I let myself into Austin’s house with the key he had given me. I slipped my shoes off by the door, dropped my purse off on the counter, and headed for the living room. He was sprawled out on the sofa fast asleep, with a copy of What to Expect When Your Expecting open on his chest, The Lion King was still playing on the TV.

“What the hell are you doing?” I giggled as I found a place to sit near his legs.

He awoke slowly, smiling when he realized I was here, and stretching his arms over his head.

“How long were you sleeping?” I asked taking some chips out of the bag that was on the coffee table and popping them into my mouth.

“Couple hours…” He mumbled, his voice groggy with sleep. “How was your week?”

“It was fine. I worked a lot.” I said with a sigh, idly playing with my ponytail. “How was yours?”

“Fine, we got another two demos recorded. I finally got to do vocals on one.” He said swinging his legs over me and jumping up off the couch. He made his way towards the bathroom, leaving the door open while he peed so he could continue to talk to me. “You’re going to love one of them. This whole album is just going to be amazing.”

He sauntered out of the bathroom and I looked him up and down as he rebuttoned his pants.

“We’re way too comfortable with each other…” I said making him laugh. “Where’d you get this?”

I pointed to the book which he had placed on the coffee table when he got up.

“The book store.” He said looking a bit embarrassed. His hand rose up to rub the back of his neck. “I thought it would have good information in it!”

“Well just don’t leave it lying around. If one of your friends sees it we’re screwed!” I said leaning back on the couch and watching the movie.

He went to the kitchen and started bustling around. “Rae, you hungry?”

“I could eat!” I yelled back.

I continued to munch on the chips and watch the movie. The last time I had seen him had been exactly a week ago when we had gone to the doctors together. He had asked me to come over tonight so we could start working some things out, like where our relationship stood. Were we back together? Or were we just friends having a baby together? Were we going to jump back into things or take them slow? When do we tell our friends we’re back on speaking terms and then when do we tell them about the baby? I was pretty certain I wanted to wait a few more weeks before we told anyone about the baby. God forbid anything happened.

“Here, babe…” He said placing a peanut butter and jelly on the table in front of me. “Sorry, I need to go shopping…” He explained sheepishly.

“I could go for you.” I said taking a bite.

“Really?”

“Yeah, make me a list. I love shopping. I have tomorrow off. Is this even chunky peanut butter?”

“No, I’m sorry.” He laughed.

“I thought we bonded over our shared love for chunky peanut butter?” I said pouting.

“We did! I just don’t have any right now!”

“So, Carlile…” I said a moment later as I finished my sandwich and got comfy on the couch.

“Yes?”

“We have things to discuss…”

“We do…” He said sinking back into the cushions next to me. “Tell me your thoughts.”

“Okay…” I said sighing, knowing everything was going to have to spill out of my mouth at once in order for me to get any point across. “We both obviously love each other but I think we have a lot of things to work on before we can jump back into a relationship.”

“Rae, we’ll be fine. We’ll just put the label on it and fix things as they come up.”

“Austin, no.” I said shaking my head.

“Why?”

“Because, we did that every other time and we’ve broken up every other time. I’m done breaking u-“

“So then stop breaking up with me…” He said rolling his eyes.

“Are you going to be mature about this?”

“Rae, I just want you back. That’s all I want.”

“Then hear me the fuck out for ten seconds, Austin. Or I swear to god I will walk out that front door and never speak to you again.”

He looked everywhere but at me for a moment before sighing, “Okay…”

“Okay…I love you Austin, I do. But I’m so done with getting in a huge argument and breaking up. I don’t think we should jump back into things. I think we should take them slowly, work on our issues, and when it’s right we’ll get back together.”

“So you’re not going to spend the night or anything?”

“No one said anything about spending the night? What are you even talking about?”

“I just want things to go back to normal. That’s all I want.”

“Austin, there never was a normal for us. From the very beginning we’ve been all kinds of fucked up.”

He sighed and didn’t say anything.

“Look, I’m not trying to be an asshole or say that I don’t want to be with you because that’s not the case at all, I do want to be with you, more than anything in the world.” His eyes slowly turned to face mine. “But I’m not just thinking about you and I. I’m thinking about our future and our baby. And we can’t be breaking up and getting back together when we have a kid.”

“I understand that…”

“So do you agree with me?” I asked watching him run things through his mind.

“Yes…” He said lolling his head to look at me with a smile. He reached his hand out and held my hand giving it a light squeeze. “When can we tell people?”

“About us?”

“No, about little nug.”

“Little nug?” I said laughing.

“Yeah.”

“Well I’d like to get a few more weeks along. And then we should tell your dad before we tell anyone else.” And then I nervously asked. “When do we tell the press and the fans?”

“Maybe we won’t…maybe we’ll just let them figure it out on their own.” He shrugged.

“I just hope no one goes crazy over it…” I said curling up next to him and placing my head in the nook of his arm.

“I know, babe. Don’t worry though. We’ll figure it out.”