text to: hubby
Sophia: Awe
Sophia: I think that's everything!
Sophia: Hurry home though. Miss you :(
Grayson: aww i love u too! and dont worry i dont rly enjoy shopping lol. i'll be back home asap!

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@graciehandler
text to: hubby
Sophia: Awe
Sophia: I think that's everything!
Sophia: Hurry home though. Miss you :(
Grayson: aww i love u too! and dont worry i dont rly enjoy shopping lol. i'll be back home asap!
text to: hubby
Sophia: You said you'd love me for better or for worse!! In sickness and in heath!! This counts!
Sophia: But thank you babe :*
Sophia: Mint chocolate chip and cookie dough, please! (for the ice cream I mean)
Sophia: Can you also check to see if they have portable chargers at the store? I think I saw a few the other day.
Grayson: wow u caught me i do love you for better or for worse
Grayson: got it and got it
Grayson: anything else?
text to: hubby
Sophia: You're telling me you can marry me but not watch me eat pickles dipped in peanut butter or mustard?! I'm offended.
Sophia: The mommies in the yoga class said it was good :(
Sophia: Ok fine-- but i expect two different kinds of ice cream to make up for it!!!!
Grayson: marriage and pb/mustard/pickles meals are 2 different things
Grayson: but ok fine if u think it'll help u should obviously eat ur weird pregnancy foods (and i will still get two kinds of ice cream too)
text to: hubby
Sophia: Hey hot stuff, father of our unborn child, your darling wife would be greatly appreciative if you picked up the following items:
Sophia: 1. pickles
2. peanut butter
3. mustard
4. chocolate-- lots of chocolate!!!!
5. ice cream
6. potato chips
Sophia: Andrew has also requested all of his favorite junk food!!
Sophia: Also I think we should order a pizza tonight. Love you! xoxo
Grayson: k
Grayson: wait ok ur not like....gonna combine all those things right
Grayson: bc i love you and you are beautiful, the mother of my unborn chidlren, etcetc....but i dont think i could stomach watching you eat pickles dipped in peanut butter and mustard
I haven’t been back in a while either. Part of me thinks that, like, we’ll make it there and my phone will buzz with an “unknown number” again. Ridiculous, right?
That’s great! Not the sulking part, obviously, but I’m glad he’s doing well. They really are inseparable, aren’t they?
Totally ridiculous. But, uh...maybe we should turn our phones off while we cross the border. Just in case.
Yeah, I mean, they’ve been roommates since college, so I guess they got pretty tight. Or something.
Right? My dad, too. I think it’ll be nice to see everyone and tell them in person.
That would be great! Have you heard from him? How is he doing?
Well...let’s do it for sure then! God, I haven’t been back to Oakview in...actually I’m not sure how long it’s been. Ages.
And yeah, of course I have! He’s doing good. I guess Ashwin’s off traveling for some art show again so he’s sulking a bit, but otherwise good.
So, I was thinking… I would be nice to go back to Oakview, right? Tell everyone in person about our big news.
Really? ...yeah, it might be kind of great to see my mom’s face when we tell her.
If we go over the next break, Sam might be home too.
Hey, Gray? Can you come here for a second?
Of course! What’s up?
somehow, baby, it’s part of me and part of you.
“Oh, no, I’m–” Sophia was about to interject, but Grayson kept going, talking about spending a comfortable night in. It sounded inviting, really. Sophia liked when they had nights to themselves where they could go out to a nice dinner and come home when they had enough. Nights where they stayed together cuddled up against one another, a mindless movie playing in the background; those were her favorite nights, honestly. Sophia had always been a homebody, even when she lived in a congested area like New York City.
“I’m not sick,” she started up again. It was the truth, and she didn’t want Grayson to think they needed to spend the night in or head right off to bed just because she’d been having morning sickness. Sure she’d fought off a few nauseous feelings during the day, but at night she was perfectly fine. They could still go out, just no to a place that had only raw fish on the menu. “I just…” She could continue to say she wasn’t in the mood for seafood, and offer up an Italian restaurant, or some other alternative. But the jumping feeling was back, the feeling that made her think she could run a mile and not even break a sweat. She was beaming inside, excited and nervous but happy. She was like that all of the time with Grayson, but now, it was so much more.
Instead of holding it off, forcing out a lie she knew Grayson would see right through, she suggested he accompany her on the couch. Once she felt his weight next to hers, she suddenly felt nervous. This was what they’d been working for. It took them six months to get here, and they had finally reached the finish line: she was pregnant. But she wanted to put it the right way, so it in a way that made it memorable. She also wanted to just say it, finally say that she was having a baby– that they were having a baby.
“So, y’know how I’ve been like, getting sick a lot recently?” She was sure he’d nod along, obviously aware of her runs to the bathroom at the wee hours of the morning. “Well, I was worried– but, like, we checked my fever, and I didn’t have one. And I haven’t had one.” Now she was just rambling, her clammy hands reaching out to take his larger ones. “So, I went to the pharmacy today after work, just to humor myself and get a… a pregnancy test.” Sophia wanted to force the smile from her face, knowing she’d give away the news long before even having the chance to say it. “And, like… it was positive. It had two, little pink lines. I’m pregnant, Gray. We’ve having a baby.”
"Oh. What’s up then?” Grayson asked when Sophia spoke up again, asserting that she wasn’t sick. He expected a simple answer, but apparently that wasn’t what was going on. At her suggestion, he followed her to the couch, heart picking up speed before the conversation even started: Grayson knew Sophia well enough to know that this wasn’t normal behavior, and that this could mean something either very good, or very bad. Either way he kept quiet, waiting for Sophia to explain what was going on. She started off by merely explaining things he already knew: she’d been sick lately, for no discernible cause.
It wasn’t until she mentioned the pregnancy test, smile on her face, that Grayson froze in place, fervently praying that she was saying what he thought she was saying. It seemed like it was fairly obvious what she meant, where this was going... but Grayson almost didn’t want to believe it until she confirmed it. Although he had been optimistic for the past few months, this was something else entirely that he felt now, something more intense than mere optimism. It would be too painful to get his hopes up this high without cause.
But then there it was, spoken aloud — I’m pregnant, Gray. We’re having a baby.
Even though he’d hoped and suspected for days, it still seemed almost too good to be true after the past six months of trying. “Are you sure?” he blurted, more of a rhetorical question than anything else. As if she would ever lie to him about this, or somehow misread the pregnancy test. His grin threatened to overwhelm his face, and Grayson didn’t really wait for an answer, his mind already jumping ahead to what they’d need to do over the next nine months. Prepare space in their house, tell their families, talk to Andrew about what being a big brother meant...the list went on and on, and Grayson knew their lives were about to change drastically.
Because they were having a baby together. Officially.
“Oh my God,” he said uselessly, the full impact of it hitting him. They were having a baby. He might’ve known that abstractly ever since Sophia agreed to try, but this was different. This wasn’t abstract. This was real. There was the beginnings of a child in Sophia right now, slowly but steadily growing. The last time a partner had told him she was pregnant, Grayson remembered feeling like the nine months were a deadline, a countdown to a death sentence. Now that he knew how wrong he’d been about though, Grayson only felt ecstatic this time around. Hopefully the next nine months would fly by. “Oh my God,” he repeated, looking over at Sophia with a smile that felt full enough to burst at the seams. Then, after a pause to collect his thoughts, Grayson managed to say something else. “Have long have you known?”
somehow, baby, it’s part of me and part of you.
Sophia was nothing less than ecstatic after hearing the great news. Today just seemed to be a great day. “That’s amazing!” She cried, quickly pulling him back for another embrace. After she encircled her arms around his neck the let go to place a soft and delicate hand on his cheek. “I’m really proud of you,” she spoke softly, hoping that her endless smile spoke volumes of her pride. “Really, I am. You deserve it.” Sophia let her thumb stroke his cheek gently before pulling away and allowing him to continue on with what he was saying.
The brunette liked to indulge every once and a while. As a highly payed journalist she was having sushi and drinking expensive wine on the regular, but now as a high school guidance counselor she had to cut back on the not-so-needed lavish expenses. If she wasn’t pregnant– which she was, holy shit she was– Sophia would be excited at the idea of the two of them sharing a California Roll while she sipped a glass of red wine. But all of that was out of the question now.
“I can’t eat that,” she blurted out, her mind already canceling out all of the foods she should be avoiding in order to keep a healthy pregnancy last full term. All too suddenly she realized that Grayson wasn’t aware of the fact that she was carrying his child, so she cleared her throat in order to buy some time for an explanation. “I mean, that’s a great idea, babe, but I’m not in the mood.” with a tight frown Sophia placed a hand on her stomach as if to allude to the fact that there was something there. It was instinct almost, and she finally understood why every pregnant woman every seemed to place their hand on their stomach at random times. It was all so surreal.
Grayson leaned into Sophia’s arms again, melting a bit at the pride in her voice and in her words. Sure, Grayson was no longer the insecure wreck he used to be, but he still loved to hear that Sophia was proud of him and happy with what they were building together. “Thanks,” he said, smiling as they pulled away. Part of him just wanted to stay curled up with Sophia, but there would be time for that after a celebratory dinner. He’d become more of a homebody than ever now that he loved home so much, but he wanted to take Sophia out for her own sake too, not just to celebrate the raise. He was fully aware that she’d given a certain standard of living to be here with him, and while she didn’t seem to mind, he still wanted to treat her once in a while.
She seemed opposed though, and Grayson frowned slightly. “You can’t?” he questioned, until she pressed her hand against her stomach, her expression worried. “Oh, are you still feeling sick?” Grayson said, believing that he understood the situation now. Given the past few mornings, it didn’t seem too far fetched of an answers after all. “Here, we don’t have to go out. We can stay home, heat up leftover soup, and watch some TV if you want? Or we can just go to bed, if you’d rather lay down and be near the bathroom.”
If she threw up now then that would make it the second time today, and he frowned in sympathy. “And you said you don’t have a temperature or anything too, right?” If it was a fever that would be one thing, but it didn’t seem to be. And so as much as he wanted to track down some anti-nausea pills for her at CVS Pharmacy, it might be a bad idea to take random pills — just in case it ended up being pregnancy as opposed to illness. Again, it was something neither of them had dared to say out loud yet, but she had to be thinking it as much as he was. Either way though, Grayson was fully prepared to stay in for the night, trying to help her feel better.
somehow, baby, it’s part of me and part of you.
Sophia would be lying if she said she didn’t think this was all going to be easy. She knew how babies were made, thanks to the extensive high school education she had received, and yet… it wasn’t working. Sophia was starting to get frustrated, even worried that she would never be able to have a baby. After six long months of trying it seemed like they might have to find other options. Although Sophia was enjoying herself,– even far past all of the sex. She was happy and excited and so in love with Grayson. Even if it was just all of the hormones she was taking– she was doubting herself. Maybe she wasn’t meant to be a mother.
And then she got sick. It was Monday morning at three-fifteen am when she was awaken with the sudden urge to vomit. She quickly pulled the covers off of her limp body and rushed her way into the adjoining bathroom. The first time Grayson hadn’t even shifted in his sleep, but by six am he finally got up to comfort her. It had been happening the rest of the week as well: getting a few hours of sleep only to hurry her way to the bathroom to get sick. Sophia was sure she and Grayson had the mutual thought, but no one brought it up. She didn’t want to jinx her chances, so instead she bought herself a pregnancy text on her way home from work that day. Resisting the urge to have a glass of wine while she waited, Sophia paced back and forth in front of the bathroom sink. By four and a half minutes she started to see the formation of two pink lines, and she triple checked the given instructions. Two lines meant she was pregnant. Sophia was pregnant.
She cried first, sobs of pure joy rolling down her cheeks mixed with the black tint of her mascara. Sophia tried her best to look presentable by the time Grayson came home, and although she wanted to burst with how excited she was she wanted to make the moment special. She could barely sit still, trying to focus on the television in front of her and not pounce when she heard her husband’s car pull up in the driveway. When he got to the door, however, she couldn’t contain herself. She offered a warm hug and a welcoming kiss before he entered the door.
Grayson wasn’t the type of person who ever told himself not to get his hopes up. Not anymore at least. Maybe in high school he would’ve focused on trying to stay cynical, but nowadays things were just too plain good for that. He had Andrew, he had Sophia, and sooner or later, they’d have a new addition to his family. Possibly sooner rather than later. Grayson felt like a bit of a jerk, but this past week, as Sophia spent each morning in the restroom, he couldn’t help but secretly hope that it was a good sign. Sure vomiting was hrrible, but what if it was morning sickness? He hadn’t been able to bring himself to say it, but the thoguht was still there. Especially since he remembered holding Alexis’ hair back all those years ago. This could truly mean that Sophia was pregnant, and for the past few days, that had been the only thing he could think about.
....until today, at least. Because today, his boss had pulled him into her office and rewarded him with a pay raise. The timing was perfect — even if Sophia wasn’t pregnant yet she would be soon, and with a new baby on the way the extra money would be a godsend. They might both love their jobs, but neither of them were exactly lucrative, and babies were expensive. There was food, toys, new clothes every few months as they aged...Grayson remembered his college days, subsisting entirely on ramen and borrowing textbooks on friends so he could send that extra few hundred on things for Andrew. Of course it had been completely worth it, but that didn’t mean things had to be that way the second time around. Essentially, the raise had single-handedly made his day, and Grayson happily made his way home to tell Sophia.
She seemed to be in a good day as well, immediately enveloping him in an embrace before he’d even entered the house. When they pulled away, Grayson beamed at her. “Guess who just got a raise,” he announced, grabbing her hand and walking into the house. “Me, obviously,” he added, answering his own rhetorical question. “Are you feeling up for celebrating? There’s this new sushi place that just opened up downtown. It’s kind of pricey, but like I just said...I got a raise!” Grayson said, sounding as excited as he felt.
You’re no help. It’s a good thing you’re really hot or else I’d say you’re completely useless.
What about Gabe? That could be cute, right? Or Layla.
Aww, it’s always nice to be appreciated.
Gabe’s okay I guess, but Layla? Have you ever, in your whole life, met anyone who’s actually named that?
So, you want Andrew to have a brother named Alexander or a sister named Alexandra? Since when were you such a fan of A names? And as much as I love your name we are not making our kid a junior.
Avery? Abigail? Aiden? Austin? How about those to fuel your A obsession?
I didn't know having a grande total of one, possibly two A named kids made it an obsession.
But fine, fine, I'll branch out to other letters.
Lazy. Alright, since you’re a pro at this, how about you cough up some of your name suggestions. I’m listening.
Always. And uh...Alexander, Alexandria? Landon? ...Grayson Anthony the Second?
Hmm, how about Maddison? Aaron? Oh— Jamie. Y’know, it could go both ways: girl or boy.
I don't know...there's nothing really wrong with them, but I don't really love them either. Jamie's my fav from that batch though...mostly because it cuts our work in half.
sophoclesthomp:
Sophia easily let the conversation revolve around Grayson’s particularly regular day. They had fallen into a seemingly normal routine of late dinners on weekdays and talking about nonsense with casual bouts of comfortable silence between chews. Sophia had always pictured herself alone in a large apartment overlooking Manhattan for the rest of her life, her only company being the soft meows of some sort of kitten. Before she’d gotten back together with Grayson she was about to invest in a small white Scottish fold, but of course plans had changed, and the precious feline she’d fondly named Luna was picked up a month later by a new found owner. Instead she traded up, now the owner of a suburban home shared with a husband and his son— to whom she considered her own son as well. Somehow it all made her stomach flutter a little, just like his shining blue eyes did from across the kitchen table.
This was the future she’d always wanted. It never occurred to Sophia that her initial desires wouldn’t be as satisfying as working in a small town high school as a guidance counselor, her husband’s history classroom just right down the hall. It never crossed her mind that she’d be willing to give her life for other teenagers to understand that things happen, and life moves on, and that they were worth so much more than grades and tests and college acceptance letters. She never wondered what it would be like to see a little boy grow up before her eyes, wanting so badly to have a child be biologically hers to groom and pamper as well. Sophia never wanted to be a mother, as she was too scared she would mess up due to lack of experience. She’d had eighteen amazing years with her own mother before she passed away, and somehow that never seemed like enough time to evolve into someone worthy of baring a human life. But with parent meetings and holding crying students against her chest as they poured themselves out to her it changed her mind. She thought that maybe she’d be good at something like this.
After twenty or so minutes the small talk died down for good, evolving into just silence with the occasional humming of the washer and dryer. Sophia took this time to collect their plates and place them in the sink. Her back was facing Grayson, a painful expression contorting her features. She wasn’t exactly sure how to go about this, and decided to just spit it out before she was too scared to say anything at all. “So, I’ve been thinking…” she paused, putting down the sponge and the half cleaned dinner plate to collect her thoughts. “I walked past the playground near the elementary school the other day,” she paused again, purposely leaving out that she had done it multiple times and not on accident. “And there was this little girl— God, she was so cute, Gray!— and she was running around and laughing and… and it made me think of when my mom used to take me to the park on Sunday afternoons. I used to look forward to that every single day.” Sophia fondly smiled to the dish in her hand, rinsing it off before placing it in the washer. “And I thought, y’know, it might be nice to start traditions of our own. They don’t have to involve parks on Sunday afternoons but, like, things that we would do. Opening a gift on Christmas Eve, playing board games on New Years; the small things…” it didn’t take long for her to realize she was rambling and decided to fully face her husband just in time. “I want a family with you, Grayson. And it’s not that I don’t consider Andrew family, because I do. You know I do. I just… something that’s ours— someone that’s ours. Someone with your eyes and my hair and…” Sophia paused to push her hair back. “I want a baby, Gray. I want your baby.”
Dinner passed without anything particularly remarkable happening. They ate and talked about their days, the same kind of casual domesticity he'd grown accustomed to. It was the kind of uneventful evening he loved to have with Sophia, and even when things lapsed into silence it was a comfortable one. Just the way things should be, in his mind. They finished the dishes and moved to the kitchen, Grayson's mind already moving on to consider the homework he was supposed to grade tonight — namely, trying to figure out how to get out of grading it. It wasn't a particularly exciting train of thought, so it was easy enough for Sophia to call his attention back to the present and back to her. Not that it was ever hard for Sophia to distract him. She'd had that kind of pull over him since they were seventeen years old, and it seemed like things had only gotten worse with age. She wasn't facing him as she spoke, and at first Grayson didn't think much of it. While he wasn't particularly sure why Sophia wanted to tell him about walking past an elementary school playground, it wasn't setting off any alarms in his head, good or bad.
She transitioned into talking about traditions, and although Sophia couldn't see his face, Grayson found himself smiling and nodding along. He would love to set up some more traditions, something to last, especially for Andrew's sake. His son seemed to have handled it all more or less gracefully, but he still felt bad that Andrew had had to deal with his parents getting divorced at such a young age, and with switching houses every week, and with Sophia unexpectedly changing their lives. It was a lot of change in a few short years, and it might be good for Andrew if they had more of a semblance of routine for their whole family, even simple things like board games and gifts. Sophia turned around then though, and her next words chased all other thoughts out of his head.
“I want a family with you, Grayson."
It wasn't until she finished with “I want a baby, Gray. I want your baby,” that her words fully registered with him. The one thing he'd been missing from his life with her — a new baby in the family, a brother for Andrew, a child of their very own...she wanted that too? Despite the fact that he'd brought it up with Sophia before, she'd seemed more than just reluctant, and he'd almost assumed it would never happen. He still would've been happy, sure, but he somehow couldn't imagine that life making him as happy as he felt even in this moment. He knew how much better his life had been thanks to Andrew, even from day one, and he couldn't wait to share that with Sophia too. He knew she loved Andrew, a fact he was immensely grateful for, but the more the merrier too, right?
First things first though, before he let himself get too carried away: "Are you sure?" he asked, somehow paranoid that he'd misheard or that she was joking, or just saying it to make him happy. But Sophia nodded, confirming it yet again, and Grayson beamed, mind already jumping ahead to what he was sure was to come: taking their kid to the playground like the little girl in her story, playing board games on New Year's, all the things that Sophia had described and more.
He leaned forward to pull Sophia in for a kiss, still grinning when they separated. "Okay, we're doing this then," he said, resisting the urge to add a juvenile no takesie backsies on the end. He couldn't really be faulted for thoughts like that thought, considering the fact that he was somewhat incredulous that this was actually happening. He knew there were logistics to work out later, something he hadn't actually had to do with Andrew, but he was confident it would be easy for them. "We're gonna have a kid." He couldn't help but laugh, because he was Grayson Handler, and most of his emotions were translated into laughs. Happiness most of all though, and at the moment that's what he was: really and truly and honestly and completely happy and looking forward to the future they were creating together.
After countless days of deliberation Sophia had finally caved and found an answer to Grayson’s constant question. As a girl who lost her mother at eighteen the thought of having a child of her own was nothing less than scary. She’d had an amazing eighteen years with her mother, filled with love and laughter and fond memories she’d keep for the rest of her life. Whether that was enough time to learn and grow into a mother herself, however, was questionable. Sophia pictured her life with Grayson differently, to be honest. She always assumed it would just be the two of them plus Andrew when he wasn’t at his mother’s. To her that was perfect. But now on the weekends she decided to take walks for fresh air she always found herself nearing the playground. It was an entertaining sight really, watching young children scream and laugh and make new friends. She couldn’t help but want to scoop one up herself and make them giggle. And that somehow answered her question even before she let herself sit down and think. A baby that was her’s and Grayson’s sounded nice. One that had his eyes and her curls and a booming laugh that brought happiness to their small home. With a steady income and the knowledge of how teenagers seemed to work Sophia was finally able to wrap her head around the idea that this could be amazing.
Wondering the isles of the local grocery store Sophia decided she could make a real night out of this confession. After piling in the items on the shopping list she decided to venture off and find foods to make her husband as good of a home cooked meal as she could. Becoming a mother meant she’d have to brush up on her cooking skills, and it wouldn’t hurt to start before there was even a baby to feed. It was a matter of time before Grayson walked in the door, Sophia leaned over the counter with her reading glasses perched on her nose. She gave him a chased kiss before shooing him away to finish her meal.
She did, however, let him set the table. Piling the food onto separate dishes she placed them in the center of the table, seating herself across from her husband. “How was school?” she allowed herself to ask, as if they were still high school students themselves. It was an easy conversation starter, and Sophia assumed that once it died down she would bring up her decision organically.
When he finally returned home from work and the club he'd been roped into advising after classes, Grayson was surprised to see Sophia busy in the kitchen. It wasn't particularly normal for either of them to cook — neither of them could be called anything close to a chef, after all. But Grayson wasn't going to argue when dinner was at stake (or...at steak, if he was going to make a pun out of it. He decided to keep that one to himself, as Sophia would probably never appreciate it).
The point being though, that if Sophia wanted to cook them food, then he was more than happy to eat it. He offered to help prepare it even, but that apparently wasn't on the table (again, an excellent potential pun, one that he was sure Sophia would've just rolled her eyes at), and he was fine with that as well. Setting the table was much easier than cooking anyway. Even if he ended up having to do the dishes afterwards, it was still the better end of the bargain in his mind. After the table was ready for dinner, Grayson settled in, and answered Sophia's question.
"The usual." Grayson shrugged. "Parent teacher conferences are coming up, so...that's going to be a nightmare," he said, making an over dramatic face. There was nothing quite like spending a few days listening to parents whining about the fact that their kids weren't doing well. And while he agreed that a conference could be a good idea to help a kid get back on track, he hated the fact that so many parents wanted to paint him as the villain. It wasn't like he was the one forcing their children to get bad grades. As dorky and cliche as it was, Grayson loved his students, and he wanted them to do well. All of them... even that annoying Tommy Burkwall, who wouldn't stop putting his gum under the desks when he thought Grayson wasn't paying attention. "But other than prepping for that, it was pretty boring. How was your day?"