Another Life

14

I lift my head up away from Macie and Olivia playing on the floor in front of me sharply as I heard Jay fumble around loudly with the front door as he announced he was back. I furrow my eyebrows, staring in that direction waiting for him to walk past the doorway so I could ask why he was having trouble opening the front door. When he finally does appear I see he's carrying two large bags, one in each hand. Suddenly my eyes are wide and I'm standing off the couch, going over to him. "What did you do?" I ask.

He shoots me an innocent look and puts the bags down on the floor. "We may have gotten a bit carried away." He says and just then Will comes in through the front door holding two identical large bags.

Will stops just as he was passing us and turns his head to look at Jay. "Where do you want it?" He asks.

Jay points up the stairs. "In the spare room opposite ours," he replies, making Will nod before watching his brother take off up the stairs and then turning back to me and seeing my wide eyes. "It was nothing expensive, it's just I had to pick some stuff up. You're almost eighteen weeks, Hailey, and we haven't got a thing so far so I made a start. We got five boxes of diapers-"

I cut him off quickly, shaking my head trying to see if I heard the number correctly. "Five?!"

He nods. "Hails, we both know you get through a lot of diapers and we didn't have a newborn last time, Mae was three-months-old when we got her home."

I nod along with him but don't say anything else, just letting him continue.

"A couple boxes of those wipes you bought for Macie, three four-pack burp cloths and a few neutral newborn bodysuits, because we'll need a few of those apparently." He says, pointing to the bags he had been carrying that were now on the floor before over his shoulder to outside the house in the direction of Will's car.

"I thought we said we were gonna use the hundreds of neutral newborn bodysuits we bought for Macie that she never got to wear."

Jay shrugs. "I know but it can't hurt for this kid to have her own stuff." He responds, a smile appearing on his face.

I lightly tap his arm, trying to stop my own smile from growing on my face. "Will you stop saying that? We don't know yet."

This only makes his grin become wider. "Three more days." He says before leaning down to kiss me but I stop him with a nod of my head.

"I know." I mumble before standing on my toes to meet my lips against his.

It was quick and chaste but nonetheless we're ripped apart by an "Ew!" coming from behind me. We both look over my shoulder to see Olivia stood there, a grin plastered wide across her face as she tried looking away. Jay and I both rolled our eyes simultaneously.

Olivia then looks up to Will as he came back down the stairs. "Dad, they kissed!" She exclaimed.

Will looked to us as he walked past, going back out to his car to presumably lock it up or get the rest of the stuff. "Get a room, you two."

Jay shoots a glare over his own shoulder to his brother, who was now completely out of the house. "You're worse," he calls before looking back to me, grabbing the bags off the floor again, "I'll take this upstairs." He adds before starting his ascent up the stairs.

I stop him halfway up the first staircase. "You need any help?" I ask.

He thinks for a seconds before Will comes back into the house, shutting the front door closed behind him. "I think that's everything." Jay says and gets a confirmation nod from Will as his older brother passes him on the stairs, Jay following up and disappearing close after him.