Thursday June 16th 2022

Joe showed up at his moms house, he had to tell her about the baby without Kelsey. He was too afraid of how she'd take it, if he knew her well enough…he knew he was making the right call.

"Mom? It's me." Joe entered the house and called out.

"Oh hey, I'm in the kitchen." She yelled back. He made his way to the kitchen to see her making dinner.

"Hey." He greeted her with a side hug and watched her cut up a head of lettuce. Paula could see it in his face, something was off. This was her son, she knew him better then anyone.

"So what's up bud?" Paula said.

"What makes you think something up?" He asked.

"Well…you rarely come see me anymore ever since you met Kelsey, which is fine I'm not complaining! But you're here before dinner and she's not with you…" she pointed out.

"Ha. Yeah your good."

"You guys break up?" She wondered.

"No. Nothing like that." He said and a attached her head, moving to stand against another cabinet out of Paula's way.

"Something's got you stressed out. Something you want to talk to me about." She said.

"Ha…" Joe couldn't help but chuckle at his moms intuition.

"Is it work?" She guessed.

"No…"

"Reagan family drama?" She wondered.

"No." He swallowed hard not sure if he was ready for this.

"Is it-" she started to guess again.

"Kelseys pregnant." He couldn't keep her guessing anymore, he blurted it out.

"…Shut up…no…." She said, her eyes huge and glued to Joes face.

"Yeah."

"You're fucking with me." She told him shaking her head.

"No I'm not. Dead serious." He said with a straight face, his mom knew he was in fact serious just by that look.

"Joe! Are you sure? Did she go to the doctor yet?!" She scolded.

"She went and got an ultrasound couple days ago, it's legit. I saw the baby mom. I knocked her up just like my dad did you." He said sighing shaking his head, running his hands through his hair, this was the most stressful situation he's been in.

His mom realized he was not very pleased with himself. She wasn't happy about this either but she tried to remember, she was Kelsey. She needs support, especially from the father. Something Paula made the mistake of.

She went over and hugged him without saying anything else. He hugged her back.

"It's okay. Don't beat yourself up about it honey. Shit happens." She couldn't believe those words came out of her mouth but they did.

"Your not mad?"

"Oh I'm disappointed, but your 26 years old. Not 16." She said and they let go of the hug.

"Still. This is not what I wanted. Or what she wanted."

"Understandable. When's she due?"

"January 7th."

"So how far along is she? How many weeks?"

"12 weeks on Saturday."

"Wow. So when I first met her she would have just been finding out?!" She said doing some impressive quick thinking.

"Noooo she didn't find out until she was like 8 weeks along, just a month ago." He corrected. Paula was confused, and now concerned.

"What?" Joe could tell by her face she was thinking about something. She went over to her calendar on the wall.

"So your telling me. She's 12 weeks Saturday, here." She pointed at the day.

"Yup."

"Okay now let's count this back." She said and counted back until she got to 4 weeks. Putting it at April 30th.

"This is the first day she could've got a positive test, it's around the time she would've missed her period. She would've ovulated around here, the 14th, 15th, or 16th. Which is when you have to have sex to get pregnant." Paula said and looked at Joe.

"How's that possible?"

"When's the first time you slept with her?" She asked her son, awkwardness was all aside, this was serious.

"Here, April 27th." He pointed at the day, a million thoughts racing through his head. How was she already almost a month pregnant before they had even had sex?

"Mom." His heart stopped, his stomach flipped upside down.

"It's not your baby Joe…" she told him. He looked at her broken. Before Joe could say anything he left.

———

OH MY GOD! WHAT IS HE GOING TO DO NEXT!? I'D BET MONEY NOBODY SAW THIS COMING!!! Also don't hate me lol.