Bonus scene

Rory

“Because one of them is pregnant,” Chev snaps before he storms from the room. JD looks over at the guys, most specifically Maximus, and a frown pulls at her lips. The guys have all done so well the last twelve months away from home. Being away in a way has given us a chance to live our lives. They were not the kids that had traumatic pasts, and I wasn't the rich kid whose parents throw money at him instead of showing him love. We are family; we love each other, and we can get through anything.

But we’re back to reality in a way, and now to them this is a huge deal. I know kids are a trigger for them.

Maximus looks like he is about to pass out, Levi watches him and waits for the blow out. Mercer runs his hand over his head, trying to process what just happened, and Rocky is just being Rocky and looking around the room, waiting for his brain to catch up.

I pull JD into my side.

Chloe runs from the room and her guys follow. We all decide that for now we need to head back downstairs to our family and friends. We can talk about this after everyone leaves. It gives everyone a chance to process and digest the possibility of being parents. Shit, I don’t even know how I feel about it. We are still so young and everyone is about to start Uni, and I have a clothing line and the track to focus on. How will a baby fit into our busy life, and not even that. Do we really want to bring a child into this world with our dynamic? All I know right now is whatever JD decides, I’ll support her, and I really hope that the others feel the same way.

Three hours later, everyone has finally left. Rocky’s parents insisted on staying behind to help clean, and I for one am thankful. I have never had to clean up after myself, and the last twelve months has sucked. Learning how to do my own laundry and cleaning up after myself. Rocky wouldn’t let us use plastic plates and cutlery because it’s not good for the damn turtles or some shit.

Rocky and JD walk his parents out as Mercer comes downstairs with his gym bag slung over his shoulder. I open my mouth to ask why he is leaving, but I think better of it. He needs to process this in his own way, just like everyone else will. Maximus vanished hours ago, and Levi had his ball in his hands the last time that I saw him.

JD walks back into the living room and wraps her arms around me. “Where’s Rocky?”

“He went for a run, he said he ate too much sugar, but I think he just wanted to clear his head.”

She isn’t wrong, everyone has reverted back to their past selves and their coping mechanisms and not even taken JD into consideration.

“How are you feeling about everything?” I ask her.

“Like I have majorly screwed everything up.”

“Don’t even think like that, you know how we all are when we’re hit with something big.”

“I’m surprised that you haven’t lashed out or run away.”

I pull her back and look down at her. “I have learned a lot in the past year and losing you isn’t an option. Whatever hurdles we’re thrown, we will deal with them together.”

“Have I told you today how much I love you?” She presses up on her toes, placing a kiss on my lips.

I pull back and smirk at her. “No, but I love hearing it. No matter what the outcome is, you will always have me by your side, we will figure it out together.”

Mercer

Sweat drips through my training singlet, and my hands have long stopped aching and have gone numb. Pregnant. What the hell would I know about raising a child? My dads are amazing, but before them, I had no role model. What if I’m a shit father? I barely have my anger under control at the best of times.

My first instinct was to run when I know I should be comforting JD, I know this wasn’t something she intentionally did. I wipe the sweat from my face with my gym towel and decide to head upstairs to shower.

I take the emergency stairs, prolonging the inevitable. Someone will pull me up for my shitty behaviour.

Walking into the apartment level, it’s quiet. I head to my room and throw all my shit on the floor and pull my singlet over my head, then grab my clean towel. I head into the bathroom, flicking on the light.

I strip the rest of my clothes off and dump them in the dirty wash basket, a habit my dad drilled into me. Carson would have kittens if he thought I didn’t still use one, and I guess it just stuck.

The amazing thing about this shower is that you can adjust the heat and water pressure with the buttons on the shower wall. I turn the water on and leave it at the preset on thirty seven degrees. I close my eyes and tilt my head under the stream of water. I want to be a good man for JD, I really do, but what if she decides she can’t deal with us and our trauma and raise a child. Would she even want us around a baby, and if she isn’t pregnant, does she want kids? Because I don’t know if I would ever purposefully have any. I always thought that maybe one day when I was a lot older that I could possibly adopt a teenager, someone the system has given up on. I couldn’t possibly screw up a teenager, but a baby is a whole different ball game. Mumma B would always say a baby's first five years are the most important in their life, it’s no wonder I’m so screwed up. I don’t have any memories from that young, and my therapist says that’s normal for kids like me that come from abusive households, we block out memories.

“Are you okay?” JD asks, snapping me from my thoughts. I look up to see her naked, stepping into the shower.

“I will be, I promise. I just need to sort out my head.” I say, taking her hand and pulling her to my body.

“I don’t want to lose you,” she whispers.

“You would never lose me, you’re stuck with me as long as you will have me. I’m just afraid that we will be too much work for you and that you wouldn’t want a baby around us.”

“Mercer Cole,” she chastises. “None of you are too much work, and you five would be the only people I trust with my life and our child if I’m pregnant. None of you are anything like your biological parents in any way, shape or form. You are the most loving, caring, and supportive men I have ever met in my life. You would all make amazing fathers.”

“You think?” I ask, needing the reassurance of her words.

“I don’t think, I know.”

I beam at her words. Could I be a good dad? I know my dads would make amazing grandfathers, and God help us all if we have a little girl. Carson would never leave. I laugh at myself, and JD’s brows dip.

“I was just thinking about Carson as a grandfather.”

“Don’t let him hear you call him a grandfather, he would wash your mouth out with soap. He would want to be called Glampa.”

We both laugh and give our parents names they would want to call themselves. Maybe JD being pregnant wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Levi

The house is quiet after I finish shooting hoops. I’m not sure where everyone is and feel like a dick for walking out the way I did. I just needed to clear my damn head. Am I ready to be a father? Fuck no, but it doesn’t freak me out or send me into a melt down like some of the others. I just don’t know how the others will cope and that scares me. We have spent years working through their PTSD and the last year has been almost perfect, but those six damn words instantly sent them back to their childhoods, memories of abuse in all forms resurfacing, and I don’t know what that would mean for a baby genetically. Emotionally could they handle it and questioning my best friend’s ability to be parents fucking sucks.

I know I will have to speak to my therapist about this. Will I harbour resentment towards them if we stay with JD and never have children? I know her, if her test is negative and they tell her they don’t want kids, she wouldn’t bring it up again. She would do what makes them happy at the expense of herself, and I know that because I do the same thing.

I feel guilty because when I heard Chev say that one of the girls was pregnant the first thought that ran through my brain was excitement at the thought of being a dad, but when I saw Maximus go ghost white, it all faded away like fog. Poof, just like that reality set in, and now I’m a mixed bag of emotions.

I sit my ball by the door and go into the kitchen and get myself a bottle of water. When I turn back around, JD is leaning against the kitchen island, staring at me. She is so damn good at reading us, it’s like she gets in my head and hears my thoughts as I do.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey, where is everyone?”

“Mercer and Rory are setting up a movie in the theatre room, Maximus is still locked in his room, and Rocky isn’t back from his run yet. Did you want to watch a movie with us?”

“Can we talk first?”

“We don’t need to. I know this isn’t what you guys ever wanted, and I feel stupid for not realising about the pill. I’m going to make an appointment to see a doctor and get something more permanent.”

“Hey, that isn’t it,” I say, stepping up to her. I lift her at the waist and place her on the bench. She opens her legs, and I step between them.

“Can I tell you a secret?” I ask.

“You know you can tell me anything.”

“I was excited at the thought of being a dad.”

Her eyes go round in surprise. “You were?”

I nod. “But then I saw Maximus and that all came crashing down. Could they handle a baby? What would that mean for their mental health after everything we have done to get this far, and is that something we would want around a baby?”

She leans her forehead against mine. “We would make it work, look at everything they have overcome. A baby is someone else we could love, and I know that you would all love a child and give it everything in life.”

“I know that you’re right. But a baby, we’re just kids and the lack of sex.”

She giggles and sits up, slapping my chest. “Levi.”

“What, we’re getting really good at it, and what if a baby never sleeps and we forget how it’s done.”

“Six parents means lots of hands, there would be plenty of time for sex.”

“Thank god,” I joke. “Because I really like having sex with you.”

“I’m glad,” she says. “Because I really like having sex with you.”

Maximus

A baby, I can’t be a father. I never wanted to bring a child into this world. What if something were to ever happen? I couldn’t save my sister; I was weak then, and I’m still weak now. I barely have a grip on my own life. I can’t speak to my parents, my sister or anyone outside of this house. No matter how hard I try to overcome it, my throat seizes and I recoil into that timid scared little boy.

What if I couldn’t talk to my child? I endured so much emotional, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of the very people who should have loved me more than anything in the world. They failed me. I can’t risk failing an innocent baby, they don’t deserve the horrors of this world.

My gut sinks, and bile sits low in my throat. Would JD leave me if I told her that I can’t be a dad? I couldn’t live without her and to deny the woman I love the chance to be an amazing mother. The thought alone makes me sick. The war in my head blasts at full speed, torn between how this will play out. The last thing I want to do is hurt her, she has been my saving grace having her close. She is the light of my life. The guys are my strength, but she is my world.

Michael Bublé plays through my headphones, it soothes me knowing that JD listens to this playlist when she needs to process what’s happening around her.

JD: Are you okay?

Me: Not really.

JD: Just know that I love you.

Me: I love you more than life.

This is why I love this woman more than life. She knows when I need her, she gives me the right amount of space and will text me, and she knows that if I can’t communicate to leave me be. A knock at the door has me spinning around on my chair, and she pops her head in. She doesn’t speak to me, she allows me the time to get my thoughts to catch up to my brain and speak them to her. It’s gone from small clipped sentences to easy banter between us. It’s not as often as I would like, but I have been working on it.

She walks over to me and sits on my lap and curls herself into a ball. I wrap my arms around her and inhale her. She always smells like home now. In such a small amount of time she has become the calm to the storm in my head. I know Levi has spent the last year working on how he feels about that, for years it was always him, and there are still times that I need him.

“I’m scared,” I whisper against her shoulder, placing a kiss on her skin.

“I think that's a natural response for anyone in our situation. I know that you guys have a past, but we are also teenagers. Our twenties were supposed to be fun, loving each other, going to school and that one moment changed everything. It’s a lot to unpack.”

I nod as she talks. She looks up at me with her beautiful blue eyes. “You’re not your past, Maximus, you are sweet and funny and loyal. One of the best men I know. You have had so much shit thrown at you, but everyday, you get stronger. If I am pregnant, you have us, and we will do what we always do, we figure it out with lots of therapy and leaning on each other to grow and heal.”

I spin us around and grab my phone, unable to form the words I need to say.

Me: Are we horrible people bringing a baby into a world so broken?

“No, because our baby would be surrounded by so many people who will love it unconditionally. We would show them all the good in this world, a world that brought us all together. Sometimes I wonder if the bad has a place, I never would have met you if my past never happened. And I know my situation is different to yours, and I would never wish that on anyone. I would give all this up in a heartbeat to change your story.”

I haven’t been able to tell her verbally what I went through, but I did write it all down. I had never done it before, not wanting to see all the trauma on the page, but it was a relief to share it with her. I wanted her to know everything about me, the good, the bad, and the ugly. At first I was afraid that she would look at me differently and decide I was too broken.

“I wouldn’t take it back. Not if it meant losing you.”

Rocky

I have always wondered if I would have kids or not. On one hand, my childhood sucked until I was sent to Mumma B’s, but from then on, I couldn’t have asked for a better life. I have had all the love and support for everyone around me.

I know I would make an awesome father, I would be the fun dad, I have enough energy to go around, hell I run circles around kids. I do worry that we are so young. We have so many plans, and JD wouldn’t let us give up our dreams, she would sacrifice her own to make us happy. How would that look ten years from now, would she resent us? I couldn’t imagine a life where she hated me. I want to be her little spoon for life.

I race back to the house to tell her that I’m all in, and first thing Monday morning, I will call the university and tell them I need to switch to part time. That will make JD happy that I’m still going to university, but that I plan to stick around and help her. But would she be happy? Maybe she won’t want my energy around so much when she has the baby. She would be tired, and she gets really cranky when she doesn’t get a solid eight. Shit, maybe I need to give this more thought, I always jump in head first without talking it through because in my mind, it always sounds good until the words leave my mouth.

Not watching where I’m going, I barrel into someone, a flash of blonde hair falling to the ground has me in a panic.

“Shit, watch what you’re doing, you dick.”

I look down and offer the woman my hand, but she slaps it away. “I’m a strong independent woman and don’t need your help to use my legs. I think you need help using yours right.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling incredibly guilty for not watching where I was going. Before I know it, the woman gets to her feet. She is five foot nothing, and I have to kink my neck to look down at her.

“I’m just pulling your leg,” she says, offering me her hand. “The name is Ella.”

I look down at her, and her shirt makes me snort. It says, Duct tape can’t fix stupid, but it can muffle the sound.

I love her already. Before I know it, she has invited me in for coffee, and I have told her my life story, and I don’t even know how we got there, but I leave when Levi texts me.

When I get upstairs, I find everyone in the theatre room. They all turn to look at me

“I ran into some weird short chick in unicorn slippers, and you think I can talk. I think I met my match. She asked me what was wrong and wouldn’t take nothing as an answer, and next thing I know, I have practically told her my whole life story. I don’t even know how it happened. It was like some voodoo magic.”

“Get to the point, Rocky.”

“Oh, right, well she gave me this,” he says, holding up a pregnancy test.

“I guess we need to know one way or another,” JD says, standing from Maximus’s lap. She takes the test, and we all get to our feet and follow her to the bathroom. All five of us stand outside the door and wait. Once she is done, she hands the test to me, and Levi starts a timer. It’s the longest three minutes of my life. This one moment could change everything.

The buzzer goes off and everyone waits. I flip the test over, and everyone looks.

One line.

My heart sinks, and when I look at everyone, I think they just had the exact same reaction. This was something no one really wanted, but now it’s opened us up for the future.

A single tear rolls down JD’s cheek, and she quickly wipes it away. “I guess that’s it then.”

“Oh hell no, it’s not,” Mercer says, picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder. “This just means we have more time to practice. With a slap to the ass, JD shrieks and simultaneously laughs.

This is what it means to be family, to love and support each other, and I really do like that idea of practice, lots and lots of practice.

Because as my dad always says. Practice makes perfect.