Collision Course

A strange buzzing noise interrupted our shower.

“Shit, it’s probably Grif. Maybe he decided to call instead of skype.” I said as I jumped out of the shower and quickly pulled a towel across myself. My phone was still buzzing when I found it on the floor in the living room.

“Hello?” I answered without looking at the caller id.

“Allie!” An overly energetic Irish accent assaulted my eardrum.

“Niall, how did you get this number?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about it. Hey, listen, I want to have everyone over for dinner tonight so plan on being at my apartment in a few hours.” He said.

“Do you want me to bring anything?” I asked, full well knowing he would say he was handling everything.

“Your beautiful self, and if you have to, Liam and come too,” Niall replied. I laughed out loud.

“I’ll tell him.” Niall hung up the phone before we said anything else, clearly excited about his dinner.

Meandering, I wound my way around the living room, picking up all of the clothing items we had left strewn around the place. Once back in the bathroom, I placed them all in the laundry hamper, realizing that this was the first time I was leaving my clothes at Liam’s house.

“Was this Grif?” Liam hollered from the other side of the shower curtain.

“No, it was Niall. We are all going to his house for dinner tonight.” I said. “But we need to hurry up. Grif should be calling in ten minutes.”

Ten minutes when by fast, but they felt like an eternity at the same time. I knew that Allie was anxious to tell her brother what was going on, but at the same time I was dreading it. I had yet really had the chance to get to know Grif or meat him. Already, I could tell that he was extremely protective of his sister and that Allie meant the world to him. The idea of telling him that I had gotten his sister pregnant was a bit hard to grasp. Yet, I knew that it was more than that, we had unconsciously decided to start a family and now that it had happened, we were both thrilled about it. We sat together on the couch, the very couch on which we had just ravished each other, waiting for Grif to appear on Skype.

Do, Do, Doop. Grif’s screen name appeared on the computer. “You ready, Allie?” I asked, arm around her shoulders and holding her close.

“Yeah!” She answered excitedly.

Ring, ring, ring! The skype call came over the speakers. Without a moment’s hesitation, Allie answered the call. “GRIF!!”

“Allie! Oh, it is so good to see your smiling face.” Grif said from half way across the world yet sitting in my lap at the same time. He was wearing his pajamas and sitting at his table, cup of coffee in hand.

“I miss you!” Allie exclaimed and I could see how hard it was being away from him written all over her face.

“You say the word and I am there, sis. You know I would do anything for you!” Grif said. “But, what was so important that you wanted to skype at seven in the morning?”

Allie, though trying to hide it, began to tremble. “We need to talk.” She said quite seriously.

“I don’t like the sound of that.” He murmured into his mug of steaming coffee.

“Grif.” I finally said, talking for the first time. “This might not be what you want to hear from us, but we do need to talk to you. And what we have to say might be a little sensitive, so please let us get through it before you say anything. Okay?”

“I really don’t like the sound of this, but for you, Allie, anything.” Grif said, this time putting down the coffee and looking seriously into his computer monitor.

“It is not for sure yet, but I am almost certain.” Allie began but became stuck on her words.

“What Allie is trying to say is that you are going to be an uncle. Allie and me were careful, but it appears not careful enough. So she is pregnant and we are going to be parents.” How else could I say it. The time I had planned on talking to Allie about what we were going to say to people ended up with our hands all over each other.

“Allie, look at me. Is it true?” He was various serious.

“Yes, Grif, I am pregnant.” Allie said. She took my hand and looked over at me, a big grin on her face, “We are pregnant.”

An eternity passed as Grif’s face slowly morphed into a mask of pure excitement. “That is great!” He exclaimed, looking excited. “I am going to be an uncle! That is amazing! How far along are you? When should I come out to see you? Do you want me there for the birth? Are you going to have the kid in England?” His questions became overwhelming. He asked them all in one breath, too eager to ask them.

“Slow down, Grif!” She said. “So this means you are not mad?”

“Mad, are you kidding me?” Grif asked. “Look, I have not seen you this happy in a long time, and I don’t mean just about being pregnant. I mean I have not seen or heard you this excited ever. Liam, you are clearly good for her, and if it is meant to be then it is meant to be. Who am I to scold you or tell you that what is happening is not good?” He said, mellowing all the fears that had been bubbling to the surface all day.

“Grif?” A faint voice murmured from the background. He swung around to see who was there.

“Come here Cait. I think Allie will want to see you.” Grif said.

Behind him, a short, blond beauty appeared. Wearing a nightdress and still waking up, Grif’s fiancée appeared. When she heard it was Allie on the computer, she sped up her walk and sat down on Grif’s lap.

“Oh my Gosh, Allie, it is so good to see you! We miss you over here!” She said, all of a sudden awake.

“Caitlin, let me see the ring.” She said and Caitlin obliged, holding up her hand to the webcam. “Oh my, I must say, my brother does have good taste.”

“I will agree with you there.” Caitlin said as she kissed Grif. “But enough about me, what about you? Here you are, only the second time I have talked to you in a few months, and you are sitting in London with a ridiculously good looking man.”

Laughing, I said, “Nice to meet you. I am Liam, Allie’s boyfriend.”

“Of curse you are.” Caitlin replied, looking at me like a piece of meat.

“Enough already, stop talking about trivial things like that. Allie has some really great news.” Grif said, interrupting Caitlin’s eye assault.

“Oh, I love good news.” She said.

“I pregnant.” Allie blurted out!

As much as I love my brother, I was enjoying being thousands of miles away from him and Caitlin. I had known Caitlin for longer then my brother had, in fact, I had introduced them. Caitlin was a great girl, I enjoyed hanging out with her since she was such a girly girl and allowed me to be pampered. However, she was very much self-absorbed. She always talked, and much of the time it was about herself.

After the skype call, I had called Meg to let her know about my weekend, but more importantly to ask her if she wanted to come to dinner with Liam and me tonight. I conveniently left out the part that said dinner would be with all of the members of One Direction, in one of their homes no less.

The waiting game was always hard for me. Liam had gone out grocery shopping while I called Meg, leaving me to wait for him and for the dinner. As soon as he came home, I figured we should talk about our game plan.

“So,” I said, sitting at the barstools in his kitchen.

“So what?” He asked, opening the refrigerator and replacing the vegetables in the veggie drawer.

“What are we going to do tonight? Is it time to tell everyone, or should we wait?” I began. “I mean, it is early on and we are not even a hundred percent sure that I am pregnant.” I said.

“Do you think you are pregnant?” He asked.

“My gut tells me that I am. I mean, what else could explain my extreme tiredness, my nausea, and my increase in sex drive? My boobs even hurt, and Hun, that mango. Please, take it away. It smells disgusting.” I said, beginning to get nauseous with the smell of the fruit he had just pulled out of his bag.

“What I was thinking is that we should tell the boys, and Meg, before everyone else becomes aware of anything.” He had stopped what he was doing and was looking at me. “The PR people already know because Paul knows, but they are not going to do anything about it except squash down roomers, if any of them pop up. But you never know when a picture of you heading into a doctors appointment, or of one of us looking at a piece of children’s clothing will cause a frenzy.”

“Alright, so we will tell them tonight.” I replied, squeezing the hand that had found its way into mine.

“We tell them tonight.” He mirrored.

“What do we say?” I questioned.

“Why don’t we wait until dissert. With Niall there is always plenty of food and that way we have time to talk to everyone about things other then children.” He closed one eye as he was thinking and scrunched his nose. It was quite cute as he pondered his options. “Why don’t we just tell them together. You know, just say ‘everyone, we have something to say. We are pregnant.’”

“Short, simple…” I began.

“But you don’t like it?” apparently the look on my face said it all.

“Why don’t you let me say something? You can get everyone’s attention and I will let them know what is going on.” I suggested.

“Sounds good to me.” Liam replied just before Loki began to bark at the front door followed, moments later, by the doorbell.

Notes