Fun Fact: I completed this before I posted the first chapter. I was so happy to see that y'all wanted to know what the parent's reactions were. I love that so much! Thank you for the amazing reviews of support for the first chapter!
Cravings
Fitz and Olivia sat beside each other at a long table in the restaurant. They had invited both sets of parents to dinner and were waiting for them to arrive. The waiter had just left their drinks and the happy couple were grinning with their heads together. They couldn't wait to make their announcement to the four people they loved most in this world. Fitz touched his lips to his wife's and said, "I love you, babe." A clearing throat behind them had the newlyweds quickly separating like busted horny teenagers.
Olivia turned around and saw her father standing behind their chairs. "Daddy!" She exclaimed. Olivia stood up and hugged him affectionately. "You're gonna have to stop sneaking up on us like that."
"Hey, Munchkin." Nathaniel kissed the top of her head and released her to shake his son in law's hand. "How have you been, Fitz?"
"I've been great. Thank you." Fitz replied. He noticed Olivia's mother, Lila, standing beside his father in law, and hugged her warmly. "How have you been?"
"We've been fine. We don't see near enough of the two of you though." She chided.
Fitz chuckled at her. He loved Olivia's parents but adored her mom. "We'll have to do better at coming for visits. Liv's been busy at the office and the bakery seems to have a constant line of people inside."
"That's a good problem to have, Fitz. I'll have to come by the bakery soon to add to the line." She said.
"Are you still taking care of my baby?" Nathaniel asked.
"Yes, sir." Fitz said, putting his arm around Olivia as she put her hand on his chest.
"Nathaniel!" A loud voice rumbled from across the room. Four heads turned to see Fitz's father, Thomas, walking toward the table. The two fathers shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. They weren't fooling anyone. The two of them got together at least once a week for coffee and to shoot the breeze about the 'good ole days'.
Emma, Fitz's mother, rolled her eyes at the two older men and made her way towards Lila where they hugged each other warmly and chatted for a minute. Fitz and Olivia hugged his parents and then Thomas and Nathaniel took seats next to each other at the table, already engaged in deep conversation and laughter. Fitz leaned down to his wife's ear and whispered, "This feels like déjà vu. But I bet our news can get even those two to stop talking for a few minutes." Olivia giggled at him and they took their seats.
Drinks were served to everyone at the table and the orders had been taken. "What is it this time, sonny?" Thomas asked his son point blank. "You only ask the four of us to dinner if there is some type of announcement. Not that I mind getting together with good friends over a nice meal, but let's hear it. What is it? A hangnail this time?"
"Thomas Grant! Stop being so rude you old goat!" Emma chastised. "Do the two of you have something to tell us?"
"We do." Fitz said. He looked at his wife and smiled lovingly at her. "You tell them."
"No. You tell them." Olivia said returning his smile.
"Somebody tell us something! Thomas and I have a nine a.m. tee time tomorrow." Nathaniel exclaimed.
"Nathaniel Pope. I know you aren't talking to family in that tone of voice?" Lila said with raised eyebrows.
"Sorry, Munchkin." Nathaniel said.
"It's ok, dad." She looked at Fitz and he nodded for her to share their news. Olivia faced the parents and simply said, "I'm pregnant."
The entire table loudly erupted into chaotic noise.
"A new baby! That's the best news yet!" Emma said giddily.
"My munchkin is gonna be a momma?" Nathaniel said, stunned.
"Hallelujah!" Lila shouted loudly as heads in the restaurant turned her way. "OHMYGOD PEOPLE! I am finally gonna be a grandmother! My daughter is having a baby!" Some of the patrons smiled and clapped for her. She bowed unapologetically and told them thank you. "I wonder if I'll be called Grandma? Or Grammy? Or Mimi? I am fine with whatever that perfect little person decides to call me. I just can't wait to meet him or her! When are you due, baby?"
"The official due date is December ninteenth." Olivia said rubbing her belly affectionately.
"That'll be the perfect Christmas present." Lila said.
"It's about damn time, son." Thomas said grinning at the younger Grant man. "We've been waiting a year and a half for this dinner." He stood up and hugged his son, clapping him on the back. "if she drives you crazy near the end, just come hide out at the house."
"Dad!" Fitz chuckled.
The women huddled at Olivia and gave her advice. "If you need anything, and I mean anything, you call me." Emma offered. "If Fitzgerald is anything like his father, he will be completely useless." Olivia giggled at her mother in law.
"The three of us need to go shopping for baby clothes and furniture. As well as maternity clothes." Lila said, thinking out loud.
"And you know which store has all that stuff under one roof." Emma said with a knowing smile at Lila.
"JCPenny! I know this baby is going to be stylish! We're gonna need coupons and the men's credit cards." The two mothers conspired together like best friends.
Olivia and Fitz watched their parents happily plotting together. The dads were talking about how to put a crib together while the mothers looked at tiny baby clothes on their phones. Fitz pulled his wife into his arms and held her until he heard her contented sigh. Life was good.
As the meal was wrapping up, Fitz requested a dessert 'to go' and put his credit card down on the small, black, rectangular tray with the ticket. His father threw it at him and put his own card down. "Dad. We invited you all to dinner. Believe it or not, I have enough money to pay for it."
"You keep your money, son. You're gonna need it with another Grant on the way." Thomas replied.
Fitz reached down to give his father his card back but Thomas warned, "If you move my card, I'll have to kick your ass in this fine establishment. Do you really want me to do that in front of your wife and unborn child?" Fitz withdrew his hand and rolled his eyes.
Olivia leaned close to her father in law and said, "I was really hoping he would try it. I believe I would have been thoroughly entertained by watching Mr. Big Britches get beaten up."
"Babe!" Fitz exclaimed with a fake wounded voice.
Thomas chuckled at his daughter in law. "Some things obviously change." Olivia hugged her in laws goodbye as the waiter brought out their dessert in a bag. He made eye contact with his son and grinned knowingly at him. "It's good to see that others haven't. Let's go Em." Emma hugged Lila and the two women promised to talk to each other the following day.
Nathaniel shook Fitz's hand once again. "Do you remember when I told you to take care of my baby?" When Fitz nodded at his father in law, he added, "You have double the responsibility now. Take care of both of them." Fitz replied by putting his arm around his wife.
"Leave him alone." Lila said. "You aren't scaring anybody."
"You want me to scare you when we get home?" He asked in a playful voice.
"Get me home and show me what you got, Mister." She flirted.
Olivia made a horrified face and Fitz laughed loudly. "My parents are such horn dogs!"
"You know we are going to be worse than them, right?" Fitz asked as they made their way to the door.
"You promise? Even when I'm nine months pregnant and fat as a whale?" She asked fearfully.
"I'm getting hard just thinking about it." He admitted quietly.
"What?" She asked incredulously and glancing down at his bulging crotch. "Are you serious right now?"
"I think the answer to that question is obvious. Painfully so, I might add." He said holding the bag in front of his center.
"We gotta go! Now!"
"Mmmmm. I love it when you're bossy."
The next morning Olivia was not feeling well at all. She had a terrible headache and her stomach was churning. She felt that if she could just vomit she would feel so much better. She hovered over the toilet but nothing happened. The nauseous feeling wasn't passing though. She groaned loudly alone in the house.
Fitz had left for work earlier than normal because the bakery had a huge delivery coming in this morning and one of his workers had overslept. He had rushed to get there early after receiving the phone call from the tardy employee. Olivia zombie walked into their bedroom to retrieve her phone and called him. He answered on the third ring. "Hey, wife. Miss me already?" She groaned in reply. Fitz panicked. "What's the matter, babe? Are you alright?"
"I hate morning sickness." She whined. "I have a headache and I can't throw up. I think I'm going to call in sick to work today."
"I'll come home right now. I can be there in..."
"No, Fitz. You have to unload that truck. I'm fine. Honest. It's just a magical part of pregnancy. Hopefully it will be over in a few weeks and I'll be back to normal. I'm just going to go back to bed."
"Are you sure? I'll call every employee I have and wake their asses up right now. Someone can get down here and deal with this delivery."
"No. Don't so that. I'm just really tired too. I'm going to call the office and let them know I won't be in today. I'll call you when I wake up. Ok?" She could already feel her eyelids drooping at the thought of more sleep.
"Promise me you will call me when you wake up. And if you start to feel worse I want you to call me. Promise me, Olivia."
Ooooh. She knew he was serious when he called her Olivia. "I promise. On both requests. Have a good day. I love you, husband."
"I love you too, wife. Get some rest and don't forget to call me." He was going to unload this truck like a squirrel on crack and get back home to her.
"I will. Bye." After Olivia ended the call, she grabbed her laptop and typed an email to the partners to let them know she would be out today due to illness. Abby and Yvonne were the only ones who knew she was pregnant and Olivia wasn't planning on telling the others until her first trimester was over. She didn't want to jinx anything. She immediately turned off her laptop, put it on the bedside table, and picked up her cellphone again as she walked back into the bathroom.
"I'm not coming in today, Yvonne. I've already emailed the partners, but I wanted to tell you myself." Olivia told her assistant over the phone. She was currently sitting on the bathroom floor as waves of nausea swept over her once again. She was starving, but didn't know what she wanted and the thought of actually eating anything made her feel nauseous all over again. She remembered her doctor telling her that these symptoms usually only lasted for the first three months, but that they could very well last through her entire pregnancy. She was seriously re-thinking the conversation she and Fitz had about wanting more than one child. The answer might depend on how long the morning sickness lasted.
"Are you alright? Do you need me to bring you some soup? Or ginger ale? Gatorade?" Yvonne suggested.
"Ohmygod. Please stop talking. You're making me want to vomit." She panted out as her stomach churned.
Yvonne made a face from the office and said, "Okayyyy. No food then. That little peanut is really wreaking havoc on your body huh?"
"This has got to be a Grant thing. I would never do anything like this to my mother." Olivia grimaced. "I hope this nausea passes in two weeks. I cannot deal with this for seven more months."
"You poor thing." She sympathized. "Don't worry. I'll take care of everything here. And by that, I mean I will take a long lunch with some shopping mixed in there too." Yvonne waited for the verbal backlash that was sure to come.
"Great. Call me if you need me." Liv groaned before she ended the call and laid her cheek down on the cold tiled floor. She pressed a hand to her belly and begged, "Please have mercy on me and I will buy you a car on your sixteenth birthday." A few minutes later, she gently stood up and got under the blanket on her bed and fell asleep.
Three hours later she woke up. As she lay motionless in the bed she quietly took inventory of how she was feeling. The headache was gone and she was no longer feeling sick. She stretched like a lazy cat and got up. Her belly growled loudly and she asked it, "Are you hungry in there? Me too. What do you feel like eating?" Getting no reply, she thought of food as she shuffled into the kitchen and wondered what she felt like having. Out of nowhere, the desire to consume a cold can of Spaghettio's was overwhelming. Olivia scrunched up her face and wondered where that thought had come from?
She shook her head and looked through the cabinet for something to eat. She saw popcorn, cans of tuna, pasta, some canned veggies, and a few other random things. But nothing that appealed to her stomach and the thoughts of Spaghettio's were becoming stronger. She hadn't had Spaghettio's since she was a kid, and she hadn't been a fan of them then. She shut the wooden cabinet door and turned to the refrigerator for ideas. There wasn't much to pick from in there either. They really needed to go grocery shopping. A thought hit her as she closed the refrigerator door. There are Spaghettio's at the grocery store. She could go pick up a few cans and some other necessities too. Kill two birds with one stone.
After she got dressed and pulled her hair into a ponytail, Olivia grabbed her car keys and walked out the front door. She settled herself in the driver's seat and inserted the key into the ignition. She was about to put the car in drive when she remembered that she had promised Fitz that she would call him when she woke up. She put it back in park, fished her phone out of her purse, and called him. He answered on the first ring and instantly began his rapid fire questions. "Are you ok? Do you still feel bad?"
"Fitz."
"Do you need me to drive you to the hospital? Are you still..."
"Babe!"
"...throwing up? Did you sleep alright?"
"Fitzgerald!" That seemed to stop his questions. She made a mental note to remember that. "I am fine. I woke up about twenty minutes ago. I'm hungry and I'm going to the store. Do you want anything?" She was met with silence on the line and she wondered if he had dropped his phone. "Babe? Are you still there?"
"Yea. I'm here. You used my big first name." He said quietly.
Olivia chuckled over the line. "You called me my big first name earlier this morning."
"I did?" He asked, thinking about it.
"You did. But it's ok. I'm fine. No more headache. No more nausea. I just want some food."
"How about I come home and take you to get something to eat?" He offered.
"I'm actually after something specific. And I know for a fact that it's not served in any restaurant." She chuckled.
"Wait. Are you having your first craving? Awwww. That's so cute, babe. What is it you want?"
"I don't think cravings are cute. They are annoying as hell when it's some random food." She was not telling him what it was.
"What is it?" He asked innocently.
Shit. Now she had to tell him. "Promise you won't laugh?"
"No way! It was in the vows. As long as it's appropriate. Remember?" He could tell she didn't want to tell him. This was gonna be good. "Come on. Just tell me. I bet it's nothing."
"Fine! It's Spaghettio's." She said embarrassed. Olivia nodded her head with a sour look on her face as Fitz could be heard cackling through the line. Her husband was annoying sometimes. She waited a minute for him to calm down with the phone held out away from her body.
"Sp...spaghettio's? Really, babe?" He was full belly laughing at the thought of his wife eating crappy canned kid food. He wiped the tear that had escaped from his eye and cleared his throat, still smiling.
"Are you done now?" She asked with sass.
"I'm sorry. You know how when you're tired everything is funny? I think that's all it was." He listened to see if she believed him.
"Go peddle your shit somewhere else. I'm not buying that." She chuckled.
"Please be careful driving to the store. We need some food at the house anyway. I'm actually really proud of you for willingly going grocery shopping. I know you hate it. And alone too. Well, not exactly alone. But..."
"Ok. Stop talking now." She said.
"Call me when you get back home please so I won't worry."
"I'm going to the store, Fitz. Not across the country. I'll be fine." He was going to be that guy. The one who overly worried about her during her entire pregnancy. If the morning sickness didn't kill her this just might.
"Ok. But can I make a request since you're going to the store?" He tried hard not to laugh. She was not going to find this funny.
"Sure, babe. What do you want?"
"I'd really like a box of Froot Loops." He started laughing uncontrollably as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Olivia hung up on him, rolled her eyes and drove off.
Two hours and a hundred and fifty dollars later, Olivia walked back in the front door of the house carrying several plastic bags full of food. She would have to make the dreaded second trip, but that would have to wait until she ate. She hastily put the bags of cold items in the refrigerator and searched the other bags she had brought in, knowing the canned pasta was in there somewhere. Olivia felt sure she was going to throw up after eating the first bite.
She opened the can and hesitated as to how she should heat it. Normally she would dump something like this in a bowl and nuke it. But she wasn't sure if eating microwaved food was good for the baby, so she dumped the contents into a saucepan on the stove. Better safe than sorry. She'd ask her obstetrician about that on her next visit. She wished she could drink a glass of wine with her pasta, she refused to call it by its name, but knew that alcohol was a no-no now. She grabbed a bottle of water instead and ate a few more of the grapes she had bought at the store while her food got hot.
Once the red sauce was bubbling, Olivia grabbed the handle and poured it into a bowl and looked at it. She looked down at her flat stomach and said, "Please don't make this come back up in a few minutes." She grabbed a spoon and took a taste. In her pregnant mind, this was the best thing she had ever eaten. She tried hard not to inhale the entire bowl, but it was useless. It was gone in under a minute. "Now we wait" she muttered to herself.
With no need to vomit yet, she went outside to bring in the rest of the groceries. She put them all away and sat down, taking a long pull from her water. She felt sleepy again and wondered how that was even possible? Without questioning it, she locked the front door and padded back to her bedroom, taking off her shoes as she went. She crawled back under the blanket and fell asleep once again.
An hour later, Fitz walked in the front door feeling slightly irritated that his wife hadn't called him after she had gotten home from the store. He wondered where she was and guessed she might be taking a shower. Maybe she had fallen? He quickened his steps toward their bedroom and saw her asleep on their bed. He felt like an idiot but that feeling quickly faded as he toed off his shoes and got under the blanket with her. She stirred slightly as he put his arm around her flat belly but she didn't wake up. Fitz fell asleep pretty quickly.
Olivia opened her eyes and just laid there for a minute. Still no headache or nausea. She started pondering that when she realized there was an arm draped around her waist. She could smell the bakery on him before she even turned around to see his face. He was still asleep and she took a moment to watch him. His sandy curls were so pretty she just had to touch them. She ran her fingers through them and when she gazed back at his face, two crystal blue eyes were looking back at her. "Hi." He said.
"Hi. Did you come home to take a nap with us?" She asked.
"No. I came home to kick your ass for not calling me when you got home from the store. The nap side tracked me. I feel better now and I'm over it." He admitted with a playful smile.
"I'm not breakable you know? I can handle going to the store and back without incident. In fact," she said, pausing for dramatic effect, "I believe that you are the only one of us to have had a car accident?"
He touched her nose with his index finger. "But you are the only one of us that can carry a baby inside your body. Besides, your dad basically threatened me. Really, I'm just doing my job."
"If you want to know where I am at all times of the day then you'll have to stay with me around the clock. I'm not going to call you every minute of every day. I'm a grown ass woman and I expect you to treat me as such."
"I'm sorry. I just worry about you even more now because you are carrying our child. I'll try to throttle it back some. Ok?"
"Yes please. How was your day?"
"Apparently not as much fun or as lazy as yours was? I'll have to admit that taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon feels pretty damn good!"
"Yea? I missed you." She admitted.
"Really? How much?" Fitz asked playfully.
"A lot. Especially when I couldn't reach the things on the top shelf at the grocery store." She laughed as his smile faltered.
"I would say pregnancy has turned you into a smartass, but that's not true. You've been a smartass since the day I met you." He lightly and quickly dug his fingers into her ribs causing her to laugh harder.
"You still remember that day? At the dry cleaners?" She asked.
"I'll never forget it as long as I live. That was the day that changed my life for the better."
"Really?" She asked with fake shock.
"MmmmHmmm. I got the hot girl and knocked her up." He boasted. "I love you, wife."
"I love you more, husband." She said with her fingers still in his hair.
"It's not possible." He replied exactly as Olivia knew he would and then moved his face closer to hers and kissed her lips tenderly. "It's probably time for you to get up and cook me some lunch though." He joked.
Olivia's was smiling serenely until her husband finished his sentence. Her eyes suddenly went wide and she vaulted over his body and ran into the bathroom at lightning speed, slamming the door in the process. Fitz was getting up to check on her when he heard her vomiting and stopped in his tracks. "Suddenly I'm not hungry anymore."