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“Bex said she’d tell us why you have the dog.” She keeps petting him, moving her wrist away when he tries to gnaw on it. I wonder if she would want to get a dog one day. If we move in together for real after graduation, maybe we can go to a shelter and adopt one. “I’m dying to know.”
“Oh,” Bex says, looking at James again. “It’s… I mean…”
He gives her a little squeeze. “Go ahead, princess.”
She smiles widely, showing off all her dimples. “I’m pregnant.”
It takes half a second to sink in, but then I jump to my feet to pull her into a hug. Cooper does the same, his entire face lighting up in a smile.
“Holy shit,” he says. “Congratulations!”
“This is amazing!” I add, rocking her for a moment before embracing James in a tight hug.
“A baby,” Cooper says. “You’re having a baby.”
Bex wipes away the tears shining in her eyes. “Yeah. You’re going to be uncles, both of you.”
Cooper gives me a look that’s positively boyish. “We are going to crush the uncle gig.”
I high-five him. “Absolutely crush it.”
“Congratulations!” Penny says, stepping forward to hug them both as well. “How far along are you? You look fantastic.”
“Yeah, you look great,” Mia says. Kiwi barks, wagging his tail as he runs in a circle around us. “To be clear, I didn’t realize that would be the reason.”
Bex laughs. “No, no, it’s okay. We wanted to tell you all tonight. I’m fifteen weeks, so officially into the second trimester, thank God.”
“The first was a little rough,” James says with a wince.
“I could eat about three things without getting sick,” she says. “And everything made me cry. Actually, everything still makes me cry. The other day I saw a TikTok about a duckling who thought a cat was her mom and cried so hard James thought something was wrong.”
He gives me and Cooper a wild-eyed look, making both of us laugh. “Please don’t scare me like that again.”
“And then he got me Kiwi, since I was so anxious that I would be a terrible mother.” She laughs slightly. “Because obviously the answer was to give the pregnant woman more responsibility.”
“Clearly,” Penny says, a dry note in her voice.
“And it’s working out perfectly,” James says. “He adores you, and you take such good care of him.”
“Wait,” I say. “When are you due?”
Bex winces. “December.”
“We’re going to make it work,” James says, a soothing note in his tone.
“We wanted to have our first baby in the offseason,” she says. “December isnotthe offseason.”
“It was meant to be,” he says. “We just need to roll with the punches.”
It’s clear that they’ve had this conversation before. Bex draws her brows together, frowning as she looks at James. Cooper and I share another glance. I know they’ll be fine, but December is when the NFL is in high gear before the playoffs, so I don’t blame Bex for being stressed out. Depending upon when she goes into labor, James might need to leave mid-game to meet her at the hospital.
I didn’t choose to quit baseball because of Mia and what I hope we have in the future, but I can’t deny that I like the thought of making things easier on the both of us. I couldn’t imagine playing a whole baseball season, road trips included, while Mia is pregnant or home alone with a baby. She’ll have her own career, too, and the last thing I’d want is to make her feel like she needs to sacrifice anything for me.
“We’ll help out as much as we can,” Cooper says. “Did you tell Mom and Dad yet? What about Izzy?”
“Izzy knows, actually,” Bex says. “I got lunch with her a couple weeks ago and she could tell immediately.”
“That’s so weird and yet exactly what I would expect from her,” Mia says with a snort.
