Always been You

by Mia Scott

  He was mixing up the waffle batter when the bathroom door opened, and Alisha walked out with a towel wrapped around her tiny frame, hair wet and skin dewy. "You're cooking?" she asked, in this surprised voice and with an utterly adorable look on her face.

  "Yup," he answered, smirking at her across the apartment. "Makin' you some waffles." Her answering smile as she walked backwards into his room made him feel pretty damn good.

  After she was dressed, Alisha walked into the kitchen and her mouth watered and her stomach growled from all of the wonderful scents filling the space. "Bacon, too," she commented, curling her fingers into the soft fabric of his worn Zeppelin t-shirt and slipping between his body and the counter. He nodded and she Rosemary on her toes to lay her lips over his. "You've been holding out on me, Biggerman," she teased, smiling up at him, resting her hand over his bicep. "You can cook."

  "S'right. I'm good, too," he told her, sliding a hand down into the back pocket of her jeans. "Had to be sure you could handle Bigzilla's waffles before I made them."

  She let out a breathy laugh and pressed a noisy kiss on his cheek before dropping down on flat feet. "Your nicknames are ridiculous."

  "Whatever," he scoffed. "They're awesome. Just like this breakfast is gonna be." He pulled his hand out of her pocket and smacked her playfully on the ass. "Go sit. This'll be ready soon."

  Alisha smiled brightly and ducked under his arm, scooting past him to take a seat at the table. Folding her legs underneath herself, she watched him move easily about the kitchen as he finished their breakfast. "Where did you learn how to cook?" she asked him casually, sipping her orange juice.

  He glanced over his shoulder and grinned. "Rosemary," he answered simply.

  Alisha smiled over the top of her glass. "Did she force you to learn?"

  Big snorted. "What do you think? She also worked a lot of nights at the hospital, so I had to make sure the brat didn't starve." He plated up a waffle and some bacon and set it down in front of her.

  "This looks delicious," Alisha said sincerely, reaching for the butter and syrup on the table. After her first bite, she groaned appreciatively. "Oh, my God," she said behind her hand, her mouth still full. "S'amazing."

  He lifted a brow and a knowing smirk broke out over his face. She sounded way too much like him just then and he found it hilarious. "Told ya."

  She couldn't even roll her eyes at his arrogance, because it was completely warranted. The waffle on her plate was, without a doubt, the best one she'd had in her entire life. She barely spoke until she'd polished off every bit of food on her plate and even then she nearly picked it up to lick it clean. Instead, she reached for another waffle from the plate in the middle of the table. "How did you ever get girls to leave after a breakfast like this?" she teased, before tucking into waffle number two.

  Big shrugged and took a bite of his own waffle. "Never made anyone else breakfast before other than my family. And the guys at the station. No homo." Alisha's eyes briefly widened in surprise before turning warm and sparkly as she looked at him from across the table. He didn't know what that look meant exactly, but he was sure it was a good thing. (What? He was learning, okay?)

  She opened her mouth to tease him again, but her phone ringing stopped her. Seeing Maggie's name on the display, she smiled apologetically to Big and said, "It's Maggie; I should take this."

  "S'no sweat, Shorty."

  "Hi, Fabs," Alisha greeted.

  "Alisha," Maggie sniffled.

  Alisha's brows furrowed together. "Maggie, what's wrong?"

  "Can—you—come—over?" she asked between hiccupping sobs.

  "Of course. Just tell me why you're so upset." She mouthed "I don't know" at Jake's inquisitive look.

  "James—"

  "What happened?" she asked, concern flooding her voice.

  More sobs poured through the line and Alisha managed to decipher "fight" and "broke up" over her friend's cries.

  She pushed back her chair and stood, raking a hand through her hair. "I'll be right there. Do you need anything?"

  Maggie went quiet for a moment before she began sniffling again. "Can you stop and get me a pregnancy test?"

  Alisha's eyes rounded and she swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. "Give me half an hour," she replied before the line went dead. She blew out a breath and could feel the weight of Big's gaze on her.

  "Everything okay?" he asked, even though he knew it wasn't.

  "No," Alisha shook her head. "Maggie and James got into a fight and though I'm not entirely sure because she was crying so hard, I think they broke up."

  Both of Big's eyebrows shot up. "What? No way."

  "I'm going to go over there and check on her. She's really upset. I'll see what I can find out." She skirted around the table and grabbed his face, dropping a hard kiss to his lips. "Thanks for this morning—breakfast and everything," she said softly, with a kittenish smile lighting up her face.

  Big smirked up at her. "My pleasure, babe," he said lowly, pulling her down for another kiss. "Good luck with Q."

  "Thanks. I'll call you later."

  With that, she grabbed her phone and bag and shrugged into her coat. Pulling the door open, she came face to face with a bleary-eyed James. He had just lifted a hand to knock and was holding a brown paper sack in the other. She was sure it contained booze from the way he looked and smelled. In short, he looked about as awful as Maggie sounded. "James," she greeted coolly. She didn't know where the fault lay in this fight, but her loyalties were to her best friend. She heard Jake's footsteps approaching and she glanced over her shoulder at him once more and smiled before she walked out the door.

  "Sup, bro?" Big greeted, stepping back from the doorway to allow his friend access. "You look like shit."

  "Fuck you. I don't wanna talk about it. I just want to drink and play X-Box so I can blow some shit up. Okay?"

  "Sure. What're you drinkin'?"

  Alisha used the key she had to Maggie's apartment and let herself inside. "Maggie?" she called, her voice travelling through the empty living room. She shed her coat and hung it up, dropped her bag by the door. Clutching the paper sack from Duane Reade, she walked towards Maggie's room. The nerves she had in her stomach were balling up and making her feel sick; she couldn't imagine what her best friend was feeling.

  Knocking lightly, she pushed open the bedroom door and found her Maggie in the middle of the bed, crying and scooping peanut butter from the jumbo-sized jar of Jif in her hand with an Oreo cookie. She was surrounded by junk food and discarded tissues while P.S. I Love You played on the large television.

  It was worse than she thought.

  "Hi," Alisha said softly, padding over to sit next to her friend. "Do you want to talk about it?"

  A fresh batch of tears welled up in her eyes and ran down her cheeks. "Did you bring it?"

  Alisha nodded and held up the sack in her hand before tossing it onto the bed between them. "What happened, Fabs?" she asked quietly, reaching out to smooth blonde hair away from her face before gently prying the peanut butter jar from her grasp.

  The blonde scrubbed her hands over her pretty face, wiping away the excess tears. She inhaled deeply and picked at the imaginary lint on the duvet. "It's his job," she murmured quietly.

  "What about his job, Q?"

  "It's dangerous!" she insisted, lifting her hazel eyes. "Look what happened to Big!"

  Alisha swallowed the lump in her throat that formed whenever she thought about what could have happened to her boyfriend. But as quickly as that thought entered her mind, she shoved it out again. He was fine. "Jake's okay," she said softly, "but I understand why James's job scares you."

  "I told him that his job terrified me and he brushed it off like I was some sort of crazy person. He said he's never been hurt on the job and that he's always safe when he's working. When I pointed out that Big had been safe and he had still been injured, he grew so frustrated with me and told me I didn't know what I was talking about. I know he was ups
et when Big was in the hospital. It tore him up. I saw it, you saw it. I'm not crazy!"

  "Of course you're not crazy," Alisha insisted. "You can't help how you feel about the situation. Did you tell him that?"

  "Yes, but it just led to this big huge fight and we were both yelling at each other about all kinds of things—what, I couldn't even tell you at this point. And then he told me to take a Midol and quit bitching."

  Alisha gasped. That didn't sound anything like James. (It sounded more like something her boyfriend would say.)

  "I know, right? And then that Midol comment—I don't know, it dawned on me that I haven't had a period for a while and that's when I thought that I might be pregnant. Then, I started thinking about how I am possibly having this man's baby and he's going to end up dying in a fire and leaving us all alone because he's too fucking selfish to even listen to me. I never said I wanted him to quit his job, but I didn't need him to be a pigheaded asshat about it either." She flopped back against the pillows and buried her face in her hands.

  "Did you tell him you might be pregnant?"

  Maggie looked at her friend as though she'd grown a second head. "Get serious, Alisha. Of course not. I needed time to process and to find out if I really was so I could decide how to proceed."

  Alisha brushed off the snippy retort (it wasn't the first, wouldn't be the last) and pressed on. "How did you and James leave things?"

  Her eyes swam with tears again and her throat went dry. "I told him to get out, that I was tired of having a boyfriend that didn't listen to me and how I couldn't even look at him." The tears fell rapidly down her cheeks. "He—" she sniffled. "He asked if I was breaking up with him and—" Maggie began choking out sobs. "I said it seemed like it and asked him to please leave." She sat up and faced her best friend, worry marking her pretty features. "Alisha, I love him so much and I was just so awful. I don't want to lose him."

  "Shh," Alisha said, wrapping her arms around her friend, hoping to offer some measure of comfort while she cried. "You two will figure this out. It was just a fight—couples fight, Q." Pulling back slightly, she grabbed a tissue from the box and handed it to Maggie.

  "I hope you're right," she sniffled. Taking a few measured breaths, she focused intently on the drugstore bag on the bed. "I guess I should find out whether or not I have a baby on the way. God, what am I gonna do, Alisha?"

  Alisha tipped Maggie's face up until their eyes met. "One thing at a time, Maggie. Go take the test."

  Maggie nodded somberly and grabbed the bag, pushing herself off the bed. She walked slowly into the adjoining bathroom and closed the door.

  A few minutes later, the door to the bathroom opened and Alisha stood up, unable to read Maggie's expression for what felt like the first time ever. "Well?"

  They didn't talk for close to an hour, unless you count the impressive streams of profanities and insults shouted while they played Halo. Big had no clue why James and Maggie got into a fight and really, he wasn't sure he wanted to ask. It wasn't that he didn't care, but rather that he knew shit all about dispensing advice for relationships. The only advice he'd really given James over the years in regards to women was how to get them in to bed and the most effective ways to sneak out in the morning. Now that he was, you know, in a relationship, that sort of thing was frowned upon and also not applicable in this situation anyway. So, yeah—that's that.

  James tossed his controller down after he was destroyed and took a long pull from the bottle of whiskey he'd brought along. "Today fucking sucks," he grunted, sinking back into the cushions on the couch.

  Big scratched his jaw and sipped his beer (hey, it was 5 o'clock somewhere, alright?). "You wanna, like, talk about it or some shit?"

  James looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "Really?"

  "Fuck you," he said, mock offended. "I might be able to help or I can at least listen. I have known you my whole damn life, you know."

  "Does Alisha have a problem with your job?" James asked suddenly, staring at the ceiling.

  Big scoffed. "Are you kidding? No way. Chicks love firemen."

  He cast a baleful eye at his best friend. "That's not what I asked and this is not helping."

  "I don't know," Big shrugged. "She's never said that it bothers her. Even after I got hurt she just said she'd been worried about me, but that was the extent of that conversation. I take it Maggie's got issues?"

  "Big ones. She's convinced I'm gonna die or something and we got into a huge fight. And it got all heated and loud and we started throwing out all kinds of stupid shit to add to it that wasn't even relevant. Fuck. I think we actually broke up." He lifted the bottle to his lips again, drank deep. "This sucks," he sighed.

  Big was out of his element here, so he was gonna fake it until he made it. Why not, right? "Do you want to break up?" he asked. James looked at him like he'd lost his fucking mind. Whatever, it was a legit question.

  "Of course I don't. I love her," James said resolutely.

  Big visibly winced at his declaration. It wasn't that he was opposed to that, but shit was new, okay? "Tell her that, then," he suggested.

  "I have told her," James snapped. "She's just all weird about me being a fireman right now. I don't know what to do."

  He really didn't either, but found himself asking, "Do you think it's at a point where you have to choose between her and your job?"

  A deep crease formed in the middle of James's brow. "I don't know, man."

  "And do you love her enough to choose her without feeling resentful?" Big wasn't sure where this advice was coming from, but he suddenly felt like Yoda or something. (He supposed Alisha was partly at fault. His girl talked a lot and he soaked some of that up.) He arched a brow and sipped at his beer again.

  "Yes," James replied without hesitation.

  Big choked on his beer. "Holy shit! Really?" He knew they'd been getting really serious, but this was beyond comprehension. This was like marriage and rug rats serious; that made him a little twitchy to think that his best friend was ready for that.

  "Just save it, Big. I don't want you busting my balls today. I'm depressed," James whined, flopping over to rest his head on the arm of the couch.

  Rolling his eyes, he downed the rest of his beer, setting the bottle down with a thud on the coffee table. "Shut the fuck up, dude. I'm not busting your balls about it. Just a little surprised. S'all."

  "Whatever…it doesn't matter now," James resigned, pulling at the whiskey bottle again.

  Big sat forward and grabbed James's phone off the coffee table. "Not gonna listen to this shit all goddamn day." He threw the phone at his friend and it bounced off his chest. "You wanna marry her and have a house full o'babies—fuckin' fix this, you idiot."

  "I'm pregnant," Maggie said, the words spilling out of her lips as she stood in the doorway of the bathroom, the pregnancy test clutched in her left hand.

  Alisha covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes wide and shiny and trained on her best friend. "Oh my God! How—how do you feel?"

  "Happy…and sad. And scared shitless," she said, her voice wavering, tears clogging her throat. "Alisha, I'm having a baby."

  She walked over to Maggie, tears blooming in her own eyes, and folded her arms tightly around her friend. "You're having a baby," Alisha whispered, feeling some of the same emotions as her newly pregnant—though mostly happy with a side of concerned mixed in.

  Maggie pulled back and held up the positive evidence in her hand. The readout display clearly marked with the word pregnant. Her heart began pounding furiously in her ears and she felt the bile churning sickly in her stomach. "What the fuck am I going to do?" she cried.

  Alisha tugged her over to the bed and pulled her down so they were sitting face to face. "Let's explore your options, shall we?" Maggie merely blinked owlishly back at her. "One, you can get back together with James and raise the baby with him. Two, you can raise this baby on your own. Three, you can have an ab—"

  "No," Maggie adamantly said, shaking her head, tea
rs spilling down her face again. "No, I want James and I want our baby." She held up a hand, "And I can see the next question on your mind, Alisha. I want to be with James…baby or no baby."

  A smile curved slowly over her lips until she smiled so hard her face nearly hurt. "You're having a baby," she yelled, laughing exuberantly. "Just think of the outfits Russell will buy!"

  Maggie burst out laughing and fell back against the bed, clutching her sides. She could just imagine how their other best friend would dress her baby. "Will he be Uncle Russell or Aunt Russell, do you think?" she asked playfully.

  Alisha collapsed into peals of laughter and together the girls laughed until they couldn't breathe.

  Maggie's cell phone rang and Alisha fumbled for it on the night stand. "It's your baby daddy," she told her, causing another outburst of hysterical laughing.

  "You answer," Maggie said, her laughter subsiding.

  "What do you want me to say?" Alisha asked, eyeing the phone like it was a ticking time bomb.

  "Put it on speaker and I'll help you."

  "Maggie!"

  "Answer it," she snapped.

  Alisha glared at her friend, but hit the answer button, putting the call on speaker. "Hi, James."

  "Alisha?" he asked confused.

  "Yes, it's me." She could hear Jake's Hey, baby in the background quickly followed by Don't fucking chicken out, Keller. Alisha bit her lip to keep from laughing again.

  "Can I talk to Maggie?"

  Maggie leaned in and whispered her answer to Alisha. "She said if you want to talk you can come over."

  "Is she still super pissed?" James asked, worried.

  Alisha looked at her friend who had pressed a hand to her heart and looked like she was going to cry again. "I think you two will be okay," Alisha offered kindly.