Chapter 405 | A Pancake-Level Emergency

Chapter 405: 405 | A Pancake-Level Emergency

Kyle stood up from the bench. "Jordan’s going to be a dad."

The phone clattered out of Leo’s hand. It hit the rubber mat and bounced twice before sliding under the smith machine. Nobody moved to retrieve it.

"What."

"Chloe’s pregnant," Jordan said for the third time in five minutes. "September. Keeping it. I’m going to be somebody’s dad and I’m pretty sure I’m going to be terrible at it but we’re doing it anyway."

Leo’s face went on a journey. Shock, confusion, panic, more confusion, back to panic, then settled into something that looked like genuine emotion struggling to escape from under six layers of designer streetwear and cryptocurrency advice.

"Holy shit."

"Yeah."

"You’re keeping it."

"We are."

"And Kumiko’s cool with it?"

"Kumiko’s thrilled. She’s already planning the nursery and she doesn’t even live with us."

Leo bent down, retrieved his phone from under the smith machine, and stared at the screen like it contained instructions for how to process this information. "Okay. Okay. This is fine. This is good. You’re an adult, she’s an adult, consenting adults can make adult decisions." He looked up. "Does your dad know?"

"Why does everyone keep asking that?"

"Because your dad owns three convenience stores and has opinions," Kyle said. "And those opinions are probably going to include thoughts about his eighteen-year-old son having a baby."

Jordan’s phone buzzed again. He pulled it out and saw a text from Kumiko containing a photo of a onesie that said PROTECTED BY DRAGONS and approximately fourteen heart emojis. The follow-up text read i know we said we’re waiting but i was at target and i couldn’t help it i’m sorry i’m not sorry.

He showed the screen to Kyle and Leo.

"She bought baby clothes," Leo said, his voice climbing half an octave. "She’s already buying baby clothes. This is happening. This is a real thing that’s happening in reality."

"It’s been happening for six weeks," Jordan said. "I’m just telling you now because I needed guy time and also because I can’t keep pretending everything’s normal when my girlfriend is growing a whole human."

Kyle grabbed his water bottle off the floor. "We need to sit down."

"We’re at a gym."

"Then we need to leave the gym and sit down somewhere with food, because this conversation requires carbs and possibly alcohol except we’re all underage so it requires carbs and emotional support."

Leo nodded with the intensity of a man having a religious experience. "IHOP. We’re going to IHOP. Right now. I’m buying. This is a pancake-level emergency."

"I haven’t finished my workout."

"Your workout is over," Kyle said, already heading for his gym bag. "You benched the bar and did three sets of pulldowns. That’s enough recovery volume for a man who walked twenty-two miles and is about to be responsible for another human life."

Jordan looked at the cable machine. At the weight room. At the empty bar still sitting on the bench press. His body was at thirty-four percent and his brain was at maybe sixty, and both of those numbers were going to have to be enough because apparently his friends had decided breakfast was mandatory.

His phone buzzed again. Chloe, this time.

you told them didn’t you

how’d they take it

Jordan typed back: kyle dropped a water bottle and leo’s buying pancakes

good. they’re processing. let them process. come home after and I’ll have eggs.

The casual certainty of that message, the assumption that he’d come home because that’s what he did now, settled into his chest next to all the other impossible things he’d gotten used to carrying.

"IHOP," he said. "Let’s go."

They took Kyle’s car because Leo’s BMW had a parking ticket on the windshield that Leo was pretending didn’t exist, and Jordan’s Civic still had an empty Red Bull can in the cupholder from January that he kept meaning to throw away but hadn’t because it served as a useful reminder of how far he’d fallen and climbed back.

IHOP at eight in the morning on a Monday was nobody’s idea of a good time except for them, apparently. The place smelled like syrup and industrial butter and the faint despair of shift workers who’d just gotten off a twelve-hour run. A waitress with a name tag reading SANDRA and an expression that said she’d seen some shit led them to a booth in the back.

"Coffee?" she asked, already pouring before anyone answered.

"Yes," all three of them said in unison.

She left three menus and a look that said she knew they were about to have a Conversation and she’d be back in ten minutes to give them space.

Leo opened his menu and immediately closed it. "I can’t read right now. My brain’s not working. You’re having a baby."

"Yep."

"With Chloe Kim, who’s also dating Kumiko, who’s also dating you, and everybody knows and nobody’s mad."

"That’s the situation."

"And you’re keeping it."

"We’ve established this."

Kyle rubbed his face with both hands. "Okay. I need to ask the obvious questions because somebody has to ask them and it might as well be me."

"Go for it."

"Does Chloe’s family know?"

"She doesn’t have family. It’s just her."

Kyle processed that. "Okay. Does your family know?"

"Not yet."

"When are you telling them?"

Jordan drank his coffee. It tasted like burnt hope and questionable decisions, which was perfect for eight in the morning at an IHOP. "Soon. Before she starts showing. Dad’s going to flip. Mom’s going to cry. Grandma’s going to ask me if I know how birth control works and then she’s going to tell me she’s proud of me for stepping up, in that order."

"What about money?" Leo asked. "Babies are expensive. I looked it up once for a project. It’s like twenty thousand a year just to keep them alive."

"We’re fine."

"You’re fine."

"Yeah."

"How are you fine? You’re a college student. You work part-time at your dad’s store."

Jordan couldn’t exactly explain the System. Couldn’t explain that every dollar he spent on Chloe came back at one point five eight, or that his Instagram was paying rent, or that he had a quest promising a hundred and fifty thousand dollars if he emotionally dismantled his ex-girlfriend in the next nineteen days.

So he said, "Chloe’s got income. I’ve got income. We’re figuring it out."

Kyle and Leo exchanged a look that said they didn’t believe him but were going to let it slide because arguing with Jordan McKnight when he’d made up his mind was like arguing with a brick wall that could bench press you.

Sandra came back. "You boys ready?"

"Pancakes," Leo said. "A lot of pancakes. Like, concerning amounts of pancakes."

She wrote it down without judgment. "Short stack, tall stack, or stupid stack?"

"Stupid stack. Three of them."