Never Met a Girl Like Her | ✔️

(36)

L E O N I E

The room was so quiet that I could hear the waves on the other side of the road, hitting the shore and crashing against the sand. Each face that I met was shocked. Jaws dropped. Eyes wide. Stares aimed at my stomach as if they expected the baby  to unzip my flesh and introduce itself.

"Actual?!" Jess was on the edge of the sofa. I nodded and she inhaled a sharp breath. "Shit, Lee. That's— wow."

She didn't look disappointed. Just stunned out of words. "I'm fine," I said, giving Heath a brief smile. As usual he was being observant. But supportive nonetheless. "Yeah we're going to figure it out. It'll be fine."

I heard a sob and I looked over at Sarah. She was in tears. Her cheeks were red and her nose was running. Alex was comforting her and I think Heath wanted to as well. He went to stand up but Sarah waved him off.

"I'm okay," she choked. "I'm just happy for you both."

Sarah probably assumed that she'd never get to see Heath have children. Or perhaps she was upset because she would never have children. I wasn't sure. But I knew that if I kept looking at her, I was going to have another melt down.

As it happened, a distraction was provided. I looked forward just in time to see Bray spring up from the sofa. He circled the coffee table and knelt in front of me. "Dude," he cooed. "A baby. You're going to be a mom? That's fucking frightening."

I smacked him on the shoulder but we both laughed. And then the weirdo put his ear to my stomach and draped between my legs like he was a  foetus whisperer. He was honestly too strange sometimes.

"I can't wait to meet him."

"Him?"

"Uncle Bray is going to get you on the team dude. Football star through and through."

Jess leaned forward. She looked perplexed. "That's not even your baby Bray. We can have our own one that you can turn into a football prodigy."

He stood up. "Fuck no. I can give this one back to Leonie. That's the point. I get to do fun uncle stuff and her and Heath get to change butts and stay up all night."

"You'll get to be an uncle when I have a child," Jade laughed. "Leave that baby alone. You'll corrupt it."

"Will not," he slapped his sister in the leg as he fell back into the sofa between her and Jess.

"I am aunt Jess though," Jess added, grinning with excitement.

I felt so much warmer than I expected to when I told them that I was pregnant. Sarah was calmer now. Jess had sprung straight into baby name ideas. Jade and Bray were arguing about which one of them would have a child first. Bray was more than happy to opt out of leading that competition.

"So you're keeping it?"

I looked at Amy and found the disapproval in her frown. Ethan gave me an apologetic smile for his girlfriend's insensitive nature.

"Yeah," I nodded.

"Why?"

I let out a short disbelieving laugh. "Uh because we want to? Because there's no reason why we shouldn't."

Her brows shot up. "No reason?"

"Amy," Bray snapped.

She ignored him. "School might be a reason. You haven't even graduated. What about college? What about all of the changes to your body. What about your mental health—"

"Don't—"

"What about your emotional maturity? That's another life that you have to raise into a stable human being. Oh and then there's the fact that you and Heath haven't even been dating for six months. There's a few reasons."