#unkindnessofone

“Hey Miss Molly....” Quietly, for his own head and hers, he greeted her while carefully taking her from Simone's embrace. The last thing he wanted to do was accidentally drop her into the water. “Are you hungover, too?” Jokingly, he asked her, adjusting the wide rim of her hat so he could actually see her face: expressionless,  but still charming.

“She might be kiss hungover.” Simone added, her wet shoulders against Ashton's legs that were hanging in the water. “When I picked her up from your mum's room, she had the biggest lipstick stains on her. Bright red right on her forehead and cheek.” Simone would have been amused if it hadn't taken three baby wipes to fully remove the makeup from her child's face. Still, she was grateful that Annemarie left the reception early to watch over Molly while Ashton and Simone partied like they were teenagers with their friends.

Ashton held Molly out, just above the water, and let her feet kick clumsily in the water. Simone swam a little bit ahead of her, cheering her on as she watched Molly smile. It was one of the few ways she could indicate her mood to them at all.

“Did you talk to anyone this morning? Is anyone else up?” Ashton asked his wife, prying his eyes away from Molly's legs as he held her. Most of the invited guests to Cagney and Luke's wedding had stayed in surrounding hotels in Brisbane, but there were still some of Ashton's friends who had crashed at The Stamford Plaza or who could also afford a room there. He couldn't remember for sure if he and Calum made morning breakfast plans or if that was just silly drunk talk in between celebratory shots.

“Just Grace and your mum.”

“Ah, I can't remember as much as I'd like to after our first round of shots...” Chuckling, Ashton admitted before handing Molly back to her mother so that he could slide into the pool to join him. He hadn't put on any sunscreen yet even though it had been resting on the night stand by their hotel bed. “I was thinking, maybe, someone could fill in the blanks.”

“You danced a lot.” Simone informed him, a Chesire cat grin spreading across her face as she told him that suggested perhaps his moves on the dance floor hadn't been all that smooth. “And cried. You were very happy for Luke.”

“I like Keg, you know that. She brought us together.” He shot her a wink that he instantly regretted since it poked at his headache.

“You called yourself 'a fountain of extreme feelings'.” Simone wiggled her brows at him with a small chuckle, recalling how emotional the night made her husband. “I'm sure Grace could fill you in.” Simone mentioned. She hadn't exactly stayed stone cold sober either and since she was still pumping and breastfeeding, it had been her first night drinking in over a year. She was as light a weight as she had been on her eighteenth birthday. “She didn't drink last night.”

“What?” Ashton's whole face contorted until it looked like a honey crueler. That wasn't the party girl he knew. Both Michael and his wife could polish off a whiskey bottle to themselves and still walk in a straight line. As Ashton took a minute to consider what Simone said, he realized he hadn't seen Grace drunk in a little while. She had been sipping a glass with lime slice in it all night, but Ashton just assumed it was gin and Sprite.

“Do you want some juicy  gossip? You'd be the second person to know. Well, I told Molly, so third.”

“What do you know?” Ashton didn't know if they were talking about his antics the night before or Grace, but either way, he was interested.

“Grace is pregnant.” Even though no one else was around, Simone still whispered the news.

After inhaling a huge breath of fresh morning air, Ashton lunged closer to the little girl in Simone's arms and poked at her tummy, “Do you hear that, Molls? You're going to have a little buddy!”

“Michael doesn't know.” Simone jumped in quickly, speaking from behind Molly to make it seem as if her daughter was the one dropping the hot gossip mom.

“Alright, start from the beginning.” Moving away from Molly and Simone, Ashton went closer to the pool wall, resting against it to focus on his wife. He really wished he had thought to bring his sunglasses out from his suitcase.

“She told me yesterday when we were in Cagney's suite because she was having a hard time staying awake. She wanted to know my tricks.” Unfortunately, Simone didn't have any. She hadn't gone through the exhaustion a lot of women feel during their first trimester. In fact, she was full of energy until the last month. “She's not really sure how to tell Mike.”

“She wants to some kind of special reveal?” Ashton didn't quite understand.

“They've been at each other’s throats lately. Yesterday was the first time they hadn't fought in a long time and I think that's because they were too busy.” Michael had been in Luke's wedding party and Grace was helping the girls get ready, looking after guests from out of town, and trying to lend a hand where she could. Ashton nodded as he listened to Simone. He remembered Michael telling him as they were drinking with Luke and the rest of his buddies in the limo that Grace had told him to go fuck himself the night before, leaving him to sleep in the hotel bath tub with a blanket and pillow that a maid brought up.

“They love each other though.” Shrugging it off, Ashton said without a care. Nobody ever questioned the affection between Grace and Michael. There had been times where they were threatening to break up with one another and then five seconds later Michael was cursing out a random guy in a club for looking at Grace the wrong way or standing too close. Their relationship was hot to the touch, but Ashton assumed they wanted it that way. “Michael once said he likes when she's angry because then she wants to be on top.” Ashton had no idea why he remembered that. He was a little embarrassed that none of them had been classy enough to keep information about their sex lives to themselves except for Calum.

“Well, she's worried.”

“They weren't trying?”

“She said they've just stopped using protection, but that was before they started fighting.”

“Mike's wanted to have kids since he met her. He'll be so happy.” Ashton really wasn't concerned in the slightest, but he could read on Simone's face that she wasn't as optimistic.

“Yeah, it's not about him and his feelings.” Forever a feminist, Simone shot with a little spice on her words, earning a little kick in the water from Molly. “Grace doesn't come from a supportive household. She didn't have a mother figure. She's very scared she will fail at it. Oh God, Ash, it was awful. She literally said, 'What if I'm as bad at it as I was at acting and everything else?' My heart would have broke if Cagney hadn't come out two seconds later in her dress.” The hairstylist really had looked like a vision. Nobody thought Luke would cry, but the moment Simone saw her friend in white she texted Ashton and told him she was changing her bet. A hundred dollars that the groom would weep – and she was right.

“How far along is she?” Ashton asked, knowing Simone had all the details. His wife never got involved in anything without gathering all the information. He always thought of her as a squirrel when she was in work mode, collecting everything and anything she could get her hands on.

“11 and a half weeks.”

“I would kill you if you waited that long to tell me.” Without any thought or regard for Grace, Ashton said with an eye roll that almost went around twice.

“Well, good thing she isn't your wife. She can handle this however she wants. I won't fault her for any decision she makes. We are supporting her, Ashton.”

“I feel like I should tell Mike.” A few seconds of uneasy silence drifted between them, but Ashton pushed off of the wall and waded closer to Simone and Molly, kissing his daughter's cheek and then his wife's lips, soft from a beeswax lip balm.

“Don't.” Whispering, Simone advised. “I'm only telling you because I can't keep anything from you, not because I want you to get involved.” She knew that wasn't easy for him, but it wasn't their issue to meddle in. “They'll be fine. She's just frightened.” Even though Molly's experience had been very different, she could still empathize with her friend. For her, the fear didn't arrive until the contractions did. That was when it truly felt real

***************************

Enjoying a sip of hair of the dog from a flat beer left open on the floor from the night before, Michael laid out on the chair he moved near the hotel balcony. He enjoyed the sunlight pouring into the room, bathing him from head to toe in the bright explosion of colour. It was a gorgeous morning after one Hell of a night. He opened up his laptop on his lap and looked over at his sleeping wife while the home screen loaded. It was very strange for her to still be asleep while it was almost eleven in the morning. Usually, he was the one to crash into the afternoon while she went to an early morning spin class and ran errands about town, meeting with friends for lunch, and picking up dry cleaning and organic groceries. He just assumed she was either fully emerging into vacation mode or that she had danced herself exhausted at Luke and Cagney's reception. Michael hadn't realized yet that Grace had been napping lately. He just thought she was taking breaks from him. They had been pushing one another’s buttons a lot more furiously lately. It seemed like all he had to do was squeeze her too tight and she was jumping down his throat.

She was beautiful though. Michael still felt like he had won the lottery. For all of Grace's flaws, she was still the soft 'good morning' and 'good night' sound that he missed when they were apart. She was the first person to make him feel truly needed. It had always been him who loved fiercely and grew attached to other people, but Grace relied on Michael when she was down, she craved his jokes and his arms, and it made him feel unstoppable. She was one of the toughest people he had ever met, but yet, she genuinely needed him. They could fight like they were being paid to, but Michael never lost sight of how important they were to one another. He smiled at her completely still body until his laptop released a bright beep as his fingers mindlessly typed the wrong password.

“Oh, fuck.” He hissed at the machine, settling down his stale beer on the floor to use both hands this time. The beep hadn't interrupted Grace's slumber in the slightest, but Michael's curse did. Stirring, her eyes fluttered open and she wiped at her face, smudging the already creased makeup from the night before that she hadn't washed off. She had remembered to remove her flash lashes though. They were resting with dry glue all over them on the night stand by her side. “I was trying to be quiet.” Michael chuckled at himself and confessed.

“It's alright.” Grace pulled herself up by one side and reached for her phone that was resting by the curled up lashes. She checked the time and noted that she had missed a phone call from her doctor's office back in New York. “I should be up anyway.” She was really not used to how tired she had become. It was as if she hadn't stopped yawning the moment the strip turned pink on the pregnancy test. To be honest, she couldn't believe Michael was up. He had been rowdy the night before. She thought for sure he would sleep the whole day away like a bear would the winter season.

“Uhh...I slept in the bed next to you last night.” Michael had his laptop open on his knees, but gave Grace his attention. He liked watching her this way. It had been a while since he watched her unwrap her naked body from bed sheets, messy hair falling around her like a waterfall of tangles. “I hope that's alright. I guess, I just passed out.” They had been too busy with helping their friends get married to properly sort of their argument from the night before. Michael didn't dare say it out loud, but he couldn't remember what it was about. He knew he made an off hand comment about the wedding they were all in Brisbane for and that Grace took it the wrong way. Next thing he knew, he was banished to the bath tub since the hotel was out of extra rooms thanks to Luke's nuptials.

“Yeah.” Throwing her hair back from the front, Grace confirmed. “I asked you too.” She reminded him. Drunk Michael had been clumsy, but gracious. He was on his way to his makeshift bathroom bed when she asked him to cuddle her close.

Michael's face didn't hide any of his surprise, but a crooked smile tiptoed over his face, “I wish I could remember.” The night was a blur at best.

“We were about ten seconds into sex before we stopped because you kept saying you couldn't find me.” She informed him. “You said we were spinning.” She was the queen of messy sex, but it just didn't feel right with him slurring his words and losing track of his own limbs. “So, we just cuddled.” Grace watched as Michael just smiled at the words she was saying. “It was nice.”

“You're not mad at me?” He checked, removing his laptop from his person and closing it on the way to the floor.

“No. I love drunk Michael.” That wasn't always her stance on him intoxicated, but she was trying to put their recent troubles aside. “He thinks I'm beautiful.”

“Sober Michael thinks you're beautiful too.” Frowning at her with the corners of his mouth down and his eyebrows closing over his eyes, Michael informed her. “You seem to always forget that somehow, how in love with you I am.” Shaking his head, he rejoined her in bed. She was sitting up, but he pulled her down with his arms wrapped around her chest and curled her into him, his lips finding different tangles of hair to kiss vivaciously. “We have a couple more days here. Anything you want to do?” Michael checked in, purring in her ear as his grip around her shoulder loosened so he could roam elsewhere around her warm body. The sun had toasted them both perfectly this morning.

“I told Simone we would watch Molly tomorrow.”

“Yeah?” Pulling away from her head, Michael checked. That was news to him.

“How often do her and Ash get time together, right?” Between her company and Ashton's commitments to the band, it was a miracle they ever saw one another. Now with a baby in the mix, Grace just assumed the two of them lived completely separate lives that were forever dowsed in breast milk and drool.  It was one of the many things that frightened her about motherhood.

“Yeah, no, it's cool. I just didn't know. What do you do with a three month old anyway?” He asked and then wondered if that was actually how old Molly Irwin was.

“You don't know?” Very scared, Grace checked, pushing away from Michael and furiously studying his face as if the actual answer was written somewhere between his forehead and left nostril.  “I don't know either. I guess we just feed her and put her down and don't like...throw her around like a football.” She rambled.

“I wasn't planning to do that.” He laughed at her, shaking his head. “Are you sure you want to babysit? You seem a little freaked out.”

“Of course, I do.” Grace scoffed like  he was crazy. “It'll be fine. It won't be hard.” She said to mostly herself.

“Well, what about today? We have the whole day ahead of us.” Even though Brisbane was special to Cagney and Luke, Michael wasn't sure if Grace had been there before. He wanted to seize this moment where she was feeling calm and they were in a good place. “Whatever you want to do, okay?” If she just wanted to hang out in the room and stay naked, he would be very okay with that, but if she wanted to call some friends and go out, Michael would make that happen as well.

“Could we talk?” Grace also wanted to take advantage of the warmth between them. She had been craving the current closeness she was feeling, their legs between one another's and their stomachs pressed together. The thin grey fabric of Michael's boxer briefs that he had wrestled into that morning were the only thing between them. It felt exactly how it should feel and Grace figured if there was a perfect time to tell him that she was pregnant, it was right now.

“Yeah. What about?” He always worried when they were in the middle of a bad spell that this would be the time she grew tired of his bullshit and wanted out. He had a full on panic attack the day after she accepted his proposal that one day she would get over him and leave. Calum had to punch him in the stomach to get him to snap out of it and focus on the song they were trying to record. “Fuck, did I say something stupid last night? You know I talk out of my ass when I'm drunk...” Michael rolled his head back on a pillow and pinched the middle of his forehead. He wished he could remember, but figured if he had done or said something unforgivable it might be better that it was lost in a fog. “I know it's not an excuse, but I'm sure I didn't mean it.” He reached for either of her hands under the table, massaging her knuckles with his thumb once he had one. Michael really wanted a break from the fighting.

“Stop.” Grace rested her forehead on his and exhaled against him as he released a heavy breath. They both were in desperate need of a teeth brushing. “I'm not upset about last night. You didn't say anything stupid. Well, you told Calum that he was too scrumptious to ever feel lonely and we all thought that was bizarre, but it's fine.” Grace weaseled her hand out from under Michael's and wrapped it around his knuckles, bringing it up to her dry lips for a kiss.

“Then what is it?” His nerves hadn't subsided in the slightest.

Grace inhaled as deep as she could, just the way she did when she tried her first cigarette: closing her eyes, sucking in until she felt her ribs ache, and then releasing slow enough to worry if she looked cool or not to the strangers around her. She noticed how anxious Michael looked and knew that she had past the point of no return. It wasn't as if she could just smile, shrug, and say, 'Nothing, nevermind.' He would either force it out of her or have a pounding rock in his chest for the rest of the day.

“Are you looking forward to a day with Molly tomorrow?” Kissing his knuckles again, she asked as casually as she would ask him if he wanted milk in his morning coffee or not.

“What?” Michael's eyes remained wide while his eyebrows thickened over top of them. “Um, I guess?” She was being weird, but Michael knew better than to point that out to her. “I don't know. She's a baby. She's my best friend's baby.” Michael didn't really have any feelings about it. It wouldn't be the worst by any stretch of his imagination, but he could think of many other activities that he would enjoy more.

“I'm just checking.”

“That's what you wanted to talk about? My interest in babysitting?”

“No...” Shaking her head, Grace grew meek for a second. She was always bombastic. There was nothing shy about the aspiring actress. It was, perhaps, Michael's favorite thing about her. Even if no one else thought she was a star, she refused to not shine.

“Grace, what's going on?” He laughed and poked at her stomach as she started to fold the blanket she was under between them. Michael had to fight to find her body that he had been tangled up with just seconds before.

“I'mpregnant.” She grumbled from behind her teeth that were locked behind shut lips and covered by the top of the sheets. Her eyes watched Michael, but he just leaned his head in to try and hear her better.

“What did you say?” He squinted at her if that would help his hearing. It was hard to hear her behind all her layers of armor, but his chuckling at her strange behavior wasn't doing him any flavors either. Michael pulled down the blanket from her chin as Grace said it again, only making him laugh more.

She prepared herself with a heavy breath again and threw her hands over her face, releasing the two words together again. This time she wasn't met with any poking or wrestling from Michael. She couldn't hear a breath from him, his laughing had stopped entirely. Grace spread her perfectly manicured fingers open and spied Michael through the openings between her index and middle. He was staring at her stunned, but somewhat suspicious with his left eye widened just slightly bigger.

“Did you just say what I think you said? Did you say that you are...? Grace...?” Michael checked slowly, watching her nod. Once her chin was completely engulfed by her neck and the bed sheets, Michael laid back down and put his own hands over his face, mimicking how she was just a moment ago.

Grace sat up with fear, her hands down on her knees as she tried to study Michael's hidden face just as he had been doing with hers moments ago, “What?” She snapped. “What is it? What are you thinking?” Her biggest fear was that he had the same questions she did. Grace instantly figured that Michael thought she would be the worst mother in the world even though he once told her before they had sex that he thought she would be an incredible parent, that he hadn't known if he wanted to be a dad himself until he took up with her.

“I'm thinking I can't wait to show them Howl's Moving Castle...” Michael admitted once his hands were down by his sides, exposing his rosy cheeks. Grace didn't have a second to ask him what that was before he had her pinned down, straddling her hips and kissing her face from chin to forehead. “This is crazy!” His best friend just tied the knot the night before and now he was finding out he was expecting. Michael felt like he was going to explode. He was the sun screaming into their room, but louder. As Grace laughed beneath him, he thought about running around the room in his underwear and then taking to the halls. Michael calmed down for just a moment and rested his head on her shoulder, breathing in her natural scent as his mind reeled through different movies he was going to introduce his kid to, matching Metallica shirts he could dress them in, and teaching them all the words to his favorite songs. They would have to move out of their condo and into a house. His kid was going to have a backyard and basement. “I'm going to practice throwing Molly in the air tomorrow and catching her. That's what Dad's do.” He whispered against Grace's skin, his excitement dancing out of the softness in his voice. He hadn't noticed,  but Michael had put both his palms flat on her stomach, feeling nothing and everything all at once.

“Ashton would kill you if you dropped her.” Grace chuckled back, her head cheek resting on top of his bedhead. “If Simone didn't first.” She mused.

“I can't wait to tell them.” He said unaware that those two already knew. “Oh shit, my parents are going to freak out. Let's take them out for dinner tonight?!” He popped his head up so quickly that Grace barely had time to move her own.

“Wait. You're not scared?”

“No!” As if she was insane for asking, Michael shouted. “This is awesome. Our kid is going to have your gorgeous face, my taste in music, and they're going to be amazing. This is the best.” He couldn't believe she wasn't jumping up and down like he was.

“I'm terrified.”

“That's probably normal. You could talk to Simone about it.”

“What if I'm like my mom?” Very seriously, Grace asked. He softened again, realizing just how real her question was. They so rarely discussed Grace's family. She had once changed the subject to Charles Manson when Michael asked about her parents because that was more pleasant for her. Michael was silent for a moment before shaking his head to and fro' like a dog trying to dry off after running through the backyard sprinkler.

“Nope. No. I don't need to know that lady to know that won't happen.” Michael crawled up onto his knees and  found both her hands, curling them up in his. “You are supportive and protective, you are tough and kind at the same time. This kid is so lucky. There is nothing even remotely monstrous about you. You were built for anything.”  He watched as she believed him, her eyes adoring him while her fears were released through her lips warbling.

“You always know what to say.” She sighed. It was times like these that she understood why songwriting came so easy to her husband. He had a way with words that could calm anyone down. It was mind boggling to her that he was the same man who could make dick jokes at the wrong moment and talk with his whole foot in his mouth sometimes.

Michael leaned down and kissed her, slowly and sucking on her bottom lip before quickly letting go to pull the covers off of her and kiss her exposed stomach with a loud 'smack'.