Noortje’s POV

My scan told me everything was ok and going well. The risk of a miscarriage was now very low as I was finally in my second trimester. The morning sickness had continued, I even began to feel nauseated on stage, but I was always able to keep it down. My bump did not exactly look like a baby bump, but it was already a lot larger than I was at the beginning, especially since I was fairly thin to begin with. It just looked like I had gained quite a bit of weight. I no longer had the confidence to wear tight t-shirt and my jeans were definitely becoming very uncomfortable. Maybe I needed to ask Tony to come buy some maternity clothes with me, because nobody but Jay knew yet, and I was wearing a lot of Tony’s shirts.

Today was going to be the day we were going to announce my pregnancy to Jaime, Mike, and Vic. I just hoped they would be as happy as Tony and I were. We had planned everything out and knew exactly what we wanted to do. All I need to do now was to get these stupid jeans zipped up. I had been trying for at least 10 minutes and they just wouldn’t go up anymore. Today was the day that none of my clothes were fitting anymore. These jeans were the largest pair I had, and my bras were also definitely getting too small.

“Tony!” I called out into the front lounge from the bunk area where I was standing all alone, “Can you come help me?”

“Sure,” Tony opened the curtain and looked at me, “what’s wrong?”

“I can survive with only wearing sweatpants for a while, but I will need to get new clothes soon. I can’t keep on wearing only your shirts and I swear my boobs are going to burst out of my bras anytime soon.”

“Umm… so what are you asking me?”

“Well, I don’t want to go clothes shopping by myself and I was going to wait until Danielle came to visit, but that is too far away. There’s nobody else I can ask.”

“Oh, ok, sorry, I’m not so good at this stuff yet; you’re the one going through all the changes, not me. But I’ll take you out as soon as we have some free time,” He wrapped his arms around me and leaned forward to press his lips against mine while pushing me against the bunks. I placed my hand on his cheeks to steady myself and smiled into the kiss.

“Ok, PDA, please stop,” Jay walked in and squeezed past us, “and keep your pants zipped up.”

“This is not my fault,” I pouted, “jeans don’t exactly work anymore. I was about to put on some sweatpants anyway.”

“Oh, sorry. When are you going to tell the others, anyway?”

“Right now,” Tony grinned and reached into our junk bunk, “Noortje has written everything out.”

“Ooh, let me see,” Jay carefully took one of the sheets of paper and scanned over it, “they are going to be so confused.”

I giggled, “they really are, I just hope it won’t take them too long. I would like them to know today. Who do you think will guess first?”

“Definitely Vic. He writes the lyrics, so he should be good at riddles. Plus, he also watches out for you, he must have realised something was up.”

“He’s watching out for me alright,” I growled.

“Noortje,” Tony warned, “let’s not do this now. This is supposed to be happy.”

“Yeah, you’re right… let’s just… umm…” I looked at Jay’s confused face as I took the paper and grabbed the ultrasound picture. It was a lot more clear that there was a baby growing inside of me and not just some weird shaped object that could possibly be a human being. I wasn’t going to show the photo just yet, but I wanted to give proof when they found out.

I walked into the front lounge and caught the attention of the three guys sitting on the couch talking about random things. Their conversation stopped as they said good morning to me and I reciprocated the friendly greeting.

“Ok, guys. So, I made this riddle and I want you guys to figure out what it’s supposed to mean,” I handed each of them their own copies, “take your time. You get as long as you need, but don’t discuss it.”

“Why don’t Tony and Jay have to do this?” Jaime pointed out before he even looked at the paper.

“Because I tested it out on Tony,” which was sort of true, “and I accidentally told Jay what the answer was,” which was also technically true, I wasn’t planning on telling him when I had.

“Ok?” Vic raised an eyebrow.

“Why do we have to do this?” Mike questioned as he waved the paper around.

“Because we still have a long drive and you don’t have to do anything better to do anyway. It’s also really fun to confuse you,” I replied matter-of-factly. The three boys rolled their eyes and started reading.

Apparently my riddle was a bit too difficult because it took them much longer than I had expected. It was two hours later and they were still scratching their heads, getting more frustrated as time ticked by. I was sitting at the table with my legs up and my elbow propping my head up. Pregnancy was making me tired and watching people make no progress really did not help at all. This was boring and tiring, I so badly wanted to tell them, but decided I was going to give them another 30 minutes before giving them hint.

“What the actual fuck is this supposed to mean!” Mike exclaimed with an angry sigh.

“Seriously, Noortje, I really don’t get this,” Jaime whined as he dramatically fell backwards to he was lying down instead of sitting up.

“These metaphors are all over the place, yet still genius,” Vic muttered as he kept reading the same lines over and over again. I would have thought Vic would have gotten it in no time, but his guesses were the ones furthest away from the actual answer. Jaime and Mike were very close at one point, however eventually they went completely off track.

“You know what? I give up,” Jaime expressed frustratedly.

“Me too. What were you even trying to achieved with this?” Mike ranted and read out some of the lines making comments about them when he suddenly stopped, “Wait a second... I think I might have gotten it…” He looked between me and Tony a couple times and then shook his head in disbelieve.

“Well, what is it?” Jaime urged. All Vic did was watch Mike curiously.

“I don’t want to be rude though, because if this is wrong it’s really rude.”

“Just tells us already.”

Mike gave me one last look to which I assured him I wasn’t going to be offended. “It’s pregnancy,” he stated, “she’s pregnant.”

Before I could even think about replying, Jaime interrupted, “there’s no way that can be possible. I mean, read this again,” he then proceeded to explain and argue why it couldn’t be pregnancy.

While Mike and Jaime were discussing, Vic looked at me with sad eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, courage displayed on his face, but he stopped when he saw me turn around the picture I hold been holding the entire time. His gaze switched from me to Tony every once in awhile and he looked like he could either be sick or break down right in front of us. Mike and Jaime were still arguing as they saw what I had in my hands.

“You see!” Mike gestured, “She is pregnant- Wait, oh my god, you are pregnant!” He got up and wrapped me in a hug before congratulating me. I hugged him back, out of all of them I wasn’t expecting Mike to be the one to figure it out. He turned to Tony and sighed, “Tony, my man, I hate to break it to you, but you just knocked up your girl.”

As Mike was congratulating him, Jaime came up to me, “I can't believe you’re actually pregnant. Who knew the youngest in the bad would be the first to have a baby… unless one of our girlfriends has been hiding something from us…”

I chuckled, “I’m pretty sure none of them are pregnant,” I thought back to Jaime’s girlfriend, Jessica, Mike’s girlfriend, Alysha, and Danielle, who had become one of my best friends along with my neighbour Luke, “I’ve had some contact with them as well…”

Jaime gasped, “we have a traitor!”

“I have only talked to them a few times about some stuff, nothing about you guys. I also told them about me being pregnant after I woke up. If any of them were pregnant, I’m pretty sure they would have told me then.”

After Mike and Jaime finished, Vic was the only one left over. He was inspecting everything from a distance and was now awkwardly standing with his hands at his sides as everybody looked at him. Mike sighed and decided to help him out a bit, “You were probably a bit zoned out, but Noortje’s pregnant. It’s a good thing by the way, so you can congratulate them.”

Jaime and Jay both decided to fall for the lie because it was much easier than to ask him what was up. Anybody could feel the tension between me and Vic. Whenever I was around he wouldn’t talk as much anymore, and it was bound to get worse now. Vic first congratulated Tony before moving over to me. He wrapped me in a long hug, making me feel a bit weirded out.

“I’m so sorry,” He whispered so only I could hear.

Notes

It's so weird posting chapters I've written a couple of days ago. I made this rule for myself to always have a two new chapters written before posting a new one, that way I will always have something to post in case I'm not able to write for a long time. I just finished writing chapter 8 and the story has already progressed so much. This is so weird!