Missing You Again

Blessed Are the Cheesemakers

The sight of the cheerfully babbling baby nestled on Steph's hip as she threw open the door to me had me bawling again. Steph's eyes opened wide and her jaw dropped open as she took in my soggy, raccoon-eyed, wild-haired glory. I was however wearing a dazzling, luridly pink, glitter lip gloss that was worthy of respect. I may have smeared it onto my mouth with all the finesse of a drunken Paris Hilton but damn it, pink glitter lip gloss was my straw and I was clutching at it.

Steph wrapped the arm that wasn't occupied with holding Brian's adorable offspring around my shoulder and led me to the living room. She dropped Three on what looked to be some kind of baby docking station, I was going to have to learn all the correct terminology sooner rather than later, then settled us both on to the couch as I sobbed hopelessly into her shoulder.

I hadn't been able to do anything other than wail about cheese when I'd called her earlier. She'd offered to come to me but Brian was out and she was home alone with Three. In her words the effort involved in packing up and transporting all of the equipment required for one miniature person was so involved it would most likely have required sleds and huskies. The idea of which made me cry even harder but I had a car at my disposal so I took advantage of my soon to be limited freedom of movement and went to her.

The whole time I cried Three watched me with unabashed curiosity, of course he did the kid wasn't even two years old yet and here was someone having good, hard crack at stealing his biggest cry baby in town title. Thank god he didn't decide to join in on the pity party, I don't think I could have handled having to compete for Steph's attention.

"Kelly," Steph said after a while, "tell me what's wrong! You have me really worried. Are you having some kind of breakdown? Don't get me wrong – who doesn't love cheese? – but this seems a bit of an extreme response to being told you're lactose intolerant."

"Hell Steph, if only I was lactose intolerant I could deal with it," I snuffled. Not for one minute did Steph lose her look of concern but her eyebrow twitched with incredulity.

"Okay fine, I wouldn't, but I'm not lactose intolerant." I dabbed ineffectually at my tear stained face with my fingers. They came away streaked in black. Steph passed me a conveniently located tissue which I pressed to my eyes. Three, realising that the show was over, made a determined grab for the tissue box only to be thwarted by Steph who plucked it out of his reach at the last second. Damn. She hadn't even been watching him and she knew what he was going to do. Steph wasn't even his mother and she had the mothering thing down pat. I didn't even know the proper names for baby stuff!

"Fine, you're not lactose intolerant which means I really don't understand your cheese heartbreak. Unless you were dating a cheesemaker and he broke up with you?" I shook my head at her. "Then what? Just tell me, I can't take the stress!"

I choked back another sob and blurted out, "In the immortal words of Betty Rizzo, I feel like a defective typewriter."

Steph blinked at me in confusion for a moment or two before the quote registered and her eyes widened as she pressed a palm to her mouth in shock. "Kenickie knocked you up?"

Even though I had tears threatening to break free I couldn't stop my gurgle of laughter. This was why Steph had been one of my best friends for so many years.

"Maybe not Kenickie but yeah, word at the drive-in is that I'm knocked up." Saying it aloud made it real and strangely it seemed to calm me down. It was real, I was pregnant and I was going to have to deal with it.

Steph's eyes flickered in Three's direction before she shifted uncomfortably and asked, "What are you going to do?"

"Well in just over six months I'm going to ask for more drugs than a Guns N' Roses tour rider and then I'm going to squeeze the 2019 model Mini-Cooper out of my hooha. Good times."