#n. patrick

Warm sunlight draped over your skin like a blanket, which may have been good considering your real blanket had been stolen from you in the middle of the night.

You rolled over and finally opened your eyes, blinking groggily as you took in your boyfriend.

His hair was splayed around his face, his arm thrown over his eyes.

"Thief," you mumbled half-heartedly.

Nolan removed his arm from his eyes and squinted at you.

"What did you call me?" He asked incredulously, voice low and raspy. You shifted to get closer to him, pressing kisses to the each of the corners of his mouth.

"Thief." You repeated, tugging at the blanket. You pressed a kiss fully onto his lips before dragging yourself out of bed.

You rarely had mornings like these, the type where you could move as slowly as you liked and it didn't make a difference because you had all the time in the world. Most days, Nolan was grumbling angrily towards his alarm clock and you spent the beginning of your morning watching groggily as he tugged on his clothes in the dark.

It felt as if he was always leaving, if not for a road trip then for practice.

Mornings like this were far and few between. So maybe you took a little longer than you needed to to walk into the kitchen and got the coffee started (a mindless habit at this point), but who could blame you for wanting to savor the rare slow start to your day?

Nolan had flipped onto his stomach by the time you returned, leaning against the doorframe with a mug of coffee in hand. The sheets were bunched by his waist, exposing the well-built muscles of back and shoulders.

He must have sensed you admiring him because he shifted to glance over his shoulder at you, cocky smirk making you roll your eyes.

"You checkin me out?"

You couldn't help the blush that crept onto your cheeks.

"You're my boyfriend, I think that's allowed," you grumbled.

He just shot you another sleepy smile.

"I didn't say it was a bad thing."

He sat up slowly, combing through his hair as he stretched.

After a few seconds, his eyes settled on you once more.

"Did you make any for me?" He asked as you took a sip of your coffee.

"In the kitchen," you replied as you moved to the edge of the bed. He looked as if he were about to rise, but settled back down as you knelt on the bed, careful to keep your mug steady.

You pressed in close to him, allowing him to take your coffee and set it on the bedside table as you wrapped your arms around his neck, moving closer so that you were seated between his legs. He kissed you slow and, despite his morning breath, you could have stayed there for hours, wrapped up in his warm body like you had all the time in the world.

He pulled back after a moment, brushing hair away from your face.

"I wish we could do this more often."

Your lips quirked, "What, makeout? Because I'm more than willing—"

"You know what I mean," he cut you off gently, absentmindedly tracing circles into your hips.

"Yeah," you replied, voice softening. "Me too." You brought your hands down from his neck, sighing. "The coffee's gonna get cold," you said as you untangled yourself from Nolan and moved to snuggle back into the blankets. Nolan groaned as you waved him towards the kitchen.

"Can't we just stay like this?"

You gave him a quick glance as you leaned over to pick up your mug again.

"We'll have to get used to it eventually, you know, not having time." Even more than you already had to with Nolan's schedule. You paused to take a sip before continuing. "When we have kids we won't have time to wake up like this."

Nolan considered your words for a moment, the corners of his lips turning upwards.

"Yeah, I guess we won't," he agreed. "But doesn't that mean we shouldn't take the time now."

You just pressed a brief kiss to his lips before gently pushing him to the edge of the bed.

"Go, get your coffee. We can kiss all you want after you're done."

He shot you a half-hearted glare, but finally rose to his feet and walked out to the kitchen.

You were about to call out to him, reminding him that you had the creamer that he liked in the fridge, when your stomach lurched, a wave of nausea hitting you so fast it felt as if you had been physically hit.

Nolan must have heard the choked, gasping sound you let out, because he called out from the kitchen,

"You okay in there, babe?"

"Yeah, fine," you responded through the panic flooding through your body.

You blinked, forcing yourself to concentrate as you thought back to what you ate the night before, wondering if you could have food poisoning.

Normally, you only got nausea this bad on the worst days of your period, but you had just switched to a new birth control—for the very purpose of making your periods less agonizing, ironically enough.

It faded quickly, lasting only a grand total of ten minutes before you were back to normal, though a great deal more unsettled than before. You sipped from your coffee as you tried to collect yourself and listened as Nolan fumbled around in the kitchen.

Nolan returned a few minutes later to lean on the doorframe to your bedroom.

"Teeks texted, said he wants to workout. You mind?"

Still on edge, your words were more clipped than you intended as you replied,

"Not at all, why would I?"

Nolan shrugged.

"Don't get many days like this."

Right. You waved your hand,

"We can makeout later, go see your boy," you laughed, lightening the mood. A soft smile playing across his lips, Nolan moved to lean over the bed and kiss you.

"Love you," he murmured.

"Love you too," you replied, then added, "Now move, I'm gonna go take a shower."

He stepped back, allowing you to stand. You threw up your hand in a wave goodbye as you made your way to the bathroom and he moved to pick out workout clothes.

You leaned against the bathroom sink, fiddling with the material of your towel as you waited for the water to heat up. Distantly, you could hear Nolan getting ready to leave.

You waited like that for a few minutes, checking the water temperature a few times throughout, before you, bored, went and grabbed your phone. You called out an absentminded goodbye to Nolan as you heard the door close before unplugging your phone and walking back to the bathroom, releasing an exasperated sigh when the water still wasn't even close to hot. You really had to get that fixed at some point.

You opened your phone and paused, finger hovering over the instagram app as your gaze focused elsewhere. Your period tracker had caught your eye.

You tried to think back to the last time you had your period, finger still hovering on the screen.

You must be late by now, by at least a week if your memory served you correctly. Your brows furrowed as you opened the app.

11 days late.

Your heart stopped dead in your chest for a too-long second before your brain caught up with the rest of you. Your doctor had warned you that your new birth control pill could mess up your cycle. You loosed a breath. You had nothing to worry about. It was just your birth control.

You set your phone down on the counter with a breathy laugh, as if you couldn't believe you had gotten so panicked for a second there, and stepped under the (finally hot) water.

You shaved your legs, made yourself lunch, and watched a few episodes of a new show on Netflix all in an empty house. Not that you particularly minded. Nolan had texted, saying that they were getting lunch, and you had told him to go have fun.

You wanted to spend time with Nolan, that was a given, but as weird as it was to admit, you had gotten sorta used to him being away.

You didn't really mind being alone, you could take care of yourself.

Well, at least until nausea swept over you so fast that you sank to the ground in a heap, wishing Nolan were there to pick you up off the floor.

Holy shit.

You clutched your stomach, wondering what the hell was happening to your body as every possible panic button in your body went off. You were going to puke.

Oh god, you were going to puke.

You used the wall to lift yourself up, still half in shock from the suddenness of it all, and dragged yourself to the bathroom.

You kneeled down on the cold tile and gathered your hair up, waiting for the bile to rise in your throat.

You hadn't had your face this close to a toilet since you were in college, you thought briefly. Every time, you had said "never again." Well, jokes on you, because you weren't even drunk this time.

You kneeled like that for the better part of the hour, waiting to throw up.

You never did, and the nausea finally faded to a steady unsteadiness in the pit of your stomach.

You rose on shaky legs, trying not to think about the cold sweat cooling on your skin as you went to the kitchen and poured yourself a glass of ginger-ale.

You brought it over to the couch and opened your laptop from where it had been sitting on the table.

Taking a long sip, you typed with one hand.

You knew it was probably normal, and entirely likely considering all the awful side effects birth control could have, but you just wanted to confirm that your nausea wasn't from food poisoning.

You hit enter and promptly choked on your ginger-ale, choking and wheezing and blinking back the tears that formed when a little bit of the ginger ale went up your nose. Setting down your drink, you pulled your laptop fully onto your lap and, with wide eyes, began to scroll through the results.

The entire first page had to do with pregnancy. Every. Single. Result.

Your heart raced.

Hesitantly, you clicked on the first result.

There was no way, right? Yeah, you had switched birth controls, but you hadn't missed any days or anything. There was no way you should be pregnant.

Right?

The more you read the less and less you were convinced.

It didn't help when the article mentioned late periods.

You froze, cursor hovering over the words.

Shit.

You had been so quick to chalk it up to your new birth control. Could you have missed the possibility that you were actually pregnant?

You took another sip of ginger-ale, throat suddenly dried up.

It was at that moment that your phone lit up with a text from Nolan.

Heading home now.

Your heart stopped. You couldn't have Nolan coming home, not now. Not with this new possibility—that you hadn't even begun to process yourself.

You shot back a quick reply

Was thinking you could pick up an early dinner, actually. Maybe that Italian place you like?

You needed time. Time to process, time to convince yourself that you weren't actually pregnant, you weren't sure. Just time.

Sounds good

Good. You tried to calm yourself, taking deep breaths, Inhale. Exhale. Inhale—that's exactly what the doctors would say when you were in labor, oh god. You stood and began to pace around your apartment, mind running a mile a minute.

You weren't ready for this.

Well, actually, you weren't...not ready for this?

Sure, stuff was crazy with Nolan traveling all the time, but other NHLers make it work.

And your life was pretty chill right now, all things considered.

It wasn't ideal, but it might...not actually be that bad?

You weren't dumb teenagers anymore.

Actually, the more you thought about it, the less insane it seemed.

Nolan returned, pasta in tow, twenty minutes later. You hardly listened as he told you about his day.

"I think I'm pregnant," you blurted, staring down at your uneaten meal.

Nolan's fork dropped from his fingers, clattering loudly on the plate.

A beat of silence fell between you, and Nolan seemed to recognize that you were deadly serious.

"What the hell, y/n?"

You bristled, gaze snapping to him.

"What do you mean 'What the hell'?"

"Jesus, babe, I thought you were better than this. What, did you forget a day of your pill or some shit?"

"No!" You declared. "I didn't do anything. I didn't mean for this to happen!"

"Well clearly you fucked something up, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation," Nolan argued, harsh glare locked on your own.

"What the hell, Nols?" You made an effort to soften your voice. "I was freaked out too at first, but it might not be that bad. Remember when we were talking earlier? You didn't seem to hate the idea so much then."

Nolan waved a dismissive hand. "That's because it was in the future! We're not ready for shit like this yet."

"Why not?" You challenged.

"I—I don't know! A bunch of reasons. I'm traveling all the time, there would be no one to take care of you..." He trailed off.

"I know how to take care of myself."

"We're so young, y/n, if we have kids we won't be able to go out, or go on vacation, or—"

"This isn't a hypothetical," you snapped. "If I'm pregnant, I'm pregnant. Obviously neither of us wanted this, but it doesn't take a genius to realize that this might not be the worst thing in the world." You stood and took your plate to the counter, scraping the majority of it into a container as Nolan sat, frozen. "Teeks is having a kid too, it's not that crazy."

You had thought about that earlier, letting yourself fall into hypotheticals.

They would be born around the same time, would grow up friends because of how close their dads were. You would get together for play-dates, the adults talking together while the kids played close by. You shoved the scenario out of your head, frustrated. "I know it's scary," you said slowly, watching Nolan from where you stood at the counter. "But I really think that this could be okay."

Nolan's jaw clenched and unclenched, then,

"We're using condoms from now on." He met your gaze, anger simmering behind his eyes. "And we'll just have to hope that you're wrong about this."

Your jaw dropped, tears springing up in your eyes.

Not able to form words, you rushed to your bedroom, locking the door behind you.

You sank onto the bed, brushing away the hot tears that spilled onto your cheeks.

You didn't know what you had expected. You had discussed having kids before, but Nolan was right. It had always been a thing for the future. Still, you couldn't have assumed that he would react like that.

God, the way he had turned on you, furious, you were beginning to wonder if those conversations had really meant anything.

What the hell was his problem?

You sat in bed and scrolled through social media until you were sure that your eyes weren't red anymore. You could hear a game playing on the living room TV, could picture Nolan watching it on the couch, all nonchalant as if nothing had occurred. The mental image made your fists clench by your side, and you rose from the bed.

You kept your chin high as you opened the door and walked out, not sparing Nolan a glance (despite desperately wanting to see what he was doing.) You walked to the kitchen and heated up your pasta because, despite the argument, you had realized that you hadn't really eaten at all and were starving.

You were walking back to your room, shoveling a bite of pasta into your mouth, when you finally locked eyes with Nolan. His gaze was cool and calm, but you could have sworn you saw a hesitancy in his expression, like he had something to say.

If he did, you weren't about to stand around and ask for him to spit it out.

You walked through the doorway and separated the two of you with a pleasant click.

You killed a couple of hours watching Netflix, letting the anger and pain come over you in waves.

You hadn't wanted kids yet, not really. But unlike Nolan, you were willing to take things as they came. You were both in good places in your life, you loved each other, it might not have been ideal timing but when is it ever?

You knew that you were young. But you were willing to accept whatever result that came from this whole mess.

Even if it meant Nolan needed time to come around.

You didn't let yourself think about a scenario where he didn't.

The next time you saw Nolan was as you were straightening from where you had leaned over your bathroom sink, spitting out your toothpaste. You put your toothbrush back in the holder and stepped out of the bathroom, leaving him room to get ready for bed.

You didn't say a word to each other, simply choosing to go about your normal routines as if there wasn't tension laying thick and heavy between you.

Staring up at the ceiling, you wet your lips, debating whether or not to speak. Nolan was turned away from you, as if he could hardly bear to be in the same space as you.

You turned your head ever-so-slightly to look at him, or rather, his back.

You knew he was still awake.

You were willing to have this conversation, to work this out with him. But only if he spoke first.

You stared at him for a moment longer, wanting to reach out and touch him but refraining, before you turned on your side to face the opposite wall.

For once, it was you who was the one getting dressed in the dark. Your alarm had gone off quietly and you had slipped out of bed carefully, as to not disturb Nolan.

The drive was quiet and calming, too early for any of the morning traffic to have really built up. You had always loved driving, had kept your car when you had moved into the city for that exact reason, well, and the fact that your apartment building conveniently had a parking garage.

You took a deep breath as you sat in the parking lot, steeling yourself for what would come next. You shut off your phone, not wanting to see if Nolan texted you at all, then, keeping your chin high, entered the gynecologists office.

The building was dark and mostly empty, it being too early for many patients to have come in yet.

You hesitantly walked up to the front desk.

"Hi, I'm here for my appointment with Sonya Miller." You had called last night, just as the office was closing, asking if she had open time in her schedule.

"Name and birthdate?" You listed off your information, fidgeting nervously all the while. "Great, Dr. Miller will be with you shortly."

You sank into one of the cold, plastic seats of the waiting area and waited, trying not to worry about Nolan, who would surely now be awake and wondering where the hell you were.

You had to do this, you had to be sure. And, well, if you really were pregnant, you had a lot of questions to ask Dr. Miller.

"Y/n," The receptionist called, "Dr. Miller is ready for you."

You stopped for lunch on your way home, basking in the unseasonably warm weather as you sat outside and sipped from your drink. Your phone was still shut off—an admittedly selfish little act of payback for how Nolan had reacted last night.

You weren't quite sure how you felt. You hadn't even wanted to be pregnant, had nearly had a heart attack from the panic of it at first. But once it had looked as if it might become your reality, you had almost grown to be excited. You had gotten wrapped up in the idea, fantasizing about play-dates, for gods sake.

You sighed and stood, slipping your phone into your pocket as you walked back to your car.

You had known Nolan was home from practice, and seen his car in the parking garage, but you weren't expecting him to look...well, look like such a mess. He froze as you opened the door, turning to look at you with wide eyes. His hair was mussed as if he had spent the last while nervously combing his hands through it and his cheeks were red and flushed.

"Y/n," he breathed. You simply raised your eyebrows and kicked off your shoes. "Where have you been?" He asked in a frenzied rush.

"I went to the doctor to see if I was actually pregnant." Nolan's jaw slackened.

"You couldn't have just taken a pregnancy test? I was so worried—you were gone for hours, Y/n. I lost my mind. I—I was late to practice. Coach fucking bag-skated me. I couldn't stop thinking about how I needed to apologize. I called you like a million times."

"I had to be sure." You answered first, before you processed the rest of his words. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you," you added, and you truly meant it. You weren't sure how you had expected him to react to waking up with you gone, but you clearly hadn't thought it all the way through.

"I—" his voice broke, "I can't lose you, Y/n."

You dropped your purse onto the counter and walked to stand a few feet away from him.

"Well, aren't you lucky." You replied, exasperated. "You've got nothing to worry about." Nolan cocked his head, not quite processing your words. "I'm not pregnant," you explained, words clipped. "It's just my new birth control."

"Oh," he said, wisely keeping his statement short.

"Yeah." You let a touch of what almost felt like bitterness seep into your voice. You weren't sure whether it was from you still being annoyed with him or, ironically, the outcome of your appointment. "You can stop acting so damn terrified."

Yeah, that was definitely bitterness. He had been so goddamn scared about the possibility of you being pregnant, as if you couldn't handle it. You could have, if it had come to that, you would have been fine. You had thought Nolan would have been able to see that too, at least until he flipped out.

"I—I wasn't—" he started,

"Yes you were," you snapped, cutting him off. "You were talking as if we're still dumb teenagers who can't handle any sort of responsibility. It wouldn't have been ideal but—" you cut off, blinking back the tears that had begun to form in your eyes, "We could have handled it!"

Nolan's eyes went wide and he immediately wrapped you into a hug. After a second, he hesitantly asked,

"So...You're upset that we...aren't pregnant?"

You shoved half-heartedly at his chest.

"No, Nolan." You bit out. "I don't want a baby, not right now at least. But," you paused, trying to find the words, "A little faith could have been nice. I don't know, I guess you were just so quick to assume we'd crash and burn as parents."

"No, god, babe. You'd be an amazing mom. Just felt like we still have so much left to do as a pair, you know? We'll be amazing when the time comes. Just wanna savor what we have."

You sniffled and let him pull you back into his arms.

"I know." You mumbled into his shoulder. " 's why I got an IUD."

He raised his head to meet your eyes.

"What?"

"After Sonya told me I wasn't pregnant, I asked her if she could do it. Besides, it's not like birth control was working super well for me." You brought your hand to cup his face. "We've got at least five years left to be the best couple in the world."

He shook his head and for a moment you panicked, wondering if he hadn't wanted that, before he whispered.

"God, I've been such a dick." You hummed in agreement. He pressed a kiss to the column of your neck. "I'm so sorry, babe." You brought a hand up to play with the hair at the nape of his neck and allowed him to keep kissing you. "Forgive me?"

You had already forgiven him, but you took a moment to pretend to consider it.

"Fine," you said and he grinned, seeing past your ruse of hesitation.

He pressed a slow, almost chaste, kiss to your lips, then broke away to sit down on the couch. You followed him, sitting down in the armchair beside him and letting out a huff of laughter when he asked quietly,

"I'd be a good dad, wouldn't I?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," you laughed. His eyes tracked you as you quieted, losing yourself in thought.

"Come on, I know you're thinking about it. Tell me how awesome I'd be."

You side-eyed him before relenting, despite knowing that it would feed into his ego.

"You'd be so good with the baby," you said, chewing on the inside of you cheek before you continued. "He'd be tiny compared to you, but you'd be so gentle. You'd constantly be trying to make him laugh. And you'd teach him how to play, give him a tiny stick and teach him how to skate like his dad."

"And if we had a girl?" He asked, cockiness wiped away by genuine interest.

You considered it for a moment.

"You'd teach her to skate too. You'd read to her at bedtime and tell her that she can be anything she wants so many times that she'd never be able to forget it."

A soft smile spread across Nolan's face.

"Guess it's something to look forward to."

"In the meantime," you drawled. "I can think of something to do while we don't have kids running around."

Nolan shot you a wicked grin and you grinned back.

-Top wallpapers is best fit for:

iPhone 12

iPhone 12 mini

iPhone 12 Pro

iPhone 12 Pro Max

iPhone 11

iPhone 11 Pro

iPhone 11 Pro Max

iPhone X

iPhone XS

iPhone XR

iPhone XS Max

-Bottom wallpapers is best fit for:

iPhone 8+

iPhone 8

iPhone 7

iPhone 7+

iPhone 6s