Nova

I run from the kitchen into the bathroom and fall to my knees, making it to the toilet in the knick of time.

Almost immediately Jace is there, pulling my too long hair away from my face and rubbing my back softly.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he murmurs. 

I managed to get by the first two months of my pregnancy with no morning sickness, but now this baby is making its presence known.

I finish retching and collapse back on my butt, exhausted. I can barely keep food down right now and it’s making me weak. I know I have to try to stomach something, if not for me then for the baby, but it’s like everything I try to eat eventually comes up.

Jace stands and grabs a cloth, wetting it with cool water.

He bends and presses it to my forehead. I give him a grateful smile. “Thank you.”

He sits down beside me, stretching out his long legs. They nearly touch the wall on the opposite side of the bathroom—granted, the bathroom isn’t that large.

When I feel like I can stand without the nausea coming back, I do, and Jace holds onto my elbow to steady me.

I brush my teeth and Jace watches me in the mirror. I finish, wipe my mouth with a towel, and turn to face him.

“This baby is trying to kill me.”

He chuckles. “Nah, it just wants to show you who’s boss.” 

I sigh. “Yeah, seems like it.”

Jace places his hand on my stomach. I have the slightest bump now, it’s not noticeable to anyone that’s not very familiar with my body, which Jace is, of course.

“Must mean it’s a boy.” He winks.

“I tend to agree—this baby already irritates me as much as its father.”

He tosses his head back and laughs. “You love me.”

I sigh. I do. I really do.

We still haven’t told my parents about the baby. It doesn’t seem like something you tell your parents over the phone, but then again, they’ve never really been my parents. A part of me feels like we should fly to my hometown and tell them, I think it’s the hopeful part of me that wants to think they’ll be happy for me and maybe even excited. It’s pathetic, I know. But I think there’s a part of us, no matter how old we get, that craves our parents’ approval. There comes a time, when you have to accept it’s never going to happen.

“Do you want to try to eat something else?” Jace asks.

I gag at the thought alone.

He laughs. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“A definite no.”

In the beginning of my pregnancy I ate non-stop. Now I can barely eat a cracker.

“I have to go into work early,” Jace reminds me. “Eli wants me to hang some kind of fucking decorations for Christmas—every year he ropes me into this. I think it’s so he can look at my ass on the ladder.”

I look him up and down and wag my brows. “You do have a nice ass, I’m lucky you’re my baby daddy.”

He growls and grabs my cheeks in my hands. “Say it again.”

“What part?” I challenge. 

“You know what part.”

“Baby daddy.”

He presses his lips to mine, stealing my breath. His tongue slips past my lips, tangling with mine, and I can’t help the moan that escapes me.

He pulls away, out of breath. “I can’t tell you how fucking happy it makes me to know I put a baby in you.”

I roll my eyes. “Guys,” I mutter.

He chuckles. “I can’t help it, baby—you bring out my animalistic side.”

“You need to go to work,” I remind him, knowing he’ll get distracted with naughty thoughts and the next thing I know he’ll be fucking me on the bathroom floor.

“Work, right.” He grunts, none too pleased at the idea.

He lets me go and we both leave the bathroom. He puts on his beanie and grabs his coat. 

“See you tonight.” He presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth and dashes out the door, his truck keys jingling in his coat pocket.

I change my clothes into something warmer than the leggings and white tank I was wearing in the apartment. I have plans to meet Joel at his apartment. He’s been working to get everything set up in his spare room. He hasn’t let me see and it’s taken him and me months to pool our money to get the equipment we need. I could’ve asked Jace for it, I know, but I didn’t want to do that. This is mine. I want to know Joel and I did this on our own.

I slip my feet into a pair of boots and put on my coat. My hair is a disaster so I quickly gather it up in a messy bun, getting it out of my way.

I grab my keys and head out the door.

Jace and I know we need to get a car that’s better suitable for the baby. His truck is ancient and only has front seats. My car is also old and not reliable at all. He offered to buy me a new one last year for my birthday but I shot down the idea. Again, I didn’t want him spending that kind of money on me. It made me feel icky. I still have these residual feelings of not wanting to be a burden, and I don’t think they’re ever going to go away.

I push my thoughts out of my mind and dash out the door.

Outside, the air is chilly and I burrow into my coat as I walk to my car.

I unlock it and slip inside, starting it and turning the heat all the way up.

My car takes forever to warm up so I’m sure I’ll be a frozen Popsicle by the time I get to Joel’s.

I rub my hands together and pull my gloves out of my coat pocket and put them on, hoping they’ll help.

I send Joel a quick text, letting him I know I’m on my way, and pull out into traffic.

Joel’s apartment isn’t far from us—in the spring and summer I could easily walk to it, but since I’m pregnant I have no desire to get stuck in the cold. Most women talk about being hot when they’re pregnant but I’m the complete opposite. I’m cold most of the time. Luckily, Jace makes an excellent space heater.

I parallel park and grab my bag then hurry into the building. It’s older than ours, but still nice with historic charms, but there aren’t any elevators. I head up the stairs and to his apartment, pausing outside the door and knocking.

It isn’t long until the door swings open, revealing Joel. He gives me a goofy smile and shakes his unruly curly brown hair out of his eyes.

“Hey, Nova,” he greets me, and steps aside to let me in.

“The place is looking good,” I tell him.

I’ve only been here a few times when he first moved in and boxes were still all over the place. Most of the time we meet up out somewhere to catch up so I haven’t seen it since he’s been settled.

Large windows overlook the street. The kitchen is small and could use some updating but it’s neat and tidy. 

He has a small grey loveseat in the living space and a big screen TV—boys and their priorities.

On the other side of the apartment are the two bedrooms with a bathroom between them.

He closes the door behind me and grabs a baseball cap off a side table by the door. He puts it on backward, using it to keep his hair from bothering him.

“Ready to see it?” he asks, his smile growing so dimples pop out in his cheeks.

I nod eagerly. “I can’t wait.” I shrug out of my coat and since there’s nowhere to hang it up I drape it over the back of the couch before following him to the spare room.

“We need a drumroll,” he declares, and before I can respond he raps his knuckles against the door. “Okay, here we go.”

He swings the door open and steps inside.

I follow.

Everything is perfect.

There are props and backdrops rolled up so we have plenty to use and change. There are professional lights and blackout curtains cover the windows. The room itself is painted a deep purple and the old hardwood floors are exposed. I spin around, imagining all the sets we can put together and the fun we can have.

I finally stop and look back at him. He watches me apprehensively, like he’s worried I might hate it. 

“It’s perfect.”

He lights up. “Really?”

I nod. “You did great. Now we have to get clients.”

I sniffle and wipe a tear from my eye. 

Joel chuckles. “You’re emotional when you’re pregnant.”

“Shut up.” I smack his arm lightly and he laughs.

“So, I guess it’s time we start advertising our services.”

I wrinkle my nose. “It sounds dirty when you put it that way.”

He gives me a look. “I am single.”

“Ew, can we just not?”

He suppresses another laugh. “Okay, fine. We need to come up with a business name too. Nothing we’ve talked about has ever stuck, but we don’t have much choice now. We can’t be nameless.”

“I’m going to need some coffee for this,” I tell him.

My doctor said it was okay to continue drinking a little coffee—halle-fucking-lujah for small miracles.

“Sure, sure,” Joel agrees.

We leave the room behind and I take a seat on his couch while he makes the coffee.

He pours two mugs and carries them over, handing one to me.

I curl my legs under me. “Do you have a pen and paper? Maybe it’ll help if we write them down.”

“Yeah, I have some around here somewhere. Give me a minute.”

He jumps up and scurries over to the kitchen rifling through the drawers. 

He slams a drawer and curses. “Got my finger,” he mutters and resumes looking. “A-ha found it.” He pulls out a pad of paper. “Now pen,” he whispers to himself, looking around the kitchen with his hands on his hips. “There.” He grabs one from the counter and picks up the pad of paper, carrying both over to me. “You write them down, my handwriting sucks.”

He’s not lying. His chicken scratch is barely decipherable.

We start tossing around ideas. I write down the good ones but as we go along most get crossed off. Naming a business is hard. It needs to represent us and be memorable. 

“This is exhausting,” I declare, tossing my head back and groaning.

“What about JiN?” Joel tosses out. 

“It’s catchy,” I agree. “But it doesn’t tell people what we do.”

“We could add photography to it then?”

I nod, thinking it over. “It could work. Let’s think on it for a few days and see if we still like it.”

“Sounds good to me.”

I stand and shrug into my coat. “I’ll see you later.”

I hug Joel goodbye and head home. I could’ve hung out longer, but I wanted to get home and lie down, maybe take a nap. This baby, as much as I love it, is sucking the life out of me. 

I pick up some lunch before I head home—since I don’t feel like fixing anything. I doubt I’ll be able to keep it down, but Jace can eat the rest so it won’t go to waste.

I get back to the apartment and bump the door with my hip to close it. It’s quiet with Jace not home. It’s always weird. I prefer being here with him. I’m sure some people think I’m crazy—that I should want to have time to myself—but we’re so alike his presence calms me instead of bothering me.

I take off my coat and kick off my boots. I hang my coat up and set the boots up so Jace doesn’t trip on them when he gets home. I sit down on one of the barstools and pull out my sandwich.

I take a tentative bite and wait for the nausea to hit. When it doesn’t, I take another little bite. Eating slowly until I manage to get the entire sandwich down. Now I have to hope it doesn’t take revenge on me later.

I clean up my trash and decide to start tackling the spare room. Since Jace and I got together we’ve been using the room I used to sleep in as a makeshift storeroom. It’s full of my photography equipment, boxes from Jace’s dad’s house, some of my clothes I never moved over, and much more. But now we need the space for the nursery. I know eventually we’ll have to move into a house or at least something bigger, but while the baby is small this will be perfect—less space for the tyke to get in trouble.

I start with my clothes. I toss what I don’t want to keep on the floor and then carry the rest over to our bedroom and put them away.

I grab a trash bag on my way back and use it to put my discarded clothes in to take to donate.

Next I tackle my photography equipment. There isn’t much and I set it near the door so I can take it to Joel’s or he can come and pick it up. It’s mostly backdrops that might be useful and a couple of costumes.

I leave the boxes to Jace, not wanting to toss something he might want to keep. I stack those outside the bedroom, though, so he’ll be sure to see them.

The floor and bed are finally revealed. Jace will have to take apart the bed and do something with the mattress, because that’s past my expertise and I definitely can’t lift a mattress.

The rest of the room is filled with odds and ends we should’ve thrown away a long time ago. I pile them with my clothes to donate.

The room is dusty and kind of gross since it’s been unused and piled with junk. I dust over the windowsill and dresser before vacuuming. Once I do it looks one hundred percent better. 

So much for my nap. I think to myself, but this needed to be done, and Lord knows Jace won’t do it. 

I’m hot and sweaty from working so I take a shower and change into pajamas—an old pair of sweatpants and a tank top. I gather my long wet hair up into a bun so it doesn’t drip all over me and I lie down on the couch. I put the TV on a random channel and lie there thinking about how amazing my life is now.

I think, maybe, I had to go through all those horrible things in my life in order to better appreciate the good.

Everything happens for a reason, and I have to believe there’s a bigger purpose for my past.

Not everyone is bad, there are people you can love and trust in the world, and I have some of the best people in my life now. 

I know they’ll be there for me no matter what.

Through thick and thin.