The Player's Twins (Book Two of The Great Age Plague series)

Chapter Two

A week later, Cally was all moved in, living in the room parallel to mine a floor up. Her room was different than mine-- far more pink and twice as girly, with boy band posters covering the walls. Unfortunately, most of those boy bands were either disbanded or dead, but Cally still kept the posters anyway because they reminded her of old times.

During the week of moving Cally in, I spent even more time with her, helping her nurse a broken heart while also trying to distract her. Recently, we had scoured the library for pregnancy books and had begun to take the advice on how to care for our brand-new bodies. Suffice it to say, I was starting to get used to being pregnant. At sixteen weeks, I had had my second doctor's appointment to find I was having, as predicted, a girl and a boy. Cally, who had been at the appointment with me, was freaking out and giving me a lot of big hugs. She was sure our daughters would be best friends and she already wanted her daughter to marry my son.

On top of the doctor's appointment, Cally and I decided to take up swimming in order to keep ourselves fit during pregnancy. While Cally tracked what she ate to make sure she was getting exactly 200 hundred calories more (that was all you needed for one baby), I assumed that the extra 400 calories I needed didn't need to be tracked. I just ate all the time. With my birthday cake alone I had had twice the amount of slices than anyone else, even more than Josh.

But today, on the weekend, was a another new experience. I was going to go shopping for my babies with Josh!

"Bye Cally-cat! See ya Keon, I love you," I said, pecking Keon on the cheek as I exited out the door. Keon smiled but didn't look up from his book as he lay on the couch with Cally, reading. With a smile, I followed Josh out the door to his Mini Cooper, all bundled up in my winter coat. My UGG boots that had once belonged to Josh's mother made crunching noises in the snow, and I buried my chin in my unzipped coat, which couldn't fit over my pregnant belly. Underneath my coat, I wore a forest green sweater and stretch-jeans, the kind made for pregnant women that the school had sold to students for only a few bucks during a school fair. Unfortunately, I knew for a fact Josh hated these jeans. The school fair had been a government sponsored event, a way of providing pregnancy related items to poorer students. The day I went to the fair, Josh refused to come with Cally, Keon, and I because he thought it was below him. It was something we had yet to talk about, but I was hoping that Josh would leave it alone for baby shopping.

"So where to first princess?" asked Josh as I buckled myself in. Sighing, I leaned back in my car seat, loving the heated seats. Sometimes, it was nice to have a rich husband, even if he was an ass about it occasionally.

"I don't know. Maybe we could go to the furniture store then Goodwill?" I said. Josh rolled his eyes and put the car into reverse.

"Furniture store it is!"

***

After our shopping trip, Josh and I returned with a lot of new baby things, including a bassinet, crib, clothes, and food supplies such as bottles and a weird milk-pumping device. In addition to the furniture store, we stopped at the general store (kind of a new Walmart after the owners of Walmart had died in the plague) and purchased a variety of pink and blue clothing. When we returned, we had Keon help carry the bags into the soon to be nursery so I wouldn't have to strain. Looking at our stuff, Josh and I high fived and laughed. Keon sat on the floor, looking through our stuff with a quiet curiosity and a smile on his face. At this point in our relationship, Keon was letting Josh and I deal with the baby thing together instead of making it a family thing. I had no doubt that when the babies came Keon would get more involved, but for now he seemed a little awkward about celebrating the pregnancy with Josh and I. Hearing the ruckus, Cally awoke from her nap on the couch and came into the room. 

"Guys, I don't want to be a downer here, but this is not nearly enough stuff," said Cally as she wandered in. Her eyes were droopy and her voice was heavy with sleep. Rubbing her eyes, she blinked slowly as she looked around the room.

"What do you mean? We got two of everything look!" Josh reached down and held up two little sets of bottles, two blue and two pink. Cally leaned against the wall, glaring at him.

"And what are the babies going to wear when they eat out of those? Do you have bibs? High chairs? And what about when you want to integrate solid foods? Do you have plastic forks and spoons so they don't hurt themselves?" asked Cally. At this, Josh dropped the bottles back into the bag, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Well what do you know? Maybe you're just ahead of Adira in your baby class thing. It's not her fault you read the chapter on food and she didn't," said Josh. At this, he put an arm around me protectively, but I neither leaned into him nor moved away.

Crap, maybe Cally was right. There were so many things I hadn't even thought about yet!

"No, I didn't. My mom worked at a nursery, dumbass," said Cally, shooting him a glare. She tapped her foot in a jittery fashion, as she often did when she was getting upset.

"Yeah, well you don't need to be so condescending about it you pregnant bitch! It's not my fault your hormones are acting up," said Josh, making me pull away from him.

"Josh, stop being so mean to Cally!" I said, standing in between the two. As I moved in front of Cally, my foot knocked against the bassinet, sending it tumbling to the ground. Much to my shock, I watched the top part of the bassinet fall off as the plastic cracked instantly. There was a silence after the bassinet broke and I put a hand over my mouth.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry--" at this, Josh cut me off.

"We can get a new one, don't worry about it. I'm not in the mood to deal with this anymore, I'm going out," said Josh. Pushing past me and a shocked Cally, I followed Josh out the door into the hallway. Josh had been pacing so fast he was already at the end of the hall, but he stopped to light a cigarette in his mouth and take a puff before heading down the stairs. I followed him despite the cloud of smoke.

"Josh wait I--"

"Leave me alone Adira, I don't want to talk about it," said Josh as he headed to the front hall. Sticking his cigarette in his mouth, Josh pulled a leather jacket over his shoulders and grabbed his key from the front dish. Desperate, I grabbed his arm.

"No, wait! Josh what's really wrong? Please I want to know what's going on! This can't just be about not buying enough stuff," I said. To my disgust, tears were already forming in my eyes as I held onto the sleeve of Josh's jacket like a little kid. Josh looked down on me and his features softened for a moment, but then he shook me off and stormed out the door.

After he left, I sunk to the floor and cried for a few minutes before Keon found me and wrapped me in a hug. Soon after Cally came over and apologized, but I told her it wasn't her fault.

***

Later that night I awoke to a call on my cell phone. It was from Josh's phone but it wasn't him. Instead, it was his friend, telling me that he had relapsed and I needed to pick him up from a party.

A/N-- Sorry for the spotty updates guys, you would not believe the amount of work I had to complete last week. Two ten-page papers and a bunch of scenes for directing class. Was not pretty. Anyway, I hope you like the new update, leave lots of comments! Y'all rock my penguin socks!