Angelina

I stared at the stick in my hand, still in disbelief that this was really happening. I knew my best friends were right outside the door, and that they had my back through everything, but there was something that felt so real about it now.
And I had to suck it up. Go outside with a pregnancy test in my hand. Tell them.
“Oh God,” I groaned.
“Ang?” Noelle knocked on the door again.
“I don’t—” I shook my head, even though they couldn’t see me.
“Angelina. Can we come in?” Charlotte’s soft voice came through.
I moved to the door, opening it up, still holding the cursed thing in my hand, glad none of our husbands were around to witness this. Especially mine.
Sure, I had to tell him, but… Later.
We were all gathered in Noelle’s house—we took turns for book club now—and I was really trying to keep it together.
“What’s it say?” Gabbi asked, trying to pry it from my hand.
I shook my head. “It’s wrong. I can’t be—I just can’t. Not now.”
Gabbi, the best friend who supported me through everything—including when I hated my husband—just peeled my fingers off of the pregnancy test and looked at it.
“You’re pregnant,” she confirmed, even though I had read the damn results myself.
“Yes.”
“You don’t look happy about that.” Noelle confirmed, looking at my expression. It didn’t help that I was staring at her while she was like… Stupidly pregnant. She was expecting her and Matthew’s first. A boy.
“I just… didn’t expect this so soon. I wanted to wait until I was like… thirty five.” I groaned.
But I was happy. I just hadn’t let myself get that far yet.
Gabbi rubbed my shoulders as I did my best not to tremble. I wasn’t sure I’d be a good mother. I hadn’t even been sure I wanted to have a kid yet, but now, here I was.  
Pregnant.
I hadn’t even let myself say the word out loud yet.
“I guess I have to make a doctor’s appointment,” I said.
“And…” Prompted Gabbi, like I was leaving something off.
I sighed. “And tell my husband.”
“You know he’s going to be so excited,” Charlotte added.
I laughed. “Yeah. Him and his dumb super sperm that knocked me up.”
I rubbed my temples. I’d been feeling awful lately. I had told Benjamin it was just the stomach flu, but I hadn’t been able to wait about taking a test any longer.
I was pretty sure he was going to catch on, anyway. Especially if I kept puking my guts up every day.
If he hadn’t already. The problem with marrying an insufferable, intelligent man was he always knew what was going on with me.
He knew me better than I knew myself.
“When did you tell Matthew?” I asked Noelle, worried that if I told him too soon and I lost it… He’d be devastated.
“Well…” she bit her lip. “He was there when I took the test. We were trying, you know.” She rubbed her belly.
“Hey.” Gabbi stepped in front of me, holding my face in her hands. “This baby is going to be so loved. You know that, right? It’ll have all it’s aunts and uncles,” she smiled, and I still couldn’t believe she was married to my brother-in-law now. We were practically sisters. Though, we all were like sisters. A dozen years of friendship would do that for you. “And cousins.” She looked at Charlotte, who was holding baby Abigail, who was already almost one, on her hip.
“I know,” I groaned. “That’s not why I’m acting like this. I’m not upset, I promise.”
“What is it then?” Charlotte asked, smoothing Abigail’s dark hair down with a finger.
“He won.”
“What?” Gabbi asked.
“Benjamin. He won. And now I have to look him in the eye and tell him that he won.”
“You make it sound like getting you pregnant was some sort of bet.” I glared at Gabbi. Her face formed into a little ‘o’. “It was, wasn’t it? Oh my god, this is good. Can we be flies on the wall when you tell him? I want to see his face. Can you record it for us? Please? I would do anything to see you admit that you’ve lost.”
“You’re the worst best friend in the history of best friends.”
And I should never have made that bet with him in the first place.
“Hey!” She pouted.
“I’ll forgive you for this when you have to push a kid out of your vagina. On second thought, I’ll be reminding you of this while you’re pushing it out of there. Yeah.” I hung my head. “I guess I’m going to go home now and tell Benjamin the news.” I gave a weak smile. This was the worst.
Gabbi pulled me into her arms. “I love you, Ang.”
Sighing, I hugged her back. Tight. “I love you too, Gabs.”
Charlotte grinned. “Now go tell your man.”
I took a deep breath. I could do this.

Benjamin
“Angelina?” I flipped on the light switch, setting down my bag on the kitchen table. “Are you home?”
She’d been over with the girls for book club, and I knew that a lot of the time they ended up hanging out for a few hours or into the night.
I’d wander over to Matthew and Noelle’s house if she wasn’t home soon, or over to Daniel’s to play with my baby niece.
Angelina and I had talked about having kids for a while, and we’d been married for over two years now. I hoped I could smooth over her fears and worries. She didn’t want to leave the job she loved, and I was fully on board with stepping back a little from the company. Even if Nicolas was disappointed to lose his right-hand man, I could do more work from home. We’d gotten much more accustomed to that in the last few years.
And I already knew she’d be a fantastic mom. With how much care and compassion she had for her friends, there was no way she’d give anything less to her own children. But she needed time, too, to believe it, and that was okay.
Still, I liked our little bet. And her going off birth control practically guaranteed our chance of winning it. Because there were no real stakes.
I grinned, staring at the kitchen counter. A note.
Meet me in the backyard.
We’d started building a pool, and I couldn’t wait for late-night dips in the cool water, especially in the summer.
“Angel?” I called, opening the set of French doors that led me into the backyard. “Baby?”
She stepped out of the darkness, wrapped in a sapphire blue dress. My favorite color, second only to the shade of her sparkling eyes. “Hi.”
“Hey there.” I grinned, moving closer to her, eager to wrap my arms around her. To hold her close to me.
I sighed in relief the second she was in my arms. It was like all my stress, my tension, just flowed straight out of me.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked, pulling back so I could look at her face.
The smile unfurled, as brilliant as the sun. “I have a surprise for you.”
“Outside? In the dark?” I frowned, leaning closer to her. “The pool’s not done yet.”
Angelina laughed. “It’s not the pool. Though, that will come in handy later.” She tried to give a nonchalant shrug, but it didn’t quite work as accomplished.
I quirked an eyebrow as she pulled a hand out from behind her back, holding an object out in front of me.
“Surprise.”
It wasn’t pitch black outside, but since it was fall in Oregon, the sun had set a few hours ago. But the lights from the house flooded the backyard, and when I reached to grab it, it came into full clarity.
Positive.
“I’m pregnant.” Her eyes flooded with tears. “We’re having a baby.”
“Angelina.” I blinked away a few of my own tears. “You’re sure?”
She nodded.
“I’ve been puking my guts out for days, and I can’t keep anything down, but… I made a doctor’s appointment for next week. To confirm.” Her voice dropped low as she wrapped her arms around my neck, pressing her body into mine. “You won.”
“Nah.” I tucked the test into my pocket before wrapping my hands around her hips. “We won.”
“That we did, Mr. Sullivan.”
“Thanks for making me the happiest man alive, Mrs. Sullivan.”
I kissed her, hoping she could feel with every breath how much I loved her.
“You’ve made me the same, you know?” She murmured as I scooped her legs up, carrying her bridal style into the house, up towards our bedroom. “I never thought I could be this happy.” Angelina slid a hand over her stomach. “That I’d want this so much. But I do.”
“You’re going to be an amazing mom.”
I kissed her again, kicking in the bedroom door, before closing it behind us.
And then I proceeded to show my wife just how much I loved her, starting with peeling that dress off her body.

Angelina
“What?” I blinked. “Are you sure?”
The ultrasound technician didn’t say anything as I kept my eyes focused on the screen, staring at the two blobs.
Of course, she’s sure, Angelina, I rolled my eyes at myself. She does this for a living.
“There’s definitely two babies in there.” She pointed again at the individual sacs. “Two heartbeats.”
Twins. I looked up at Benjamin. “We’re having twins.”
His eyes were also focused on the screen. In awe, and wonder, looking at our two little blobs.
Even as we finished the appointment and sat in the car, me just staring at the ultrasound photos, it was all I could think about. The blobs. The two heartbeats. Two.
I should probably stop calling them blobs, but I was still trying to get used to the fact that I was carrying one baby, let alone two. Oh, god. I was going to be huge, wasn’t I?
I narrowed my eyes, huffing at him. “You did this to me.”
“Angelina.” His touch instantly soothed me, calmed me, as he clasped my palm. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
And it would—because we were together. Four years together, and I knew that more than anything. He was my rock. He’d bring me ice cream when I was sad and grumpy, and let me beat him in Mario Kart whenever I was down. Even when I was being dramatic, he never got irritated with me. Somehow, Benjamin always seemed to know exactly what I needed.
It was part of the reason why he was the best husband I could have ever asked for. Why I’d wanted to do life by his side.
I took a deep breath. In and out. Steeled myself. “We got this.”
He laughed. “That, we do.”
Benjamin leaned over, rubbing his hand over my stomach. You couldn’t even tell I was pregnant yet, but soon, that would be changing.
So much would be changing.
“I think we’re going to need a cover for that pool,” I murmured, looking down at the sonogram again.
Twin A and Twin B were labeled on the picture, and I couldn’t help but brush my thumb over the photo. Identical. They were sharing the same placenta, as far as the technician could tell.
“Do you have to be an overachiever at everything you do?” I asked my husband, looking up to find him smirking at me.
“Oh, definitely. Though, in this case, I think you might be the overachieving one.” He flashed his pearly white teeth at me in a grin. “The bet was only for one baby, not two.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not my fault that your sperm—”
He snorted. “It was your egg, too. Don’t pin this on me.”
We both broke out laughing.
“Twins.” I said, again, sucking in a breath. “Think we can handle two?”  

We already had two cats. What was two babies, right?
“It’s you and me,” Benjamin said. “Together, we can handle anything.” He nodded his head.
He was right, after all.
Even if I did curse him out when I delivered our twin sons seven months later.
If I had him—nothing else really mattered.