Chapter 65: Meeting LJ (or, At the Doctor’s)

By Monday morning, I had had just about enough of Jon. I have to give him credit, he can be an asshole when he wants to be – just like ordinary guy he claims to be. I was getting really close to the breaking point, but I had other things to think about today. I was going for my ultrasound. My doctor, sweet guy that he is, made arrangements with a colleague in Chicago so David could come with me. David, and assorted honorary aunties, that is. The honorary uncles were content to wait until we got back.

But that was later. Right now, I had the dubious honor of watching Jon workout AGAIN. Half hour into his run I was saved by my crackberry. Jon raised an eyebrow at me. “Sorry,” I said. “I do have a life outside of serving you m’lord.” I checked the display. “Huh, it’s Ang.” I answered the phone. “Hey Ang, what’s up?”

She sounded awful. “Hath, darlin’, I’m dying here, can you talk?”

“Yeah,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’m just watching the boss jogging and handing him his towel and drink. What’s wrong?’ She sounded worried.

“Richie didn’t lock the bathroom door.”

“Oka-a-a-a-ay…” I think I knew where this was going but I was going to make her say it.”

“Jesus Christ woman,” her voice dropped to a growl. “I bloody well saw him naked.”

“Fuck me!” I yelled into the phone. I slid a sideways glance at Jon, who was way too interested in this conversation. Lowering my voice, I asked, “Do the rumors do him justice?”

“Jesus Hath!” Ang was mortified; I could hear it in her voice.

“Shut the fuck up and tell me,” I hissed into the phone. My heart was pounding a mile a minute.

“Yeah, Jesus, Hath, the moose was loose and VERY impressive.”

I screamed into the phone and Jon stopped the treadmill. I looked at him and threw a towel at him. “You’re all sweaty, boss, towel off.”

“You’re getting into this role, aren’t you?” Ang asked me.

“Yeah, I’m a natural. Don’t change the subject. What did you do?”

“What the hell do you think I bloody well did? I called him a second grader and got the fuck out of there. The bastard followed me out to the kitchen and was teasing me.” She was smashing pots and pans around; she must have been making breakfast.

Finally, Ang sighed. “Hey, he’s gonna tell David; just one more thing to gloat over.”

I burst into laughter. Uncontrollable, unstoppable laughter. I had tears running down my face, and Jon was starting to chuckle, and had no idea why.

“Jeeves, what’s going on?”

I was laughing so hard, my voice was all squeaky and, shit, girlish, and Jon could hardly understand me, but he got the gist. “Ang got an eyeful of Naked Sambora this morning, and he’s gonna go gloat to David.” Jon burst out laughing like I’ve never heard before. Christ, if anyone ever came in here now, they’d think we were smoking something. I flapped at Jon. “Shh, shh, she’s saying something.” He was still laughing his ass off, and dropped to the floor next to me, and was pulling on the phone so he could hear, too. “Stop it!” I laughed. Christ, we were like a couple of high schoolers.

“Stop laughing you shits!” Ang said, but she was laughing too, and that just set us off more.

“You stop and we will,” I cackled (literally) to her.

After a couple minutes, we calmed down. She said, “Honey, you need to tell David, Richie’s crowing about it! Help!!!! Oh shite someone’s coming gotta go, just tell Davey about Flash!” and she was gone.

“Flash?” I said and looked at Jon, and we burst into laughter again. I flung myself back to lay on the floor, and Jon stood.

“C’mon, Jeeves, change of plans,” he said. “We need to find a novelty shop.”

I was on the same wavelength. “Hang on.” I pressed a button on my Berry and connected to the concierge. “Hello? Nadeen? It’s Hath Gengras. Boss and I need to know where we can pick up an adult-sized super-hero themed t-shirt.” She laughed and asked what the hell for, and I answered, “who knows with these rich folk.” Jon raised an eyebrow at me and I waved at him to shut up. She told me of a place not too far away. “Thanks, Nadeen, you’re an absolute peach,” and I hung up.

“Nadeen?” Jon asked. “Rich folk?”

“Yeah, Nadeen is the concierge. I have her number on the Berry.” I blushed. “And the restaurant manager, the gym, front desk, and valet. ‘Rich folk’ so they know I’m not a demanding bitch, and truly asking for favors.”

“You are taking this seriously, aren’t you?”

I blushed harder. “Just drop it, OK? I don’t do anything half-assed, so just enjoy my type-A anal quirks.” I squared my shoulders. “In any event, boss, we have a place we can go, but they don’t open for another hour and I don't want to be late for my appointment."

“Alright,” Jon said. “We'll go later."

“I gotta go get changed, grab David, and head over to Lucy’s to get the girls,” I said.

Jon waved me off. “Fine, but remember we have things to do later.”

“Yeah, but remember I’m helping make dinner for tonight for you lot.”

Jon rolled his eyes. “I know that,” he said. “Lucy asked me to release you from duties to help, but I want you to come with me to get the t-shirt.”

I laughed. “I wanna come too. They may have all sorts of stuff. OOOH! Maybe there’s a party store, too; we can get themed plates and cups and stupid little party favors and pepper them in his clothes, here and at the show, we can serve his dinner on them…” I trailed off when Jon started laughing.

“Girl, you are too much,” he said.

“No, man, ask David. I’m just enough.” I went down to David’s room to get changed. When I opened the door, he was sitting there, waiting for me. Without preamble, I said, “I have to tell you something: Ang saw Richie in the altogether this morning.”

“What?” David said. “Did he do something stupid? What the fuck was he thinking? It was just supposed to be harmless flirting…”

“Relax,” I said, putting a hand on his chest. “It was an accident. He forgot to lock the bathroom door, and Ang walked in and saw everything.” I started to laugh. “Jon and I are going shopping this afternoon for a ‘Flash’ t-shirt for Richie. Don’t say anything.”

David was laughing. “Gimme Ang’s cell number,” he said.

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing bad.” I turned it over, and he dialed her. “Ang, darlin’, it’s your David.” I pantomimed gagging on my finger, and David swatted at me. “So what’s this I hear about you two-timing me with Sambora? Do I need to install you in my rooms so you’ll wander in on me naked? Hey, I’m naked now, in fact…”

I clapped my hands over my mouth and ran for the bedroom so I could get changed. I’d ruin it if Ang heard me laughing.

Hi, Baby!

We arrived at Lucy's all us girls went to pile in the van. David was going to drive, and as Ang passed him, she punched him in the arm, hard.

“What the hell was that for?” David said, rubbing his arm.

“For that lovely phone call this morning,” she said.

He fired up the GPS, and were off. As David was driving, we girls were all chattering excitedly. Steph had gone through this before, as had Sam, but this was my first time, and I wasn’t exactly nervous, but a little apprehensive. What if there was something wrong? I don’t think I could take it if that were the case.

When we pulled into the medical center, we found a place to park, and all piled out of the van. We looked like clowns coming out of a clown car. I was walking gingerly because I’d had the better part of a gallon of water this morning, and really had to pee.

We girls linked arms and crossed the parking lot. I noticed David was lagging behind and dropped back to walk with him. I snaked my arm around his waist, and hugged him close.

“You okay, baby?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, kissing my temple and rubbing his arm some more. “This is what makes it real, ya know,” David said. “Once you see that little bean, she’ll be really real.”

“I know,” I said excitedly. “I can’t wait.”

“Me, either.” He brought me close for a kiss and held me tight. “Ready sexy Momma?”

I chuckled. “Ready sweet Papa,” I said.

We went inside, and made quite a scene; the five of us ladies and David. The receptionist didn’t know what to make of us. “Which of you is pregnant?” Sam and I looked at each other and both raised our hands. The receptionist raised an eyebrow at David, who laughed. “Only one of them is by me, thank you very much,” he said, putting an arm around me. The others went into the waiting room while David and I checked in. We settled into the waiting room, and waited for them to call my name.

The Harem was looking through the baby and parenting magazines and oohing and aahing over the little cuties. There’s nothing like a baby to make women go all girly. David found one edition of Time Magazine in the waiting room, and was gratefully thumbing through it. I sat there a few minutes being all girly myself with my friends, before the door opened. “Hath?” the nurse called.
I stood, smiling. “That’s me,” I said, and reached my hand out for David. He stood and followed me back. After a quick stop for weight and blood pressure checks (both of which were “within normal limits” thank goodness), we were led into a room with the dreaded stirrup table and a big TV monitor.

“The tech will be with you in just a minute,” the nurse said, and shut the door behind her.

No sooner had the door closed that David wrapped me in a big hug. “Oh, Hath, this is so exciting,” David said. “I’m so glad your doctor was able to set this up.”

“Me too,” I said, leaning into his embrace. He backed me up until I was against the end of the table, and I hopped up.

David chuckled. The level of the table put us in perfect alignment if we wanted to, well, get busy in the doctor’s office. “We need one of these at home,” he said, stepping in between my legs. “These stirrups would make things interesting.”

I laughed outright and swatted at him. He caught my hand and pulled me roughly to him and kissed the shit out of me. We were still clinched together when the tech opened the door. She cleared her throat discretely and David sprang back from me. We were both blushing furiously.

“Sorry,” I said. “We’re just so excited about this baby.”

The tech just smiled at us. If she recognized David, she didn’t show it. “That’s nice to see. Now,” she looked at the chart. “You’re 37, and this is your first pregnancy?” After I nodded, she continued. “When you get back, your own doctor will probably want monthly visits because your age puts you at risk for high blood pressure or gestational diabetes. There are other chromosomal things they’ll want to keep an eye on as well, but those can happen to anyone, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

That was easier said than done. I sighed and lay down on the table when she told me to, and raised the hem of my shirt, exposing my abdomen. The tech unbuttoned my jeans and lowered those just slightly. She squirted a cold gel on my stomach, flipped on a machine, and went to work. I had a death grip on David’s hand, and we both stared intently at the screen.

“I’m just looking at your organs here,” she said, pointing to grayish lumps on the screen. “Everything looks good; no inflammation. Now,” she said, repositioning the wand, “let’s find your baby.”

Fifteen minutes later, David and I emerged from the back. David had a shit-eating grin on his face, and I looked shell shocked. Ang saw me first, and rushed over. “What’s wrong?” she asked, grabbing my hand and peering down into my face.

I looked up at her, stunned. “Th-th-there’s two,” I said, on a whisper.

“What?!” she yelled, unable to control herself. I just nodded at her, dumbfounded. Ang let out a whoop, lifted me fully off the ground, and spun me around. Not for nothing does she heft cases of liquor at that pub of hers.

Ang turned to the others. “Aunties, there’s two LJs in there,” Ang said, putting a hand to my abdomen. The girls all came over, exclamations on their lips. I still couldn’t believe it. I mean, we had joked about there maybe being twins, but I never expected it to actually be true.

When the tech told us she could see two little babies in there, my first reaction was “Nuh-uh. No way.” David just stared at the screen. We looked at each other for a minute then looked back at the screen. There, clear as day were two little pouches, each with its own little baby shape inside it. Each little baby shape had a perfect dot that we could see pulsing, like a tiny little light. Heartbeats. The two hearts beat in perfect tandem.

The tech looked closely at the screen. “Folks, looks like you have yourself a set of fraternal twins,” she said.

Wow.

David kissed me tenderly, and looked at me with such love and devotion that I nearly cried. He trailed a hand down my face. “Twins,” he said. “We’re going to have a little Goddess and a little Joker.”

“We don’t know that,” I said to him, smiling so wide, I thought my cheeks were going to burst. “There could be two Goddesses or two Jokers in there.”

David pressed his forehead to mine. “I don’t care about that.” David glanced at the tech, who had discretely turned away, then kissed me deeply. He broke the kiss and turned to the tech. “Does everything look good?” he asked her.

“Everything looks perfect,” she said. “You and your wife are on track to have two beautiful little babies at the beginning of October.”

We looked at each other, smiling, and neither of us corrected her misconception. It would be true soon enough.

In the waiting room, I had to sit. My head was spinning from the news of twins, and at how right it felt to be taken for David's wife. The tech made us copies of the scans, and they were still clutched in my hand. Ang gently pried them from me, and passed them around. We sat there for a minute, and I told them what the doctor had told me – that since this is my first pregnancy, and because of age, the ol’ biological clock was working overtime.

I’ll never laugh at any woman again for claiming her clock is ticking.

Never.

When we got back to Lucy’s I was still in a fog. I couldn’t believe there were two little ones in there. The doctor told me I needed to watch my stress levels, and to be sure to get plenty of rest, but other than that, there wasn’t anything special I needed to do. Watch the stress. Yeah, sure. We piled through the front door, and came on the other men all sitting with different sections of the newspaper. It was absurd, yet looked so normal – it’s hard to describe.

“Everything OK?” Jon asked, looking up from the financial section. He saw I was a bit beside myself.

“Yep, we’re all fine,” I said slowly, patting my abdomen.

“All?” Jon asked.

“Yeah, all,” I said, and David came up behind me to give me a hug and drop a kiss on my neck. “We’re having twins.”

“Really?” Richie asked. “That’s …” he trailed off.

“Wonderful,” David supplied.

I looked up at him with tears in my eyes. “Miraculous,” I said, and turned to wrap my arms around David’s waist. He framed my face with his big, gentle hands, and leaned down to kiss me.

David looked at Jon. “We’re going for a walk,” he said, leveling a don’t-mess-with-me gaze at his front-man. David and I hadn’t yet taken off our coats, so he just steered me outside.

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

Once the door was closed, David took me around the side of the house, leaned up against it, pulled me to him, and kissed me for long minutes like I was the most precious thing in the world. “I love you,” he said to me looking into my eyes.

“I love you too, more than anything,” I said.

“So, we have off most of May,” David said. “What if we plan our wedding and your move for then?” he asked. “Does that give us enough time?”

It only gave us a little over two months, but I loved how he said “us”. “We can make it work,” I said. “I can wrap up things at work by mid April, and take several weeks off before starting the new job. If I get it; I still haven’t heard yet.”

“Is it very important to you to keep working?” he asked. He took my hands gently. “I know you love your job, and you’re amazing at what you do, but…”

“Believe me, sweetie, I’ve thought about not working,” I said to him. “And now that there’s two babies on the way…” I trailed off. “Let me think about it a little more, OK? I don’t want strangers raising our babies, but I don’t want to necessarily give up all my adult interactions.”

We changed the subject and talked about the wedding. It was important to me to have a Catholic ceremony, and it was important to David to involve his other kids, and other than that, whatever I wanted was fine by him. We talked for a few minutes about some of the things I wanted to do, then David reached into his pocket. “I have something for you,” he said. David pulled out a smallish, flat package, wrapped in the same silver paper as my Valentine’s present. “I was saving it for after the ultrasound.”

“What’s this?” I asked, taking it from him.

“Open it,” he said, smiling. He had his hands clasped behind his back, and he was rocking forward and back on his toes, looking like an excited third-grader.

I slit the tape and pulled back the wrapping, and gasped. It was a CD, and there on the cover was me – one of the pictures from David’s birthday. This shot was the surprise “sated-after-great-sex” he took of me on the bed with my arms thrown up over my headdress-covered head, and the sheet pulled up haphazardly, just barely covering my nude body. Half-closed eyes looked at the camera with a promise of more. Just more. It was easily the sexiest I’ve ever looked, but I couldn’t believe David did this. The CD was titled, “Goddess”. I turned it over and saw the back was another photo; this one the shot of the two of us together. The names of the songs were written all around us, covering our bodies but not our faces.

I was so engrossed at looking at these pictures and the titles of the songs that David had written for me and the LJs that I missed the sound of the front door slamming shut. Jon had come out for a smoke, and walked around the side of the house. He saw us standing there, and saw I had something in my hands.

“Hey guys,” he said, blowing a stream of smoke heavenward. “Whatcha got there, Jeeves?”

I jumped a mile and tried to slide the paper back over the CD. “Nothing,” I said. “Just something David made for me.”

“Oh, he gave you your CD?”

“Jesus, you saw it?”

Jon gave me a puzzled look. “I helped him put it together,” he said, “so yeah, I guess technically I saw it…” He was genuinely confused.

“Hath,” David said quietly, and when I looked at him, he shook his head. Oops. Now I’ve just stepped in it, and made Jon curious. Shit. I tried to cover.

“So, boss, um, what’s up?” Lame, yeah, I know, but he was already confused, so maybe he wouldn't notice.

“Oh, um, I just came out for a smoke and to see how much longer you’re gonna be.” He saw the look in my face and rolled his eyes at me. “Don’t you start on me, too, Hath. I know smoking isn’t good for Sam or the baby,” he leveled a gaze at me. “I’m working on it.”

“Sorry, I did the same thing to my Dad and brother – other guys I care about.” I smiled at him. “As long as you’re working on it,” I said, and Jon ground out the butt.

“Hey, so,” he said, “can I see the finished product?” He nodded to the CD.

“I don’t think so,” I said to him, blushing. “It’s pretty personal.”

“Hey, Hath, you can trust me, you know,” he said. “I'd never intentionally hurt you or any of my friends.”

I looked at David, who said, “It’s up to you, sweetie. I have no problem with it.”

I sighed and looked at Jon. “You make me feel bad about this, and I’m gone, and you won’t ever see me again.” My voice was strong and determined, but the look in my eye was pure terror. David put his hand on my shoulder, offering moral support, and I handed over the CD.

The back-side was up, and Jon looked at it, then looked at me. “This is you?” I nodded, and Jon whistled. “Wow.” He smirked at me. “I thought you said no costumes?”

I burst out laughing. “I just meant not for you, you ass,” I said. “David gets whatever he asks for, and even some things he doesn’t.” That made the two of them laugh, and I felt a little better. Then Jon turned the CD over.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he swore. He gripped the CD with both hands, and was just staring at it.

I felt my hackles rising. “What?” I demanded, all but daring him to say something.

He glanced at David, then said to me, “Remember what I PMd to you last month?”

Yep, I did. I was worrying about why David would want me, looking at the women he’d been with in the past, and Jon had told me that I was beautiful inside where it counts, as well as out. He said that though I was stubborn and bossy (where’d he get THAT idea ha ha), that I was also kind and loyal and loving and really good for David, and that David loved me completely.

Oh shit.

This means Jon probably remembers the whole exchange, which included me telling him exactly why I thought women went crazy for him. In detail. I was ready to go hide in the closet now. I need to go talk to Stephanie. She told him the same things, and would surely be joining me in said closet.

Instead of bolting, I just nodded and said softly, “I remember.”

Jon held up the CD. “This proves it. Look at you,” he said, pointing at the picture.

“I’ve seen it,” I said wryly.

Jon just shook his head. “No, really look at it,” he said, and handed it back to me, and put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be too long,” he said. “I’m getting thirsty, and we have an errand to run.” He winked at me and turned to go back into the house.

“Jon?” I called, and he turned around and smiled. “Thanks,” I said.

“What was that all about?” David asked. I told him an edited version of the exchange, telling him that Jon was incredulous that Sam wanted to share his crazy lifestyle, and I had talked him off the ledge, and that he had done the same for me when I wondered why the hell David was so interested in me. I was blushing furiously, and David just scooped me into his arms. “I love that you can talk to my friends, but talk to me too, OK? I could have told you a thousand reasons that I want to be with you.”

I looked at him. “Baby, you tell me without words every time you look at me.” I kissed him. “I’ll never have doubts again.” David pulled me close and slanted his mouth over mine.

The front door opened again, and Jon shouted, “JEEVES!” making us jump.

“WHAT?” I shouted back, giggling.

“Get your ass in here, woman. OW! Jesus, Sam…” and the door shut.

Laughing, David and I went back into the house.