!JAKE'S POV!
"Hey Jake!" Audrey says as I answer the door. Kevin and Eve are behind her carrying a covered dish. She's about 10 minutes early. That's always like her. Audrey is always 10 minutes early and Sarah is always 10 minutes late. "Are we the first ones here?" Kevin asks, stepping inside. "Of course. As usual." And of course, Sarah and Kyle came about 20 minutes later. By this time everyone was outside waiting. I answered the door "How nice of you to join us," I say sarcastically. Sarah punched my arm. "Shut up. We're not that late." I grabbed my arm "Ow. That hurt." She just smiled and rolled her eyes. Dylan and Tyler run out into our backyard where we have a picnic table set up. It's been about a month since our last get together. I haven't had a lot of time to get to know about everyone else since I've been working really hard on this promotion. I've been getting home really late, most of the time Alyssa is already asleep when I get home. And I hardly get to spend any time with her or the kids. Luckily though, she's understood about it all. She hasn't been complaining or nagging me or anything. I walk outside with Kyle and Sarah where Alyssa has everything set up already. She claps her hands together. "I think we're ready." She turns around. "Kids! The foods ready!" As usual, a herd of kids come running around the picnic table. I help Rylee fix her plate and Alyssa helps Cayden and Crystal fix their plates and when all the kids are settled, us adults sit down and fix our own plates and talk… which is the whole point of why we do this. I'm sitting next to Kevin. I lean over. "So, how are things going with your life?" I take a bit of macaroni. Kevin shrugs. "Pretty good, I guess. You know the same ol', same ol'. Audrey is starting to get attached to a little boy she's having sessions with." "What about you?" he asks me. I shrug. "Pretty good, I guess. I haven't been home much. You're lucky I made it here. Work is pretty stressful and I can't wait until my boss decides who gets that promotion." "Yeah. I know what you mean. But work has been a drag lately." Kevin sighs. I can tell something's bothering him, but I decide not to pressure him about anything. After we all got caught up and everyone left, it was pretty late so Alyssa and I put the kids to bed. After they were all tucked in their beds, I lay down in bed and closed my eyes trying to catch up on my sleep but Alyssa lay down next to me and told me that Cayden's class was going to have career day and that I should go in for it. I was half asleep at this point. "Jake? Are you even listening to me?" I opened one eye. "Huh? Oh yea. Sure. Whatever." The next thing I know, I'm asleep.
!KEVIN'S POV!
As usual, we were early. You can thank Audrey for that; I was never early for anything before I married her. Now it's a habit, but I guess it's better than being late for everything. When we got there, Jake let us in and we out to the back (luckily all of us have big backyards), and sat away from the pool, we didn't want any kids or any of the food to fall in. Audrey immediately gravitated toward Alyssa and the two gossiped or whatever they did. Audrey is already starting to show. Sarah and Kyle arrived and Alyssa had dinner out in no time. I mostly hung out with Jake, catching up on everything. It sounds like he's working really hard on a promotion at work. It sounds like he's never at home. I can't imagine never being at home, I feel sorry for the guy. Luckily, I'm home quite a bit and my job doesn't require me to work on the weekends. Audrey and I get home late with Eve already asleep. I walk into our room after taking a shower. Audrey is sitting in the arm chair we have in there. She never sits in that chair. "What's going on?" "I have something we need to talk about," Audrey says seriously. "Ok..." I sit on the bed. "You know Christian? One of my patients." "Yeah." "Well, I want to adopt him." I was stunned. "Are you sure?" I asked still unsure of what to think. "Absolutely. He needs a real mother and father who can love him. Wouldn't it be great to know we could provide that for him?" I looked down. She completely caught me off guard. "Audrey, you're already having one... aren't two enough?" She furrows her eyebrows. "Why are you being so selfish? I can't believe you. We have the chance to give this little boy a home and a family and all you can think is 'you're already having one...'" She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. Sometimes she can act like a child. "Well, I just think that it's kind of stupid to adopt with an infant on the way, I mean come on, you're going to be trying to raise a baby AND getting used to having a troubled kid around the house?" she glared at me. "Stupid? How could providing a home for a needy child possibly be stupid?" "I'm just saying—" she cut me off "No. Kevin. You're stupid." And she got in the bed and turned her back to me.
!SARAH'S POV!
"We're not that late," I say as we enter Jake and Alyssa's house. We were that late. 20 minutes. Jake should expect that from me, though. We went into their backyard where everything was already ready. That's the good thing about being late. You don't have to wait around for anything or anyone. We got to sit down and eat right away. I sat down by Alyssa and Audrey of course and Kyle sat by Jake and Kevin. When I was with Alyssa and Audrey, I didn't feel like a mom, I felt like a teenager again, and I like that. I don't feel quite so old. But all good things come to an end. Kyle and I went home with the two boys almost half asleep. I've been worrying about the cafe' a lot. I realize I am no where prepared to start something like that. And honestly, I have no idea what to do. Kyle took me to look for potential places and we found a few close by that would be pretty good but I barely had any time to do anything else to prepare because I was too busy with the boys. Then, the phone rang and the caller I.D. said "Out of Area" I answered it anyway. "Hello?" No answer. I just shrugged and hung up. They must have had the wrong number. "Who was that?" I shrug. "They hung up." The phone rings again. I heave a huge sigh and pick it up quickly. "Hello?" "Sarah?" "Yeah, who's this?" They hang up again. I slam the phone down. I was starting to get creeped out. If they knew me, which obviously they did considering they knew my name, why did they hang up? I just shrugged it off. Maybe they had bad service or something.
!AUDREY'S POV!
"No Kevin. You're stupid." was the last thing I said before going to bed angry. I was really mad about this. I can't believe how selfish Kevin is being. The next morning I woke up. I didn't bother waking Kevin up. Let him be late for work. I get Eve up and feed her breakfast, get her dressed, and before we went out the door, I went into our room where Kevin was still soundly asleep. I shove him. "You're going to be late," is all I say before leaving the house. I drop Eve off at daycare and I was on my way to work where Christian would be waiting for me. He'd been opening up a lot about everything that had happened to him and the sessions seemed to be really helping him. All of this made me want to be his mother more. I was scared this was going to happen to every patient I had. I'd want to... keep them. After work, I picked Eve up and came home. When I got home, Kevin was sitting on the couch, watching TV. "What are you doing?" I ask. He looks at me. "I had the day off, don't you remember?"
!ALYSSA'S POV!
After everyone left our house, Jake and I put the kids in bed and got into bed ourselves. I was trying to talk to him but I got the feeling he wasn't even listening to me. I finally gave up and turned the lights out, but I couldn't sleep. Ever since Jake has been working for that promotion, he hasn't been home at all. And when he is home, he's sleeping or on the verge of it. The most time he's spent with the kids is when he fell asleep on the couch the other night and Cayden fell asleep on one side of him and rylee on the other. I try my best not to make too big a deal out of it because I know he's working hard and I know that he really wants this promotion and everything but I miss the way things used to be. When he would come home at like 430 or 5 every night and actually stay awake long enough to carry on a conversation. I really badly wanted to tell him just to take a day off or something but I know if I did, it would just cause an argument and that's the last thing we need. I decided to leave it alone for tonight. Since Jake absolutely cannot wake up with an alarm clock, I have to wake up every morning just to wake him up. It was 5. Why on earth would he need to get up at 5? I got up turned on the lamp, and shook him "Jake. Wake up. It's 5." After about 10 minutes I finally got him up and I went back to sleep until 630, when I had to get up to get the kids ready for school and all that jazz. That night, I put the kids to bed and decided I would try to wait up for Jake for once. I lay on the couch and watched TV and was barely awake when he came home at 11. After we got ready for bed I turned to him. "Before you go to sleep, I need to talk to you." "Okay. Shoot." "Well, I was just thinking that you've been working really hard lately and I'm not telling you to stop, but I think you should at least take some time off to go to Cayden's career day thingy and to go out to dinner for our anniversary." "Don't worry, I already talked to my boss and he's cool with letting me take time off for both." "Good." I cannot wait until this promotion is given.
!KYLE'S POV!
I can already feel the drama stirring in our families. I observed and listened to everyone's conversations at the get together. There's definitely some drama on the horizon. Sarah and I? We're doing perfectly fine as far as I know. But I have a feeling Kevin and Audrey are going to start disagreeing on the whole adopting thing and Jake and Alyssa are going to start arguing about him never being there. I'm glad Sarah and I aren't going through anything like that. The biggest thing on our shoulders is Sarah's whole cafe thing and that's not a big deal because we're in no rush. We have been receiving weird phone calls lately, though. Someone will call, we'll answer, and then we'll hang up. I think they're just the telemarketer people, but we've never gotten this many. Oh well.