Peace, Love, & Pogo Sticks

Welcome to the Dad Club

Camila woke up to the feeling of fingers running through her hair and the smell of waffles wafting through the air. She blinked her eyes open to the sight of her boyfriend laying next to her and a tray of waffles with berries and a glass of orange juice sitting on the nightstand.

"Well good morning to me," she giggled. "What's all this for?"

"Just missed you," he shrugged. "And you deserve to be spoiled."

"You're the sweetest human ever, you know that?" She sat up and kissed him, leaning back against the headboard before moving the tray of breakfast onto her lap. "This looks delicious." She took a bite and moaned dramatically. "Tastes delicious too. Did you have a good time in Toronto?"

"I did," he smiled. "They were all really surprised so I'd say it was a successful trip. And mom had a great birthday. They all missed you, though."

"Aw, I miss them too. I'm glad you were able to get up there. I'm sure it meant a lot to them. We have to find a time to head back up there together sometime soon. Or maybe we can invite them down here."

Invite them down here so we can tell them they're going to be grandparents, he thought to himself.

"What about you? Anything big and exciting happen while I was gone?"

"Hm..." She wasn't sure if she should tell him about Bristol being pregnant yet. He wasn't necessarily known for being good at keeping secrets and as far as Camila knew, Brian still didn't know about his second child that was now on the way. Camila wasn't about to let him find out from Shawn — Bristol needed to be the one to tell him. "Nothing too exciting," she replied. "Work was tiring and the dogs were lazy. Things get pretty boring around here when I don't have you around to keep me on my toes." She lifted a forkful of the berry waffles to his mouth and smiled as he happily accepted the bite. "You got any plans for the day?"

"Nothing major," he shrugged. "I've gotta go in to the store for a bit but then I was thinking maybe we could get all dressed up and go on a date?"

"Breakfast in bed and a romantic dinner date? What's going on?"

"What? A guy can't kick up the romance a little bit after three days away from his girlfriend?"

"Hey, as long as I keep benefitting from it you're not going to find me complaining," Camila joked as she popped another bite of waffles into her mouth.

--

Shawn was relieved to see that the store had been well maintained while he was gone. Not that he was gone for a long time or that he believed his employees were completely incompetent, but he had never left them in charge for multiple days in a row so he wasn't sure what to expect upon returning. 

It was around 1 PM and Shawn was stood behind the checkout counter checking emails when the bell above the door rang. He looked up to see his best friend, Brian, walking through the door.

"Hey dude," he greeted with a smile. "What are you doing here?"

"I was out and about picking up groceries and running some errands and knew you flew back in yesterday. Figured you would be here. How are things going back home?"

"Good! The surprise was successful and mom had a wonderful birthday." Shawn sighed and looked around, making sure his employees had everything under control. "Can we head up to the loft for a couple of minutes? I need best friend advice."

"Of course," Brian nodded, following Shawn up the spiral staircase and into the kitchen of the loft. Shawn opened the fridge and pulled out a beer. He might've moved out but he did keep a case of beer in the fridge for whenever he needed the occasional break. "So what's going on?" Brian asked as he cracked open the can of beer.

"I bought a ring while I was in Toronto."

"Ok...? You've always loved rings. Why is this news?"

"Not for me," he said with an eye roll. "An engagement ring. For Camila."

"Oh shit! For real?"

"Yes. For real."

"Did you ask already? When are you going to do it?"

"No, I haven't asked yet. I have a loose plan on how I want to do it but..."

"But...?"

"I'm not second-guessing. I know I want to marry her. But the idea that I had come up with included me surprising her with a puppy. She's been asking for another dog recently so I thought it'd be cute."

"Ok. So get her a puppy."

"But three dogs is already a lot of responsibility...and adding a fourth would be even more responsibility...and I don't know that it's the best idea now because..." He took a deep sigh. Saying what he already knew out loud was far more intimidating than he thought it would be. "Camila's pregnant. But she doesn't know that I know — I saw the positive tests in the trash can when I got home yesterday."

"Oh shit," Brian said quietly, clearly shocked. "I assume you guys weren't planning this...?"

"No. We had both kind of decided that we didn't want kids."

"Damn. Well, welcome to the dad club, I guess."

"I'm losing my mind, dude. I need her to tell me soon. I don't know how much longer I can pretend like I don't know."

"Don't tell her that you know. Let her tell you. Odds are, she's losing her mind even more than you are right now. Especially if you guys have talked about the fact that you don't want kids...it's probably really scary for her to think about telling you. Even if she knows you won't leave her, there's still a possibility in her mind that you'll be angry or upset. She's probably just insanely nervous about the whole situation."

"But I don't want her to be. I want her to know that I'm not upset." Shawn slouched his shoulders and took a sip of his beer. 

"Everything will be okay, okay?" Brian put his hand on his best friend's shoulder. "Just please promise me you'll wait for her to tell you, okay?"

"I will," Shawn sighed.

Shawn got home from work that day to see Camila standing on the counter in their kitchen, dusting the tops of the kitchen cabinets. Immediately, his eyes widened and he ran towards her.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Cleaning the top of the cabinets," she shrugged. "I haven't deep cleaned the house in a while."

"Please get down from there. It's not safe. You could fall." He reached up and pulled her into his arms, pulling her down off of the counter and setting her back down onto the floor. "I live here now and I'm tall. I can do that for you." Camila narrowed her eyes at him.

"You do realize that I had to clean those cabinets before you lived here, right? How did you think I did it?"

"I get that you used to clean them like that, but I'd prefer if you don't anymore. I'm not saying you're not capable of it — I just don't want you to get hurt. I'm happy to help you, okay?"

"You're cute," Camila noted, a small smile creeping up onto her face despite how hard she was trying to keep it away. She grabbed the rag that she had been cleaning the tops of the cabinets with and held it out to him. "Now clean the cabinets, tall boy."

"Anything for you, my love."

Both of them were tired by the time evening came around so instead of the romantic dinner date they had discussed earlier that morning, they ended the night cuddled up on the couch watching reruns of Friends. Shawn couldn't seem to focus on the show, though. In fact, he couldn't even take his eyes off of his girlfriend's stomach. He still couldn't seem to wrap his mind around the fact that his future son or daughter was somewhere in there. It took everything in him to not reach over and rest his hand just below her bellybutton in an attempt to solidify in his mind the fact that he was about to be a dad. As much as he wanted to just take that moment to tell her that he knew, he held it in and stayed silent. She would tell him when she was ready. Until then, he'd be patient — even if being patient was killing him inside.

A/N: my favorite part about writing this friend group is their complete lack of braincells