by Mallory Funk
I can’t help but chuckle. “Okay, I will keep that in mind. Talk soon.”
I can’t help but shake my head when I get off the phone. I am glad that I have someone who knows what I’m going through.
“Sweetie Pie!” I hear being called in a sweet voice. Does that mean that today is going to be a good day? I make my way upstairs with Tara’s fresh orange juice. It’s really the only drink that she can stomach right now.
“Coming baby!” I holler up the stairs.
When I open the door and see the love of my life, she looks at me and smiles, pointing to her stomach.
“It’s moving a lot right now. Come feel!” she says in an excited tone.
I don’t waste any time walking over and feeling my baby. I place my face over Tara’s stomach and start talking to my baby and, when I look up at Tara, she has a soft expression on her face.
“The closer it gets, the more nervous I am,” she says with her voice low.
“Baby, I’m nervous too. I happen to think that you are going to be an amazing mother,” I tell her as I move up the bed to sit beside her and drink my coffee while she sips her orange juice.
“It’s not that. I know I have all of you guys to support me and be there for me. I’m scared for the birth. We both know that I don’t have a high tolerance for pain,” she says with a fearful look in her eyes.
I grab her hand that’s resting beside me and lace our fingers together.
“You can do it, baby, and I will be there with you every step of the way. Maybe you should talk to your mom since she knows what it’s like to have babies,” I tell her softly.
She nods her head and smiles softly at me. “Yeah, I think I will call my mom later,” she says quietly. I honestly don’t know how to put her mind at ease because I won’t ever know how much pain she will be in, or if she will have one of those easy births. All I can do is be there for her and I won’t leave my woman’s side, that I know for sure.
Tara
These last three months have been crazy. It’s still hard to believe that I’m pregnant with Derek’s baby. I couldn’t imagine having a baby with a better man or family.
Believe me, I know that I drive them crazy, but I know they love me and would do anything for me.
Sometimes I just feel sad and angry that I can’t work anymore, and I will admit that I am hard on myself because of it. I sometimes feel like I failed or I’m not strong enough because I couldn’t keep working, but then I have to remember that it’s not just about me anymore but also the baby.
It was terrible to feel sick all the time whenever I would step in the salon, and I couldn’t keep doing it. The girls couldn’t stand seeing me dry heaving over a bucket or trying to drink loads of ginger ale just so that I could do someone’s hair or nails.
Derek was tired of me being in pain or sick all the time and suggested that maybe I should stop working. It was hard to depend on him, but he wanted to make sure that money wasn’t an issue because he had more than enough to raise his family and take care of them. Owning the gym with Sam has made them well off, and I know not one of his brothers spend money like they don’t have a care in the world. They watch everything they spend and save for the day that they will start their own families.
I actually think that the guys are serious about slowly buying houses on this block so that they never have to be far from one another. It would also make it easier to prank each other with everyone living close by.
The first week I was done work I didn’t do much but sleep, read, and eat. It was nice having the place to myself, and I would usually have supper ready by the time anyone got home from work. They try to keep the same hours so that there is more time to spend with each other even though there are times when one, or a couple of us, will end up having to stay late with clients or finishing a job at the construction site.
Since Claire writes from home, she spends most of her time across the street and tries to write as much as she can before Sam comes home. I have never been prouder of someone than I have been of Claire. She has come out of her shell a lot since she came into our lives, and you can see the happiness and light in her eyes when you’re with her instead of the sadness that was there before.
After the first week, boredom started to take over and I found myself searching pranks on the internet and thought that I might try some good ol’ fashion pranks. I could tell after a while that everyone was getting tired of them, but they entertained me, so I didn’t stop.
When I started organizing and cleaning the house which my mom told me was ‘nesting,’ I had found a ton of paintballs with a bunch of guns. That’s when I decided that it would be fun to shoot everyone, and they ran so I had moving targets. I think I had made them scared to come home, but I didn’t put too much thought into that because, again, it entertained me.
The brothers have seemed to calm down on telling me what to eat since it’s obvious that I’m not going to eat anything that will harm the baby. One day, Liam had made the mistake of trying to deny me of my pizza craving. There were a lot of tears, and the girls went crazy on all of the men, even the Johnson brothers, to let them know that I can eat whatever I want, and if I want pizza at six in the morning then they will sit down, shut up, and let me have it.
I wasn’t lying when I told Derek that I’m scared of the whole birthing process. It didn’t help that I had researched online all the things that could happen or go wrong. Every night I hope that it’s not that painful for me because I know that I can’t tolerate a lot of pain.
I don’t want to think about how I’m going to handle it when the baby comes. I say that searching things online has been really bad for me because it just escalates my fears.
I know I have the whole family and support system at my back which helps, but it doesn’t help everything. I wonder, how will I know that I’m in labour? In the beginning, when there’s just mild contractions, will I know what they are, or will I just pass it off as braxton hick’s contractions?
I finally told all my worries to Derek. I could tell that he didn’t know how to help me, but he wants to find a way.
We are only two weeks away from my family coming to move in near us, and I hope that having my mom near will help decrease my worries.
Today, the girls and I are planning one of our pranks on the guys and I can’t help but get excited, even though it doesn’t take much to excite me these days.
We had bought a bunch of balls that you would find in those ball pits that kids play in, and we plan on placing them in all their cars. We just realized that they all have sunroofs, so it should make this task an easy one. At least it was something that I could help with doing. We didn’t realize how hard it was to find pranks that I could participate in without harming me or the baby, which means no traditional water balloon fight.
We have to find a way to distract them so that we can put this plan in motion.
Usually on the weekends we do our own things for supper unless someone has a date or at least two of us or three of us are eating together. We make sure that during the weekdays we have supper together, so it becomes fend for yourself on weekends.
We never really know where every single one of the guys will be. They will either be fixing cars, hooking up with women, or just hanging out with Paige, Courtney, Claire and me.
They had a guys’ night when my family came into town, so I don’t know if they are ready for another one. I’m lost in thought when Claire’s voice breaks me out of it.
“I got it!” Claire says smiling widely and looking pretty proud of herself.
“Alright, lay it on us!” Courtney says with an eager look in her eyes.
“Tara!!” She points to me like we don’t know who Tara is. “She will go all hormonal on them! I’m talking yelling, tears, and hands flying in the air kind of crazy! They will want to get away from her then!” Claire says excitedly. Before I can go hormonal on her, Paige looks at me and then turns to the others.
“That’s a great idea,
but we need something really stupid for her to get mad at so that they think she has really lost it.”
“I can’t just turn it on! It’s not some sort of switch,” I grumble crossing my arms over my chest.
I hear the girls chuckle at me.
“Well, just think of something they do that really gets to you and it shouldn’t be too hard. You know how obsessed with those baby books they are,” Courtney says with a small laugh.
Those stupid books! I hate them and want to throw them all away, but no matter what they always seem to come back. It’s like they have legs that walk from the trash can and onto the counter, couch, or bed. “I hate those books,” I grumble.
“Hey! What about food? Let’s make something that Tara can’t eat along with something she can for lunch and then ‘accidentally’ put some on her plate like we forgot, and when one of them tells her she can’t eat it she will be like BAM full on hissy fit!” Claire says with excitement in her voice getting louder with every word. She also uses air quotes with the word ‘accidentally’ and I can’t help but chuckle at her.
Courtney snaps her fingers and jumps up before heading into the kitchen. “That is a fantastic idea! Where is that damn book?” she yells.
“It’s right here!” Paige grabs it from the coffee table. How the hell did it get there? I swear it wasn’t there when we sat down.
They all jump up and I slowly drag my feet to the kitchen to watch them cook food I can’t eat.
“Okay, so it says here soft cheese, deli meat, some types of sea food, and blah, blah, blah. Let’s pick a couple things that we can cook and the smells will trigger the men to come down here,” Paige says as they roam through the cupboards and fridge.
“Are you going to sit there or help?” Courtney says raising her eye brow at me.
I can’t help but snort. “Yeah like I’m going to help you cook food I can’t eat. You bitches are on your own… while you are at it though, could you grab me some orange juice?” I say batting my eye lashes at Claire and she just shakes her head and grabs the carton from the fridge and a glass placing them in front of me. I just nod my head at her before I take a big drink of the juice.
Derek
I’m hanging at the Johnson brothers’ house when I smell burgers and hot dogs cooking. I stand up and look out the back window and see Claire and Courtney at the grill. My grill. I can’t believe the girls had the guts to use my grill. If they were craving BBQ, they could have called me over and I would have gladly cooked for them.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” I holler, and they jump slightly before smiling sweetly at me, but that doesn’t work on me anymore. I know them well enough for their smiles to have no affect me. It worked the first ten times, but not anymore.
“Hey Derek… You know we were just making Tara some lunch and you were busy,” Claire says with a smile, but avoids eye contact with me.
“I was hardly busy. I’m playing games with Noah and Luke. I could easily press pause on the controller,” I say with a roll of my eyes.
Courtney slaps her hand to her forehead. “Wow, I didn’t think they could do that. I thought it was one of those never pausing games.”
Claire turns her head, but I can see her shoulders shaking with laughter. These women are such terrible liars; I can’t help but laugh at them.
Now I know they are up to something.
Noah and Luke come out and see who I’m talking to. Noah stops in his tracks when he sees what the girls are doing. “Ar…are they using your grill?”
All I can do is nod my head. Luke blows out a breath. “Where did they get the fucking guts to do that. You only let Cole, Sam, and Trevor touch that thing,” he says in disbelief.
“No idea,” I grumble as we all make our way over and open the gate that we had recently put in to connect both yards.
“Step away from the grill,” I say in a low tone.
“It’s just a grill, Derek, chill out. We were hungry,” Courtney says trying to sound serious, but I see the twitch in her lips.
“It’s just a….” I blow out a breath and point to the door, so they know to leave before I lose it.
“BABY!” Tara hollers as she waddles out of the house. I immediately drop my finger smiling at her widely and giving her my best innocent expression.
“Yeah, sweetheart?” I say doing my best to look like I’m trying not to kill her best friends for touching my grill. I feel the same way about my grill than I do about my car. Thank god they haven’t touched that since that one and only prank. I think I had scared them with how mad I got.
“Don’t mess with their concentration! If anything comes back burnt, so- help-me, Derek Hastings!!!” she yells at me with the scariest expression I have seen on her face to date.
I throw my hands up in the air. “I wasn’t, baby, they are using my grill! You know that only certain people are allowed to touch my grill!” I say in a calm tone.
“I don’t care, I’m hungry now and not forty minutes from now!” she says and goes inside the house.
I look at Courtney and Claire and point at the house again, and they try to muffle their laughter and run inside. I look at Luke and Noah who both have amused expressions on their faces.
“Looks like T has a fresh batch of hormones today,” Luke says smiling.
I shake my head and turn to the grill to finish cooking all the food they were making. When I moved in with Tara into Paige’s house, I had taken the time to carefully pick out a grill that can make a shit ton of food. With the amount of food that the girls were cooking, you could tell that they knew we were coming over, and they would have known it would have gotten made either way for using my grill.
It doesn’t take long for everyone to make their way over to the house. The women start placing a bunch of different salads on the table. Why can’t they just make one kind and a lot of it? I guarantee that not one of us guys care if we have four different salads.
I take my seat next to Tara. She has been convinced that she’s too heavy now to sit on my lap, so now I have to sit beside my girl. That was a huge argument that day. Once the waterworks started, I gave in. I cannot stand to see tears in her eyes or watch her cry.
Paige hands Tara her plate while everyone is busy making theirs with burgers and hot dogs. I’m putting ketchup and mustard on my burger when I look at Tara’s plate after she says ‘thank you’ to Paige. It’s normal for everyone to make her a plate. Everyone has taken it upon themselves to take turns.
Tara grabs the hot dog and starts putting ketchup on it and, when she grabs it to put it in her mouth, I slap it out of her hand and it falls to the ground immediately leaving a bit of ketchup on Tara in the process.
“What the hell, Derek?” she yells at me. When I look at her in disbelief, she glares at me.
“What do you mean ‘what the hell?’ That’s a hot dog!” I say loudly which makes everyone go quiet and watch us.
“I know it’s a hot dog, Derek. I’ve known that since I was a kid,” she says with an amused expression although I can see the annoyance in her eyes.
“You know what I mean! You can’t eat hot dogs! They aren’t good for the baby! How many times do I have to tell you this?” I try my hardest not to yell at her.
“T baby girl, you should know that by now,” Cole says looking at her with disappointment in his eyes and shaking his head.
“It was Paige who gave her the plate- it’s really her fault,” Liam says glaring at Paige like she just committed a crime.
“Yeah, baby, what were you thinking? You know what she can’t eat by now,” Trevor says to Paige while shaking his head.
“It’s one stupid hot dog, why can’t she eat it! One isn’t going to hurt her!” Paige yells at my brothers with a glare in her eyes.
“Look, she even has pasta salad with deli meat on her plate! And is that soft cheese?!” Kyle says with a horrified expression although I can see the laughter in his eyes as he places a hand on his chest.
“Oh my go
d! You guys are ridiculous! Just let the girl eat!” Courtney grumbles.
“Not that shit, she isn’t,” I say as I get up and grab Tara’s plate. I look at her, and she’s glaring at me with a look in her eyes that shows she’s ready to lose it, so I take a step back from her.
“I’m sick of this shit! I’m tired of you and all the men trying to tell me what I can and cannot eat! It’s my body, and if I’m craving something then I should be allowed to fucking eat it! All you guys are getting on my last fucking nerve! All I want is one fucking HOT DOG!” she yells at everyone at the table. Our mouths drop open in shock.
Slowly, I put the plate down and look at everyone. The guys are looking at Tara horrified, and the girls look oddly proud of her.
“Baby I-” I start before she cuts me off and puts her hand in my face.
“Save it! I don’t want to hear it! Take your plate and get out of my face. I don’t want to see anyone with a penis right now!” she says glaring at everyone including Noah and Luke who never said anything.
I grab my plate and so do the guys and we slowly move away from the table with looks of disbelief clear on our faces.
“And don’t you come back until I’m ready to look at you again!!” she yells at our backs.
We make our way over across the street in silence carrying out plates. It’s not until we are sitting in the back yard and start eating that Kyle breaks out in laughter.
Slowly that makes everyone laugh. “Holy shit, that was the scariest thing I have ever seen!” Sam says wiping tears from his eyes.
Trevor nods his head in agreement. “Oh yeah, I’m scared to go home. We might as well call it a guys’ day.”
“Hell yes, let’s go down to the cave and have a video game tournament!” Noah says with excitement.
Everyone nods their heads, and the Johnsons run over to their house to grab their controllers while we grab enough munchies and energy drinks to last us a few days. I have a bad feeling in my gut saying that the girls played us, but I decide to ignore it. There is no way that I’m willing to go into that house right now.