"Are you awake, Jay?" Erin asked, coming in the bedroom.
The answer was yes, but Jay wished it was no. He was comfy, tired and didn't want to get up for work. He grunted a non-committal response without opening his eyes.
"Wake up. I have some bad news," she said, sitting down on the bed.
That woke him quickly. He turned over to face her, rubbing his eyes to get them to focus. "Bad news?"
Erin sighed. "We're not pregnant."
Her period must have started, he realised. That was bad news indeed. He had noticed her choose to use the word 'we're' though, and that was very endearing.
"We'll keep trying, honey," he promised, taking her hand.
"I know expecting to get pregnant straight away isn't realistic, but I got my hopes up. I'm so upset."
"Hey, hey," he said, sitting up and pulling her into a hug. He realised her hormones were likely all over the place, but even so it was unlike Erin to almost burst into tears in front of him. It showed how set she was on the idea of starting a family.
"You just called me honey," she said, sniffing back tears as they held each other.
"Yeah, I guess I did. Do you want me to do it some more or stop immediately?" he asked with a grin.
"Do it some more. I liked it."
"Okay, I will. Erin, please don't be sad. We'll get pregnant, I promise."
She pulled back slightly and looked at him. "You can't promise that, Jay. It might not happen."
"Aright, I can't promise it," he admitted. "But it'll happen, I know it will. We're going to be parents."
His positivity didn't seem to help much. "I guess if it comes to it we could adopt like Kim and Adam did."
"Hey, we're not going to adopt, we're going to have a baby. Obviously you're upset, so I'll call Jess and cancel going to look at vans with her this evening. Instead, I'll come home..."
"You won't cancel on Jess," Erin said decisively. "Besides, I'm not going to be any kind of company you want tonight. Need to get through this crap now before we can start trying again."
"At least I can build my stamina back up a bit," he said dryly, resorting to humour as he often did. This time it only earned him a thin smile. "Okay, you get back into bed, I'll go downstairs and get you some coffee and toast."
"Thank you," Erin said, taking him up on the offer immediately.
Heading downstairs, Jay looked up to the heavens for a moment, wondering if he ought to think more seriously about religion. Maybe it might help somehow? "Just give me this, please?" he asked whatever higher power might be paying attention. All he wanted was a child. Was that too much to ask?
That evening, at Erin's insistence, Jay was driving over to Jess's place for the first time. Extensively familiar with the whole city of Chicago through his work for Intelligence, he had known as soon as he received her address what her house would be like.
She was in a neighbourhood of fairly well off middle income families. Three and four bedroom houses with twin garages, impeccable front lawns and picket fences. It was the kind of neighbourhood Jay couldn't afford to live in, and wouldn't particularly want to if he could. But Jess had bought a place there by herself. Being a workaholic certainly had upsides as well as downsides.
When he arrived, Jay found almost exactly what he had been expecting. His excellent memory as a detective recalled that he had called on a house further down this exact street a few months ago and ended up searching it. Jess's was the same design, he could tell as soon as he parked on the driveway. A three bedroom house, with a large master bedroom that had a walk-in wardrobe and its own bathroom, however the third bedroom was fairly small. He smiled as he got out of the car at the thought of giving himself a mental tour around his sister's house before she even knew he had arrived.
He walked up to the front door and found a Ring doorbell. Jess was somewhat security conscious, he noted. That was a good thing. He rang the bell, and moments later heard Jess's voice.
"Hi, Jay! One second."
It was more like ten seconds before the door opened and Jess greeted him with a warm smile. She was dressed smartly again, this time in matching dark grey pants and blazer with a cream blouse. He assumed that was because they were about to go visit some dealerships to look at vans. Business attire for doing business.
"Hi!" she said again.
Jay smiled. It had only been a few days since the dinner at Erin's place, but he had missed her. "Hey, Jess. You okay?"
"Doing good thanks. You?"
"All good. Are we heading straight out?"
"We can do. I was thinking I'd invite you and Erin to come over soon, maybe one night next week? I could should both around then."
"Works for me. I'm sure Erin would be up for it."
"Great," she said excitedly.
They were soon on the road, heading for the first dealership on the shortlist Jay had made. It was a short list too because he had excluded places not open evenings. After asking Jess what she was looking for in a van, he had done the searching for her. Her requirements were hardly specific: reliable, spacious and white.
"Thanks for doing this for me, Jay. I'm totally clueless on vans or cars. All I know is I need it not to break down on me, need room for all my equipment, and need it to be white so I can get my branding put on it."
"No problem. I've got a shortlist we can work through, but I'm starting with possibly the best candidate."
"Awesome. So, I've been to Erin's place, you're coming to mine next week, that only leaves yours. The week after next?"
Jay grunted a laugh. "Not if I have anything to say about it. Don't like the place. Took out a lease for a year and it turns out I have noisy neighbours and there's damp starting to appear in the bathroom. The place is a dump. These days I'm pretty much living at Erin's since we started..." He caught himself, mindful that he ought not to be telling everyone they were trying for a baby.
She looked at him. "Since you started what?"
He figured he couldn't evade her now without being very obvious about it, and he didn't want to do that. "I'm not supposed to be telling anyone this yet, but we're trying for a baby."
Jess made the same excited noise he had heard when he had told her their DNA test results. "Ah, Jay that's amazing. You guys will make wonderful parents. I assume you're going to move into Erin's place then?"
"I'm stuck with the lease on my apartment for almost a year yet."
"That sucks, but what difference does it make to whether you live with Erin or not? You're obliged to pay for the place, not to live in it. You know, the way she looks at you melts me. I'm envious."
One thing he really appreciated about this new relationship with his sister was the different perspectives he got from her. Hearing how his relationship with Erin appeared to Jess made him feel even more blessed and thankful. And she had made a good point about having to pay rent on his apartment not stopping him moving in with Erin. Wasting the money would be painful but he couldn't do anything about that.
As for her feeling envious of him, he felt envious of her for owning a nice house, having very successful YouTube channel, and having the talent, money and contacts to start a business that promised to be highly lucrative. But despite all that, she felt envious of him because he had the love of a wonderful woman and the chance to start a family. It was a profound moment of realisation for him.
"I've made a lot of screw ups in my life, as we've talked about before," he said. "That's behind me now. I'm not going to allow myself to screw this up with Erin."
Jess looked at him and nodded seriously. "I can tell you mean that. One day, I hope to find someone who feels the same way about me."
Arriving back at Erin's place later that night, Jay entered quietly in case she had gone to sleep early. He made it only a few steps before she called out to him from the bedroom.
"I'm in here, Jay."
He went through to the bedroom and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "How are you feeling?"
"Crap to be honest, so I came to bed with a hot water bottle. How's Jess?
A hot water bottle in this weather, Jay thought, thinking about how warm it still was outside, and in the apartment. Women were bizarre sometimes. He sat down on the bed and gave her a peck on the cheek.
"She's fine. My research paid off and she bought a used Ford Transit at the first dealership we went to. I even negotiated five hundred bucks off the price for her. Then we went back too her place and had a coffee."
Erin smiled. "Major big brother points for you then. When is she going to start the company?"
"Not sure. I mean, she's still got to rent an industrial unit and buy all the supplies she'll need. And I assume she'll need to hire someone too since crime scene cleaning units work in pairs."
"Makes sense."
"More importantly, it really hit me tonight while talking with Jess how lucky you and I are to have each other, especially after how crazy our history has been. You've already told me how strong your commitment is to making this work this time. I want to say the same to you. No matter what, I want to spend the rest of my life with you and raise a family in the process. The thought of you and I doing things like going to White Socks games or on picnics with a kid or two makes me feel a way I've never experienced before. I'm in love with that feeling. So, yeah, that's what I wanted to say."
Erin sat up and gave him a kiss. "That's possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. I love you. To be clear, I'm only agreeing to one kid at this stage though. Let's see how that goes before I decide if I can do it all a second time."
"That's totally fair. So long as I get to be with you and be a dad, that's all I want."
Next step, get pregnant, he thought.
A/N: Next time we have Kevin's fancy dress party. We know what Jay and Erin have chosen to go as, but what do you think Kevin, Jess, Adam and Kim might choose?
