Chapter 9: Expecting l

-- THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2005, FINALS WEEK --

"Dawn Evans?" came the confused voice on the other end of the line.

"Yes. She's part of the ranch hand program," I replied.

"Dawn ... Dawn ... Uhh ... Wait, you said Evans, right? We have a Marie Evans."

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, but explained patiently, "'Marie' is her middle name."

The sounds of pages flipping were audible over the phone, and presently the guy who'd picked up the main telephone line returned. "Here we are: Dawn Marie Evans ... Huh, never knew that was her middle name. Well, it's after hours, and everybody is off-duty. Can I take a message and have her call you back?"

I sighed. "Not really. I can hold however long you need. Can somebody please find her?"

"Uh, sure, I guess. Hang on. She's probably in the staff lounge with everyone else."

I heard the guy set the phone down on the desk, and then his footsteps on the hardwood as he walked away. Slumped in an armchair in my upstairs bedroom, I stared out the window at the blackness beyond, not even really able to see outside since half of my room was reflected back at me by the glass. I kicked my heels up onto the edge of the coffee table, tipping it over just a couple of inches while sagging deeper into the seat cushion and taking deep, calming breaths.

I'd been doing a lot of that in the last couple of hours. Even so, it had been difficult to stay even-keeled, what with the news DJ had dropped on me. The instant I recognized the object that had fallen from DJ's hands, my mind had raced back to the time Allie Sanders had given me the exact same news, and I seemed to remember not handling that situation very well at all. But I was determined not to lose my head this time.

Two sides of me had gone to war right away. The analytical male in me wanted to immediately break down the situation and determine the best courses of action. I craved solutions – or at least decisions – plans I could latch my brain onto as a lifeline to guide myself through the immediate future. The compassionate boyfriend, on the other hand, had been trained to give unconditional support at a time like this, to show DJ that I was on her side and that she wouldn't have to go through this alone. Despite my own desire to immediately reason my way through the situation, my love for her won out, and I wrapped up my sobbing girlfriend in my arms and promised we would get through this together.

Thankfully, Brooke had put aside whatever differences she'd recently had with DJ, and similarly launched herself into full-on support mode. The three of us talked and hugged and talked some more, until Kim came knocking to figure out why nobody was coming to dinner, and DJ told her she was pregnant.

Then all four of us spent the next hour talking and hugging and talking some more, with Kim providing the voice of unbiased reason, causing the other three of us to both hate her and be thankful for her in turn.

Ultimately, we'd come to a decision on how to proceed from here. In the end, DJ had fallen asleep in her own bed with Brooke wrapped around her in comfort. It was still quite early in the evening, but DJ had been sitting on the potential of this knowledge ever since Saturday, when her expected menstruation had not arrived on time. Since then, she'd been getting more and more anxious, not daring to wonder whether or not she might be pregnant and yet unable to completely shake the worry. 'Everything would be fine', she'd told herself. 'Lots of girls are a couple of days late.' But then a couple of days turned into three and then four and finally five. Nearly a week late, she gave in and bought a pregnancy test.

She'd kept everything to herself, lying to me about being on her period. What I had believed to be Finals stress coupled with Brooke's departure had been much more. She had those concerns PLUS this pregnancy scare. No wonder she wasn't sleeping.

But she was sleeping now. Although her positive pregnancy result was certainly not the news she'd been hoping for, at least it was no longer unknown. The resolution of all her worry, coupled with our mutually-agreed upon decision to keep the baby, must have felt like Mount Everest sliding off her back. True, we wouldn't have an easy road ahead, but at least for now she could find a moment's peace in the blissful rest of unconsciousness.

Me, I wouldn't be sleeping anytime soon. I wasn't even hungry, despite the smell of Kim's cooking wafting up the stairwell. I'd left DJ to the comfort of Brooke's arms; the last thing I saw was the smile on my little sister's face that SHE was the one holding DJ and not me. True, Brooke and DJ may not be true lesbian lovers, but they certainly shared a bond that went beyond friendship, and perhaps even beyond family. Though I didn't actually expect them to run off and get married to each other, however much I might joke about it, I certainly could understand just how strongly they were bonded together.

After all, I'd shared that same kind of bond with Dawn.

I didn't quite understand it. I'd never totally understood it. Part of me wanted to believe the connection I'd shared with my one-time soulmate truly was ... mystical. Supernatural. Otherworldly. The rational part of my brain figured it was simply the result of years spent in each other's company, subconsciously learning each other's moods and behaviors the way a baby picks up language from his or her parents. But the rational part of my brain couldn't explain away the way we always seemed to be calling each other at the same time, or the way I could read her mood when we weren't even in the same room. The rational part of my brain couldn't account for why I couldn't accomplish the same unexplainable feats with my siblings even though I'd spent more time with THEM than I had with Dawn.

I couldn't explain or understand it, but I knew Brooke and DJ had it, the same way I knew gravity would keep my feet on the ground. It was just the way things were. No matter how close DJ and I became, theirs would be a bond I could never equal. It had been theirs since infancy, and even if they tried, I doubted they could ever completely sever it.

Like I could never completely sever mine with Dawn.

I'd tried. I wanted to move on from her. And that Thanksgiving night in Dayna's bedroom, I'd finally given up on her. I'd let her go.

Or had I?

If I had, why was I thinking about her now?

If I had given up, why was she the first person I wanted to tell that DJ was pregnant? Not my parents. Not my other sisters. Not even Adrienne ... I wanted to tell Dawn.

And not to gloat. Not to rub anything in her face. I just wanted her to know. She deserved to know. Because now?

Now we really WERE over.

There was no going back from this. Not from something like this. There was something my mother had told me, back when I'd brought Adrienne to camp for the very first time and found myself caught trying to choose between her and Dawn. "Be safe and don't get either girl pregnant," she'd told me. "Or you may find your future is choosing you."

Well I hadn't gotten either girl pregnant. And now my future was choosing DJ. Destiny had decided, and it had decided on Dawn's little sister, not her.

Who the hell saw THAT coming way back then?

But unexpected or not, DJ and I were now expecting. This wasn't a hypothetical. This wasn't pondering what should I do. This was reality, and this was what I HAD to do.

"Hello?"

Dawn's voice jerked me from my thoughts, and I actually DID kick over the coffee table. Automatically, I swore and stooped over to pick it up, and while I was doing so, Dawn asked again in confusion, "Uh, hello? Who is this?"

"It's me," I replied hurriedly while still tipping the coffee table back upright. "Sorry, I knocked over the coffee table. Uh, it's Ben. Sorry, I should have said that first."

"I know," she replied, having recognized my flustered voice. "It's good to hear from you. It's been a while since I last called. I'm sorry. I've just been so distracted up here."

"No, no. No apologies necessary. You need to do your thing. I get it." I took a deep breath, grimacing as I added, "If anything, I should be apologizing to you."

"Apologizing to me? Why?"

This was it: the moment of truth. I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could take back those last words. "Apologizing"? Why should I be apologizing? To apologize would mean that I felt guilty about what I'd done, that it had been wrong. And while knocking up DJ was not the most ideal of actions, that didn't necessarily mean I owed Dawn an apology, did it? After all, I wasn't going to apologize to Dayna or DJ's parents. To do so would be like saying we'd made a mistake and would be having an abortion to correct that mistake, and we had decided NOT to abort the baby. No, I wouldn't be apologizing to the Evanses for getting their little girl pregnant. It was an accident, yes. But I would never term our baby a "mistake".

And yet, it did feel right to apologize to Dawn, because I DID feel sorry for her. I would be apologizing, because in this conversation, I would be telling her: 'I'm sorry, but we are NEVER getting back together.'

But I didn't say that. Not in those words. Instead, I took a deep breath, gathered my wits, and stated evenly, "DJ is pregnant."

The conversation was shorter than I would have thought, probably because Dawn was just in shock. She was quiet, really quiet, and at times I found myself listening for the sound of her breathing, just to make sure the line hadn't gone dead. It wasn't difficult; she was breathing pretty hard. And I found myself trying to fill the awkward gaps of silence by continuing to ramble on.

I told her that we hadn't planned it, of course. Neither of us knew how this happened. DJ assured me she took her pills regularly, but I guess that's why they say no contraceptive is 100%.

When Dawn found her voice, she asked if we were sure. I told her that the two red lines on the test were unmistakable, and DJ's period was definitely five days late. We'd made plans to drive down to her family's gynecologist, Dr. Sims, tomorrow.

Dawn didn't respond. Just silence. Just breathing.

I continued on by explaining that we'd decided to keep the baby. It was a mutual decision, starting with DJ stating emphatically that she didn't want an abortion and me agreeing with her.

"Besides, your mom would probably kill us if she ever found out we aborted a child of our two families."

As jokes go, that one was pretty bad. I grimaced the moment the words left my mouth. Dawn didn't respond, though, not to laugh or groan or chuckle nervously. Just silence. Just breathing.

I explained that Brooke and Kim had been with us. There were a lot of reasons to get an abortion, not the least of which was that DJ was only nineteen and a sophomore in college. DJ pointed out that Paige was making it work out, and she was a single mom. And that of course had brought up the question of whether or not DJ would have to raise a child as a single mom.

I paused to collect myself, and this time when I listened for Dawn's breathing, I didn't hear it. Perhaps she'd calmed down and wasn't breathing so heavily. Perhaps she was so scared at this moment that she was holding her breath.

"We haven't talked about marriage or anything. That part ... even with the baby ... we're going to have to see. But for now, I've told DJ that I won't let her raise our child alone. I'll be there for her. I'll be there for the baby. I can't NOT be there, you know?"

Quietly, Dawn replied, "I know."

I told her I sort of always knew this could happen, in the back of my mind. I never expected it to happen, and maybe I had been a blind idiot for not expecting so, given my rather sordid history. But the thought had crossed my mind a few times, along with wonderings about how I would deal with the situation if it ever arose. That wasn't to say that I wouldn't have stuck around to be a good father if the girl had been, say, a random Tri-Delt I was only casual friends with. I liked to think of myself as a better man than that. But with DJ, everything was different. She had always been more to me than just another number on "The List". I couldn't imagine leaving her to deal with this on her own. Staying with her was the right thing to do, right?

I didn't know why I told Dawn about that thought process. Maybe I was trying to talk my way through the decision with a trusted friend, someone I knew to be a good listener. But maybe it was more because I owed her an explanation – an explanation of why things between us would never again be the same.

In a way, I was saying goodbye.

It was a lot for Dawn to deal with. One minute, she was up at camp, doing her ranch hand thing and spending time with the friends she'd made there. She was probably thinking about her horses, or about the day's work and the things to look forward to in the near future. Perhaps she was even thinking about me, and about the progress she was making in finding herself once again so she could come back to me. Or maybe she was thinking about the progress she was making so she could move on from me. Right now, I seriously hoped it was the latter. Because the very next minute, she was on the phone hearing that I'd knocked up her baby sister.

No wonder she was quiet.

There was more I needed to tell Dawn, and I struggled to find the right words. I had no organized plan for how to deliver this news, and Dawn wasn't really directing me with questions. I'd told her DJ was pregnant, told her we were keeping the baby, and told her I would be a father to my child. But I hadn't told her how much I still cared about her, how much I sincerely hoped the best for her future, and how sorry I was that things wouldn't be working out quite the way we might have thought.

I never got the chance to tell her those things, not tonight. Dawn hung up on me instead, something I found out when the near silence of her breathing was replaced by the beeping of a dead line.

I looked down at my phone just in time to see the display return to my home screen. Folding it closed, I bowed my head and pressed the end of the phone against my forehead. And with my eyes closed, I silently told Dawn across our mystical connection, "I'm sorry."

But she never heard me. Our connection was gone.

-- FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2005, FINALS WEEK --

I awoke with my usual morning hard-on. My eyes were still closed, but I felt my girlfriend's presence against my chest as we spooned together on our left sides, and a wave of pure bliss spread across my body.

I loved this moment, waking up to find myself holding my loved one in my arms. It's indescribable how comfortable I felt, every muscle relaxed, every part of my body surrounded by warmth. The mattress beneath me was wonderfully supportive, as was the pillow tucked beneath my left cheek. My left arm snaked beneath the pillow, only for my hand to emerge on the far side of DJ's body and rest there, clasped in-between DJ's hands as she slept. My right arm was wrapped around her torso and underneath her sleep shirt, and that hand found an even better home nestled in her cleavage, the fingers curled but relaxed around the globe of one large, naked breast.

We were joined together as one; even our legs were pressed against each other. Both of our right legs extended forward across the mattress while our left legs pivoted back, so that my right leg rested over her left. As I awoke, energy sparkled down my veins as my limbs hugged DJ even tighter to me, wrapping her leg in my own and pressing my cock a little harder into the cleft of her butt cheeks. Feeling the crispness of December air against my exposed cheek, I snuggled deeper beneath the blanket that rose almost to my ear and covered half of DJ's head before me. Cocooned together like this, we were perfect, and I never wanted to leave.

Initially, I had awoken to the pleasantness of cuddling with my girlfriend. It was one of my favorite things about even having a girlfriend, and as my brain slowly came alive, I mentally castigated myself for ever agreeing to Kim's moratorium on overnight cuddling in the first place. It felt so GOOD. Why did I ever agree to not do it? For some silly notion about shaking my co-dependence and being single? What a crock! Being single sucked. Being in love, and being loved in return? THAT was the life.

But as my brain activated, I also became more aware of the situation my girlfriend and I found ourselves in. This wasn't an ordinary morning. This was the morning after we'd found out we were pregnant. And surprisingly, that only made this blissful feeling even better.

Now that may not make sense to a lot of you. I would imagine that most 21-year-old unmarried males would be having a full-blown panic attack at this very moment. After all, unexpected pregnancy is the LAST thing those guys would want, and to be perfectly honest, I was in that category as well. A baby means change. A baby means loss of freedom. A baby means a responsibility greater than I'd ever experienced before. For most 21-year-old males, a baby is the most terrifying thing imaginable.

But not for me.

True, I didn't really WANT a baby this early in my life, but I did want to have children eventually. And true, I still had no IDEA how I would actually LIVE my life with a baby in it, but I honestly believed DJ and I would figure it out. And I suddenly realized WHY I was so blissfully happy this morning.

I'd finally gotten the permanent relationship I always wanted.

Despite the numerous variety of my bed partners, I was a romantic at heart. I wanted love, and to be in love. Every time I was in a relationship, I wanted to believe it would last forever, to end with a ring and a family and happily ever after. I'd wanted that with Adrienne, only to have it implode with a promise ring and her lesbian girlfriend. I'd wanted that with Dawn, only to have that implode under the weight of her self-expectations for perfection. Hell, I'd wanted that with Lynne and with Amber as well. But I'd failed. In each case, the girl ultimately didn't want to be with ME.

But now I'd gotten her. Well, nothing was set in stone, and there certainly was a lot of time for something to go wrong between now and happily ever after. But THIS TIME, I really felt like things were going to work out. Because it wasn't just about me and her anymore. It was about me and her and ... Him? Her? We wouldn't know, not until what ... sixteen weeks? I'd have to read up on that. I couldn't call our baby an "it". But he or she would be a part of our lives very soon, and for the first time in a relationship, I had some outside force drawing us together.

Well, technically, my parents and Dawn's had certainly been an outside force, but this was different. This wasn't something external to us, wasn't the same as family pressure coming from without. This was our baby, the product within. And I knew now that DJ and I would be together, the way I'd always wanted with ... well... somebody.

Destiny had chosen. The future had chosen. The fetus was there. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was meant to be.

Let's be frank: I've spurted live sperm several thousand times into one fertile womb or another. Even accounting for facials, swallowing, rectal shots, and whatever other ways I could blow my wad, one could reasonably assume I averaged at least one womb-injection a day ever since I became sexually active. It had been more than five-and-a-half years since then, multiplied by 365 days a year, and you get a little more than two thousand attempts at impregnation. And with the life I'd lived, it was probably higher than that.

One attempt had worked: Allie Sanders back in high school. DJ was the second to get knocked up, and if you do the math, 2 failures out of 2000 is 99.9%. Isn't that the number they always talk about for contraceptives? It was just a matter of time before somebody wound up impregnated.

It could have happened to one of my random conquests, a girl I barely knew and only slept with for mutual sexual gratification. Hell, it could have happened to one of my sisters, Brooke or Brandi, and damn what a mess that could have made. It could have even happened to one of the lesbians, like Kady or Noelle. But it hadn't happened to any of them. Destiny, instead, had chosen a girl I could form a real future with. Destiny had chosen DJ Evans.

We weren't married yet, and it wasn't even certain that we would be. But for now, we were on that path. I had expected my romantic life to lead from love to the ring and then to family, but I wasn't totally averse to taking things in a different order. Because now I believed.

DJ had been in love with me since she first developed hormones, idolized me as the pinnacle of boyfriendness and set me as the standard against which all other boys were judged. She had been jealous of her sister for having me, and once Dawn was out of the picture, she'd grasped the opportunity with both hands. She'd always wanted me, and though she may not have expected it to happen this way, she now had me.

And I had her. We had each other. Together, we would get through this. Love, family, then ring. If that had to be the order, so be it. Finally, my life was set. Happily Ever After was on the way.

"What are you thinking about?"

The sound of DJ's voice returned me to the present, where I was still spooned against her, still snuggled beneath the blanket. Blinking, it took me a moment to regain my bearings, but once I did, I bent forward and kissed the back of her head. "I was thinking about how happy I am right now. About our baby, and about our future, all three of us. And I was thinking about how much I'm looking forward to sharing everything about my life with you."

"Really?"

Pressing my cheek to the back of her head, I sighed dreamily and replied, "Yeah ... Really..."

"So you don't ... regret knocking me up? You don't wish you could take it back?"

"What? No," I stated firmly. "What's past is past. Our lives would certainly be simpler if it hadn't happened, and I am sorry that I'm the direct cause of complicating YOUR life. But I don't regret what happened, because I don't regret being with YOU. I LOVE you DJ. And I'm here for you, no matter what."

She mused on that for a second, taking a deep breath and then snuggling herself a little deeper against me.

"Do you regret it? Do YOU wish you could take it back?"

"You mean aside from being a 19-year-old college student and freaking out about the mechanics of raising a child while finishing my degree?"

I allowed myself a warm chuckle. "Well, yeah. Besides that part."

She turned in my grasp now, ducking her right shoulder and rolling so that she could look up into my eyes directly. "No, I don't. Because even though I didn't plan this, the end result is that I get to have YOUR baby."

"You do."

"And..." DJ's eyes wavered as she took a deep breath. "And ... because you keep telling me that you'll be here for me, no matter what. That you'll help me raise our child. And it's horrible, this thought I have. But I can't help it. I can't help but think that because of our baby, that I..."

Her voice cracked and she looked down, squeezing her eyes shut and shuddering as she tried to keep from crying. I shushed her and stroked her back, whispering reassurances. "It's okay. It's okay. I'm here. I'm here..."

She looked back up at me, moisture in her eyes but no tears. "I can't help but think that this means I finally get to have you."

I nodded warmly, and gave her a wide smile. "You do."

Now the tears started falling, but they were accompanied by a smile so wide you could NOT mistake her joy. Suddenly, her arms were around my neck as she held me close to her while our lips mashed together. Suddenly, she was flat on her back while I pinned her body to the mattress with my own.

And then suddenly, our clothes were out of the way while my morning erection slid effortlessly into her soaked pussy.

And together, we parents-to-be made love.

Both DJ and I had morning Finals today, our last ones for the semester. Neither of us had gotten any studying done last night, but I knew I'd ace any Isakova Econ class and DJ's lack of studying had been par for the course this week.

"With everything else going on, I can believe I still have a fucking TEST," she complained on our way out the bedroom door. But while she wasn't confident about coming away from this semester with the best grades, at least DJ was pretty sure she wouldn't be flunking anything.

We emerged to find that Brooke was up and had already made breakfast for everyone. And from the way my little sister doted on her best friend, I had hopes that her little cry for attention by moving out of the house would quickly become a thing of the past.

Things weren't exactly going according to the plan I'd given Brooke. I'd assured her I would give her best friend back and make the extra effort to let them spend more time together. But with a baby on the way, I had no idea how well I'd be able to keep that promise. Still, my sister seemed to have decided that DJ's pregnancy outweighed their disagreements, and we got through breakfast quite merrily given the circumstances.

But just before we left the house, my phone lit up with a text message. It was from Sasha, hoping to arrange a Finals Stress Relief Session for this afternoon before the End of the Semester party we'd already arranged to have in the house tonight.

I showed it to DJ and said, "We need to figure out how and when to tell people. Not just Sasha, but our parents and our sisters and everyone else."

"After the visit to Dr. Sims," DJ began carefully, her lips pursed. "I already know I'm really pregnant, but I want to hear it from a professional. Then..."

I waited patiently, letting her think things through.

"We're already supposed to spend Saturday at my parents' house. We'll send messages to Dayna and Brandi and tell them to meet us there," DJ explained. "We'll tell them all in person, and then get on the phone to call your parents before my mom does it. And then on Sunday we'll drive down to your house as scheduled."

"Sounds like a plan," I said confidently with a nod before glancing at my phone and grimacing. "And what about our friends? It's not about booty calls. I'm not really in the mood, anyway. I just want to know how you think we should handle them."

"What do you think?"

I took a deep breath, and then said, "I think the rule of thumb is not to announce a pregnancy until the end of your first trimester. I hate to think it, but miscarriages DO happen."

DJ nodded thoughtfully, but said, "I still want our closest friends to know. They can keep the secret until we announce everything more publicly."

I nodded. "I can get Bert and Sasha to come to the house early tonight. Paige too, I don't think she has an afternoon final today. You can invite whomever you want, maybe over dinner before the party starts at 8. We can tell them all then."

DJ took a deep breath and nodded. But then all of a sudden she began shivering and wrapped her arms around herself, looking scared.

Immediately I stepped forward and hugged her so tight she would barely be able to breathe. "It's okay, it's okay," I soothed. "We'll get through this. I'm right here with you, every step of the way."

Still shivering, DJ tilted her head back to look up at me. She looked ready to cry, but was obviously fighting it. And then closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and said, "Okay. I can do this. Just another Final. I've already gotten through three of them while keeping all this worry trapped inside."

"But now you don't have to keep it in anymore," I reassured her. "It's not your burden alone. You got me, alright? I'm here to share it with you. Just get through your Final as best you can, I'll meet you outside your class for lunch, and then we'll drive down to see Dr. Sims. Alright?"

DJ nodded, managing to give me a smile. And in the same confident tone I'd given her just moments ago, she replied, "Sounds like a plan."

Having parallel parked on the curb outside the familiar house, I hurriedly circled around the car and then held my hand out. DJ had already opened the passenger door herself, and she looked at my proffered hand with an arched eyebrow. "I AM fully capable of getting out of a car by myself."

I blinked and blushed slightly. "Can't help it. Now that you're confirmed to be an expectant mother, I don't want you to ... uh ... strain ... yourself."

Rolling her eyes, DJ deliberately avoided my hand and stepped out of the car. But once she was on her own two feet, my girlfriend gave me a crooked smirk and slid her fingers through mine. And hand-in-hand, we went up the sidewalk to her parents' house.

We heard the click of a lock, and moment later the door swung inward. Deanna Evans beamed at both of us, exclaiming, "DJ! Ben! You're a day early!"

With a brave smile, DJ stepped forward to hug her mom, and then stepped alongside to watch as I too hugged the Evans family matriarch. "We were in the neighborhood," DJ explained. "We still have to go back to campus tonight – after all, the party is at OUR house – but we thought we should stop by."

"In the neighborhood? What for?"

DJ and I exchanged a glance. So much for our initial 'plan'. Once Dr. Sims had confirmed that we were indeed pregnant, DJ's first thought had been to come home and give her parents the news before the secret drove her mad. "Where's Dad?" she asked.

"In his office. Where else? Although he's probably watching basketball right now. We old fogeys don't have much to occupy us anymore now that all of our little ones have flown the nest."

DJ's eyes and mine met once again. Although we had yet to discuss the pregnancy with her parents, our initial ideas for how DJ could continue her education while raising a child revolved around her parents looking after the baby while I was at work and she went to school, a la Paige Jacobsen. "Funny you should mention that..." DJ drawled mysteriously, while turning and heading down the hallway.

"Hey, Princess," Jack Evans greeted as DJ opened the office door. Indeed, basketball was on ESPN. I never really knew what he did for a living, but from what I'd gathered over the years it mostly had to do with consulting for big companies, telling them shit they already should have known and should have already been doing. Must have paid pretty well.

"Hey, Daddy," DJ greeted, smoothly going over to the desk and bending down to peck her father on the lips. "Mind turning that off and coming outside for a minute?"

"Uh, sure." Jack's eyebrows went up in confusion for a moment, but he pressed POWER on the remote. Although he didn't appear suspicious about anything, DJ and me showing up unexpectedly tonight was unusual enough to raise anyone's sense of alarm.

DJ took me by the hand, leading me into the family room and over to the loveseat. She sat us down with our knees pointing toward each other, our hands clasped together. And as her mom sat down beside her husband on the big couch, DJ took a deep breath and came out with it right away. "We're pregnant."

Deanna was shocked. Jack, less so. He still inhaled sharply, and sat up straight. But I could see his male brain working around the details and analyzing the situation while sizing us up. Beside him, Deanna was beside herself with her hands over her mouth as she stared goggle-eyed at some point to our left.

DJ kept talking. "It was an accident, obviously. I took all of my birth control pills. But I took a home test last night, and then we drove down here to see Dr. Sims just now. She confirmed that I'm pregnant, and when we asked her how this was possible, she said it might have to do with the sinus infection I got shortly after Halloween. The school doctor gave me amoxicillin, which is a standard antibiotic, but he didn't tell me it might affect my birth control. There's a warning right on the label, actually, but I didn't think to look at it. On the other hand, Dr. Sims says that recent studies have shown that despite the warning label, amoxicillin shouldn't have affected my birth control. So maybe it did and maybe it didn't, I don't know. But either way it doesn't really matter: I'm pregnant, however it happened. Maybe it was just meant to be..."

DJ looked up at me, and I gave her a warm smile and a squeeze.

Deanna was still staring off into space, but had dropped her hands to her lap as she took deep, calming breaths. Jack had leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, nodding as DJ explained.

"So once we got the confirmation from Dr. Sims, I wanted to come straight over here," DJ finished.

Jack eyed us carefully, and then spoke in a soft voice. "I gather that you two have decided to keep the baby?"

DJ nodded immediately, and I replied with a firm, "Yes." DJ squeezed my hand pretty hard at that.

Jack nodded. "I figured, otherwise I expect you would have shown up to tell us DJ already had an abortion, IF we ever found out about it at all."

"Daddy..." DJ sighed mournfully.

Jack held his hand up, saying, "Sorry. Just ... taking it all in."

"So you're keeping the baby?" Deanna asked, with a rather more hopeful tone in her voice, turning to face us.

DJ and I both nodded again.

"And you're sure it's Ben's?"

DJ rolled her eyes. "Mom, YES. He's the only man I've been with."

There was no mistaking the smile that was starting to crawl across Deanna's face. "Well then ... I guess it's ... congratulations!"

Though quite obviously pleased with this development, Deanna quickly got control of her enthusiasm. At the other end of the spectrum, Jack was shaking off his rather more dour response and doing his best to be encouraging. Both of them asked if we had thought about the logistics of raising a child, asking us the very same questions Kim had asked us the night we all found out.

We gave them the same answers we'd given Brooke and Kim, although there was a lot more asking from our end about whether or not DJ's parents would be willing to help us out.

Deanna was more than willing to raise a grandchild, even going so far as to suggest that DJ just stay up at Berkeley full-time and focus on graduating while leaving the child-rearing to her and maybe visit every weekend or so. Jack was a little more pragmatic, reminding his wife not to get carried away with new baby excitement and stating emphatically that it wouldn't be a good idea for DJ to simply hand off the child and not deal with the consequences of her actions.

Both DJ and I assured them that we had every intention of being there as much as possible in our child's daily life. DJ spoke about Paige taking a year off from classes, and that she was considering doing the same. Although when Jack raised some objections to her delaying her education, she said that she also considered attending with a reduced class load and commuting back and forth, the way Paige was doing now.

As for me, I explained that I had a tacit job offer from BioGen in Palo Alto, which was only twenty minutes away from the house. And it was right about then that Deanna realized that meant that DJ and I would remain a couple, living under HER roof. And then she was off into ecstatic-happy-grandma-to-be mode once again.

Although Deanna Evans' not-so-subtle machinations to have me marry one of her daughters could be overbearing at times, her enthusiasm really did make it much easier for me and DJ to break the news. I knew I had been a little nervous about telling them – I think it's impossible for a guy NOT to feel nervous about telling any parents that he'd knocked up their unmarried daughter – and it was a relief to find that Jack hadn't run for his shotgun the minute DJ gave him the news.

DJ, like her mother, hadn't made it a secret these last few months that she'd like nothing better than to be my wife and raise my children. I knew getting knocked up less than a year and a half into her college career had NOT been the plan, but given the way I had been fully-supportive about things, she certainly wasn't arguing with the results.

Having done the math with Dr. Sims, the first day of DJ's last period had been November 12th, which meant we had likely conceived over that extended Thanksgiving weekend. The baby's due date was August 19, 2006, only three days before the start of the Fall 2006 semester. Because of that, all parties agreed that DJ was best off requesting a leave of absence for at least that fall semester, possibly to return in the spring. It would give DJ five months to bond with her child and get accustomed to the responsibilities of being a mother.

"All the Evans children get breastfed," Deanna stated emphatically, holding up her milk jugs. Jack chuckled. I blushed and averted my eyes. And DJ held up her own boobs, spacing out for a moment as she imagined what it would be like to nurse an infant.

"What about Brooke?" Jack asked. "I assume she already knows? Where will she be if you don't go back to school?"

DJ took a deep breath, explaining, "We have other friends she can move in with. We talked about that. Meli Kanemura is one of her best friends. We haven't told Meli about the pregnancy yet, but we're going to soon. Actually, we'll have to leave here in about an hour. We made plans to tell some of our closest friends at dinner tonight."

"Faye?" Deanna asked thoughtfully.

DJ nodded.

"What about your sisters? Have any of them been told?" Jack asked.

"Dawn knows. I called her last night," I replied quietly, looking at the floor. For a moment, the happy mood the parental enthusiasm had given me for the last several minutes faded beneath the crushing loss I'd felt when she hung up on me.

DJ squeezed my forearm comfortingly, and both parents watched my reaction. "I see," Deanna stated just as quietly.

"But only her," DJ said, quick to fill the awkward silence. "We still haven't told Dayna or Brandi. OR Ben's family."

"Were you planning to keep this a secret until you see them in person?"

"No," I answered. "Neither of us wants to sit on this any longer than we have to. I thought it best if we called them from here, actually."

I don't know how she did it, given that the nearest phone's recharging station was ten feet away on the kitchen counter, but though I didn't see her leave the couch, Deanna Evans miraculously produced the handset. "I'm already on it," she chirped gleefully while we heard the automatic dialing to the phone number I'd called home ever since I was ten.

Two rings later, the speakerphone on the handset announced, "Hi, Deanna."

"Hi, Beth. Guess who's sitting in my family room right now?"

"Uh, Robert Redford."

"Nope."

"Darn! I'd be so jealous if he was."

"It's Ben and DJ. And you're on speaker."

"Oh! Hi guys! What's going on?"

"Are you sitting down?"

"No. Should I be?"

"I think you should."

"Why?"

Deanna simply grinned.

An hour later, DJ slumped into the passenger seat of the Mustang with a sigh while I reached across the gearshift and patted her thigh. "You doin' okay?" I asked.

"I'm fine. Relieved, actually." She reached out and pulled the door shut.

I nodded my agreement and started the ignition. By now we had informed everyone in The Family of DJ's "condition", except for Adrienne. I'd called her cell phone, but the busy-busy supermodel hadn't picked up. I'd left her a voicemail to call me back, stressing that it was important but not urgent. It wasn't like DJ's condition would be changing in the time it would take Adrienne to call me back.

My parents had taken the news well, all things considered. They weren't as enthusiastic as Deanna Evans had been, but they'd still been supportive and offered us their congratulations. I think knowing that at least their child would have graduated by the time the baby arrived did much to assuage my parents' doubts.

Most of the first twenty minutes of that phone call were spent rehashing the same concerns Deanna and Jack, and Brooke and Kim before them, had put us through. Our answers remained more or less the same, and my mom and dad were relatively calm about everything.

The twins, on the other hand, were even more ecstatic than Deanna. They'd come home from school while we were still on the phone, and I could hear their shrieking loud and clear even though neither they nor I were within ten feet of a handset at the time. Eden even started offering up trendy B, D, and E baby names.

"You should have a Ben Junior," Emma suggested. "That would be so cool."

"Sorry, munchkin, but that's never gonna happen. I'm not so vain as to name a kid after myself."

After that, DJ called Dayna and I called Brandi. Both girls were still at work, but they apparently emailed each other or something while on the phone with us, and told us that they had both agreed to come to the Berkeley house to meet us as soon as they got off.

Last was my call to Adrienne, though she didn't pick up. DJ and I returned to the family room to find Deanna still on the phone with my mom, and it didn't look like either of them was going to hang up anytime soon. Deanna paused from the conversation long enough to hug us both, as did Jack. I called to my mom over the speakerphone that DJ and I would both see her on Sunday. And then we took our leave from the house.

I pulled out into the street, smiling as I glanced over to see my gorgeous girlfriend recline her seat back a few notches, take a deep breath, and stare back at me with a smile.

"This is really happening, isn't it?" she asked me, a look of wonder on her face.

I rubbed her leg and nodded confidently. "It really is. Now our families both know, and soon so will our friends. There's no turning back from here, and I wouldn't want to even if we could. I love you, DJ. And I'm going to love building this family with you."

"I love you too ... SO much..." Her hand squeezed mine.

I grinned and glanced back at her. "You know how they say pregnant women have a special glow? I think you've already got it."

"This glow isn't just because I'm pregnant. It's because I've got you."

"Yes, you do. Now and forever."

DJ beamed.