bag and hands it to me. It’s a white plastic thing that doesn’t really tell me anything. I examine it closer, noting a faint blue cross symbol on it. It’s a weird contraption…
“Oh, for goodness sake, Jordan, it’s a pregnancy test.” Rachel snaps and rolls her eyes at me. “Goodness me, the anticipation is killing me already. You’re going to have a baby. Veronica is pregnant.”
My heart stops dead in my chest, this is seriously shocking. I stare at Veronica, trying to work out if this is some sort of practical joke, but she simply smiles back, acknowledging that this is the truth. She went out to get a wedding dress and came back with a baby in her belly. This is the wildest news ever. Shocking, but lovely.
“You’re…” My throat rasps, I’m in shock. “You’re having a baby? You’re pregnant? Is this real?”
She nods, n
ervously at first but soon she does so enthusiastically. “Yeah, I’m having a baby. That’s mad.”
“Yeah, it is mad.” I giggle wildly, feeling utterly insane. “That’s really insane. But good mad, right?”
She leaps up from her seat and wraps her arms around me. As we embrace, I can feel her heart hammering against her rib cage. She’s more nervous than she’s letting on. I squeeze her to me and try to comfort her as much as I can. This isn’t expected, this certainly isn’t something that we planned for, but it’s good, isn’t it? We’re good. We’ve been through so much together, we can handle this as well. We should have known that this was a possibility, we haven’t exactly been the most careful. Sometimes we get carried away. This is what happens!
“We’re going to have a baby.” Veronica pulls back to look at me intensely. “Are you okay with that?”
I nod slowly, letting it sink in. “You know what, I am. I’m really happy. This is going to be awesome.” I dip my head down and give her a chaste little kiss. “Come on, let’s go out to celebrate. You too, Rachel. Let’s go and have some dinner. This is amazing news. Isn’t it?” Rachel nod excitedly. “Yes, well let’s go.”
***
The next morning, I wake up to see Veronica looking down on me with a loving grin on her face. I rub my eyes, needing the sleep to go so I can work out why she’s giving me such a keen look. There have been enough secrets in the last couple of days, I hope there aren’t more about to come my way. Not bad news anyway.
“Are you alright?” I ask in a croaky voice while propping up onto my elbows. “Good morning, by the way.”
“I’m just watching my future husband sleep, that’s all. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”
“Oh, about that.” There’s something I didn’t get a chance to say last night. “I was thinking that maybe we should put off the wedding until the baby is born, don’t you? It’s due about the same time.”
“What?” She furrows her eyebrows and gives me a confused look. “Why would you say that?”
“Well, because you’ll be heavily pregnant and it probably won’t be much fun, will it? I know that we’ve booked the venue and stuff already, but that can all be changed without any hassle. Just a phone call.”
“No way.” She shakes her head. “No way. We’ve waited too long to get married. It’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure? You might change your mind later on down the line. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
“No, I want to get married. I want to get married to you when it’s all arranged.” She pouts out her bottom lip. “I want to get married as soon as possible. I’ve been excited for it. Honestly, it’ll be fine. All I will need to do is get a dress that can be extended. It’ll be nice to keep our baby in the ceremony and it’ll be nice to wed first.”
She already knows that I’ll do whatever she wants. I nod rapidly. “Okay, sure whatever you want.”
She throws her arms around me and holds me tight. “Thank you so much, Jordan, I really appreciate it. I’m not trying to be difficult or anything, I just want to get married. I want to be your wife. So damn much!”
I know how much I want that too as she kisses me hard. My chest swells and my heart flutters with intense love. I love her so much, it burns and swells. And now we’re going to have a baby to add into that. How much better can life get? We’re going to have a real family, all of us. I cannot wait for this to develop.
“So, I suppose we’ll have to start baby shopping as well as wedding shopping, am I right?”
“Well, we need to find out what we’re having first.” I rub her belly smiling to myself. “Then we can fully decorate the place, don’t you think? Get a nursery on the go? Pink or blue, what do you think?”