Knocked Up

Jake woke up early on Monday morning and end up just lying there staring up at his ceiling thinking about the things he’d learnt about Kimmy over the past three days. She was a genuine math whiz the equations she could solve where stupid and she could complete the hard Sudoku whilst eating breakfast, she tried to be a health nut but often failed over chocolate, she was the worlds pickiest tea drinker to the point she bought her own tea bags, she was not a morning person, she hated been called Kimberly, she loved music and could actually sing, her middle name was Amelia and her Dad didn’t want her until he found out she actually might make it into Formula One, but the most important thing he had learnt about Kimberly Amelia Krantzberg was she was as stubborn as hell and independent.

They’d spent Friday walking around Philly seeing all of the sights; she’d been stubborn as hell about paying for her own things even going as far as to splitting the bill at dinner. They’d raced each other up the Rocky steps in front of the art museum and despite him insisting he hadn’t let her won she still believed he had, which was true to start with but then he’d realised how fast she was and actually had to run to try and close the gap.

They'd had Claude and Matt Read around for dinner Kim had cooked the most amazing veggie lasagne with thin strips of courgette instead of pasta and cottage cheese instead of white sauce. They’d sat down with Wayne in the hardly used dining room to eat, take turns to tell embarrassing stories about one another. Claude told them all about the first time he’d met Kim how she’d been so busy helping one of the kids she hadn’t realised he was stood behind her for a good minute before she’d totally freaked out and in turn Kim had told them about Claude attempting to kayak but spending more time spinning in circles before eventually falling in.

“Oh my god do you remember that night in Berlin when Danny nearly got arrested?!” Claude had laughed pointing his fork at Kim immediately both he and Wayne had wanted to know more, Danny Briere nearly getting arrested this sounded like gold. “For been drunk and disorderly wasn’t it?” Claude asked and Kim started shaking her head.

“No and he wasn’t nearly arrested it was a miss understanding the officer was checking if he was okay because Danny was having a break down in the middle of Berlin but the officer only spoke German and neither of these idiots spoke German.”

“It’s not my fault all those Eastern Europeans sound aggressive.”

“Rather aggressive than French.” He’d laughed, but wondered just how many languages Kim spoke. He’d found out later that it was six, English, Czech, French, German, Italian and Mandarin but she only spoke three fluently English Czech and French.

He couldn’t remember what Kim had bought up but Claude had retaliated by getting his phone out and playing YouTube video’s from Kim at camp singing, dancing and just been a camp counsellor. She’d looked good in all the video’s and he got a glimpse and how multi-talented she was, there was more than just a hard core engineer behind those pretty eyes.
Sunday they’d spent the morning apart whilst he’d practice she’d shopped with Claude’s girlfriend Lianna, he and Claude had met them both in the mall food court before they’d head back to his.

With Wayne at his girlfriend’s they’d had his house to himself and that was the first time they’d sat and talk about the pregnancy. She was seven weeks pregnant and currently was only suffering from very mild morning sickness just feeling nauseous around food but still able to eat and yet to actually vomit, apparently morning sickness wasn’t a given and not every woman experienced it the same way so far she was getting off pretty easy. He’d asked if she’d told her parents and she’d told him she wanted to wait until she was twelve weeks before even thinking about how she was going to tell her mum.

He’d admitted telling Claude and Kim had confessed to already knowing, Claude had rang her the morning after they spoken to lecture her about safe sex and how if he’d hurt her Claude would beat him up for her and make sure he was traded back to Europe, unless she wanted to go back to Europe then he'd make sure he got traded to some crappy team in a city she didn't like. She’d asked if he’d thought about telling his parents and he’d shook his head, he knew they were going to be disappointed in him – getting a stranger pregnant. They’d talked about if they wanted a boy or a girl, she’d surprised him by saying she’d always imagined having a little boy that she could take to hockey practice and teach to kayak, and he’d liked that thought - him teaching their son how to play ice hockey.

For a moment he let himself imagine them a family on the ice a tiny ginger haired boy with yellowy green eyes skating from him towards her. But that wasn’t there life, Kim wasn’t his girlfriend, she wasn’t his anything maybe now he might say she was his friend but that was it really. Shaking his head he sat up in bed and thought about going down to the basement and working out for a bit, before making some breakfast for himself and Kim. She wanted to leave around ten, eleven to miss as much traffic as possible which he understood.

He was shocked to find Kim sat at the breakfast bar her laptop open on the phone as he went to grab a bottle of water from the fridge before heading downstairs, “…I would talk to Garrett then it sounds and looks more like a fault in the tyre but re run the test on a different rig and see what data we get for the same tyre and then run another of the tyres see if you get the same discontinuity in either, it’s likely a defect in the rubber on that tyre than can be ignored but just double check it – before you send the results over…” Kim stopped talking a gave him a smile and a wave, “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow, I want to go over the data from the low velocity side impact again see if we missed anything before we send up the conclusions… it will never pass weight concerns it’s a good idea but much to heavy… sounds good but I have to go… okay, thanks… bye.”

“Sounded important.”

“I think sometimes Max forgets I am as new as him at this, he turns to me for advice when he’s been there longer than me.”

“You must be really good at what you do.”

“I love it going through all the data finding ways to make something good better, it’s not quite the dream I always thought I’d be doing it for a motorsport team but then we do most of the tyre’s for the various types so.”

“Did you always want to be an engineer?”

“Pretty much, I went through a phase of wanting to be a high court judge but then I discovered Law was actually a really boring subject especially Tort Law and I went back to engineering. What about you was it always hockey?”

“Ano.” It was the first time since Ottawa he’d spoken in Czech to her normally he was so careful it wasn’t until he was comfortable around people he started to let the Czech slip out or he was drunk or having sex. “To je vše, co jsem kdy chtěl , snil.”

“You were going to work out?”

“Ano, for a bit I thought you’d still be asleep.”

“I normally start work at seven thirty so… but don’t let me change your plans. Go work out for a bit I was going to get a shower anyway.”

“I won’t be long and just help yourself to anything.”

“I am good thanks.”

“Kim you need to eat.” He couldn’t help but scold her over the past couple of days he’d noticed she didn’t eat much anywhere and he wanted his son or daughter to get nice and big and healthy and that wasn’t going to happen unless Kim ate enough food.

“I will just feel a little worse than normal today, I’ll have a shower first and then eat something.” Letting it slide he made a mental note to ensure that she ate something when he was finished working out he left her be taking the water bottle before heading down to the gym he and Wayne had built in the basement. He guessed he’d have to start thinking about getting his own place soon, he couldn’t expect Wayne to share with him when he the baby was born.

Working out for about forty minutes, Jake figured Kim should have had time to shower and be back in the kitchen but when he got back upstairs the kitchen was empty and there was no sign that any breakfast had been made in there. Listening to the almost silent house he couldn’t hear the shower so figured she must be getting changed. Leaving her to it Jake ran off upstairs to his own room and threw into his bathroom showering and changing himself before heading back downstairs.

Still there was no sign of Kim, shaking his head Jake walked over to the guest room knocking on the bedroom door he wondered if she’d just fallen back to sleep. Getting no answer he pushed the door open to see her bed made and clothes for the day laid out on top of it, worried Jake headed down the hall to the downstairs bathroom again knocking on the door, “Kim?” He called through it knocking again and trying to push the door open it was unlocked but only opened part way before hitting something. “Kim are you okay?” He asked through the gap but as he leaned on the obstruction from behind the door moved and he fell into the bathroom.

Kim was slumped against the toilet still in her pj’s he head resting against the seat, she looked awful a pale shade of green. “I tried to drink some tea.” She explained shifting slightly to look at him but it seemed her body didn’t want her to move and within seconds she was once again throwing up though apparently she had nothing else for her stomach to empty but liquid. Dropping to his knees next to her Jake held back her hair and rubbed her back not sure what else to do.

“Any better?” He asked as she leant back from the toilet against the bathroom door reaching up to flush the loo. She didn’t answer just looked at him with sad eyes and shock her head, “Do you think you can make it back to bed you’ll be more comfortable.”

“I still feel like I am going to be sick.”

“I can bring you a bucket, come on back to bed.” He stood up and held out his hand but the vomit seemed to have taken too much out of Kim she couldn’t stand so instead he crouched down and scooped her up into his arms. Carrying her back to bed bridal style before tucking her in returning moments later with a bucket, glass of water and packet of crackers – they were Wayne’s crackers but he couldn’t care less the only thing that mattered was trying to get some food into Kim.

“Better?” He asked pushing her hair from her face whilst crouching down next to her bed.

“I am sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I’ll nap, try and eat something then get on the road.” ‘on the road’ she thought he was going to let her drive back like this – right he got they hadn’t known each other long but he’d like to have thought by know she’d got that he cared about her and their baby.

“You’re not going anywhere Krantzberg you’re sick and I won’t have you risking yourself or our baby.”

“Jakub I have to be back at work tomorrow.”

“You’re sick, you’ve just emptied the contents of your stomach into my toilet your body is so exhausted you can’t even stand and you think you can drive back to Buffalo a six hour drive to go to work tomorrow?”

“I’ll be fine; it’s just morning sickness Jake it will pass.”

“I am not letting you do it.” He sighed, getting pissed off with her stubbornness could she not see how ill she was? “I am not having this argument with you right now, try a couple of crackers drink your water and then gets some sleep we will see how you are when you wake up.”

“Don’t you have practice?”

“Not until this afternoon… now eat, drink and sleep, please. I’ll be back in a minute.” He told her before leaving the guest room and running upstairs to get his phone and text G telling him he wouldn’t be at practice this morning and asking him to pass the message on to those who needed to know but to make something up for the others.

Notes