“I should make a doctor’s appointment,” I blurted out as we loaded into Bluebird.
“That’s probably a good idea,” Lucah said. “I wonder when it happened.” I’d been searching my brain, and I could probably narrow it down to about a week’s worth of time, but who knew? You could get pregnant while taking the pill. It had happened before.
“Are you going to tell everyone?” Sloane piped up from the backseat. She was certainly full of questions at the moment.
“Everyone, who?” I said.
“I mean, obviously you’re going to tell your parents and so forth, but what about the wedding?” I really didn’t want to think about that right at the moment. I had to get through today and telling my parents. That had the potential to be rough. Or it could go extremely well. It would be one of the two extremes.
~*~*~
Marisol, Fin and Chloe beat us to my parents’ house and Tate, April and their offspring pulled in just behind us.
“The gang’s all here!” Chloe said. April slowly got Lola out of the car, trying not to wake her as Tate wrangled the two other girls. Gracie ran right up to Sloane and started pawing at her skirt.
“Pretty!” she said. Sloane got down on her level and showed her all her jewelry. Gracie had learned before how to be “gentle.”
I gave April a hug and she pulled away, looking puzzled.
“Is something up?” I might as well have written YES, I’M PREGNANT on my forehead. Lucah and Tate were talking. We’d agreed on the way down that we would tell everyone at once. That way my parents couldn’t be too upset with us in front of the company.
“Something like that,” I said to her, grabbing the diaper bag from over her shoulder and carrying it for her as we all headed toward the house.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, alarmed.
“Something like that,” I said again.
Mom flung the front door open and had hugs for everyone, including Tate and April, and she got down to say hello to the little girls. They stared up at her in awe. It broke my heart a little to realize that they didn’t have a grandmother on Tate’s side. Thankfully, both of April’s parents were alive and well, so they at least had one set of grandparents to spoil them rotten.
“Well, hello there,” Mom said. “It’s so nice to meet you.” Gracie and Fiona just blinked a few times. It was true, Eva Clarke was an intimidating woman.
“Say hello,” Tate said and they looked at up at him. It was terribly adorable.
“That’s okay. We can work on that one,” Mom said with a wink. Dad came out and did the hug thing, except for Lucah, who got the standard handshake. The girls’ eyes nearly popped when Dad talked to them and they inched closer to Tate. Dad just chuckled and blew it off.
“Come on in everyone, we’re in the den today.” Because Mom could never do anything by halves, she’d set up a table in the den with finger foods and drinks and even snacks for the girls and had set up extra chairs and tables so we could all eat in a more relaxed setting.
“So, it’s buffet style. Go ahead and serve yourselves.” She pointed out what all the food was and I almost laughed when she pointed to a plate of little sandwiches cut into hearts that turned out to be peanut butter and jelly, and peanut butter and Fluff. I didn’t need two guesses to know who those were for. Also, I was pretty sure my mother had never before bought Fluff in her entire life. I hadn’t grown up with boxed cereal and gummies and Goldfish crackers. Way too tacky and processed.
Gracie and Fiona got all excited about the food, so Tate got them plates and sat them down. The volume in the room went way down as they stuffed their faces and got it all over their cheeks. Mom was ready with wet wipes before April could whip them out of her bag.
“I know the drill,” she said. “Rory might be grown up, but I still remember those days like they were yesterday.” There was a wistful look in her eyes as she helped Gracie and Fiona clean their hands and faces. I shot a look at Lucah and he came to stand right next to me.
“Do you think we should do it now?” I said in his ear.
“Might be best to do it now,” he whispered back.
Everyone filled their plates and sat down.
“Well, I would like to propose a toast,” Dad said, standing and raising his glass. Damn. He stole my moment.
“To my Rory Girl and her husband-to-be. May you have showers of happiness, buckets of laughter and love by the gallon. To Lucah and Rory.” Everyone raised their glasses and toasted to us. Before anyone could say something else, I pushed myself to say it.
“I have an announcement,” I said, reaching for Lucah’s hand with my shaking one. The words sat in the back of my throat, all lined up and waiting to come out. All I had to do was say them, but they got stuck.
I sent a look of panic to Lucah and gave him visual confirmation that it was okay to talk for me.
“Well,” he said, squeezing my hand. I nodded again.