The Good Life

*Jack*

“Aw did you bring Izzy over to see her Uncle David?” David asked as he took Izzy from my arms. She woke up on the way over here and was kind of cranky.

“No I brought her over because her father was being a jerk.” I pouted.

“Oh come sit down and tell me what happened.” He patted a spot next to him on the couch and I sat down.

“So remember Zack, my old friend from high school who had a small crush on me?” I asked and David nodded telling me to continue. “Well I recently started talking to him again and I didn’t want to tell Alex because I knew he would flip out, but he found out anyways and he was pissed. I understand that he’s angry that I didn’t tell him about Zack, but he started accusing me of cheating on and telling me I wasn’t allowed to see him again.” I ranted. I glared at David as he started laughing. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s like the opposite of what happened between you and Alex with Lisa, but this time he’s the one accusing you.” He laughed and I rolled my eyes.

“Shut up this is different.”

“How?” He raised an eyebrow at me.

“I-I don’t know it just is.” I lied. I know this is exactly what I did to Alex, but we weren’t as serious as we are now so I didn’t really know if he would cheat on me or not then.

“You’re so difficult. You know Alex has every right to say he doesn’t want you around Zack.” He scolded at me.

“Why are you on Alex’s side you should be on my side.” I whined.

“Because Alex is right this time. So you’re going have to stop talking to Zack.” He said.

“But I don’t want to stop being friends with him.” I said.

“You have to make sacrifices in relationships, Jack. You taught me that.” He told me.

“…Fine.” I sighed.

“So you’ll stop talking to Zack?” He asked.

“…Yeah.” I hesitated to say.

“Good.” He narrowed his eyes at me like he didn’t believe me but he let it go. “And make sure you make it up to Alex tonight.” He said and I rolled my eyes.

“With Izzy keeping us up every night we never have time for sex.” I said. Izzy looked towards me and started crying. It felt like she could understand me talking about her, but she just wanted me to hold her instead of David.

“Oh god I don’t think I want kids. Who’s going to watch her tomorrow during our meeting?” He asked me.

“She’s going to stay home with Alex. Tomorrow is a holiday for the students so he doesn’t have to work.” I informed him.

“You’re going to stay home with you daddy tomorrow?” David said as he tickled Izzy’s sides and she cooed. She was a very ticklish baby.

“Well we’re going to go so I can go apologize to Alex.” I stood up with Izzy in my hands. David walked us to the door and we told him bye.

I put Izzy in her car seat and she burst into tears. “Aw princess don’t cry. We’ll be home in a few minutes.” I said, but she continued to scream, she hated that damn thing. I just sighed and started the car. The whole ride I tried to think of what to say to Alex, but I didn’t know where to start off. Maybe I could just wing it?

When I pulled into my driveway and also saw the Fuentes family was pulling into their driveway as well. I wanted to go say hi to them since I haven’t talked to them in a while. I wasn’t trying to avoid seeing Alex at all. Plus Vic and Mike haven’t had the chance to meet Izzy because they were sick all last week and couldn’t really be around a new born, but Vicki came to see her.

“Hey guys!” I yelled from across the street.

“Hey Jack! How are you?” Emilio yelled back.

I took Izzy out of her car seat and walked across the street to their house. “I’m fine, thanks.”

“Is that your baby?” Mike asked me.

“Yes it is. Her name is Izzy. Do you two want to meet her?” I asked and Mike and Vic nodded.

“Let’s go inside.” Vicki said.

We walked in and I went to sit down on the couch and Mike and Vic followed me. “It’s a girl?” Vic asked me. He was staring at her and she was staring right back at him. She loved to stare at guys.

“Yep!”

“Ew! Girls are gross.” Mike cried and Vic agreed. He just started school so of course he thought girls were gross.
“Do you want to hold her?” I chuckled.

“Is she heavy?” Mike asked quickly getting over his dislike of girls.

“Not at all! You can just sit right here on the couch and I’ll put her in your arms.” I told him. He did as I said and sat down on the couch with his arms out. I slowly laid Izzy in his arms and helped him support her head. When I removed my hands he was holding her perfectly.

“Aw Mike don’t move I want to take a picture!” Vic exclaimed and went to grab her phone. She came over and took dozens of pictures of Mike holding Izzy. I thought Izzy would cry because of the flashing of the camera, but she just looked at it amazed.

“Mommy! No more!” Mike cried and Vicki laughed and stopped.

“I’m sorry you’re just so cute.” She said. She showed me the pictures and all of them had Mike smiling and Izzy staring at the phone with her eyes as wide as they could go.

“My poor baby looks so confused.” I laughed.

“She’s cute. Have you and Alex kind of got the hang of everything now?” Vicki asked.

“No she’s been messing up our sleep pattern so it’s been kind of hard on us.” I said.

“You’ll get used to it!” Vicki smiled.

“No you won’t.” Emilio said and I laughed.

It was time for me to go home and feed Izzy. I still had to talk to Alex and I just wanted to get it over with. I told the Fuentes family bye and walked across the street to go home. I took a few deep breathes before I unlocked the door and went in. I stepped into the house quietly trying to kind of hide from Alex so I could think about how to apologize, because winging it probably wouldn’t work so well, but Izzy started crying as soon as I shut the door. I’m pretty sure she did it on purpose.
“Jack?” Alex called out. It sounded like he was in the kitchen.

“Yeah it’s me.” I said quietly and walked into the kitchen.

“Hey I’m making lasagna if you’re hungry.” He said loudly so I could hear him over Izzy’s cries.

“That sounds great. Let me just feed your daughter first.” I took out a bottle and formula and started to make Izzy’s bottle for her.

Once she was feed and burped I sat her down in her swing so Alex and I could eat…and talk. “Do you want to talk about earlier?” Alex asked. I nodded my head and looked down at my plate.

“This is all my fault. If I would have told you that I was talking to Zack again you probably wouldn’t have been so reluctant to believe me on us just being friends. I’m sorry Alex. ” I apologized. I feel like we’re always apologizing to each other.

“It’s fine Jack, really. I was just jealous for no reason. I know you would never cheat on me, it’s just Zack I don’t trust that’s why I don’t want you around him.” He said. I still felt kind of mad that he was telling me that I couldn’t be around Zack, but I’ll just try my best to let it go.

“Yeah…I’ll uh tell him we can’t talk anymore.” I said.

“Good, now we can put this all behind us.” He smiled. “Where did you two go today?”

“We went to David’s house.” I told him.

“Does David hate me now?” He groaned.

“No he actually sided with you.” I complained.

“Oh awesome!” He cheered and I rolled my eyes at him. He just loved being right.

***

Alex and I were going to bed early tonight since I had a meeting early in the morning and he was going to have to get Izzy when she woke up crying. Alex fell asleep before I did, for some reason I couldn’t sleep very well. Maybe I was thinking too much. I rolled over on my side and saw my phone light up with a new text message from Zack.

To Jack:
Goodnight. I can’t wait to see you this weekend!

I wanted to tell him I couldn’t go, that we couldn’t hang out anymore but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I at least had to see him one last time to explain everything too him.

To Zack:
I can’t wait either

*Alex*

I woke up to an empty bad and the sound of Izzy crying. I didn’t even hear Jack wake up this morning because I was so tired after I woke up at three am to change Izzy’s diaper. I love every parent of being a parent except waking up in the middle of the night.

“I can’t wait for you to learn how to talk so you can actually tell me you’re awake instead of crying.” I told Izzy as I picked her up from her crib. She stopped as soon as she was safely in my arms. “What do you want to do today, Princess? We can go for a walk, go visit Grandpa since he doesn’t have to work today, or we can sit on the couch and watch TV all day.” I said talking more to myself than her. “Let’s just be lazy and watch TV because that one doesn’t require us getting dressed.
I stopped by the kitchen on my way to the living room to make Izzy a bottle. “I’m sorry Papa and I got into an argument yesterday. It hurt me so bad to see him walk out the door with you.” I told Izzy. “I’ll try and make sure we don’t fight as much anymore.” I had been feeling really guilty about fighting with Jack while we had Izzy. I didn’t want her to be raised around us arguing all the time or for Jack and me to split up. I wanted our small family to be as normal as possible.

Once I heated up the bottle and tested it on my skin I walked us into the living room so we could watch Netflix on my Xbox. I was trying to feed Izzy and turn on the Xbox at the same time, but I’m not a very good multitasker. I turned on the Xbox and Izzy started crying. I looked down and saw I had her bottle nowhere near her mouth.

“I’m so sorry, babe!” I laughed lightly as I stuck the nipple of the bottle into her mouth. She started to suck the milk at as fast as she could. “Jeez you act like we never feed you.” I told her and her eyes shot up to look at me. Jack said she stared at us so intensely because she was trying to remember our faces.

Izzy and I watched Breaking Bad on Netflix until she finished her bottle and it was time for me to burp her. When I finished that I sat her down in her baby carrier so she could sit up next to me instead of laying down all day.

My Xbox made a noise that let me know one of my friends just got online. I looked at the TV screen and it said ‘TakeOliverClothesOff’ was online. That was Oli’s stupid Xbox user name. I put on my headset on and invited him to a chatting session so I could mess with him.

“Hello” he said as he joined the session.

“Oli what are you doing? Shouldn’t you be at work?” I asked him.

“I should, but I called in sick today.” He said.

“You don’t sound very sick to me.” I said skeptically.

“I’m dying” He faked coughed.

“Oh bullshit.” I laughed. Ugh I got to remember to stop cussing in front of Izzy or Jack will kill me.

“Okay okay, Hannah ordered a new mattress for us, one that’s supposed to be super soft and some other shit, and it’s going to be delivered today around twelve. So I decided to just take the whole day off from work so I could be here when it got here.” He told me.

“Maybe I can come over and help break it in.” I said and Oli laughed.

“Ha Hannah probably won’t let me lay in it because it was so expensive.” He said.

“She doesn’t have to know.” I whispered.

“Some way, somehow she’ll find out. She’s going to like see our hair and skin cells then kill us.” He joked.

“I would like to see Izzy’s first steps so let’s not do that.” I laughed.

“Wait why are you at home?” he asked.

“Today was a student holiday so no one had class which is good because Jack had a meeting so I’m here watching Izzy.” I said.

“Oh. What are you and my niece doing to do today?”

"Lounge around in our pajamas and watching Breaking Bad.” I said.

“That sounds nice. I think I’ll do that too.” He said.

“Don’t copy us!” I scolded.

“Too late!” He disconnected before I could say anything else.

“Your uncle is an assh- uh he’s really mean.” I told Izzy. I looked over at her and she was sound asleep. I’ll never understand why and how babies sleep so much. Now I feel alone and I’m bored. I wanted to text Jack, but he doesn’t have his phone out during meetings. I guess I would just have to wait til he got home to bother him.

I was just happy Jack and I got over our argument faster than I actually thought we would. I was sure he was going to still be arguing with me about why he should still be able to hang out with Zack. I’m just grateful he agreed to stop seeing him so fast and we can put this whole thing behind us.

Notes

This chapter is all over the place. Enjoy!