Dear diary,

Major news! I went to the doctor's for my yearly physical exam, just to make sure everything is tip-top healthwise. And my blood test came back to show... that I'm pregnant! Johnny and I are going to be parents! But this was only my first child and Johnny has two other kids, Lily-Rose and Jack. First things first, I had to figure out how they felt about getting a little half-sibling...

Johnny was still at work so I called the kids into the living room and decided now was the time to tell them.

"I have something to tell you guys" I told them. "Jack, do you ever get sick of being the baby of the family?"

Jack shrugged "I get sick of Lily making fun of me for it."

Lily-Rose scoffed. "Aww, boo-hoo!" She smirked. "Anyway why do you ask, Y/N?"

"Well, I have some news and I want to break it to your father" I explained. "But I wanted to know your opinions on it first..."

The kids exchanged a look.

"Well, what is it?" Jack asked me.

I took a deep breath. "Guys... I'm pregnant."

Lily-Rose's stared at me, bewildered. "Holy..." she breathed.

"...Shit" Jack finished, wide-eyed.

"So... how do you guys feel about that?" I asked worried.

"Make it a girl!" Lily-Rose exclaimed happily. 'Please! Please! Please! I want a little sister so bad! Jack screwed it up for me by being born with a penis!"

"I would love a beautiful little sister too" Jack nodded in agreement. "...Lily-Rose screwed it up by being born with that problem area" He gestured to his face.

Lily-Rose smacked him on the arm.

I laughed, watching them go at it. Another reason I was looking forward to motherhood, was from watching Johnny's children. Johnny could talk about them nonstop and I loved it. I loved how he was obsessed with his kids. I loved how devoted a Daddy he was. Seeing Johnny interact with his kids or any kid was so precious. It was like he became a little boy himself when he played with kids. I really couldn't wait to share the gift of parenthood with him.

"So... Dad has no idea about this?" Lily-Rose  questioned.

"I just found out today, during my yearly routine blood test" I told them, putting my hands on my stomach. "Apparently I'm almost six weeks along."

"Oh my God, I'm so happy for you!" Lily-Rose put an arm around me.

"Dad's gonna go nuts!" Jack grinned.

"I got an idea on how to break it to him, but I want both of your help" I told them.

"Sure, when did you want to tell him?" Jack asked.

"I was hoping this weekend at the barbecue down at your grandma's house" I explained. "The whole family's gonna be there, so it'll be the perfect time and place."

"Good idea" Lily-Rose nodded. "Now it's just a matter of keeping the secret from Dad."

"Yeah, your Dad's curiosity is insatiable" I agreed.

"When you know a secret that he doesn't, he becomes annoying" Jack shrugged.

"Can I trust you guys with my secret?" I asked them.

"Well, you already told us, so you don't really have a choice" Jack reminded me.

"Good point" I chuckled. "Relax, the barbecue is only three days away. We can put up with your annoying father for that long, can we?"

"We can" Lily-Rose told me. "Because we've been living with him longer than you have."

"I'm determined" I said.

"As long as you're sure" Jack smirked.

⚘Later that Night⚘

Johnny came home that night and we all sat down to dinner. Since I had morning sickness earlier that day, I was starving now. I thought nothing of grabbing a third helping, I was eating for two after all.

"Wow, three plates" Johnny smiled. "Someone's hungry."

I smiled at him. "Believe me, I'll need my energy" I said.

"Are you planning to run a marathon?" Johnny chuckled.

"You'll be running along with her pretty soon, Dad" Lily-Rose smirked.

"What?" Johnny asked.

Jack snickered at his father's confusion.

Johnny turned to him. "What are you snickering for?" He grinned.

Jack shook his head. "Nothing, nothing" he smiled.

The kids and I exchange smirks from across the table as stared between us smiling and raising his eyebrows.

"I'm beginning to get the feeling that everybody at this table knows something that I don't" Johnny said. "Someone wanna let me in on the joke?"

"It's not a joke" I told Johnny. "Um... the kids are helping me put together a little surprise for you... "

"Oh!" Johnny grinned. "What is it?"

"It's a surprise" I told him.

"But what is it?" Johnny asked.

"It's... a... surprise!" I repeated slowly.

"You're gonna have to wait until the barbecue at grandma's place to get it, Dad" Lily-Rose explained.

"What? This Saturday?" Johnny asked.

"Mm-hmm" I hummed.

Johnny crossed his arms and smirked. "And you told the kids about it and not me?" He told me.

"Yep" I took a sip of my iced tea.

"Well... tell me!" Johnny whined, this was driving him nuts.

I giggled. "It's a surprise, John! A surprise we're all working on for you! The least you could do is be patient!"

"Good things come to those who wait, Dad" Jack told him.

"Oh really?" Johnny reached into his wallet. "Well, good things can also come to those who obey the man who gave them the precious gift of life..." He held up twenty dollars.

Jack shook his head. "This is too important to Y/N to ruin, Dad" he told his father. "Besides Mom had the hard part in giving us life."

Johnny's jaw dropped and he turned to me. "You turned my own children against me?" He gasped dramatically.

"Not all of them..." Lily-Rose said in a singsong voice, nudging me.

"So you want to tell me for twenty bucks?" Johnny offered the money to her.

Lily-Rose shook her head "Not what I meant."

"I hate all of you!" Johnny pouted.

"Love you too!" We all chimed smirking.

⚘That Saturday⚘
⚘Lexington, Kentucky⚘

That Saturday we got on a flight from Los Angeles to Lexington for the barbecue at Betty-Sue's horse ranch. And let me tell you, Saturday couldn't have come soon enough. Since Johnny found out we had a surprise for him, he wouldn't stop asking about it or he tried to trick us into telling him... it was getting pretty annoying. And God knows, Johnny can be annoying when he wants to be, most people tend to forget he was the baby brother of his family.

I walked up to the front of Betty-Sue's ranch house and knocked. "Come on in!" Came her voice from the inside.

I walked in, kicked off my shoes and made a beeline for the kitchen. "Betty-Sue, that son of yours is driving me up the wall with his insanity!" I told her.

"Mom! Y/N and the kids have a secret and they won't tell me!" Johnny tattled to his mother like a toddler.

"Yeah, I'm not doing too bad! Thanks for asking!" Betty-Sue said dryly. "So nice to know that when my son and his family come to visit they're so concerned for my well-being."

"Great to see you, mom" Johnny kissed her cheek, hugging her.

Johnny's sister, Christi came in shortly after carrying groceries. "Mom, I got the paper plates and plastic cutlery" she said. She looked up and noticed Johnny hugging their mother.

"Oh, here we go" Jack muttered to me.

"Ding-ding, round one!" Lily-Rose chuckled.

"Looks like my baby brother decided to showed up" Christi cooed pinching Johnny's cheek, teasingly.

"Okay, the baby brother bullshit has to stop eventually" Johnny told her. "I'm in my fifties for God's sake!"

"But you'll always be my baby" Betty-Sue pinched his other cheek.

"I'm a grown man" Johnny protested.

"I feel your pain, Dad!" Jack told him.

"Jacky! Lily-Rose! C'mere and give your Grandma a kiss!" Betty-Sue pulled them both into a hug.

"Aww... no!" Jack cried as she began leaving lipstick print on his face. "Dad, help! She's doing it again!"

"There's no escaping an affectionate southern grandmother" Lily-Rose told him. "Just go with it, bro!"

Johnny turned to me. "Okay, we're at the barbecue!" He said. "Can I have my surprise now...?"

"After dinner..." I told him.

"No!" Johnny whined.

I needed a diversion. "Christi! What was Johnny like as a child?" I asked.

"Well, what most people don't know is that he was a bed wetter" Christi took off down memory lane. "But he didn't kick the habit until age eleven!"

"You shut up about that!" Johnny told her. "You have no right to torture me and spill secrets about me like this."

"John, I'm your older sister" Christi told him. "Messing with you is like a second nature to me."

Johnny growled.

Christi smirked "Now let me tell you about the time whittle Johnny...

"Knock it off" Johnny told her.

" ...went to see Santa at the mall..."

"Shut up!"

"And peed on his lap!" Christi finished.

"You're so immature!" Johnny told her.

"And you're the reason mall Santa's everywhere scotchgaurd their pants before going to work!" Christi laughed.

I couldn't help but burst out laughing as well. I love this crazy family!

⚘One Hour Later...⚘

After dinner, everyone was seated on the lanai and I was helping Betty-Sue put out the desserts on the table. Johnny walked up to me and opened his mouth

"Let me guess!" I cut him off. "You wanna know if you can have your surprise now?"

"I don't wanna come off as annoying..." Johnny started

"Too late!" Jack said, cutting the strawberry shortcake.

"But--" Johnny stopped and gave his son a stern look. "But just not knowing is killing me!"

"Not until after dessert" I told him.

"But you said I only had to wait till after dinner!" Johnny argued.

"Dessert counts as a part of dinner!" I shrugged.

"Well, now you're just making things up!" Johnny threw his hands in the air.

"Fine! Fine!" I gave up. "You can have your surprise! Just let me go get ready..." I gestured for Lily-Rose and Jack to follow me inside the house.

"Don't be coming out with lingerie in front of the whole family!" Johnny told me. "There's kids here!"

"Dad, why would we be helping her if the surprise was lingerie?" Lily-Rose asked, sticking her head through the screen door.

"Right..." Johnny nodded slowly.

⚘Johnny's P.O.V⚘

Y/N and the kids rejoined everyone out on the lanai a few minutes later. As the kids took their seats, Y/N came out and stood in front of everyone, dressed in an oversized white t-shirt with duct tape straight down the front.

Lily-Rose handed me a pair of scissors. "Cut across the duct tape" she explained to me.

"Cut the shirt in half?" I asked, confused.

The three nodded, smirking.

"What kind of surprise is this again?" I asked.

"Do it!" Jack told him.

I grabbed the end of Y/N's t-shirt and cut it, all the way to the V neck near her breast. Underneath she was wearing a white undershirt with a sticky note plastered onto it, the words Lift Up! were written on it.

I stared at Y/N. "You ate my surprise?" I questioned grinning.

The kids snickered and Y/N chuckled. I sighed.

"Alright..." I shrugged.

I pulled Y/N's undershirt up and saw a small red dot had been drawn near her navel. The words Poke Here! were scribbled on with an arrow pointing to the dot.

I smirked and gently poked her stomach.

Her mouth opened and her tongue hung out. I noticed a peice of folded paper was stuck to her tongue.

The family laughed, watching us.

I shook my head, grinning as I picked the paper off her tongue and unfolded it, reading it aloud.

"Third Times The Charm..." I trailed off, squinting at the last word of the note. "...Daddy?"

I looked up at Y/N who was grinning from ear-to-ear.

"You're... you're pre..." I stuttered. "You have a bun in the..." I pointed to her stomach. "You're knocked uhh..." I tried to get the words out, but I just couldn't.

I started to feel light-headed and before I knew it my knees buckled beneath me.

"Johnny?!" I heard Y/N shout as my vision began to blur.

"Daddy!" Lily-Rose exclaimed, but it sounded like she was yelling through a tunnel.

"Not quite the reaction we were expecting..." Jack's voice faded as I passed out completely.

⚘Half An Hour Later⚘

"I think he's coming too..." I heard a faraway female voice. "Did you think he hit his head when he fell?"

"I'm not sure..." Came a male voice said. "I don't think so."

"Hope not" Came a female voice. "Your Granddaddy dropped him once when he was about thirteen months. We took him to Dr. Lawrence and he said there was no brain damage. But sometimes I have to wonder..."

I opened my eyes and squinted as the bright sunlight reflected off the bright auburn walls in my mother's living room and into my eyes. I was lying on the sofa with my mother and both my kids hovering over me.

"What happened?" I asked them.

"You passed out after Y/N told you she was pregnant" Jack explained. "Jeez, Dad..."

"You had one job!" Lily-Rose told me. "Act surprised and be happy for Y/N! And you screwed it up!"

"Well, technically acting surprised and being happy for Y/N is two things" Jack clarified. "So he technically had two jobs... still that was a dick move, Dad."

"Y/N! Where is she?" I questioned as it all came back to me.

"She said she was going for a walk around the property" Betty-Sue said. "She figured you didn't want to see her when you woke up."

"Oh God..." I shook my head, feeling guilty. "I gotta go find her!"

⚘Y/N's P.O.V ⚘

I sat in the barn petting the horses feeding them apples and handfuls of oats. I looked over and noticed one mare licking the head of her baby foal and a wave of sadness washed over me. I walked over to their stall.

"You're a strong, independent lady horse" I told the mare. "And you may think you need a big, tough, handsome stallion to help raise your baby, but you don't! Because nobody can love better than a mother! You beautiful mother-lover!"

I just about jumped out of my skin when I heard someone clear their throat behind me. I whirled around and saw Johnny behind me.

"Hi" He said. "Sorry. Did I scare you?"

"Which time?" I asked, dryly. "When you walked in and saw me having a full-blown conversation with a horse or when you past out when I told you the news you've been waiting a whole three days for? Doesn't matter because you scared me both times."

"I'm sorry" Johnny told me.

"It's not just the fact you fainted that upset me" I explained. "It was the way you looked at me before you past out. Like you were disappointed or worried about the baby..."

Johnny's eyes fell. "It's not the idea of us having a baby, it's..." he trailed off. "When Lily-Rose was born I was thirty-four, with Jack was born I was thirty-six. Now I'm in my late fifties and I'm scared."

"Of what?" I asked.

"That I won't be as good at being a father as I once was" Johnny admitted. "That I won't have the energy I once did and that it will get to the point where, you'll be the one doing all the parenting and I'll be an old man in the corner."

I chuckled at his reasoning.

"Don't laugh! I'm being serious!" Johnny told me, smiling slightly. "Do you realize that I'll be in my late seventies by the time this kid graduates high school?"

"Did you know my mother didn't even have her first kid, a.k.a me, until she was thirty?" I asked him. "My father was only twenty-three when he found out, just a year older than I am now. And did you hear about Mick Jagger? He had his youngest child at seventy-three!"

"So?" Johnny shrugged.

"So... what's stopping us?" I asked. "Do you love me?

"Yes, obviously" he answered.

"Did you love raising Jack and Lily-Rose?" I asked, grinning.

He grinned remembering it. "Those were the best years of my life" he nodded certain of it.

"And can you honestly say you were a good father to them?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think so" Johnny nodded.

"Then what do you think is preventing us from starting that all over again?" I asked. "Age is a number, John. Does age prevent you from loving Lily-Rose or Jack? Does it stop you from supporting them, protecting them?"

"You're right" Johnny agreed, wrapping his arms around me and stroking my abdomen. He kissed my temple and muttered "I love you both, so much."

"I love you too" I told him, smiling contently.

We heard a snort and looked up at the stall with the mare and her foal, a male horse had stuck his head in the window. He nuzzled the head of the mare with his nose, as the baby foal nayed squeakily to him.

"She does have someone to help her" I smiled, watching them.

Johnny looked at me before kissing my forehead. "Of course she does" he whispered in my ear.

⚘8 month's later⚘

I woke up in a hospital bed, still drowsy from the anesthesia they gave me for my c-section. I turned my head, eyes still only half open. Johnny was seated there beside me, holding my hand.

"Hey... how are you feeling?" He asked.

I groaned, shifting a little in the bed. "My lower half still kinda hurts" I said.

"I know" Johnny pushed some hair out of my face.

"No, you don't" I told him. "You're a male... and be happy that you are. So... how are they?"

"The nurses finally got them both to sleep" Johnny said. "Mo has a set of lungs on him, he woke up every other infant in the nursery with his crying."

"Mortimer's gonna be a little rock star just like his father" I muttered absent-mindedly.

"And Whisper wouldn't stop trying to touch everything and see everything" Johnny explained. "She's curious like her mother."

I chuckled.

"Y'know when I held her she looked at me like... I don't know" Johnny shrugged. "Like she knew a secret I didn't, some kind of superior, mischievous look. It reminded me of the look you gave me when you kept your secret from me."

I smiled at him, but my eyelids were getting heavier and heavier.

Johnny noticed this. "Get some rest, Darling" he kissed my lips. "I'll take the first night shift with the twins."

"I love you" I told him, voice heavy with sleep.

"I love you too" he stroked my hair as I nodded off to sleep for the night.

Life was perfect, I had the man I loved with me. I was a stepmother to his two wonderful and talented children. And now I was the mother of a set of fraternal twins. This was all I needed in life. This was all I wanted. Because I was surrounded by all the one's I loved.