"Hey," I walked into Sam's.
"So you're really gonna spend four days on a train with Eric?" Sam asked. Nick's ex-boyfriend and I hadn't exactly hit it off. Big surprise.
"The alternative is letting them take the train together, taking a flight and spending four days alone with her father and brother," I told him.
"Scared of leaving your girl alone with the competition?" Paul taunted. In all honesty Eric was giving me a hell of a run for my money. Nick was attached to him in an almost unnatural way.
"Please," I feigned nonchalance. Eric intimidated me but it was more about his emotional relationship with Nikita than anything else.
"I understand," the idiot didn't stop, "You don't wanna think about him tapping that all these years."
"Paul," Sam used his warning tone.
"He's never touched her," I took the bait like an idiot.
"He's touched her panties," Paul never knew when to stop.
"She gave them to him when he was going to do research in the North Pole," I rolled my eyes at him.
"Because a parka wasn't appropriate," he laughed.
"My sentiments exactly," I mumbled, "But geeks are strange beings and I came here to say goodbye, not to discuss my girlfriend and her ex boyfriend. Where is everybody anyway?"
"Surprise visit from Nessie," Paul answered. That explained it. Nessie was one of those cheerful people no rational person can stand initially because we believe no one can possibly be that happy but once she got under your skin she was hard to stay away from. That and the fact that she was bossy and her husband was our boss. Needless to say, there was some friction between her and Sam and of course Paul. "And, prepare to wince," he continued, "She brought Alice Cullen."
I had to laughed, "I pity you guys."
"You're meeting the father of the little girl you corrupted," Sam reminded me.
"She's twenty nine for God's sake ," Paul slapped his forehead.
"She's still her father's little girl," Sam rocked Stephanie's cradle.
"And she was his innocent the last time he saw her," I realised her father would hate me forever, I know Sam would.
"No woman of almost thirty years could be even close to innocent," Paul smiled. I just looked at him. "Lair!" he threw at me. I didn't answer so he went on, "No one is innocent at twenty nine," he smiled.
"No one but my girl," I couldn't help but smile.
"Liar," they both exclaimed.
"Uhm," I was never much of a liar, never needed to be.
"You're not telling me that she was a virgin," Paul thought it was funny. I just stayed neutral.
"No fucking way," Sam used his cuss for the year.
"Way," I didn't wanna lie. And maybe I wanted to brag just a little.
"You said he dated her for most of her life," Sam tried to get it right.
"Never touched her," I expended my honesty.
"Wait a minute," Paul put his hands up like a traffic cop, "You're telling me that she's a virgin?" I didn't answer.
"She's pregnant moron," I sidestepped.
"You know what I mean," he rolled his eyes.
"I'm not discussing this with you guys," I wanted to seem above it all but I couldn't help the smirk.
"No way," Sam exclaimed in the lowest volume possible.
"You did not just tell us that you deflowered a twenty nine year old woman!" Paul folded his hands.
"She spent her time concentrating on physics and engineering and French and the most patient man this side of heaven," I explained.
"Twenty nine year old virgin," Paul couldn't believe it, "Didn't she go to college?"
"I did," Nick came though the door, "When I was twelve," she went past us and straight into the bathroom.
"Great," Paul said over the sound of vomiting.
"Perfect," Sam glared at me, "I was missing the smell of vomit in the morning. And did she really just say twelve?"
"She really just said twelve. And I planned this trip on schedule," Eric stood in the doorway with his hands in his pocket.
"No one can throw up on a schedule," I reminded him. "Except maybe you," I thought out loud. "Not everyone feels the need to plan every movement of every day."
"You want to talk about the negative aspects of planning while the pregnant woman you barely know is regurgitating the breakfast we had to bully her into eating three minutes ago?" he asked as he walked across the room.
"You know she doesn't like that," I grabbed his arm. Doing things to make Nikita happy was a reflex. I had avoided physical contact with Eric for six days. It was harder than I'd thought. He was the single most annoying person to ever walk the face of this earth and everyday I wanted to strangle him.
"You're flying solo," he threw his car keys at me, "I don't want Nikita catching whatever it is that you have."
"You are not quarantining me you bloody hypochondriac," I threw the keys back at him.
"Hypochondriac," he smiled, "Big word for a straight c average."
Sam and Paul looked back and forth between us. "I'm not doing this with you right now," I decided not to engage.
"Just when I thought this was getting good," Paul was disappointed. The toilet flushed and Nikita gargled.
"Is she going to use the entire bottle?" Sam mumbled.
"Fuck you," I said under my breath. Opening my mouth about my senses may not have been the best idea. Nick had been crazy about hygiene ever since she found out I could smell someone hours after they'd left a place.
"Nikita," Eric called, "Get your expanding first trimester ass out here. You can't put this off. You're starting to show."
"Fuck off," she mumbled in the bathroom. I heard fabric move against skin. She came out of the bathroom. "I can do this," she tried to seem confident but her eyes gave it away.
"We can do this," Eric and I said at the same time.
"Stop acting like the supportive boyfriend," I huffed.
"Why would I do a silly thing like that?" he asked, "After all, I am the supportive boyfriend. You're the phase I'm waiting for her to outgrow."
"Eric," I warned.
"Down boy," I got warned.
"You might want to repeat that," Eric carried on, "He did take four years to get through high school."
"I take issue with that," Paul spoke up.
"I care so much," Eric's voice dripped of honey. It just accentuated the sarcasm. I shook my head at Paul. There was no cure for a hot head.
"I need to pee," Nick stomped to the bathroom.
"Nikita," Eric threw his hands up and let them fall to slap his sides.
"She's going to tell her father she got knocked up by a grease monkey," I tried to speak his language, "Give her a minute."
"She's not going to take a minute," he ran his fingers through his thick blond hair. As predicted she didn't come out of the bathroom. Twenty minutes later four guys were standing at the bathroom door and one girl was on the other side of said door, refusing to come out.
"You need to get out of there before someone breaks down my bathroom door," Sam didn't have the most delicate touch but delicate hadn't worked and when Paul threatened to break down the door she came to sit directly in front of it.
"Eric," Nikita called with her face pressed against the wood.
"Yeah," he stuck his face to the wood opposite hers.
"Are all the measurable dimensionless parameters that characterize the physical universe calculable in principle or are some merely determined by historical or quantum mechanical accident and incalculable?" she asked him.
"Uh oh," Eric put his hand over his eyes.
"What is it?" I knelt next to him.
"She does this when she freaks out," he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder.
"What exactly is this?" I was losing my patience with him.
"This is her asking me a question I can't answer," he told me.
"I'm sorry, I seem to remember you making it a point to tell me everyday for the last week that you're more suited for her than me because you can offer her more mental stimulation," I hissed, grabbing a handful of his hair.
"Your manners leave much to be desired," he swatted ineffectually at my hand, "Not to mention your grasp of the English language."
"My pregnant girlfriend has locked herself in the bathroom and we're going to miss the stupid train you two wanted to take," I got to my feet dragged him up by the neck, "Tell me something useful. Now."
"It's an unsolved physics problem. I can't give her the answer because no one knows it," he stared me down until I let him go, "When she found out she had Huntington's she tried to explain the Baryon asymmetry which is a phenomenon that has no clear scientific explanation. It's what she does when she's overwhelmed."
"She's been planning this all week," I couldn't understand the sudden panic, "She's been on the phone with her father."
"She called him Daddy," Eric seemed to think he was pointing out something obvious, "She calls her father by that hideous nickname Ian gave him and Maximillian when they fight. Daddy, she uses when she's anticipating unpleasantness."
"Eric, go stand over there," I pointed towards the living room. He took one look at me and decided comply.
"Nick, I need you to cover your face," I said through the door.
"What the hell are you going to do?" Sam asked.
"Nothing," I lied then I punched through the door.
"What the fuck?" Nick and Sam exclaimed. I got a good grip on the door and ripped out a chunk of it. The sting of splinters came and went in the same second. Thank goodness the cheapskates made internal doors mostly hollow.
"Son of a bitch," Sam swore through gritted teeth when the baby started crying. Two sets of footsteps came towards us as Sam's retreated.
"Stupid son of a bitch," Paul slapped the back of my head as he walked past me.
"Hey," he picked up Andrew and Jackson just before they rounded the corner into the hall.
"What's all that noise?" Andy asked.
"Your uncle Embry is doing some remodelling," Paul understated.
"Can we watch?" Jack struggled against his father's grasp.
"No," Paul walked back into the room they'd been sleeping in and kept them occupied with something really noisy. I didn't wanna know. I finished my work on the door. Nick was sitting on the edge of the tub.
"What the fucking hell is wrong with you?" she tapped her foot.
"You," I threw down the last piece of door, "And Eric. You and Eric together. He's overshadowing me in the protective father-to-be department because he knows every fucking thing there is to know about pregnancy, about you. And you know what?" it was all coming out today, "He's completely eclipsed me in the boyfriend department. You're like an old married couple but instead of finishing each other's sentences you've perfected the art of communicating in absolute silence. He's more age appropriate and on top of all this, you told me you've never had a boyfriend."
All my frustration vanished as soon as I'd gotten it all out. "Sit down," she patted the enamel.
"Sorry if I scared you," I sat down and put my hands in my lap. It was stupid to pull a door to pieces because I was feeling insecure.
"I never called him my boyfriend," she had the thousand mile stare, "We never had such words in our vocabulary but in retrospect, boyfriend might have been a useful word. He was the guy who went to cooking classes, and massage classes, and did my ironing while I got a PhD in French literature because I thought it made me less of a nerd." That last part made me laugh. "I am aware of how ridiculous that it is," she slapped my shoulder and laughed, "But Eric was the guy who folded my wardrobe, played golf with Max and hijacked a military satellite to find me."
"What is it that you're trying to tell me?" I had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn't good.
"You're the love of my life," she put her hands at the base of my skull, "You're the love of my life but Eric is my soul mate."
It wasn't supposed to be this way. I shut my eyes and covered my face but I couldn't shut this information out. It was suffocating me.
"Not that kind of soul mate," she yelled.
"What?" I wasn't processing any of this.
"It's not a romantic thing," she started her explanation, "I tried to have sex with him a few times but it was weird, there really is no other word. Rest assured, he is not that kind of soul mate. He's..." she searched for an accurate description, "He keeps me true, straight, and he's the person I want to whisper things to."
"What the fuck am I? A sperm donor?" I didn't want to lose it right now but this was going really badly.
"No," she tilted her head to look me in the eye. Her hair swept into her face and she tucked it behind her ear, slowly. I didn't know whether she was trying to sooth me or make me crazy, "You're the love of my life," she smiled, "You're the reason I came back to the sodden Olympic Peninsula. You're the person I want to whisper about and I've never whispered."
"But am I the person you want to introduce to your father?" I asked. "Because you did just freak out."
"I'm a twenty nine year old little girl," she answered, "That's what I am to my father: his only little girl. Now I'm pregnant."
"Your father sounds really supportive," I put my arm around her in comfort.
"That's not it," Eric appeared in the ragged doorway.
"What is it?" I asked him. He was surprised by my polite tone.
"It's you, it's me, it's Max, it's Ian. It's all of us," he navigated through the splinters and chunks on the floor, "Now that she's pregnant, we have to discuss things like where you two will live and if it's here, how the rest of us will see the baby when she's dead, whether or not you two will get married because it factors into who'll make the medical decisions when her mental capacity is diminished, how you'll take care of your wife and child when you have to feed them both. I could go on but I'm starting to get a little depressed and it's a little early for that."
"It's time for everyone to accept the fact that I'm dying," Nick rubbed my back, "It's time to accept, not ignore, the fact that I am dying. And I fear that none of you are ready for that."
"We'll never be ready for that," he kissed her forehead, "Max barely sees you as an adult," he squatted and levelled his eyes with her, "He can't deal with even idea of your death."
"Have you picked up no social skills while following me all over the green planet?" she expressed my sentiments. All the things he just said were true but none of them were comforting. We were all thinking it, maybe not at this very moment but we were all thinking it. Every last one of us knew better than to say it.
"It's the blue planet," he corrected.
"Case in point," I rolled my eyes. He was just not getting it.
"See?" Nick put her forehead to mine, "You're already starting to read my mind." I felt my heart warming.
"I just threw up a little in my mouth," Eric pushed us apart, "Move," he pulled Nick to her feet then watched her walk away. "Nicely done," he said grudgingly, "I'm ecstatic that there's someone else that can calm her down and cheer her up. I'm just hiding it deep down inside so you don't get overwhelmed."
"Are we bonding now?" I stood up.
"Fuck you," he walked out of the room.
"Say goodbye to everyone for me," I walked up to Sam.
"Get the fuck out of my house," he said in a sweet voice with a smile his daughter was currently sucking on a bottle in his immediate line of sight.
"Fuck seems to be the word of the day," I backed out.
"You're riding in the back," Eric declared, "She can't catch whatever it is you have."
"Being a werewolf isn't contagious," she got into the back of the double cab with me.
"Nikita," I hissed at her.
"He's never going to leave," she told me as Eric checked the tires and engine and the oil and the blah and the blah and the blah, "He's going to raise this baby with us," she put her hand on her small bump, "He needs to know."
"There are rules," I informed her, "Laws even, that govern these things."
"You're shitting me," her jaw dropped.
"Nikita get in the front seat!" Eric wasn't taking any nonsense.
"He won't stop," she whispered, "If we do not tell him you will never touch me again," she opened the door and got out.
"Look who doesn't fit through the window between the cabs any more," Eric joked with a very sour looking Nikita.
"Si vous ne fermez pas votre bouche at laissez-moi seul, je vais te faire de mal," she pulled his hair and hissed in his ear.
"Are there subtitles for those of us who do not speak the language of love?" I asked.
"Shut up," she yelled, "Nobody say a single word."
"Hormone surges," Eric mumbled, "Fun." He got a smack to the ear. We were in for six very long months but right now I was more concerned about the open-ended visit to Boston.