“Geez, guys. I’m pregnant—not dying.” I try to crack a joke because they’re all far too serious for my liking. “And no, under no circumstances are you to call Zaan.” I give Ford a stern look because he has his phone in his hand. He sheepishly puts it away.
“How far along?” Stu asks.
“Almost nine weeks.”
They all look at each other and I can practically read their minds.
“I know,” I say miserably. “I fucking know. Believe me, no one is more upset about the timing than I am.”
“Have you been to a doctor?” Stu asks.
“Yeah—can we talk about this in the lounge and not in the middle of the hallway?”
We all move in that direction and sit on the couches.
They’re all fidgeting, like little kids called to the principal’s office, and I hate this. It’s not our typical dynamic, and I really don’t want things to change.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I say. “I’ve been told since I was sixteen that getting pregnant would be difficult for me. Zaan and I stopped using protection about a year ago, thinking it probably wouldn’t happen unless we did IVF or something. This came as a huge shock to us.”
“We’re happy for you,” Tyler says, smiling. “For real. But we have big decisions to make.”
“I emailed Sasha and asked her to stop by,” I say, “because I figure she has to be part of this conversation. But she’s not coming until lunchtime.”
Sasha Petrov is our manager. She’s married to Anton, who is one of Zaan’s teammates.
“That’s actually better,” Ford says. “This is a band decision first, then a business decision. She can help us make the business decisions, but we need to make the band decisions alone.”
We’re all quiet, looking at each other.
“I want to go on tour,” I say. “I feel great. Honestly, that was the first and only time I’ve had any kind of morning sickness, and I think a lot of it was nerves about telling you.”
“You were nervous about telling us?” Bash asks in surprise.
“Well, yeah. This is our first freakin’ headlining tour, and now we have no idea what’s going to happen with our lead singer.”
“Our lead singer can still sing sitting on a stool,” Stu says. “Right?”
“Absolutely! I just don’t know how things will go. If I’ll start falling asleep at eight o’clock or not have the energy to get on stage every night. Right now, if I didn’t know I was pregnant, I wouldn’t know anything was different. Three months from now, it could be a different thing.”
“What do you want?” Bash asks. “For real. Like, in your heart of hearts, what do you want?”
I give them a wobbly smile. “I want to go on tour and rock the fuck out of our audiences.”
“We’ll make sure we have plenty of insurance,” Tyler says, “and then we’ll sit down and count backwards from your due date. I think we should end the tour before you hit thirty-two weeks and?—”
I cut him off. “I’m going to tour as long as my body—and the baby—are healthy. Thirty weeks, thirty-two, or forty, for that matter. I don’t need to sit at home waiting for the baby to come.”
“You might,” Bash suggests. “You’re going to want to set up a nursery… and what about a shower? Doctor visits, all that stuff.”
I hadn’t considered how I would see my doctor.
“I don’t know,” I say after a moment. “I think I can see Dr. Diaz virtually, but I guess there will be certain things I need to do in person. I have to think about it and talk to her. I can pay out of pocket for ultrasounds wherever we’re going to be and just have the results sent to her. Then I might have to fly home for other things.”
“You and Zaan will want to be together if you’re going to find out the sex,” Tyler adds.
I hold up a hand.
“I just found out. I need a week or two to wrap my head around everything and make those kinds of plans. For now, can we just continue business as usual? At least until we talk to Sasha and figure out our Plan B? As long as I’m healthy, I want to go on tour.”
