Golden - Harry Styles
"Alright, you already have the basics that you need, so all you really need is decor and any toys or clothes you want." Anne said pushing the shopping the shopping cart.
"Ev, look at this onesie." Sophia made a face of awe holding up a light pink onesie. "Why can't you be having a girl." She pouted as I chuckled.
"Maybe someday." I sigh, my eyes scanning the wall of baby clothes.
"I say, we just get them all." Ellie says, throwing a couple in the cart.
"We are not getting all of the baby clothes." I say, even though I definitely wanted to.
"It's not like you don't have the money for it." Katherine says, deciding between two little outfits.
"That's not the point." I say as Anne chuckles, "Do you have baby monitors?" She asks as I nod my head.
"Yeah, we ordered some online, they should be here within the next week or two. We got ones with cameras in them." I say as she walks forward a little, picking up a cute little outfit outfit herself.
"That's good.. maybe we should just buy them all." She says throwing tossing the matching set into the cart.
"I should've set a limit." I say chuckling, as we all throw our choices of baby clothes in the cart and make our way over to the next aisle.
"Bottles?" Anne starts going over a checklist she made on the way here.
"Have some."
"Diapers?"
"We have a couple packs, figured we'd buy more once we got closer to my due date." I say as Anne nods.
"Diaper pail?"
"Nope." I say as we turn the corner.
After a couple of minutes, or 30, of looking at different diaper pails and comparing between different ones, we decide on one and Anne starts working her way down her checklist again.
"Okay um, nightlight?"
"We have a couple."
"Do you have a rocking chair." She asks looking up at me.
"Bought a glider last week." I say as she marks it off her list.
"Do you have lamps? Preferably ones that dim."
"That's for Home Depot." I say as she nods, "The light on the ceiling dims too."
"You already having a changing table, wipes, and the boys are working on the crib. Do you have a mattress?"
"No, Grey wanted to help with that." I say as Ellie, Sophia, and Katherine all make some type of "aww" sound that I laugh at.
"Sheets?"
"Grey wants to help with those too." I say as Anne grins.
"You have that boy so whipped." She says as we all chuckle, "Do you have washable mattress pads?"
"Bought some when we got diapers."
"Okay. How about a place to store toys?"
"IKEA is by Home Depot, so I figured we could look there."
"Yes! I love IKEA." Katherine says as we all agree.
"I figured we could look at rugs at TJ Maxx or Home Goods after we leave her, since it's next door." I say as we make our way to the checkout. "I have a couple of play mats that just shipped, along with a swing, a bouncer, blankets, including swaddles, and burp cloths."
"Sounds like you are all set for the most part." Anne says, starting to put items on the conveyor belt.
"Do you guys have a stroller and a carseat?" Sophia asks, handing items to Katherine.
"Yep! They arrived yesterday! We got a carseat for each car, and a stroller that grows with the baby or something." I say, pulling out my wallet.
"What does that mean?" Katherine asks.
"I guess you have to buy different seats and stuff as your baby grows, so right now the car seat will go on it, and then it came with a seat for when he switches carseats."
"What color did you guys get?" Ellie asks, grabbing bags and putting them in the cart.
"Grey."
"Convenient." Anne says as we all chuckle.
We quickly pay and pack everything in my new 2022 charcoal grey, Lexus GX, before walking over to Home Goods. After walking in and making our way to the rugs section my phone starts vibrating.
Pulling it out of my back pocket and seeing that it's Grey I quickly answer it before bringing it up to my ear.
"Hey!"
"Hey baby."
"Are you finished with the crib?" I ask, scanning through the rugs as the girls point out a few they like.
"Just got done, we're about to head over to Home Depot if you guys are ready."
"We're picking out a rug, which hopefully shouldn't take long, and then we'll meet you there." I say before I hear mumbling on the other side of the phone.
"What? Babe, hold on." He says, most likely pulling the phone away from his ear.
After another couple of seconds of muffled talking Greyson's voice becomes clear again, "The guys want to know when we're getting food." He says as I chuckle.
"It's barely.." I pause looking at my light pink Apple Watch, "It's not even 11 yet." I say, an amused chuckle escaping my lips.
"It almost is." Greyson whines.
"How about we hit Home Depot, and then grab lunch before IKEA."
"No!" Katherine says as my brows furrow. "We're eating lunch at IKEA, god woman have you lost your mind?" She says, her eyes nearly bulging out of her head.
"Okay fine, we'll go to Home Depot, and then eat lunch at IKEA." I say as Katherine nods in approval.
"Hold on." He says, his voice becoming partly muffled. "Okay, sounds good."
I chuckle, pointing at one of the rugs the girls have pulled out, "That one." I whisper as they all agree. "Okay, we're about to check out, so we'll see you soon."
"Okay, see you there, I love you."
"I love you too, bye." I hang up the phone before sliding it back into the back pocket of my vintage mom shorts.
"Ev, those shorts." Ellie groaned, "I want them." A chuckle escaped my lips looking down at them. They were dark blue and stopped mid thigh. "Thrift store." I say, smiling.
"I already have a pair but I saw these on my why out in a bigger size, and I had to get them because that would mean I could actually wear them because my vintage mom shorts are my favorite pair of shorts by far."
"They're fucking adorable on you." Sophia say, taking a step forward as the line moved.
"I swear you were born in the wrong decade." Katherine chuckles.
"For real." Ellie agrees.
"She needed to be like a teenager or in her early 20s in the 90s, not born then." Sophia says, making me let out a small giggle.
"You guys say that, like we don't all dress alike." I say, nudging Katherine with my hip.
"Yeah, but your aesthetic is literally almost always 90s, where I feel like mine is different everyday." She says, lightly nudging me back.
"She's not wrong. One day she's thirty year old mom with three kids, the next she's a teenage girl, and the day after that she's an influencer." Sophia says before Katherine smacks her arm.
"I do not dress like a teenage girl. Teenage girls just dress older than their age these days."
"These days? How old are you?" I ask as she sticks her tongue out at me like a little kid.
"Apparently not old enough." Ellie says as Katherine rolls her eyes.
"I thought you guys would be done by now." Anne says, making our heads turn to see her walking up with a candle in her hand.
"It's Home Goods, they are never fast."
"If that ain't the damn truth." I say as we all laugh, receiving glances from the group of teenage girls in front of us.
After another ten minutes, which felt more like twenty, we finally made our way out of the store and to Home Depot to meet the guys, who were definitely going to be complaining about food now, even more than they would've.
"How much you wanna bet that Jake whines about food first?" I ask, my right hand relaxing on the steering wheel, as my left rested on my stomach.
"I give him five minutes." Sophia says as we all laugh as I signal and turn onto the busy street where Home Depot and IKEA are.
"Five? More like the minute we say hi to them." Katherine practically snorts.
"We won't even get to say hi before he's complaining." Anne joins in, setting her phone down in the cup holder.
"I seriously need this car." Ellie says from the back seat. "It has built in TV screens in the headrests for Christ's sake." She says as I chuckle, pulling into the free park spot next to Greyson's truck. I turn off the ignition before grabbing my purse and hopping out, the guys do the same.
"Jesus, you took twenty minutes! You know what that means? I have to wait even longer before I get to eat!" Jake says as we all try to stifle laughs.
"Called it!" Anne says, patting Jake on the back.
"Called what?" He says, his brows furrowed as he leans down and hugs her. "Hey Mama Rhodes."
"We were betting how soon it took for you to complain about food." Katherine says giving him a cheeky grin.
"What?" He asks sharply as the rest of the guys laugh.
Greyson walks over, wrapping his arm around my waist, before leaning down to kiss me, "Hey baby."
"Hi." I say, a grin spreading across my face.
"I missed you." He says as I chuckle, "It was four hours."
"Yeah, four hours away from you and stuck with these nimrods." He nods his head towards the rest of the guys.
"Who you calling nimrods?" Chris asks as we make out way inside.
"You are friends with us after all." Evan says, throwing his arm around Ellie's shoulders.
"I get paid to be." Greyson says laughing, slipping his keys into one of his front pockets.
"We're about to have a whole party in the middle of Home Depot." Ellie says as we all chuckle.
"You do realize, this party is going to end up with us girls "testing" out patio furniture, while the guys do all the shopping, right?" Sophia says putting air quotes around the word testing.
"Amen." Anne says as we all chuckle, making our way to the lamps.
After spending way too long deciding, and then dragging the boys out to look at plants, which earned a lot of groans from them, we finally got to eat.
"I could live here, honestly." Katherine says, as we all stand up to throw our food away.
"I'm pretty sure I asked my mom if we could move here when I was younger." I say, linking arms with her.
"You definitely did.. several times." Chris says chuckling, before talking to Evan about something.
When the guys were out of earshot I lowered my voice, "So, anything new with Jake?" I ask Katherine and her head snapped to look at me.
"Er, no." She sighs, tucking a strand of dirty blonde hair behind her ear.
"Have you tried anything?" I ask as she slowly shakes her head. I poke her in the side as jolts and slaps my hand away.
"He just got out of a relationship, he needs time at least."
"Yeah, he just got out of a relationship where he got his heartbroken. He needs someone to be there for him.. preferably not one of the guys. They all suck at girl advice." I say as she stares in front of her.
"Besides, who knows more about how to heal from a breakup than you."
"Ouch."
"Okay, that sounded bad. But, you know what I mean. Help him get through it, and who knows what may happen." I say looking back at the guys all laughing at something. Her gaze follows mine as Jake's eyes snap to hers. She quickly looks at me, "Say something funny."
"This isn't a movie." I roll my eyes as she lightly chuckles, her cheeks bright red.
"He's still looking at you by the way." I say as she almost trips over her own feet.
"Easy there." I say patting her arm that's linked with mine, "Let's look at pillows." I suggest, hoping to distract her a little.
"I love pillows!" She says excitedly, pulling my arm over towards all of the pillows.
✳︎
"You do realize, your life is about to be a whole bunch of nursery rhymes and Cocomelon, right?" Evan says as Greyson's head shoots up from booking the bookshelf together.
"There will be no Cocomelon in this house, ever. Period." He says as I let out a laugh, handing Ellie a onesie that I put on a tiny velvet, creme hanger.
"I'm serious." He says, only making me laugh more.
"Trust me, I don't want to deal with it either, but I don't think you can escape Cocomelon." I say as he grunts.
"I hate to break it to you Grey, but you will be wrapped around his little finger the minute you hear his first cry." Anne says, typing something into her computer while sitting on the light grey armchair.
"No Cocomelon. I forbid it." He says making me smile.
"If you say so." I say, hanging a matching set, with dinosaurs on them, on a hanger. Sophia reaches her hand out to grab it from me as I place the hanger in her hand.
"Just these clothes alone are giving me baby fever." Katherine groans from inside the closet.
"Just wait till the baby is here." I say as she groans even more.
"With little baby hands, and little baby feet. And don't get started on the baby smell." She says as I chuckle.
"I can't wait." I say, grinning like a fool, before my phone starts to ring on the floor. I start to lean over before realizing that wasn't going to happen, between my legs being sprawled out like a starfish and my belly, I could not reach it. "Hey El, will you hand me my phone?" I ask as she nods before reaching down to pick it up. Her brows furrow as she hesitates to hand it to me, "It's mom." She says as I freeze.
"Let it go to voicemail." I say as Chris looks up from the instructions he was reading.
"You're not going to answer it?" Anne asks curiously as I swallow slowly.
"Mom." Greyson says before she looks at him and he shakes his head no.
She gets an apologetic look on her face when the phone stops ringing and I set it down beside me.
"We should turn on some music." I suggest before everyone agrees.
"Can we listen to Disney music." Jake asks as all eyes snap to him.
"Did I say that out loud?" He says, his cheeks turning bright red as he rubs the back of his neck.
"Holy shit dude!" Greyson lets out a big belly laugh, falling backwards.
"What?! It's good music!" He argues as we're all practically crying.
"I mean, I'm not arguing with you. I just wasn't expecting you to say that." Ellie says, pulling herself together before reaching for the speaker. "Ev, is your phone connected to it?" She asks as I nod, unlocking my phone and handing it to her.
A couple of minutes later a song from Moana starts to play.
"Yes!" Jake says as we all try not to laugh again.
"Dude, I swear to God, if you start singing this shit, we're not friends anymore." Chris says before Jake throws a pencil at him.
"You're just jealous that I'm going to be the cool uncle that does Disney carpool karaoke." He says shrugging as Chris throws the pencil back.
"The fact that you think you're going to be considered an uncle is almost as funny as the whole Disney thing." Chris says, an amused grin on his face.
"SEE THE LIGHT WHERE THE SKY MEETS THE SEA. IT CALLS MEEEEE!!" Jake starts yelling the lyrics, completely off-key.
"OH MY GOD!" I laugh hysterically, falling onto my back.
"Dude, what the fuck?!" Evan asks, gripping his stomach from laughing so hard.
Ellie is recording as he continues on with the song.
I quickly sit up, or at least I try to. "I think I just peed a little." I say reaching my arms out for Katherine to help me up. She almost falls over while helping me from laughing so hard. I quickly walk into the bathroom, do my business, and walk back into the nursery to see everyone has calmed down.. A little bit.
The songs come to an end as we all stare at each other before bursting out laughing.
Wiping a tear from my eye, I make my way back to my spot on the floor. "Jesus Jake. That was.. Something." I say as we all chuckle.
"Okay, we're going to listen to something else.." Ellie says, grabbing my phone before turning on my "Best of the Decades" playlist and Like a Virgin by Madonna starts to play.
We all start to get back to work when Ellie turns it up full volume.
"Like a Virgin.. Touched for the very first time. Like a Viiirgin." Jake starts to sing in a high pitched voice without even realizing it. Ellie pauses it as we all stare at him.
He frowns before slowly raising his head to realize we're all looking at him. "What?" He asks with his brows furrowed.
"Are you sure you have a penis?" Chris asks as Greyson laughs.
Jake looks down the waistband of his black joggers, "Yep. Wanna see?" He asks, grinning as Chris shakes his head, "God no."
"Are you sure you aren't gay?" Chris asks next.
"Yep. Are you sure you aren't? I mean these questions are a bit direct."
"No, I'm not gay." Chris says.
"Dude, you were just singing Madonna!" Greyson laughs, throwing his head back and hitting it on the wall in the process.
"No I wasn't." He says as Greyson rubs the back of his head.
"Yes you were." We all say at the same time as his eyes widen.
"You don't even realize it, oh my god, that takes it ten times better!" Sophia says, slapping her knee.
"Hold on. I have to find something out." Ellie reaches for my phone, putting in the password. After a couple of seconds Can't Fight the Moonlight by LeAnn Rimes starts to play.
It gets to the chorus before Jake, clearly couldn't hold it anymore, and started singing.
"Come on Greyson. You know the words." My gaze snaps to him as his eyes widen.
"Hell no, I don't"
"Liar! I have a video to prove it." Jake says pulling out his phone.
"I was drunk!" He says defensively.
"You weren't drunk when you learned the lyrics though."
"I have a sister." He says as Jake walks over to us, shoving his phone in my face.
And there it is. Greyson Rhodes and Jake Henry, singing the song in the car. The video is clearly from a couple of years ago but it's still hilarious.
"Oh my god! Send me that." I say pulling out my phone.
"No!" Greyson says jumping up, but I had already accepted the AirDrop request and it was sending.
"Motherfucker." Greyson says coming up to Jake, smacking him on the back of the head.
Jake smacks him back as Greyson's eyes narrow down at him, Jake only being about an inch shorter. Anne steps between them, pointing her finger at them. "Knock it off. How old are you two?" She says swatting their arms away.
"Boys." She says rolling her eyes before she makes her way to the door, stopping in the doorway she looks at all of us, yawning. "It's gettin' late for me. I'm headed off to bed. Behave." She says looking at all of the guys as they all throw their hands up in defense at the same time.
"Night Mama." Greyson says, before coming over to me.
"Goodnight guys." She says blowing us all a kiss as we all bid our goodnights to her.
"How do you guys feel about a late night Target run?" I ask as Greyson pulls me up to my feet.
"What for?"
"We're out of Nutella, and I'm craving it."
"I love nine o'clock Target runs." Sophia says.
"Me too babes." I say as Katherine folds her arms.
"I'm stealing a sweatshirt." She says walking out of the nursery before coming back a couple of minutes later in a black Vans hoodie.
"God I haven't seen that thing since college." Sophia chuckles, stretching her arms above her head.
"We look like we planned a late night Target run." I say looking at our outfits.
Ellie was wearing a white crop top with spaghetti straps and grey sweatpants with white Nike Air Forces, tall white socks that are rolled down, and a baby blue baseball cap turned backwards with a messy bun.
Sophia was clad in an oversized black, Metallica t-shirt and a pair of light grey sweat shorts that were rolled up at the waistband, making it look like she didn't have pants on. With her hair in loose, messy dutch braids. Her broken in customized high top, platform converse were tied tightly as her nike socks stuck out of the top of them.
Katherine was in a pair of white Adidas shorts with stripes down the sides, that hung her curves perfectly. Her black shirt that read "Eminem" across the chest was tucked into her bra, making it a crop top. Her dirty blonde hair was up in a claw clip. Her usual gold jewelry sat on her collarbone, earlobes, and fingers as she spun one of her rings in a circle around her finger. Her tattoo that said "girl, do it for you." that was on her ribcage, could just barely be seen if she moved the right way and her shirt rid up.
I was wearing an oversized, navy quarter zip with a pair of Greyson's boxers that were pretty much covered by the sweatshirt. I had put my hair in a loose French braid, letting my face shaping pieces fall out on their own, with ankle high white nike socks that barely stuck out of my black, broken in, platform converse.
"We really do." Katherine says, looking down at her outfit and then back at all of ours.
"Imagine having to plan to look this good." Jake says, acting like he flipped a piece of hair over his shoulder.
"It would take you hours to get to this level, and we aren't even dressed up." Katherine teased as she walked past him.
Greyson slipped his baseball cap on backwards again as we all headed down the stairs.
"That damn baseball cap." I mumble as he smirks.
"So.. Leave it on later?" He asks as a blush creeps across my cheeks.
"Dude. Sister." Chris says rolling his eyes.
We all cram into the Lexus and make our way to Target, windows down, and music almost all the way up.
We let the guys all sit up front, where we were all in the back screaming the lyrics to When I Was Your Man by Bruno Mars at the top of our lungs... Jake included. He has his arm rested on the top of the seat, definitely making Katherine blush, even though I can't see her face to know for sure.
✳︎
After our Target trip everyone decided to go home, knowing we'd see each other for lunch tomorrow like we'd planned a week ago.
"So.. the baseball cap turned backwards is a turn on?" Greyson grins, pulling back the covers before his side of the bed dips as he scoots in.
"I mean it's hot either way, but definitely when it's backwards." I say, taking my bottom lip between my teeth, desperately trying to finish the paragraph in my book.
"Good to know." He gives me a cheeky grin before laying his head on the pillow, while laying on his stomach, and reaching his hand out to rest on my stomach, drawing circles with the pad of his thumb. "Whatcha reading?"
"I'm re-reading Where the Crawdad's Sing." I say, resting my free hand on his bare back, running my nails up and down as goosebumps cover his skin.
"Isn't that a movie that just came out?" He mumbles into the pillow, his eyes shut as his breath evens outs, meaning that he's relaxed and slowly starting to fall asleep.
"Yeah, but it was a book first." I say as he lightly nods his head.
Both of our phones ding at the same time. We both of ignore it, assuming it's just the group chat or something, until a couple of minutes pass and our phones are being blown up.
"What the hell is going on?" He says as his thumb stops moving on my belly.
"I don't know." I bookmark my page before shutting the book and reaching over to grab my phone.
There are texts from our friend group, Gracie, a couple of other people I haven't talked to in a while, but the one that stuck out the most, was my dad.
Before I could even click on it my eyes dart to the notification below it from Celeb Daily. The preview of it shows Greyson's name so I immediately click on it.
Waiting for it to load anxiously, my fingers continue to stroke his back slowly.
Greyson Rhode's Has Two Babies on the Way, From Two Different Women?
Word Count: 4,344
OMG THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR 900+ READS!!
PLEASE READ:
Enforcing the Enforcer, Book 2 of the MM Series, is being released this month. I've already released a couple of things for it, so go check it out!
P.S. Here is kind of what I imagine the nursery looks like:
Feel free to imagine it however you'd like though.