Fantasy Man Pt. 09

Taped up to the wall, letters written in a huge font on printer paper spelled out, "Welcome Jess!" A dozen pastel paper streamers lined the ceiling. Someone had printed out a big picture of Jessica and Corbin from one of their social media pages, cut out in a heart shape.

Despite Corbin burying his face in his hand, Jessica laughed delightedly. They were swarmed immediately by Corbin's closest cousins and uncles, and Jessica didn't even have a chance to be introduced by Corbin before she was being hugged, her back slapped, and even whistled at by a bushy eyed man Corbin later introduced as his uncle Louis.

The party at the Block house lasted until well after eleven. There was cake, and barbequing, and horseshoes, and more cake when a late arrival showed up toting more bags of food. Jessica couldn't remember smiling so much in one night, sure at any moment Corbin would propose. Surely he would.

But still he didn't.

That night, when they fell into bed together, utterly exhausted, she rubbed her belly. "God, I can't believe how much I ate tonight. It's like I couldn't get enough of the hot dogs and horseradish. And onions." She winced. "Oh, I'm still kind of thinking about them."

"Thanks for putting up with the crazy."

"They're sweet. And your parents... oh my gosh, I love them already."

"They love you," he said, and kissed her nose. "They would have anyways. They know how happy you make me."

"Mmm." She nestled into him as he ran his hand along her hip. "Thought you might propose tonight."

"Me? Propose? Pffft. I think I'll wait until the five-year anniversary to do that."

"You better not. I want our forever right now." She opened her eyes again and looked into his. "I love you, baby."

"Love you too."

In the morning, she woke long before him, feeling a little under the weather from all the food she'd eaten the night before. But that wasn't quite it either. Lately, the last week or two, she came home utterly exhausted from school and babysitting. Probably just the worry over her last semester of her bachelor's, graduate school in the fall, and the trip to South Dakota. At least, that's what Jessica hoped it was. She didn't need a bug, not now.

Jill was up and sipping coffee at the well-loved dining room table. She looked up and smiled. "Hello! Sleep okay?"

"Oh yes, wonderfully, thank you. That was a great surprise last night."

Jill rose to her feet, going for the coffee pot. "So glad you had fun. The family loved you."

"I'm happy to hear it. I've been nervous."

"About meeting us?"

Jessica nodded, smiling. "I know I shouldn't be, but you know how it is. The first time around the parents."

"Oh, absolutely," Jill said, chuckling. "Would you like some coffee?"

"Mm. You know, maybe I'd better have tea, if you have any. My stomach's just a bit upset. I ate way too much last night."

"Oh no!" Jill exclaimed. "Poor thing. We definitely have tea... mm... somewhere."

From the back of a cupboard, Jill dug out a dusty box of tea bags and microwaved Jessica a mug of water. They sat and sipped, talking about college and plans for the week. Jill had an easy conversational way about her, and Jessica felt warm and cozy just chatting.

But several times, Jessica had to fight back the urge to yawn, and finally let loose with one that made her wince. "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. It's not you, I swear. Just been so tired the last couple weeks."

Jill smiled and patted her hand. "No offense taken, sweetie. Who knows? Feeling a little under the weather, tired... maybe you're pregnant!"

Jessica laughed that away but the thought crept in and took root. Her IUD had been reupped. It should be okay for a while yet. But they weren't one hundred percent effective, and... well... the symptoms...

No. No way.

When Corbin was up and going, he made a show of making breakfast for his parents. He was becoming a better and better cook every day, and breakfast was definitely his strongest suit. As he fried bacon and made pancakes, Jessica excused herself to go to the bathroom.

She closed the door, wishing it locked, and sat on the toilet, her hand going between her legs. She didn't need to pee, not at all, but she did need to check something. She probed herself with a grimace, feeling for the strings of the IUD.

Still there.

Why did she feel so disappointed at that?

Jessica smiled to herself. She knew exactly why. Her urge to start the rest of her life with Corbin didn't just extend to his proposal. She ached to have children with him, even though they agreed they would wait and see how grad school and his second year went. Rationally her mind thought it was a smart idea, but her heart and soul wanted his little ones. She was ready to be a mother.

Maybe she'd better get a test just to be sure.

* * *

Jessica used the queasiness as an excuse to make a run into the store and buy a pregnancy kit. She picked one up along with some antacids for show, and when she paid, she stuffed the kit deep in her purse. No sense worrying Corbin if it turned out to be a false alarm.

Which it probably was. Something like one percent of women with IUDs got pregnant.

But still... there had to be that one percent.

As for Corbin himself, he was happy, but distracted. He kept checking his phone and making more of his ninja texts. He tried his best to be sneaky about it, but Jessica was onto him. She'd been so tempted so many times to grab his phone over the last few months while he was in the shower or otherwise preoccupied, but she wanted this to be a complete surprise.

She didn't get a chance to sneak away and pee on the stick until late that night, after she and Corbin made near-silent love in his old bed. She went a little heavy on the water that night, drinking three glasses by the time dinner was done. Jill kept giving her funny looks throughout the meal, but bless the woman, she could keep a secret better than her son.

Jessica snuck out of bed and down the hallway to the bathroom. She reread the instructions on the kit three times before she took it. Her eyes closed as she counted down the seconds until she found out the truth she already knew, praying to a deity she hadn't spoken to since her aunt Cathy had to go in for breast surgery a few years back.

She cracked open an eye just far enough to look at the test. And when she stumbled out of the bathroom, mouth wide open, her eyes huge, Jill stood there in the hallway, her robe wrapped tight around her.

"Well?" she whispered. How she knew, Jessica didn't know. But she did, and Jessica was grateful for it.

Jessica laughed, and hugged her tight.

* * *

She had to schedule a trip to a clinic immediately. Jill took her in the morning before Corbin was awake. Jessica left him a note that she'd been sick that morning and they were going to get something a little stronger for it. He would worry, of course, but there was nothing for it.

The blood test results wouldn't come back for a few hours, but the doctor tending to her agreed either way it was best to get the IUD removed just in case. She warned Jessica about the risks to the baby's health due to the IUD. It was scary stuff, but Jessica held onto hope. They removed the IUD there, and the doctor ran over some basics in case Jessica really was pregnant. Before she left, Jessica couldn't help giving the other woman a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, trying not to cry.

Corbin sat outside on his parents' front steps when Jill and Jessica pulled back in. He rose to his feet and shot to the car, looking frantically worried. "Are you okay?" he asked Jessica as he held the door open for her.

"They're running some tests," she said, choosing her words carefully. "But... yes. Yes,"

"We can reschedule the trip to the zoo and the aquarium," he said. "We'll have a nice, quiet time here, and-"

Jessica couldn't take it anymore. If he kept talking she was going to blurt the truth out. So instead, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. There had been a few kisses in their life she would remember forever - their first one in his dorm. The kiss in the park she laid on him when he told her he didn't want to be just friends anymore. But this one topped all of them. She laughed through it. She cried. And their lips, together, made the silent, solemn promise that everything would work out, one way or another.

* * *

Time.

It pulsed through Corbin. Everything was set, all the preparations done. All that was going to happen was going to happen. There was no stopping it now.

He felt like they were crawling through the aquarium. He held Jessica's hand as they wandered through the cool blues and swirls of fish. She got a call not all that far from the food court and asked him to get her an ice cream while she talked to the doctor about her clinic test. He worried about that, of course, but he was too distracted by his own plans to disagree.

The zoo next, and they were close, so close. The rise of the hill at the middle of the park, the one that looked out over the city's gorgeous garden park and the zoo and all the beauty Oleander had to offer, that was where he was slowly leading her, where his heart both sang to and feared. He'd been so certain until that day Jessica would say yes, but now his mind poisoned the well, told him all his faults, all the reasons she'd be crazy to want to marry him.

They meandered by the bears, and she jostled his arm, grinning up at him and teasing him about how hairy he was when they first met. Corbin grinned back, but it was a plastic gesture. His Jessica Nakamura, the most beautiful woman in the world, the light that molded him into this man he never expected to become.

The love of his life.

"What?" she asked, her grin widening.

"You've never been more beautiful than right now," he said quietly.

Her smile didn't disappear. Instead, she leaned up and kissed him. Her lips tasted like chapstick and he ached to stay there forever, the two of them, always and forever.

And then he saw his uncle Louis in the background waving.

Corbin groaned.

"What?" Jessica asked.

"Nothing. Come on. To the monkey house."

Jessica roped her arm through his, her smile knowing and beautiful. They visited the monkeys, passing by a tall, thin young man with a big goofy grin on his face.

"Go get her, man!" the guy said.

Corbin gritted his teeth and grinned as he whisked Jessica away. "Who was that?" she asked.

"My cousin Bob."

"Your... cousin?"

"Yuuuup. And my uncle Louis was back with the bears."

"Your family's here? Why aren't they...?" She looked up at him sharply, her eyes widening. "It's here, isn't it?" she asked. "You're... you're going to..."

"Don't know what you're talking about," Corbin said. The nerves should have grown worse. Instead, the sight of another distant relative, this one by two marriages, made him laugh helplessly. He told this plan to his parents and one cousin, a professional photographer, and begged them not to say anything. Of course they had anyways.

Everyone. They were all here. All his family.

His laughter deepened, took him over. Jessica joined in, and soon they walked, ignoring the other animals for the moment, up an incline, steadily past more and more of Corbin's family. Some of them tried to be discreet. Some of them whispered, "Good luck!" or "You got this!" Some of them were already three sheets to the wind and hollered, "Go get her, Corb!" An aunt pressed flowers towards them until her husband whispered, "They're going to need their hands."

And soon, he and Jessica were running.

They whirled past more of his family. Phones were out, pictures taken. They were both still laughing in all of them. To the top of the hill they went, to the big bridge over a man-made stream running through the heart of the zoo. And Jessica looked out over the lovely city gardens and the zoo and she gasped, because it was perfect, but it was always going to be. It didn't matter if it happened here or Agramonte or at home with her family - who were, impossibly, standing just yards away with the Blocks, watching, smiling, her mother crying happy tears, her brother cheering them on.

But all of that was in the background. All of that was unimportant, at least for the moment.

All that mattered to Jessica was the man pulling out the box beside her.

"They helped me pick it out, your dad and brother," Corbin said, grinning. "I asked them for their blessing after Thanksgiving. I told them I was going to ask regardless, but I wanted them to be okay with it. Flying them in, that was my parents' idea. I loved it. I thought you would too."

"Corbin..." Jessica whispered, crying so hard she could barely get his name out.

He knelt, and opened the box. The ring was beautiful and elegant, the band slim, like a knotted rope. A small diamond gleamed in the center, and Jessica's hand rose to her heart.

"You've changed my life, Jessica," Corbin said, his smile slowly disappearing. "You made a man out of a boy. You showed me who and what I want out of life, and that's you. That's always you. I'm asking you, please, be my forever. Will you marry me?"

"Yes," Jessica whispered, nodding, crying.

Corbin took her hand, and slowly slipped the ring on to the wild cheers of his family - and hers.

Jessica stopped Corbin from rising with a hand on his shoulder. "Corbin... I have a question to ask you too."

"What is it?" he asked, staring up at her.

"What if I told you it's not just me you're going to be coming home to in about seven months?"

"What?" he asked. There were murmurs now. No one could quite hear their conversation, and people were growing concerned.

"Stand up and give me your hands," Jessica said. He did, and she took them in her own, bringing them to her stomach. "Corbin. I'm pregnant."

* * *

Back home. Agramonte.

Jessica couldn't quit staring at the ring on her finger. She didn't think Corbin's grin had escaped him for more than a few minutes at a time. They were both worried about the future, true, but they were so excited too. Every now and again, she'd catch him mouthing, "A dad," to himself, and his grin would widen.

They had so much preparation to do, so much planning. They were going to be married in July, a nice church wedding in Agramonte. Corbin already knew he wanted Sam to be his best man and Jessica's brother Andrew to stand with him as a groomsman. Brooke and Sasha would be among Jessica's bridesmaids, she decided, but for her matron of honor, Jessica had an odd idea, something she candidly talked about with Corbin.

The asking was wrecking her nerves, but he told her he thought it was a beautiful idea, a way to help heal the last of her scars. She hoped so.

God, how she loved Corbin.

They had one more day off before they had to return to school, so Jessica planned to use it in the asking. She and Corbin sat together at the dining room table, a cup of herbal tea in front of her, coffee for him. He held her hand.

"If she says no," Jessica said, "I'll ask Brooke, I think."

"She won't."

"Corbin, she has every right to hate me."

"She won't," he repeated.

Finally she could put it off no longer. Jessica checked the time and breathed deep. Now or never. She called.

And Morgan was home.

* * *

So many memories flooded through Jessica as she parked in Lionel and Morgan's driveway. So much pain and so much sweetness. So much debauchery, but so much good too.

And of course, there was sweet Isaac.

He looked out the living room window, and just as quick as his face appeared, it disappeared. Jessica got out of her car, chuckling softly to herself, already on the verge of tears. The boy sot out the door like a tiny tornado. Still small for his age, though he was getting pretty athletic.

"Jessica!" Isaac yelled.

He collided into her with a big hug. She clutched him tight, the tears flowing.

"Hey Isaac," she said. "It's so good to see you."

He nodded. "I was so happy when Mom said you were coming."

"I was happy you were here."

He led her inside, chattering away about his latest babysitter. "I like her," he said. "But she's not as good at Fortnite as you."

"Speaking of," Jessica said, "My fiancé and I bought a new console so he could play games with his friends. I'm going to have to get you my user name and we can play sometimes."

"Okay! But you said fiancé. Are you getting married?"

"Yes, this summer." Jessica wanted to ask Isaac to be their ring bearer, but not until after she'd talked this over with Morgan, and preferably Lionel too. If it was too awkward, she didn't want to break the child's heart - or have hers broken, too. "If you meet him, you'll like him. Corbin loves video games and action figures."

"Sweeeeet!" Isaac said.

The house definitely felt more lived in, now that Morgan, Sarah, and Yvonne had babies. Playpens, baby toys, and plush animals touched upon every corner of the house, and Jess smiled to see it. Before she met Corbin, the sight would have angered her, driven her to jealous spikes of irritation that this wasn't her life. Now she was happy for her friends and former lovers. Things had worked out for them too.

"Hey, Jessica," Morgan said, coming out of one of the first-floor rooms. She held a toddler in her arms, his pink lips making a big O as he stared all around. Morgan was a down-to-Earth beauty, strong jawed with gorgeous, piercing eyes and reddish-brown hair that looked far wilder than Jessica ever remembered seeing. Her long, loose shirt fell over her baby bump. Already on to their second child together. Morgan smiled, and it warmed Jessica to her toes.

"Hey, Morgan. Thank you for having me."

"Of course. We just got done with a changing, so you missed the fun part."

Jessica laughed. "I'm... actually going to have to do that here this winter myself."

"You're pregnant?"

"Yes. We just found out this last week."

Morgan came to her and gave her a one-armed hug that felt as loving as it could have with two. "I'm so very happy for you. You'll make a great mother."

Isaac looked up at them both. "Oh man, so many babies," he said, sounding exhausted. Jessica laughed at that.

"Lionel?" Jessica asked.

"Got called in on an emergency. That sounds like a line, but it's the truth. He'll be home as fast as he can." Morgan focused on Isaac. "And on that note, can you run on to Sarah's house, honey? She's got breakfast waiting for you. Just give Jessica and I an hour or two. We have things we need to talk about."

"Okay." But Isaac hesitated. "Jessie... are we going to see you again?"

"I really hope so, Isaac."

"Okay," he said. "I missed you."

"I missed you too."

He hurried on his shoes and headed out. Jessica and Morgan watched him, amused, until the door shut. Morgan gestured towards the living room, and they took up a pair of chairs.

Morgan started. "The truth is, Lionel didn't want to put you in a position where you had to be in a room with him. He says you've bumped into each other a few times and things have been kind of awkward. But if you were serious about wanting to talk to him too, he's grabbing coffee."

"It would be nice to talk to him too if it's not too awkward for you..."

"No," Morgan said. "it wouldn't be." She texted Lionel, and he sent her back a message saying he was on his way soon.

"Morgan, I'm sorry," Jessica said, her voice low, her head dipping. "My God, I'm sorry. I was... I was horrible."

Morgan drew a deep breath, and slowly let it out. "You were in love."

"That's no excuse. You and Lionel, that's always been a special thing. I tried to come between that. Between all of you and him. I shamed myself and I want you to know I'm not that person anymore."

"Tell me."

Jessica did. She started with the party after Lionel cut things off with her when she asked him to marry her instead of Morgan. About Kenny Kilton trying to get handsy with her and rape her at the party. About Corbin defending her in his quiet way. About sleeping with him the next day, and her plan to make him the campus's biggest stud - the Lionel 2.0, she called him, to Morgan's amusement.