Ember is pregnant.
Ember is pregnant.
Ember is pregnant.


Those three little words wouldn't get out of my head as I stared at my wife who was sleeping soundly beside me. I had a feeling that maybe this is what was happening, but it didn't make much sense to me. Ember always took care of it, especially when we had sex on a night that I was drinking, because she knew I wouldn't even remember that I'm not supposed to get off inside of her.


My head was spinning and the shock still hadn't set in. At least when we got back to the bus, everyone was just relaxing and catching up on sleep. This left plenty of time for Ember to run through a shower to calm herself down and curl up in the bunk with me to sleep. It was only about ten o'clock, but she was out cold and she looked so peaceful.


In this time, I found my hand drifting to her stomach, which was hot and felt a little hard. There was a little baby growing inside of her, a tiny life that would expect the two of us to come together and make sure it was always taken care of, that it never went a day without having what it needed. How were we going to do this? I'm in a band, my job requires me to stay on the road pretty much constantly. Getting her to appointments alone would be hard. I mean, how do you even take care of a pregnant girl? How do I make sure she's okay?


With those thoughts lingering in my mind, I managed to climb out of the bunk without waking Ember and snatched her laptop up before stepping off of the bus. We hadn't got around to telling everyone yet. Honestly, we still needed time to feel it for ourselves. I wasn't sure what I was feeling. My nerves were shot, I was scared, but at the same time.. Ember is carrying my child. That's a big deal and a part of me was so excited that I couldn't stand it. We were going to have a baby. A little human that took after both of us. He or she would be perfect in every single way. My only fear is that I wouldn't be there to see it.


Pushing back those thoughts, I sat down on one of the chairs we had scattered along the side of the bus. There wasn't much light out here, but the air was warm and it was nice to have a moment to myself. We'd been avoiding questions since we got back, telling the guys the Ember just needed to rest right now and we'd talk about it later. At the very least, I wanted to know what I was talking about before I did.


I pulled up pregnancy facts on the computer and scanned through just about every month I could manage without my own stomach feeling sick. Ember hadn't told me how far along she was, so I didn't really know where to start, but I did read that the first and last trimester are the hardest. She'd most like have morning sickness until she was out of the first trimester, though some women deal with it until they give birth. I didn't want that for her. I wanted this pregnancy to be easy on her, especially since I have to spend so many hours out of the day away from her.


I also discovered that, since she's pretty much going to double in blood, heat will take a bigger toll on her. She'll be sensitive to smell and taste and eventually she'll even get kind of dumb. That one made me giggle. But more importantly, I disovered we could find out the sex of the baby when she got to about fifteen weeks, maybe closer to seventeen, but somewhere in that area. A smile crept to my lips as I let the thought sink in.


"Jack?"


Jumping, I slammed the laptop shut and sat it down in front of me. I turned my head slowly to see Ember clinging to a bottle of water with a small smile on her lips. She looked much better now, like a nap in the cool air was all she needed to recover. But it's not that easy anymore.


"What are you doing?"


"Being lame," I confessed, my own smile forming. "I was reading about pregnancy. Morning sickness, gender, something they call pregnancy brain.. And did you know pregnant women have their own special type of diabetes? I really hope you don't end up with that."


"It's a bit too soon to be thinking about all of that," she sighed, taking a seat beside me. "So how are you feeling about all of this?"


"Like I should have known and bought you a pregnancy test instead of shipping you off to see a doctor."


"I had an idea, but I wasn't sure," Ember admitted, staring off into the distance. "At least for now I can keep working, so long as I find a way to keep myself cool and drink too much water."


"We really need to tell the guys and Matt definitely needs to know. The heat is just going to keep getting worse the more into the Summer we get. You can't always be expected to walk around in it."


"When do you want to tell them?"


"When you're ready," I smiled, sliding out of my seat so I could get on my knees in front of Ember. "We won't do anything at all unless you're comfortable with it."


"I just don't want everyone to treat me like there's something wrong with me just because I'm pregnant."


"Not like something's wrong," I corrected, my hands trailling up her legs and to her stomach. It's not like you could tell that she was pregnant, but I knew my child was in there and I couldn't help myself. "Like these are special circumstances and we need to make sure that both you and the baby are okay."


"It's just so weird to think that I'm pregnant."


"I know, but I'm kind of excited," I snickered, lifting up her shirt so I could press my face against her stomach. "Hi baby, it's Daddy! I can't wait to find out what you are!"


Ember's fingers laced through my hair and her body shook from silent laughter. Even if neither of us knew how all of this was going to work, and even if we were scared from the thought of being parents, I couldn't hold myself back. She's carrying my child, and I wanted both of them to know that I was here.


I'm always going to be here for them.

Notes

We're aware that the chances of Ember finding out that early are unrealistic. But do keep in mind that this is a story and the pregnancy was the whole reason we came back for a final round with these two. It had to be done.
Plus, I mean, EMBER IS PREGNANT! JACK IS GOING TO BE A DADDY!
Where are our readers?! How do you feel about this?!