Ellie

“You knew this whole time and didn’t tell me?”

I winced. I knew this was coming. My husband was not a dumb man. It took him about five minutes to get over the shock of the news, another five to kiss me into oblivion—which I knew had a pretty amazing effect on him as I was sitting on his raging boner.

Raging boners aside though, he realized I had been keeping something from him. I knew he wasn’t going to like that.

“I…did.” I wasn’t sure where else to go with that.

“Ellie? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You know why.”

“No, I obviously don’t or I wouldn’t be asking.”

“Because of… last time,” I stuttered.

He frowned. “Ellie just because you had a misc—”

“Stop!” I said, interrupting him by putting my palm over his mouth. “That word is banned from here on out. No jinxing us.”

He scowled at me. “You know that’s ridiculous.”

“I do and I don’t care. In fact, let’s add some more banned words to the list right now. No saying the ‘p’ word, the ‘b’ word, or the ‘n’ word.”

“The ‘n’ word?”

“Names… I don’t want to talk about that kind of stuff. Not until we know for sure everything is going to be okay.”

“Babe…”

“No, I mean it. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid something might happen. I know how excited you were the last time and then how devastated you were. I knew you were going to be just as excited this time, and the truth is it all scares me. That something might happen again, then you’ll be crushed again, and I… I don’t know. I just wasn’t ready to say anything. To make it real yet.”

“Okay, that’s fair. I’ll respect your crazy jinx words if you think that will help with the fear.”

I doubted it, but I was happy he was willing to comply.

“Thank you.”

“You should see Dr. Jenkins right away,” he told me.

Another wince. “I sort of already did.”

“Ellie! You’re saying Dr. Jenkins knew about my… b word before I did?”

“And Mary. But just today. I promise. I came right home to tell you once they confirmed everything.”

He grumbled but didn’t kick me off his lap, which I figured was a good thing.

“I don’t want to tell anyone, Jake. Absolutely no one until… well, we have to.”

He ran his hand down my hair. He did that when he knew I was super stressed because it always calmed me.

“You’re really that scared?”

I nodded.

“Okay. Can I ask how you’re feeling? Is that allowed? Have you been sick? Is that why you haven’t wanted sex?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. Although sometimes I do get queasy. I wasn’t sure if that was the fear or the guilt from not telling you. We’ll see now I suppose. The sex thing… well that’s because I didn’t want to… you know… chance anything. We had sex the last time and then I started to spot and…”

“Okay,” Jake said with more hair stroking. “We’ll wait until you’re comfortable.”

“You mean that?”

“Yes, of course. If you’re not comfortable with what we’re doing, then you’re not going to enjoy it. And if you don’t enjoy it, I won’t either.”

Did I mention I had the best, most amazing husband in the world? I knew people still talked about us. About how strange it was that we had gotten married the first time when I was only sixteen and seven months old. That I was too young to know he was going to be the one for me. Forever.

What people didn’t understand, what Lin Manuel tried to tell everybody at the Tony Awards… that love is love is love is love is love… It didn’t matter that I was young when I fell in love with Jake. It only mattered that it was real.

“I’m going to give you the best blow job tonight,” I told him. Then I watched his ears turn red, which they always did when I talked about sex so frankly.

It truly was the cutest thing about him.

“Ellie… stop.”

“No, I mean it. Now that you know and you understand, I can take care of you in other ways.”

“I don’t need to be taken care of, Ellie.”

“Oh,” I pouted. “So you’re saying you don’t like my blow jobs.”

“No, I’m not saying that. Don’t be ridiculous.”

I slid off his lap and got on my knees. The floor was hard, but it didn’t matter. I hadn’t played with Jake’s dick in a week, and I was sort of missing little Jake. Actually not-so-little Jake.

“I don’t know. I think you might have to prove that to me right now. I know how important sucking dick is to you,” I said slyly even as I reached for his jeans. I undid the first two buttons. He didn’t try to stop me. I ran my hand along the outside of his jeans, where I could see the raging boner from our makeout session was still there. He groaned and shifted his hips toward the edge of the chair.

“Ellie…”

Yeah, I missed that. My name on his lips when he was aroused.

“Are you going to help me or what?” I asked him, trying to tug at his pants. Then he pushed the chair back and stood in front of me. “Now we’re talking. Drop your pants, Jake Talley, and be prepared to be blown away. Get it? Blown?”

Except he reached down and lifted me to my feet. It never failed to amaze me how strong he was. I was no lightweight at five foot nine.

“No. The floor is not comfortable for you and I’m not having my wife, who is carrying my… b word,” he said it even as he rolled his eyes, “uncomfortable in any way.”

“Good point. Let’s go to the couch.”

“Ellie,” he groaned. “You’re making this harder.”

“Jake, I’m trying to make you harder.”

“I’m trying to be noble.”

“You once told me that sometimes sex is about giving, sometimes it’s about taking, and sometimes it’s about sharing. Let me give this to you. I really want to.”

“You mean that?”

I nodded. “Frankly, I can’t believe I have to work this hard to convince you I want to give you a blowy.”

“Okay,” he said, tugging my hand. He pulled me into the living room and lay down on the couch. He shifted his jeans down over his hips and his cock sprang up.

I thought he looked very noble.

I was just about to lean over and gobble him up when it happened. A swell of nausea so overwhelming I gagged. I knew I had about two seconds to find the downstairs bathroom or I was going to lose it all over Jake’s erection.

That was not a mental image that I could have in my head.

I sprinted from the living room, ran into the downstairs bathroom, lifted the lid and puked my guts out.

Sexy times.

Then sure enough Jake was there, pants back on, pulling my hair back and putting his palm on my forehead to steady me. It was just like on our honeymoon, when I had gotten too drunk the first night and was sick all the next day.

Finally it passed, and for a time I just sat there in his lap while he held me.

Then he leaned down and whispered in my ear.

“So I’m guessing this means no on the blow job.”

He laughed and I swatted his arm. Then he helped me to my feet and made me some caffeine-free tea.

I learned that wishing for morning sickness because it was a “good sign” was actually a horrible idea.

* * *

July

Jake

I got back into bed after what had been round three of Ellie’s puke fest today. Hopefully the last.

It had pretty much been like this for weeks since she told me about the baby. I know they called it morning sickness, but for her it was pretty much an all-day thing. The biggest concern was dehydration.

At one point it got so bad I took her into town, and Dr. Jenkins hooked her up to an IV just to get her levels normalized. Now it was a constant battle of Gatorade and crackers versus vomiting.

I wanted this baby. Yes, I thought the words, I just didn’t say them out loud because my wife was a nut job. I was excited about the baby, but seeing up close what being pregnant was doing to Ellie was not fun.

When I was home and it was happening, I held her. She said I didn’t have to do it anymore. That it was probably getting old for me. As if helping my wife while she was sick was something to get old.

I leaned back in bed and waited. The rule was she had to get some fluids down her before she could collapse into bed. I had the Gatorade, orange flavor because it was all she could stomach, ready and waiting. Only after she finished it would I let her sleep even though I knew how exhausted she was.

Because that was the worst part of this. She was sick like a dog, nervous as all get out, and she was still trying to keep up with her work on the ranch.

She wobbled, because that was the only word for it, back into the bedroom and fell face down onto her side of the bed.

“Nope,” I said.

“Jaaaaaake,” she groaned.

“Up.”

“You are the meanest husband ever.”

“Yep. Now sit up.”

She rolled onto her back and struggled to back up to a sitting position. Her stomach muscles no doubt protesting after all the heaving, but I didn’t want to have to take her back to Dr. Jenkins. He would think I was letting her down and not taking care of her properly.

Which it suddenly occurred to me I wasn’t. Not if she was this wrecked.

I took the bottle of Gatorade and handed to her. She winced, but she was a good sport and started taking tiny sips.

No, the sickness I couldn’t control. I could hold her hair back and be supportive and make her drink fluids, but I couldn’t stop it. What I could stop was contributing to the exhaustion by putting my foot down.

“You’re done, Ellie.”

She nodded weakly. “Yeah, I think I am for tonight. The k word seems to be settling down.”

Kid. She’d added it to the banned list.

I was about to say something about her ridiculous ban on these words, and confronting her to face her fear head on, but she was already worn down and I had a bigger battle to fight right now.

“No, I mean you’re done working.”

She glared at me. “We talked about this.”

“No, we didn’t. I suggested you pull back and you said no.”

“Jake, the ranch isn’t going to run itself.”

“Drink.” She did. “No, it isn’t. But we have enough manpower to take on your chores for a while. It’s the benefit of living where you work. You can sleep in, stay off your feet. We’re in a good place and there is no reason to push yourself when you don’t have to.”

“I like working,” she argued.

“Ellie, the ranch isn’t going anywhere. If you had the flu would you insist on working? Drink.”

She did. “But I don’t have the flu, I’m the p word and… and what if this goes on for… months?”

There it was. The fear again. As if suggesting that she was going to be pregnant for nine months would somehow jinx the baby.

“So what if it does?”

“Cody and Rich will wonder why I’m not working. They will ask questions.”

“Ellie, they know.”

“You told them!” she screeched.

“No, I didn’t tell them. In fact we’re all playing a ridiculous game of pretending we don’t know. But you haven’t ridden Petunia in weeks.”

“I get dizzy when I’m on top of her.”

“Right. And you turn green at the slightest smell. And Rich and Cody aren’t stupid when they see you drop a bucket only to rush inside the house to puke your guts out. I’m sure they know or have at least suspected it, but they’re not going to say anything until I do. Drink.”

She did.

“So you’re done even attempting to put on a show. I want you sleeping until you’re ready to get up. Then if you want to do some light chores when you’re feeling better, great, but if you need to nap during the day, then you do that too. We’ll handle the rest.”

She sighed but she took another sip and then another.

“Can I be done?”

She’d made it through about half the bottle, which was actually pretty good for her.

“Yes.”

Then she settled down on my chest and I was happy to have the weight of her. Sex had been off the table since she started getting so sick, and don’t get me wrong, I missed it, but this was nice too. When she huddled against me as if I was some magical source of strength for her.

“This blows,” she puffed out.

“You being sick blows. This,” I said gently resting my hand on her belly, “does not.”

She didn’t say anything to that. I knew she didn’t like me to directly address the pregnancy, but sometimes it was hard not to talk about it. I kept thinking we just had to get past week ten. That’s when it had happened last time. If she cleared that hurdle, which she would in the next few weeks, then the fear would go away. Then we could be like any other normal excited couple who was expecting a baby.

Turns out I was wrong about that. Dead wrong. So wrong it resulted in the worst fight we ever had.