A Perfect Love (2 page)

He huffed and gave a slight shrug. A gorgeous smile then quirked his lips and he kissed the end of my nose. He didn’t explain or defend himself, or make up ridiculous bullshit. It simply was. It happened. I knew he fainted because he’d freaked out, too. Apparently, a birthing video he’d watched at high school would do that to a fourteen-year-old.
Go figure.
I had no doubt watching a gloopy slippery mess the size of a watermelon be pushed out of a vagina would make any normal, rational person freak the heck out. I was one of them, too.

I took a deep breath as I looked him in the eyes. “We’re okay,” I repeated his words. “We can do this.” I knew I sounded a little robotic; it was my weird, almost high-pitched voice I got when I was talking myself down from a reaction, which gave me away every time. I nodded firmly. We could absolutely do this. Although, I wasn’t going to start shouting and dancing in glee, or begin celebrating that Liam had managed to somehow knock me up, despite my clearly ineffective contraceptive pill. I didn’t get a maternal epiphany where all of a sudden I knew my life was complete, and all it took was a feisty disobedient swimmer to crash into my bloody egg to make me realise it. There was none of that. I was pregnant.

We would try our hardest to be the best parents ever; that was a given. Just like I knew I would love my baby without exception. Likewise, that was all in the future—the eight month or so future, probably. This meant I still had time to be pissed off, and get accustomed to the idea.

I snuggled into Liam’s arms and rested my head on his chest. I knew life was going to be a little different from now on, maybe even a lot. The whole thing still seemed surreal. At that moment, all I needed was to be held. That would have to be reassurance enough.

I rarely had a meltdown. There may have been a moment at my wedding, and maybe there were a few different times in my life when I had a complete what-the-crap moment, but the weird palpitations in my heart and the churning of sickness I felt while driving to Ella’s had my palms sweating and me shitting my pants.

The norm, when something major was happening in my life, was to race to Ella and throw my drama on her lap. However, it had been two whole days since I’d discovered I was pregnant and I’d gone radio silent. Liam was still walking around in a daze with a stupid lump on his head, but I had noticed a growing grin every time he looked at me. My reaction was to ignore the whole thing.

I liked kids, sort of. Yes, they smelled and made weird-arse noises and created a hell of a mess, but they had moments of cuteness. In the future, I thought maybe there’d be a time when Liam would strap me down, throw away my contraception pills and we’d do the nasty. But, when the bean that was apparently growing in my stomach was not planned, I admittedly panicked.

Ella had been growing suspicious. She knew I’d been avoiding her calls, but I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I was ready to throw my shit in her lap, and somehow, she’d magically make it all okay. That was what she did. She was a freak of nature when it came to organising and solving. I had no doubt she’d pull out her vast collection of highlighter pens and a flip chart then sort me out, or maybe open up a bloody Google Doc she was obsessed with. At least, that was what I hoped.

Pulling up to her house, I sighed and exited the car, taking a cursory look around to make sure Preston’s car wasn’t around. I was confident he’d gone back to work a couple of days ago, but knowing Preston, he’d be dropping by unexpectedly when he had the chance to check up on Ella. No doubt, it would begin to impinge on our girl time. Fortunately, I loved my little brother enough to be able to share my bestie with him, but I couldn’t handle the both of them at that moment. I just needed Ella.

“It’s about bloody time you showed up.” She quirked an eyebrow and beckoned me in with a slight frown as I saw her do a sweep of my body. She walked slowly toward the kitchen, still recovering from some of her injuries from the madness of the Ben incident, and then flicked on the kettle. “Coffee, or something stronger?”

Of all the bloody questions she could ask, it had to be that shittin’ one. As soon as I answered her, I knew she’d know something was wrong. I rarely turned down caffeine—I’d read somewhere that caffeine was bad for pregnant women, which sucked—and saying no to booze would flip her world upside-down; I was sure of it. “I’ll just have water.” I was still suffering from the ridiculously entitled ‘morning sickness’. Whoever came up with that description was a dick and no doubt had one, too.
Morning sickness, my arse.
‘All bloody day sickness’ was a more suitable description.

Her hand paused on the jar of coffee as she swung her body in my direction, drawing a gasp of pain from her. “Ouch, bugger.”

“Seriously, you stupid dork. Sit the bloody hell down. I’ve got stuff I need to talk to you about.” I sat on a stool and pulled the other out for Ella. “Do you need painkillers or something?”

Ella shook her head, eyes wide and filled with suspicion. Once again, her eyes wandered over my body as she edged herself onto the stool. I knew her ribs were still sore from the accident, so I let her to shift in a comfortable position—or truly, used it as an excuse to buy time, trying to work out how to tell her I was pregnant.

I had no idea why I was so goddamn nervous. It wasn’t like she’d be anything but happy and supportive. Yet, I knew actually sharing this news with someone would make it even more real. At twenty-eight, with a ring on my finger, a mortgage and a ‘grown-up’ job, I often felt anything but close to being grown-up. As soon as I shared mine and Liam’s secret, that would all change. I would become a ‘proper’ grown-up. The thought made my mouth dry. I really did need a glass of water, which Ella hadn’t managed to get me.

I huffed slightly as I stood up and headed to the cupboard for a glass.

“Holy shit.”

I paused mid-stretch.

“You’re pregnant.”

I knew if I turned and looked at her face, it would be lit up in a huge smile. I heard it in her voice. Pulling the glass from the cupboard, I headed to the fridge and grabbed the cold jug of water. After filling up my glass, deliberately slowly and ignoring her smart-arse observation, I gulped back the drink. My shoulders relaxed as the cool water quenched my thirst. Finishing, I placed the glass to the side and turned to look at Ella.

“Ha! I bloody well knew it. Holy shit, woman.” Her eyes were wide and the predicted grin was set in place.

“How the hell did you know? It was the water, right?” I shook my head in amazement. Apparently, Ella had turned into some goddamn bloodhound over the last few days. I expected her to work out that something was wrong, but to immediately say I was pregnant was crazy.

Rolling her eyes, she straightened her face, taking on what I assumed to be a look of offence. “I know you. Pure and simple. No coffee or alcohol, plus your top rode up. And your stomach did not look like that a few weeks ago. Did you just swell overnight or something?”

I knew what she meant. It was almost as if from the moment I had discovered I was officially pregnant, following the mountain of tests crammed in our bin waiting for collection, my stomach had decided to peek out and say hello. I had yet to visit the midwife for confirmation, if that was even who I was meant to see—at this point, I was still damned clueless. I was just assuming I was about six weeks pregnant.

I touched my stomach, feeling the increased softness and slight swell. Trying to get my head around the life forming inside of me was turning my world upside-down. It was bizarre to think there were two hearts currently beating within my body. The idea made my stomach turn queasy. I immediately thought of Sigourney Weaver in
Alien
or
Aliens
or one of the damn movies when she had the alien burst out of her goddamn chest.
Shit, what if this baby bursts out of me when it’s bigger or something?

“Jo, sit down before you pass out. You’ve turned white.”

Ella’s bemused voice penetrated my panic. My glazed eyes refocused on her and I removed my hands from the alien set to burst out of my stomach in eight months or so.

“You okay?”

I shook my head, clasped my mouth, and bolted to the toilet.
Proof and point: morning sickness, my arse.

I lay stretched out on Ella’s bed, her soothing hand stroking my head. Having vomited and heaved until my throat was raw, I had brushed my teeth with my toothbrush, which I had stashed at Ella’s, and dragged my arse to her bedroom. There was just a moment, before I lay on the bed, when I considered the likelihood of Ella and Preston screwing on the sheets. There was admittedly another moment of bile, but my exhaustion and self-pity won. I crashed on the bed with a heavy sigh.

“This is good, right?”

Ella had found me face down on her clean-smelling sheets—I sniffed and checked—and had promptly brought in a packet of cookies and a glass of water for me. She then manoeuvred herself onto her bed next to me and took the time to stroke my head without saying a word. My five minutes of peace were apparently over, though; it was time for reality.

“We can be excited about this, right?”

I made a feeble attempt at a shrug and remained quiet.

“Oh, come on. This is excellent, being knocked-up on your honeymoon.” She paused. “It
was
on your honeymoon, right?” She stopped stroking my head, forcing me to reluctantly turn over and sit up next to her. “Or, you dirty hussy, were you already up the duff when you got married?” she mock-gasped.

I reached for a cookie and my water and took a tentative sip before I nibbled on the delicious chocolate. “Honeymoon, I think. It’s the only thing I can think of. I was sick when I was there, but that wasn’t straight after I took my tablets or anything. Or it may have just been one of those not-one-hundred-percent moments. Who knows?” I crammed the rest of the cookie in my mouth. My stomach had decided it wasn’t going to turn me into a version of that freaky chick from
The Exorcist
, so I was safe to devour as many cookies as I could handle.

“What did Liam say? How’d he take it?”

I snorted, spraying a few crumbs on her bed. She raised a brow at me. “Well, he passed out, and I think he may have even knocked himself out, as well, after that by banging his head.”

She laughed, holding on to her ribs as she did so. “Holy shit. Really? I wish I could have seen that. What did you do? Is he okay?”

“I threw frozen veggies at him.”

Ella laughed again. “Awww, your maternal instincts are kicking in.”

Reaching for another cookie, I looked at her and guffawed. “That’s what I thought. It has to count for something.” Continuing to look at me, Ella remained quiet. I knew she was waiting for me to continue. “He was as freaked out as me. Now he keeps having this weird smile on his face and looking at my stomach and me. Last night, I woke up needing a pee to find him beneath the blankets…” I laughed at her raised eyebrows.