"Oh, my goodness!" Gemma says, her eyes shimmering as she rests her hands on her knees where she is bent over laughing alongside me. If only our families had some clue as to why we're giggling.

Awkward as fuck.

When I wipe tears of merriment from my eyes, I glance around at the gathering, all of whom are watching Gemma and I as if we've grown extra heads. No such luck. The truth is likely more unexpected, and I've no idea how anyone is going to react.

'Awkward as fuck' is the best description of this entire event.

"Well," my dad says, "does anyone know why we're all here together? Not that I mind celebrating Christmas with others. It's a time of joy and togetherness after all." Pointedly, he glances between me and Harry, and my stomach (or rather the bean there) does a twirl.

Guiltily, Harry and I trade a glance.

"Yes," Harry says softly, and a room of eyes swivel in his direction as he approaches me and rests his hand on the back of my waist. "We wanted you to get to know each other and us before sharing."

"I think we can dispense with that archaic nonsense." As usual, my dad takes no prisoners in his approach to barrelling through a situation. "We've all met now, so why don't you get on with it? Anna?"

It's when he turns his attention to me that I feel like shrinking and hiding. He's always been able to make me squirm with just his words and a look. Shortbread quickly approaches my side, and I gratefully thread my fingers in her damp fur.

Clearing my throat, I observe the gathered group. When I turn my head to Harry, he gulps and gives me a nod. Seeing the anxiety on his face doubles my own, but I guess there's no better time than the present. It's the worst thing ever to disappoint your parents, and I suspect that will be the reaction. I'm not ready.

"Sure. Why don't we all sit down?" Gesturing towards the living room, Harry and I hang back waiting for the hordes to settle ahead of us.

When the foyer is empty, Harry turns to me and takes both of my hands, causing me to release my Shortbread security blanket. "Well..." he begins, "...we can sneak out the back. Hide at the Garden House. Or head to your house. Just disappear."

My smile matches his mood. "Yeah, sure. We can simply avoid this altogether."

"Except that we had reasons for doing it –"

"--and reasons for doing it this way with both families at once."

"Besides, they'll figure it out in another month or so whether we tell them now or not."

"Plus you spent all that money renting this estate for the weekend. Would be a shame to waste it."

He nods his head at me, and we each take a breath.

"We've got this, right? Just rip off the sticking plaster?"

"Seems like we're going to have to, so yeah."

"I forgot my copy of our speeches." He shrugs.

"Me too. Sounds like we're going to have to just wing it."

"Sounds like," Harry smiles sweetly at me before he raises our joined hands to his lips and presses a kiss on my knuckles.

"We've got this, right?" This time, it's me who asks the question.

"Just keep picturing how nice it will be to sink into that clawfoot tub upstairs afterwards."

"Mmmmm...would be a better picture if..." I stop myself because the words that were about to escape were 'if your legs were wrapped around me'. We're no longer those people.

"If what?"

"If we didn't have to do this at all, of course," I correct my sentence and pray he can't read my mind.

"That ship has sailed. Shall we?" He gestures towards the living room, and I hesitate.

"You first," I tease, copying his sweeping arm movement.

"Worried I'm going to let you walk the plank alone?"

"Yes!" My smile communicates that I'm still joking.

Harry holds out his hand. "Together?"

Grasping it, I nod. "All the way." And I mean it. We're in this together, and there's no one else I'd rather have by my side.

We walk into the room to find the two families sitting facing each other, sides clearly drawn even though they've no idea what we're about to reveal.

Purposely, I shift to Harry's right side, aligning me with his family from where we're facing them.

"We," Harry begins, then coughs. My grip on his hand tightens, attempting to give him strength. Shortbread, ever my support, moves to stand between us, leaning her head on Harry's thigh.

"We hadn't expected – well, any of this." I finish lamely. Dammit. Why hadn't I memorised the speech?

"There comes a time when, you know, um, everyone has to live their lives, and, um, things happen, even when you're not expecting them to happen, and um, life goes on and moves forward and, um, takes you by surprise."

Oh, good lord. He's in ramble mode, and I want to interrupt him, but he continues blathering on.

"And when those things happen, a person wants their family with them on the journey, and um... you're our families, and we wanted you to meet and get to know each other because, um, well, it will be important to our future, and um..."

Forcefully, I take over the speech, not remembering any of what we'd written but knowing that Harry is leading them to think we're a couple and are getting married. Nothing could be further from the truth.

"What Harry is trying to say is that we're happy to have both of our families here with us today so that we can..."

"We're having a baby," Harry blurts out, and I grimace at his less-than-tactful words.

Shit. That wasn't at all how we'd planned to do this.

The room is silent as 8 pairs of eyes stare at us. There's no sound at all save the ticking of the mantel clock which is at least fifteen minutes fast.

Until I interrupt the silence. "Sorry. We hadn't planned to dump the news just like that. But yeah. We're expecting a wean in about – 7 months."

Once again, the absence of sound overtakes the room. Harry and I look at each other, wondering what is happening in their brains as no one has yet acknowledged our words.

"Did we actually speak?" Harry whispers to me. "Are we in one of those dream bubbles?"

"I don't know," I reply sotto voce. "I expected some sort of response."

Unsure what to do, the two of us stand in front of them, uneasy. Piper, originally on the other side of the room, rises and bounds towards me, jumping up to place her paws on my belly. Suddenly, eight humans spring from their seats screaming, "NO!", breaking the atmosphere of quiet.

"Piper, down," my dad insists. My dog obeys, but is clearly confused. She's used to following his directions as well as mine, but planting her paws on me is not a rare occurrence. It happens often.

"Darling, that's amazing," Anne beams at Harry, capturing his face between her palms as she presses a kiss to his cheek. "Quite the Christmas gift!"

"I'm gonna be an auntie!" Skye squeals, hugging Iain who is standing stoically, perplexed.

"A baby?" Gemma seems shellshocked. "Like an actual baby? Not a fur baby?"

"I always told you he'd be the first to get pregnant," Misha insists, shaking his finger at Harry's sister.

My mum stands shaking her head. "No, no, no. This won't do. I'm too young to be a grandmother."

Darren beams at Anne, "You're going to be a granny!"

"I should probably create a prenup," Iain remarks, his eyes seeking his briefcase once Skye releases him.

Anne finishes hugging Harry and approaches me, holding out her arms. "This is so exciting, Dr. Anna! I can't even..." She wraps her arms around me as I notice that Gemma is hugging Harry. Once Anne releases me, my mum and dad swoop in, wrapping me in a joint hug.

"This is unexpected, Anna." My dad cautions, and I want to respond with an 'I know', but my sister shoulders her way into the circle to give me a hug while she yells in my ear, "You bitch. Always have to beat me to everything, don't you?"

It's another few minutes of loud voices and hugs all 'round before my father's voice booms. "This calls for champagne!"

"Except Anna can't have any," Misha chimes in, and the group nervously laughs.

It's instantly weird for me to have people I've just met commenting on what I can and cannot eat or drink – even though he's correct.

"Surely you planned for bubbly, Harry," Iain claps my baby daddy on his shoulder. "I'll just go have the staff locate it."

"Here, Anna. You should sit down," Darren insists, directing me towards one of the couches.

"I'm fine," I chuckle, but allow myself to be led anyway.

Harry finishes shaking my dad's hand before he settles next to me. The rest of the group glance around anxiously, only just realising that the seating is a tangled mess now. Anne ends up sitting between my father and my sister with Misha on the opposite side of my dad. Meanwhile, Darren sits in one of the armchairs, my mum in the chair next to him. Gemma perches next to Harry, her bum barely on the cushion as though she's worried it's not where she should sit.

"Let's..." Harry stands. "How about Anna and I switch with you?" He gestures towards Darren and my mum. Rising, my mum and Darren settle in our previous spots, and the seating is as mixed as two families can get.

It's just as Harry is about to rest his arse on the armchair that Iain returns with a bucket that holds a bottle of sparkling wine. Two of the house's staff members are behind him, one carrying a tray of glasses while the other holds a bottle of sparkling juice.

"I knew you had one on hand for this occasion, Harry!" Iain exclaims, attempting to open the bottle before passing it off to the staff member who twists the cork with a towel, muffling the pop. Curiously, Iain glances around, trying to figure out where to sit when Gemma gestures to him.

Honestly, it's comical how uncomfortable they all are with the current seating arrangements, but there's not really a reason to make a change, so they all roost there, waiting as the staff delivers a glass of wine to them. Harry directs the server away from me when the woman tries to hand me a glass of the alcoholic one.

With everyone holding their glass, we all stare around the room, unsure what's next. Clearly, someone should make a toast, but no one knows who should speak. Or what to say. Holding my glass in front of me, I announce, "To families! And Christmas!"

With great relief, the room echoes my words, raising their glasses and sipping the drink. Gemma catches my eye, and I suspect she's thinking about how this is even more fucking awkward than she ever would have predicted. We trade smiles and toast each other.

Anne kicks off the dialogue with a simple, "How did you meet?"

"Well..." Harry sets his drink on the table next to him before taking my hand. "That was a funny story. I thought she was a he because she was chopping wood, and the dogs weren't around, and I had Ellis' dog Boomer in the backseat because he ate a grape."

My smile is indulgent, as the story is true even if slightly disjointed. "We agreed to a short-term affair while Harry was dog-sitting for Ellis. And although we were careful every time..." I gesture to my belly, "...sometimes things happen."

"Have you considered options other than keeping it?" My mother chimes in.

"Yes." We respond in unison to this question.

"We haven't figured out all of the details yet, of course," I reveal, "but we're both committed to sharing the parental responsibilities for this little bean.

"Our main goal was sharing the news with all of you."

"And we wanted to do that simultaneously so that no one knew first."

"Makes sense," Misha murmurs.

"Have you..." Darren starts, glances at Anne, and then continues, "checked paternity?"

The sigh Harry gives comes from his toes, and I feel his pain at being asked the question. It had to be asked, and we both knew it, as did everyone in the room, so it might as well be out in the atmosphere as soon as possible.

Gripping my hand more tightly, Harry makes eye contact with everyone in the room before he speaks. "Anna made sure we did that right away, and I can confirm that –" He hesitates, and I know he has to fight to swallow the gendered pronoun, "the foetus belongs to me. I have paperwork to prove it –" Pointedly, he glances at my lawyer brother, "in case we need to."

"I'm befuddled," Anne chimes in, and my heart stops.

How much more clear can we be? We had sex. Our birth control was less than effective. We're having a baby. What does she not understand?

Next to me, I hear Harry's breath as it becomes more shallow. He's as scared as I am.

"Anna, you told me that you and Harry aren't dating... Did I hear you wrong?"

I release my pent breath, and I am confident my hand is going to fall off from Harry's tight grip which has not lessened even a tiny bit since we began this talk. Truthfully, it's only gotten tighter and tighter as the questions continue.

"No. You heard me correctly. We're not dating. We were never dating. And we have no plans to date."

"So you're not getting married?" My mum shifts straight to the point.

"No," I answer. "We're not changing our lives. Harry is going to continue being the famous pop star Harry Styles by day and occasional dad by night and weekends. Although, really that should be flipped since he works nights when he's touring. So he'll be dad by day and...You get the picture. I'm going to stay here in Scotland and run my clinic and be a mum to both my fur babies and our human baby."

"Nothing changes," Harry adds.

"Except there will be a bairn." My dad adds.

"Well, yes. There is that," I affirm.

"Nothing changes?" Anne exchanges a glance with my mum, and I wonder what she's thinking.

"Exactly," Harry verifies.

"I see," says Anne, but in a tone of voice that clearly communicates she doesn't 'see' at all.

"So that's the news," I speak. "We want you to get to know each other because you'll be in each other's lives forever moving forward. At every birthday, alternating Christmases, graduations, and other events, you'll be there for our child. We thank you in advance, and we are excited about raising our child in the midst of two such loving families."

Rather than a crescendo, my final speech lands with a thud. The room is back to the silence it had been just after our announcement.

More awkward than I ever could have imagined.

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