Page 75 of Jake and Conner
Damn it, there were too many options. I couldn't decide. Whatever. I was going to celebrate and treasure every single one of these occasions.
Who could ever complain about havingtoo muchto look forward to?
"Yes!" I exclaimed, when I realized that Conner was still waiting for a response as if it wasn't obvious. Conner smiled at me, the expression taking over his whole face and I wondered why he'd ever been nervous in the first place. I bet if parallel dimensions and universes existed and he traveled to every one of them and met a million different versions of me, there wasn't a single one who would say no to marrying him.
It simply wasn't conceivable.
He was Conner and I was Jake, and webelongedtogether.
32
Conner
About a month and a half after I'd proposed to Jake and he'd said yes, I finally finished moving all my things over to his place. We'd agreed that it was the better choice for us and the baby, considering that his house was bigger than mine and he owned it. Of course he did. His parents had helped him acquire it, with future grandchildren in mind. We were going to have a good life here. There was a room on the first floor that was perfect for the nursery and Jake had already started painting it, even though he'd originally wanted to wait to find out the sex. The baby had refused to cooperate, though, at my last ultrasound, crossing his legs as if he didn't want us to peek.
I'd thought it was cute. Jake agreed that he thought so too, but he was still a little sad that he would have to wait for the birth to find out, since we weren't getting any more ultrasounds unless we ran into complications, and neither of us wantedthat.
The morning after I'd dropped off the keys to my old place with my landlord, Jake announced over breakfast that he was going to paint the nursery forest green.
"Yeah?"
"Forest green!" Jake elaborated. "Maybe the baby will have your eyes, then it'll be a perfect fit."
That sentiment made me smile. "I don't know," I said. "Maybe he or she will have your eyes, I wouldn't mind that." I stopped digging into my eggs for a moment to lay a hand on my belly.
"Can you feel her kick?" Jake asked. At some point, we had agreed without words that I would use male pronouns and Jake would use female pronouns for the baby until we could tell who was right. It was a little bit of a competition of sorts.
"I can," I said.
"Can I try?" Jake stood and rounded the table to rest a hand on my belly before I could even respond. Not that I would have denied him. I was nearly six months along now, and by this point, the baby's kicks were so strong that Jake should have felt them, by all rights, but so far, he'd had no luck.
That morning too, the baby stopped kicking as soon as Jake's hand was on me.
"He's shy," I said, as if I had to apologize for the baby who didn't want to perform.
"That's why she was hiding at the ultrasound too." Jake sighed. "That's okay. I'll coax her out of her shell when she's born." A grin formed on his lips. "I have some experience with that."
"You certainly do." But even so, I shook my head at him. He was looking entirely too excited about leading our child into adventure.
Jake only smiled and sat back down again to finish his breakfast. "What are we thinking for names?"
"I'm still veto-ing Xena."
"She was a respectable warrior," Jake protested, but he had that glint in his eyes that let me know he was teasing me so I only shot him a look instead of saying anything. "This naming thing is hard without knowing the sex," Jake complained, viciously stabbing a piece of bacon with his fork.
"How about you think of a girl's name and I think of a boy's name?" I suggested. "I'll still retain the right to veto any ridiculous choices, though."
"I guess that--"
Jake never got around to finishing that sentence because both of our phones started chiming at the same time. We exchanged looks, and then we each read the messages we had received.
"It's from Bastian," Jake said and I nodded. It seemed we had both gotten the same message.
"Mark had the babies." That was pretty much all the text said. No further information. "I wonder if they're okay," I said.
"I'm sure they are. He would have said if they weren't, or more likely, he wouldn't have said anything at all."
I nodded. "You're probably right."
