Chapter Text
Later, Lexi will think it’s momentous that she met Fez that morning, that it was some sort of sign, some nod from fate, that he was there from the very beginning.
Then though, he was just the handsome neighbour who stopped to talk with her as they were getting into their cars. They quickly figured out they lived on the same floor and Lexi remembered the real estate agent saying a nice young couple lived in the apartment across the way. The simmer of attraction she felt took her aback. It wasn’t that Lexi had ever been of the opinion she couldn’t notice other people just because she was in a relationship, it just didn’t happen all that often, not like this. Certainly not at seven a.m. when she’s clutching her coffee like a life buoy, days of unpacking having taken their toll. Later, she’ll wonder if that was some sort of ‘hey Lexi, you’re ovulating’ from the universe. Then though, she figures it’s that the type of handsome Fezco is contrasts with the type of handsome Ryan is. Ryan is the exact type of handsome that leaves Lexi in constant surprise he’s never managed to book a role as a background Elder on a Book of Mormon tour. Fez is a type of handsome that’s harder to categorise - short short hair, freckles, pretty blue eyes.
Maybe it wasn’t the way he looked, or not all about the way he looked. Maybe it was the way he listened, the genuine way he smiled when she said she was a teacher. Maybe it was how he nodded seriously and noted it down in his phone when Faye yelled down from the window to remind him to buy tampons.
Lexi had thought how sweet he seemed, how caring about his girlfriend, had remembered how she unpacked a few boxes of tampons the night before and called up to Faye to let her know she had some if she was stuck. Lexi had misremembered how long it had been since her own last period. And that night, not-quite-tipsy on celebratory move in tequila, she figured it wouldn’t matter that they hadn’t found any condoms in all those boxes, it was just one time and she wasn’t even in a particularly fertile part of her cycle.
(She was wrong.)
Lexi realises her period is somewhere on the way to significantly late when Izzy, one of her quieter eighth graders, hangs back after class and whispers that hers has come and she has nothing. Lexi has a fully stocked drawer, one she hasn’t needed to dip into for herself for an indeterminate amount of time. She checks her messages with Cassie, but apparently the last time her period was worthy of a mention was three months ago when she wondered if maybe rabid dogs were inside her uterus. There’s been at least one since then, she knows because it hadn’t bothered her much at all, and then there’d been some spotting recently too, so maybe she’s just got confused and she’s not late after all.
It gnaws at her though, through the rest of her classes, and after school when poor Anna Carter makes the truly misguided choice to attempt “She Used to Be Mine” as her audition song Lexi takes this as a nudge to go buy a pregnancy test at the conveniently located Target on the way home.
It burns a hole in her bag the rest of the drive, and she’s about to rush out of her car when Fezco pulls up beside her. He smiles and waves, the same way he does each morning.
“Hey Lexi,” he says as they climb out of their respective vehicles. “I don’t usually meet you comin’ home from work.”
“School musical season is starting,” she explains. “Auditions are in full swing.”
“You do that on your own time on top of everything else?” he asks, holding the door open for her.
“Thanks. No, it’s part of my job.” Another perk to teaching at a private K-12 school. Though it did come with the expectation that the show actually be good.
“Guess that’s okay then. Still a lot of work though.” She can tell he’s slowing his pace on the stairs to meet hers. “Did Ryan have that audition yet? One of the, uh, Law and Order shows, wasn’t it?”
“ Organized Crime .” Lexi tries to keep the grimness out of her voice. Every iteration of the franchise has been playing on a constant loop anytime he’s home. “It’s Friday.” Thank fuck.
“Cool. Maybe we can all have that dinner sometime next week then?” Fez had broached the idea soon after she and Ryan had moved in, and if his sincerity hadn’t convinced her he’d meant it, the frequent repetitions of the offer surely would have.
“Sounds good.” She turns the key in her door. “I’ll probably see you in the morning?”
“See you in the morning, Lexi.”
Ryan’s rushing when she gets inside, almost late for his shift, and she’d already decided she’d wait for him to leave before taking the tests. So she eats leftovers and drinks a lot of water, and when he’s gone she pees on two sticks, waits the requisite fifteen minutes, and tries not to hyperventilate when she sees the results.
It doesn’t take as long to calm down as she might have thought. As she paces the apartment and tries to codify her feelings on continuing with this pregnancy, she finds they don’t really fit into nice, logical boxes.
Sure, this is earlier than they’d planned, and if she’s being really honest (which is the only option now), she’s never been quite sure how serious Ryan is when they talk about kids, how much he actually wants what she wants. The fact she knows she can’t let him know until after the audition on Friday no matter what she decides feels pretty telling.
But… she has a permanent job with good maternity benefits and leave, she’d seen how well Sofia was treated last year and that all the buzzwords about being a good workplace for moms might actually be accurate. The apartment is a one-bed, but it’s a roomy one, and she thinks there’s enough space for a baby for sure. Lexi’s been smart with saving too. She’s 28 now, that’s not far from her old plan of three kids starting at 30. A plan she’d probably laugh off now if anyone were to ask her about it, but here, alone as the night falls, she thinks she still quite likes that idea.
And… along with the nerves on waiting for that test, all day there’s been anticipation too. It hadn’t felt the way this situation would have felt in college, or when she’d just started teaching, or maybe even a year or two ago. And along with the anxiety on seeing those positive tests, there had been something she thinks was excitement too, a warm buzz at the possibility of it all.
A baby. A whole new person a little like her, a little like Ryan, a little like Cassie, her mom, Barbara, Bill. Maybe even a little like her favourite things about her dad.
At one a.m., after she’s made an appointment with her ob/gyn using their virtual booking system and ordered a bunch of the best recommended prenatal vitamins, when she finds herself using the tape measure to figure out where a crib could go in the bedroom it clicks for Lexi that she really wants this.
The tears come then, fast, like they’ve been on time delay, and that’s of course when Ryan arrives home.
“Lexi? You still up?” he calls, sounding confused. “You have school tomorrow, right?” His features fall into worry when he sees her and he pulls her into a hug. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, really.” Now isn't the time to tell him. “I, uh, fell asleep on the couch and had a bad dream and then I didn’t want to go back to sleep yet so I started thinking about if there was any other furniture we could put in the bedroom.” She waves the tape measure.
“Your dad again?” Ryan asks.
“No, not this time. I think I’m just… stressed about school stuff and… your audition maybe?” It’s sort of true.
“No need for you to stress about that. I know you’re not moving to New York mid-school year.” If she’s having a baby, Lexi has no plans on moving to New York and away from both their families anytime soon. She still doesn’t get why they’re even auditioning for this show in LA. “It’s just a few episode arc at the end of the season anyway, they might not want me to stick around. And I don’t even have the job yet.” He kisses the top of her head. “You don’t always have to be thinking three steps ahead, okay?”
“It’s hard to turn it off.” She’s already thought about whether she actually wants to send her kid to private school even with the significantly reduced rates for children of teachers.
“How about you get changed for bed and I make you some herbal tea and tell you stories from the bar?”
Lexi smiles. She hasn’t heard stories from the bar in a while, maybe because Ryan is so sick of working there. They used to do this a lot when she’d get home from work, Ryan acting out his worst customers and telling her all the gossip he’d overheard.
It’s only two days until the audition (one really now that it’s officially Thursday), she can let things be normal for him for now, can pretend they’re just a two for a little longer.
Telling Ryan about the baby doesn’t go how Lexi expects. He doesn’t get the job and somehow that makes it a little easier, maybe because he doesn’t already have one foot out the door.
He sits with it for a second, asks her what she wants to do, and when she tells him she’s continuing with the pregnancy he sits with it again, silent, until he nods. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
“Really?” Lexi had not been expecting this to be such a short conversation, or such an easy one.
“Yeah. You, me and our baby.”
It sounds so good. So good that she wants to ignore the voice at the back of her mind telling her this isn’t real, that this is Ryan playing the role of expectant dad, not Ryan wanting to be an expectant dad.
But when the call comes the very next day to say the actor they wanted more has dropped out and would Ryan still be interested, she knows he’s already gone.
What she hadn’t been prepared for was him to slam the door so loud it reverberates through the whole apartment, so loud she apologises to the baby, even though she knows they can’t hear anything yet from all the reading she’s been doing.
And then it’s just the two of them.
*****
Fez has never been jumpy, it not being a helpful attribute in either his current or previous lines of work, but his pen slips when he hears a door slam. It’s so close that it has to be coming from the apartment across the hall. He doesn’t think he’s heard much noise at all from Lexi and her boyfriend since they moved in, certainly nothing like this, and it concerns him enough that he puts his sudoku aside and wanders over to the window. From there he can see Ryan shoving a bag in the passenger seat and speeding away.
“What’s going on?” Faye asks from the couch where she’s painting her nails. She’d remembered to crack the windows open this time.
“The actor boyfriend jus’ took off. You think we should check on Lexi?” Fez isn’t usually a nosy neighbour, but he has a bad feeling about this.
“Why? You gonna fix her door if it’s coming off the hinges?” Faye says this he didn’t manage to fix the door on her wardrobe last week without any help other than Youtube.
“What if he did something?” Fez hasn’t heard a door slam like that in a long time.
“He’s an actor, he was probably being… dramatic.” She raises her eyebrows at him. “That man isn’t hitting anyone.”
He rubs his eyes. “Isn’t that the whole point though? That it could be fucking anyone?” He barely knows Ryan, hadn’t done much other than nod when they passed in the hall, but he’s starting to get to know Lexi. Their short morning chats as they get into their cars before going to work always seem to put a smile on his face. He doesn’t feel good about sitting around if there’s any chance she could be hurt.
“Yeah.” Faye admires one of her nails. “But Pretty Boy Ryan did not hit Lexi.”
Fez should never have called him that out loud in her presence. Should probably never have called him that at all. “Would you go check on her?” Maybe it would be better for another woman to check on her.
She looks at him like he asked her to jump off the top floor. “My nails aren’t done. And I’m not worried. Maybe they have a huge fight every few weeks. We don’t know them.” She blows on a nail. “If you’re worried, you go check.”
Fez knows that banging on her door and asking what happened straight up is not the play here. “I could go ask to borrow milk or flour.”
“Why couldn’t you just go to the store?” Faye asks.
That’s a good question. “Uh, I started baking and realised we were out?” He bakes. Sometimes.
“Then you’d have to give her some later, would be rude not to.”
Faye as the voice of reason is something it took a while to get used to, Fez doesn’t think Ash is quite there yet. ‘You want cookies then?”
“Sure.” Her face brightens. “Oh! That reminds me - that bakery on Willow Crescent is doing half-price pastries for couples again.”
Fez sighs. “Faye, you gotta stop pretending we a couple so you can get free shit.”
“Do you not like the free shit?” He does, he just doesn’t feel good about pretending to be something they’re not.
“Ion think it’s a good idea.” He grabs his phone. “If I need your help you gonna come yeah, no matter if your nails ain’t dry?” Faye lowers her nail polish, looks at him with disappointed eyes. “Sorry. That wasn’t cool.” He knows Faye would come in an instant, thinks that maybe the fact she’s so blasé about this might suggest things probably are all fine.
But the feeling in his stomach isn’t going away. “I’ll be back soon.”
He slips on a pair of sneakers and makes his way over to Lexi’s apartment, knocks gently on the door. Maybe he should have given her some more space, she might not want to talk to anyone right now?
The door opens. Her eyes are a little puffy but other than that she looks okay, gives him a surprised smile. “Hi Fezco, how are you?”
“Uh, good, I, uh, was making some cookies and found out that we’re out of sugar. Do you have any I could borrow?”
“You’re in luck, I bought a bunch of baking ingredients last week.” She opens the door wider. “Come in.”
“You want me to take off my sneakers?” he asks, looking down at her bunny slippers which match surprisingly well with her blue sundress. He starts removing them without waiting for an answer, taking in how white the carpet is. As he follows her into the kitchen his eyes track her arms and legs for marks, but all he sees is pale skin with the occasional freckle.
Lexi opens up a cupboard. “What kind of sugar do you need?”
Shit. He should have prepared better for this. “Caster, please.”
She grabs a bag and then reaches up for some tupperware. “Would you like a cup of tea, coffee?” She switches on the kettle.
“Ion wanna impose.”
“You wouldn’t be.” She drums her fingers on the counter. “Please?”
He can’t say no to the note of pleading in her voice. “Yeah. Of course. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
“Peppermint tea?” Lexi passes him the neat little box filled with sugar, a weaker smile on her face than earlier.
Fez nods, then coughs. “You know, if you ever need anything, anytime, me and Faye are just across the hall.”
Lexi clicks her tongue. “You heard.”
He could pretend he didn’t, but that doesn’t feel right. “Yeah.”
She motions for him to sit down at the kitchen table as she busies herself with putting tea bags in two neat little polka dot cups. “That’s never happened before. Like, actually never happened before. And I’ve known him… eight years?” She bites her lip. “He’s not coming back. Well, I presume he’s coming back for the rest of his stuff but…”
Fuck. In all his worries over what might have happened, Fez had somehow never considered a break-up. “Shit, I’m sorry, Lexi. Is there anyone you want me to call? You sure you want me to stick around?”
“My mom and my sister are coming over later anyway, I was going to call them but… I guess I thought I wanted to be alone for a while first, and then you came over and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be alone after all.” She finishes pouring hot water into the cups and brings them over, returns to the counter and then turns back. “I’m sorry. You listen to people all week. You shouldn’t have to put up with my problems on a Saturday. And you had plans! You had started making cookies!”
He pushes the sugar along the table, a guilty expression on his face. “Uh, I didn’t start making cookies. Was jus’... worried when I heard that door.”
Lexi’s look of surprise softens and her eyes get even more like molten chocolate (a thought process Fez shuts right the fuck down). “Thank you.” She bends down and opens another cupboard, taking out a large tupperware filled with baked goods. “It was really loud, wasn’t it?”
“It really fucking was.” He coughs. “Sorry.”
Lexi laughs. “You don’t need to apologise for saying fuck in front of me.” She takes over the plate of cakes and cookies as well a small plate where she puts her teabag. Fez copies her. “These are from a bake sale at school yesterday. Private school PTA moms go all out.”
“They let you say fuck in front of the kids at that fancy school?” he jokes.
She laughs again. “It’s decently progressive, but I think that might be a step too far. They do let them swear onstage though, or at least a few per show.”
“So you corruptin’ the kids through the theatre, I see how it is.” There’s a bit more colour in her cheeks now. “Did you always want to be a teacher?”
“Not really.” Lexi puts down her cup. “I wanted to be a writer, well, I do still write, but I wanted something steady for income, and I’d liked school myself, mostly, so teaching seemed like a good fit. I don’t think I expected to like it as much as I do, but,” she traces a finger up and down the side of her cup, “there’s something so great about introducing them to something new, and getting to watch them learn and grow.”
“Yeah.” He could tell Lexi loved her job from how she talked about it that very first morning they met. “It’s an important role you got, you can really make a difference for kids.”
She nods. “Did you always want to work in counselling? Or with at risk kids?”
Fez rubs a hand over his hair. “To be honest, I didn’t think I had all that many options growing up. Me and my brother… we was involved in some dangerous shit.” He doesn’t know how much he wants to share, how much Lexi wants to know or how much he wants to change how she might see him, to find out what she might think. “I did a lot of things I’m not proud of. But we got out, and then my brother was involved with the programme I work with now, and I started helping out a lil, and they liked what I was doing and helped me sort out school stuff and… here I am.”
“That’s really impressive, Fez.” He thinks from other people that would sound patronising, but from Lexi it sounds real. “Your brother… how is he doing?”
“He’s great. Senior up at Berkeley now.” His pride is obvious, he knows. “Did you go to school round here?”
“At UCLA. Theatre and English.” She takes a bite out of a chocolate muffin. “That’s where I met Ryan.”
He hadn’t known whether they should talk about him or not. “You been together since then?”
Lexi shakes her head. “We dated for a little bit in college, but he was two years ahead of me and when he graduated he got a job in a touring company and we didn’t want to do long distance. He ended up back in LA a few years later and we met up and…” She takes another bite of the muffin. “I don’t think that’s going to happen this time around.”
“Is it because of long distance? Did he get that job?” He shouldn’t be asking so many questions.
“He did get the job, and long distance is part of it but…” she shakes her head, “there’s other stuff too.”
“Sorry. Ion mean to pry.”
“No, it’s fine. I brought it up.” Lexi starts to fold the little floral cupcake case. “It’s weird. How much something can still hurt even when you’ve already prepared yourself.”
Fez takes one of the brownies. “No matter how much you think you ready, it’s different when things happen for real.” It had been like that when his grandma had died, the pain still searing even though he knew that now she was finally at rest. He watches as Lexi continues to fold the cupcake case into tinier and tinier shapes. “Do you wanna talk about it some more or talk about something else?”
She looks up. “Something else. There’s probably going to be a whole postmortem later with Cassie and my mom.”
“No worries. What musical you making these kids do? One with lots of swearing?”
“Not this year.” He likes her laugh. “We’re actually going more traditional and doing Anything Goes because I have a bunch of kids who can tap.” She grows more animated as she explains what the musical is about and how many times she’s watched bootlegs of the revival starring someone called Sutton Foster and how the cast for the school’s production is starting to take shape. It’s a little like their morning chats, but more in-depth and Fez thinks briefly that he would happily listen to Lexi talk about just about anything.
They move from her job to his and then a debate about the best nearby coffee places. He feels he’s just about to talk Lexi around to the little café on Main when she gets a text from her sister saying they’re almost there.
“Are they coming from far away?” he asks, collecting their plates and taking them over to the sink despite Lexi’s protests that she’ll clean them away.
“Just from home, my mom is still in North Highland so it’s not too far.”
He turns the tap off. “You from North Highland?!”
“Yeah.” She starts to dry the plates he’s cleaning. “Why?”
“I’m from East Highland.” He used to sell to some kids from North who’d wind up at parties he was at; he doesn’t think a teenaged Lexi was ever one of them.
“No way! We could have met back then.” She seems charmed by the idea.
“Ion know that we was movin’ in the same circles back in the day.”
Lexi puts her dishcloth over her shoulder and pops a hand on her hip. “You mean to tell me you weren’t a theatre kid?”
He laughs. “Not quite.”
“Theatre kids know how to party, you know,” she tells him.
“You all givin’ it this,” he says, immediately regretting his decision to attempt jazz hands when suds start flying from his fingers through the air, then the regret immediately disappearing when he draws the biggest laugh out of Lexi he has yet.
She’s wiping tears from her eyes when her phone starts to buzz, letting her know her family are here. “Thank you for staying,” she says as they make their way towards the door. “It really helped.”
“Anytime, Lexi.” He clears his throat. “Me and Faye are just across the hall if you need anything, remember that.”
She brushes her hand down his arm and thanks him again before he goes.
The minute he’s in the door, Faye’s head swivels around from Ru Paul to him. “Did you forget the fucking sugar? I hope the boyfriend is a better actor than you are.”
He sits down on the couch beside her. “I told her the truth after a while. And he ain’t the boyfriend anymore.”
Faye clicks her fingers. “A break-up slamming of the door. That fits.” She frowns. “Did she dump him or did he leave?”
“Pretty sure he left. He got a job in New York, sounds like there was some other shit too.”
“Men…” Faye shakes her head. “Hey! She’s single now.” She raises both eyebrows.
“Come on now, it ain’t like that.” She rolls her eyes at him. “I’m not gonna lie and say she’s not a beautiful girl, or I don’t like talking to her.” He could talk to her all day. “But she jus’ out of a longterm relationship. She needs a real friend, not some guy biding his time, lookin’ for a way in.” Fez can be her friend, wants to be her friend.
Faye pats his hand. “You’re a good guy, Fez.”
He’s not so sure about that. But he tries, and surely that’s got to count for something.
*****
Lexi did not expect to cry the second she saw Cassie and her mom. Fez had done such a good job of distracting her, of making things seem okay, at least for a little while. But the tears come immediately when she opens the door.
“Lexi! What’s wrong? Did something happen?” Suze asks as she drops their bags, while Cassie wraps her in a hug.
As soon as her mom puts her arms around them, she finds she can get the words out. “Ryan and I broke up. He got the job.”
“Oh Lexi,” Cassie squeezes her tighter. “Are you sure you wouldn’t try long distance this time? It’s different to when you were in college.”
“It wasn’t just that.” This is not how she planned on telling them. She was going to do it later on, after her first scan maybe. She’d tell Cassie separately, really plan what she was going to say, and with her mom she might do something cute, a cake or a sign. But if Ryan is gone she needs someone else to know. “I’m pregnant. It wasn’t planned, but I thought it all through and… I want to do this.”
She looks at Cassie in silent apology and her sister shakes her head and puts her hands on Lexi’s cheeks, kissing her forehead. “I’m so happy for you, Lexi.”
“A baby! My baby is having a baby!”
Lexi interrupts her mom. “Hopefully. It’s still really early and the statistics…”
Suze rubs her back and rocks her back and forth. “I know, sweetie. But this is exciting news.” Then she takes a step back all of a sudden. “Wait, does Ryan know about the baby?” Lexi nods. “Ryan knows that you’re having his baby and he left you to go to New York?” Lexi nods again. “Oh, I’m going to cut off his dick.”
“Mom!”
“Cassie, give me the keys. Did he go to Barbara and Bill’s? Or one of his friend’s? Wherever he is, I will find him. And…”
“You will not cut off his dick,” Cassie says. “Maddy would do a much better job of that.”
“Oh my god, no one is cutting off anybody’s dick. Can we sit down and just talk?” Lexi asks.
“Of course. I’m sorry, honey.” Suze shepherds her over to the couch. “Do you need anything?”
“Have you been tired?” Cassie asks. “Any sickness?”
“I’ve been tired.” She’d been putting it down to the musical, but the pregnancy test had given a better explanation. “But no sickness.”
“No women in our family get morning sickness,” her mom boasts.
Cassie curls up on the couch, putting an arm around Lexi. “When did you find out?”
“Wednesday. My period was late so I took a test, well, two tests and…” Wednesday feels a long time ago now. “I just told Ryan yesterday. I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to tell him before the audition.” Cassie raises her eyebrows at this.
Suze frowns. “Did he leave then or was it after he got the job?” Lexi had texted them both last night when he originally hadn’t been offered the part.
“Today, after he got the job. Yesterday, he said he wanted to do this.” Lexi shakes her head. “I think I knew though, I think I knew from the beginning I had to base this decision on what I could handle by myself.”
“Did he just up and leave after they called?” Cassie asks.
“We had a fight. I heard him take the call and then he didn’t come in straight away after, and when he did he said he knew I was never going to move to New York anyway and I definitely wasn’t now I was having a baby.” The second part she couldn’t deny. Cassie and Suze share a look. “What?”
“We’re not agreeing with him,” Cassie says, a bit too quickly. “Or not supporting him anyway. But, you did hate New York when you went out with him that summer and then subbed for a few months.”
“I didn’t hate it,” she says, also a bit too quickly. “I just… didn’t like it as much as I expected to.” Lexi thought she would love living in New York, the way she had loved it when she’d visited previously. But it had been so busy and crowded, and it had got so cold, and everyone she loved other than Ryan was so far away. It had made her feel unsettled too, that she wasn’t enjoying something she’d thought she’d always wanted. That if New York wasn’t actually for her, then maybe she really was destined for Californian suburbia.
“And then he started talking about how I had made the decision without him, which is true, and how that wasn’t fair, which… I don’t think I can agree with.”
“That is your choice to make,” Cassie says, running her fingers through Lexi’s hair. “Just yours.” Lexi lays her head on Cassie’s shoulder.
“And after that it just devolved into every fight we’ve ever had all at once.”
Suze clicks her tongue. “Ah, play the hits time.”
“Exactly. He said all this shit about how just because I’d given up on my dreams didn’t mean he had to give up on his…”
Cassie lets out a sound not unlike a growl. “You haven’t given up on your dreams! You’re still writing.”
“That’s what I said! And he’s never understood that I actually love teaching, that I’m not settling or something.” He never believed her when she told him how watching a kid really get a poem, or seeing someone grow in confidence in class, or give a great performance onstage, could feel just as good as a perfect sentence, just in a different way.
Lexi bites her lip. “And then he started talking about how I’d always been waiting on him to leave.” Cassie fully rolls her eyes, which causes Lexi to laugh, until she starts to cry. “All this stuff about Dad and…” Words she’d shared with him in the dark being thrown back at her in anger in their bright, airy apartment had felt like betrayal, like all along her vulnerability had been secretly seen as weakness, a weapon to be stored away and used against her.
“I know that has affected me but… I haven’t just been sitting around expecting him to leave. I’ve stuck around. I basically just signed a lease with him on a new place for fuck’s sake, that’s not something you do if you’re waiting on the other person to go.” She rubs her eyes. “But it was like he didn’t want to listen to anything I said, and he kept throwing stuff in a bag, and then he was just like ‘I’m giving you what you wanted’ and slammed the door!”
“He slammed the door?!” her mom repeats.
“Yes! Loud enough that our neighbour came to check I was okay later!” Fez had been so sweet about it, so careful.
“Fuck him,” Cassie says. “Maybe we should revisit the dick cutting off stuff again.”
“No. I think… Who knows, maybe it was to do with getting the part. From the line reads the guy he’s playing sounds like he’d slam doors. He’s been flirting with a, like, late conversion to Method recently.” It had been fucking annoying. “And… I guess if he doesn’t want to be a dad it’s better I know now. It must have been hard for him too.” No matter how angry or upset she might be, she knows he’s not a bad person. She knows she hadn’t been her best self in that fight either.
“No, wait a minute,” Cassie holds her hand up. “I know it’s very mature that you’re being all empathetic and trying to see this from his perspective, but, to be honest? I think it’s too soon for that. Yes, maybe it is better he left now than down the line. And sure, it must have been difficult. But he left you the day after he said he wanted to have this baby to go take some background role on a lesser Law and Order . You can be mad about that. You should be mad about that. It’s a shitty, shitty thing to do.”
“And you can’t even drink wine about it,” her mom adds.
Lexi sob-laughs. “I miss caffeine already. I know you can still have one cup a day but…”
“Is that really enough when you work with kids?” Cassie asks, the question clearly rhetorical.
When she thinks about school Lexi thinks about her teacher friends there and how she’s going to have to tell them, how she’s going to have to tell everybody. She lays her head back. “Do I have to tell everyone now?”
“About the break-up?” her mom asks. “You don’t have to tell anyone you don’t want to tell. And people always seem to hear these things anyway.”
“Just post a moody looking story and then delete all your pictures of him from Instagram, people will figure it out.” Cassie may have a point. “And on the plus side, at least you won’t have to put up with his annoying actor friends anymore.”
“They weren’t all bad.” Some of them were funny. There were some from college who’d become her friends too, whom she’d genuinely miss. “Oh my god, what about Barbara and Bill?!”
Lexi loves Ryan’s parents. She’d fully planned on continuing her visits to their house while Ryan was in New York, baking with Barbara and Bill giving them incredibly detailed breakdowns of whatever sport he was watching.
“Oh, they won’t be going anywhere,” her mom says, sounding sure of it. “There’s no way they won’t want to be involved with their grandchild.”
Sure, they might want to be involved with their grandchild, but will they still want much to do with Lexi if she isn’t dating their son?
Suze seems well aware of the way Lexi’s mind is whirring. “And you, they love you.”
Her mom, as it turns out, is right.
Barbara texts Lexi the next morning, asking if she can come around to pick up Ryan’s things because he’s too cowardly to do it himself (that being Cassie’s take).
Suze and Cassie head home just before she’s set to arrive, they’d offered to stay longer but Lexi thought that would be too much, and, as great as it had been to have them with her the night before, she does not want to have to share her bed with two people on a Sunday night before a long week at school.
Most of his clothes are already packed away, Cassie and Suze having thrown them into bags and leftover moving boxes last night while Lexi lay on her bed eating bake sale cakes, singing along to a Spotify heartbreak playlist, and trying to ensure they didn’t ruin his good shirts. Though she figures if some white wine ended up on them, it could always come out in the wash. Lexi herself had thrown, with occasionally a little more force than necessary, some of his books and playbills into boxes before deciding he could do it himself.
She feels a little bad about that now that it's Barbara and Bill who are coming to do the job so she spends the time in between her mom and Cassie leaving and them arriving taking down Ryan’s gaming equipment from the hall closet where he’d put it away so he could truly focus on his creative pursuits.
Ryan must have given Barbara and Bill his key, but they still knock on the door. They both look more tired, maybe even a little older, than she’s used to seeing them. Bill’s in an LA Kings t-shirt and sweatpants while Barbara is wearing what Lexi recognises as a cleaning or exercise outfit - yoga pants and an old UCLA shirt, blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail.
“Oh Lexi,” Barbara says. “I don’t know what to say… Can I still give you a hug?”
Lexi opens her arms and Barbara hugs her close, the scent of her Diptyque Do Son perfume so familiar. Lexi hears Barbara start to sniffle at about the same time Bill pats her arm and says he’ll start moving boxes. “You know how he is with feelings,” Barbara whispers, before taking a step back and wiping her eyes. “I want to say sorry for everything but…”
“You don’t have to apologise,” Lexi says quickly, swallowing her own tears. “Do you want tea? Or coffee?”
“No, thank you.” She shakes her hands in the air. “I’m sure you want us out of your hair as soon as possible, I’ll get started on packing.”
“No, it’s not like that at all. Most of it is already done anyway, are you sure you don’t want to sit for a bit first?”
“Do what Lexi says, Barb,” Bill tells her, walking past them with a box under each arm.
“Well then, I’ll just have a glass of water please, darling.” Her face crumples a little and she squeezes Lexi’s hand before going over to the couch.
Lexi fills three glasses of water, leaving one on the hall table by the door for Bill when he comes back in, before sitting down beside Barbara.
“I’m so sorry about this, making it all about me when…” Barbara takes a sip of water. “I just hoped this would never happen. I…” She shakes her head. “You’ve felt like family to us for a long time now, Lexi.”
“For me too,” is all Lexi can manage.
Barbara sniffs. “Do you think you might still like to come to dinner at the house? Or maybe not at the house, we could do lunch somewhere. Of course it’s okay if that would be weird, or hard, or… I just hate the idea of losing you.”
Lexi is confused. Fuck, did Ryan make it seem like she wouldn’t want them involved? “You’re not going to lose me. And you’ll see lots of me, you can obviously see the baby as much as you’d like…”
Water sloshes from Barbara’s glass. “Baby?” She puts the glass down on a coaster with a shaky hand. “You’re…”
Fuck Ryan. “He didn't tell you.” Of course he didn’t tell them.
Barbara puts her hands over her mouth, her eyes some confused mix of delight and disappointment. “You’re really…”
Lexi nods. “Yeah. I haven’t had the date confirmed yet but I think I should be due mid-July. I’m going to the doctor on Monday.”
Barbara flings her arms around her and rocks them both back and forth. “A baby! You’re having a baby!” Lexi smiles at how excited she is. “Is Ryan going? He isn’t due in New York for another few weeks. Though, I suppose the break-up is still fresh so you might not want him there.”
Fuck Ryan. Lexi scoots back. “He, um, he won’t be going to the appointment.” Her mom is joining her. “He… doesn’t want to be involved?”
“For fuck’s sake,” Barbara says, and both she and Lexi flinch. “Oh, I haven’t said that word out loud since college.” She makes a strangled sort of laugh. “His father is going to kill him. I’m going to kill him. He’s taking off when you’re pregnant to go be on that SVU spinoff? And he has no plans to be there for this child?”
“Well…” He had mentioned something about money but at that point in the fight Lexi had told him she didn’t want any of his shitty money. Had said something about how he’d probably be out of work after the Law and Order guest spot anyway.
Barbara takes Lexi’s hands and holds them tight in hers. “I know you have your mom and Cassie, but if there is anything you need, anything at all, we will be here. Ryan might not want to be involved, but… You know I’ve always wanted a grandchild.” She takes a breath, her voice breaking a little. “One of the things I was most upset about, yesterday after he came home and told us, was that all dreams I’d had about watching the two of you… Well, I’d imagined all the lovely things that would happen, that we’d share together. And this might not be the circumstance I’d pictured but… it’s still the best news I’ve had in a long time.”
“It is happy news,” Lexi agrees. Sometimes it’s a little hard to hold onto right now, but this is also the most exciting news she’s had in a long time. The biggest, most life-changing news she’s ever had.
“Happy news?” Bill asks, walking into the living room.
Barbara sends her a look as if to ask what she wants to do, so Lexi smiles, if a little nervously, and says, “All going well, you’re going to be a grandfather.”
Bill blinks, his face switching from confusion to joy to anger, and then back to joy again. He leans over the back of the couch, putting one arm around Lexi and one around Barbara, who he kisses on the cheek. “That is some happy news. Happiest news I’ve had in a long time.” He squeezes Lexi’s arm. “Guess you’re stuck with us, kiddo.”
She laughs, the tears coming along again. “I’m good with that.”
They don’t get around to moving Ryan’s stuff for a while, instead just talking about the baby and Lexi’s plans. They decide on a date for when Lexi is going to come over for dinner and extract a promise that she will call after her doctor’s appointment.
Packing the remainder of Ryan’s things doesn’t take too long with all three of them working together. Figuring out how to fit them all into Bill’s car though, that proves a challenge.
They’ve tried a variety of configurations and Lexi’s offered to take some bags in her car and drop them off but been turned down (twice). Now they’re just staring at the trunk.
Barbara shakes her head. “You were head of department at an engineering firm, Bill, you should be able to figure this out!”
“I was head of legal! This isn’t a contract!” He tries to push the trunk down again only for it to pop back open.
“I hope you don’t mind me askin’, do you need some help?” Lexi turns to see Fez, accompanied by a dark-haired, slightly intimidating looking guy with face tattoos.
“Hi Lexi.” Fez smiles, gesturing towards the other man. “This is my brother, Ash.”
“It’s nice to meet you.” The handshake he returns is a firm one. “This is Barbara and Bill. They’re, uh, Ryan’s parents.”
Fez introduces himself while Ash turns to her and asks, “You the teacher, yeah?”
Lexi hadn’t expected him to know who she is. “Yeah, drama and some creative writing.”
“Cool,” he replies, in a very deadpan voice.
“You’re at Berkeley, right? Studying computer science?” Fez had been so proud talking about him the day before.
“Cal, eh? What do you think about this new football coach?” Bill asks.
Barbara looks up at the sky. “We’re never going to get out of here. The trunk will never close and I’ll have to listen to PAC-12 football talk for the rest of my life.”
“If you don’t mind me takin’ a look,” Fez says, “I’m sure we can sort somethin’ out.”
He surveys the scene for a moment, asks them what they’ve tried so far, surveys the scene again, and then somehow manages to wedge some of the clothing bags in between the boxes in the trunk and close it shut.
“Thank you so much!” Barbara exclaims. “You live right across from Lexi, yes?”
Fez nods, accepting Bill’s hearty clap on the back while Ash looks slightly dazed following his first encounter with Bill Henderson’s Sports Opinions.
Barbara puts her arm around Lexi, and whispers, “Now, you know I’m feminist, but sometimes a woman needs help with household things, and that,” she points at Fez’s back, “is a useful man.” Before Lexi can even try and formulate some kind of response to that, Barbara hugs her tight. “We should probably get going now. But I’ll see you soon, and you’ll call me tomorrow, right?”
“Yes, definitely,” Lexi assures her. Barbara hugs her again before she somehow manages to get Bill to stop talking about UCLA’s running backs and frees Ash and Fez.
Bill tells Lexi to take care of herself and gives her a hug before he and Barbara get in the car and they drive away.
“They seem real nice,” Fez says.
Ash steps away from his brother, in what must be an attempt to dodge the elbow that comes his way when he says, “He can fucking talk though.”
“They are,” Lexi agrees. And he can, at least about sports.
“Fez, Imma head, see you soon.” Ash gives Fez a half-hug and Lexi a nod, “See you around, Lexi.”
They wait until he drives off before heading back into the building together, Fez holding the door open for her. “How you been doin’?” he asks.
“Oh… a mix?” She’s been sad, she’s been angry, she’s been anxious. And she’s been happy too. It feels strange that so much has happened this weekend but there is work tomorrow like nothing has changed at all.
Fez raises his eyebrows. “Ryan didn’t come round for his things himself?” Lexi raises her eyebrows back at him and shakes her head. “Damn Lexi, what’s the etiquette for talking shit about your ex?”
She laughs. “Well, you’re definitely the first person to ask, everyone else has just jumped straight in. I’m doing a video call with my best friend soon and she will not hold back.” Rue has never been a huge Ryan fan. Maybe Lexi should have taken that more seriously.
They reach their floor. “I hope you have a good call with her,” Fez says. “I’ll see you in the morning?”
“See you in the morning,” she confirms.
A little something to look forward to.