“Annie, what are you doing?”  

I stood stock still, my mouth agape and my eyes wide as I turned my head slowly to the left to find Nick standing in the doorway of his laundry room with his hands on his hips.  I gripped the offending sweatpants and willed my fingers to hold their vice-like grip on the wad of red cotton blend that I had suspended in the air above the stainless steel trash can. “Laundry?”  I answered with a sheepish grin.

My fiancee chuckled, the laugh lines around his bright blue eyes sending my heart aflutter like they always did.  “Laundry?  Is that what you call it when you’re throwing away my favorite pants?” he asked as he sauntered towards me.  

“What?  No!”  I looked down in mock surprise.  “This is the hamper, isn’t it?”

“No,” he replied shortly.  

“Oops.  My bad!”  I shrugged exaggeratedly, and one of the sweatpant legs flew upwards and hit me in the mouth.  I nearly gagged and immediately tossed them across the room towards the hamper.  Nick’s hand shot out and  caught them in a swift interception.

“Actually, I was looking for those.”  

I crinkled my nose in disgust.  “But they’re dirty.”

“So?”  He held them up by the faded elastic waist and and the crumpled ball of red legs fell towards the floor and hovered precariously over the marbled brown ceramic tile.  He examined the back of them while I took in the front. A dingy off-white drawstring dangled down in front of the crotch seam and a quarter-sized coffee stain was just to its left. The faded outlines of bulky pockets had appeared on the thighs after hundreds of washes.  Two small holes grazed the right knee, and though I couldn’t see it, I knew that a thin bleach splatter trailed from the left buttcheek down to the calf.  I sighed.  Those buttcheeks looked so much better in a pair of designer jeans.   At least the leg openings weren’t cinched together with elastic around the ankles.  I wouldn’t put it past him to wear a pair like that.  In fact, I’d caught a glimpse of him heading out to go to the gym in a pair of black ones like that just the day before.  At least those weren’t red.  “I’m just wearing them to rehearsal.” Nick reasoned.

“Aren’t you taping for the documentary today?”

“Yep.” He unbuttoned his jeans and dropped them down to his ankles, then stooped down to hold them in place while he stepped out of them.  He straightened the waistband of his black cotton boxers and started pulling on his beloved sweatpants.  

“Don’t you at least want to wear something clean?”  I asked hopefully.  

“Nah.  This documentary’s supposed to be real life, baby.”  He emphasized the words “real life, baby” as he pulled them over his hips and snapped the waistband loudly against his toned abs.  

I rolled my eyes.  “And real life is that you wear those ugly things every other day.”

“Exactly.”  He grinned smugly as his large hands landed on my hips, grasping them firmly, and  he pulled me into him so that our torsos were touching.  “They’re just so comfortable,” he murmured against my neck, his warm breath making my hair follicles stand on end.

 “Like you.”  I giggled as he hoisted me up onto the washing machine and wrapped my legs around his waist.  He bent down to plant a kiss on my neck, then my cheek, then the other cheek, and finally my lips.  He snaked his arms around my waist  and hugged me, resting his chin on my shoulder so that his lips grazed my right ear.  “Do you really think they’re ugly?”  I imagined his bottom lip jutting out into an expert pout.  

“Yes,” I answered quickly. This prompted him to dig his index fingers into my ribs and start tickling me mercilessly.

“Nick, stop!”  I squealed through my laughter as I tried to wiggle out of his grasp.  “I’m going to pee!”

He pulled his hands away from me immediately.  “We can’t have that.  Then I wouldn’t be able to wear my pants!”  

I crossed my arms across my chest and stuck my tongue out at him playfully.  “On second thought.....”

“Well, that’s just gross.”

I laughed.  “You’re right.  What time do you have to be there?”

“Nine.”

I glanced up at the clock on the wall behind his head.  “It’s 8:47, Nick.  In rush-hour traffic, it’s going to take you at least half an hour to get there,” I scolded.  

He shrugged.  “AJ will be later than I will,” he predicted (probably accurately).

“Well, you still better get going.”  He groaned and wrapped his arms back around my waist.  “I like it here,” he whined.

I smiled and ran my fingers through his hair, then dropped a light kiss onto his forehead.  “Me too, but at least you’ll see me before you finish practicing today.”

“True,” he murmured against my lips before giving them a quick peck and peeling himself off of me.   “What time are you planning to be there?”

“About one.  Kristin and I are picking up lunch, so you better be ready for the run-through by the time we get there.  You know she’s too polite to start eating before everyone else, and nobody wants to deal with a grumpy pregnant lady.”  

He laughed.  “True.”

It was the last In a World Like This tour rehearsal in LA before they left for China in a few days, and it was tradition for their families/wives/girlfriends to sit in on the last rehearsal and be the first to see the show-- a dress rehearsal of sorts.  And mine was going to be wearing those horrible red sweatpants with the fancy fedora as he performed the “All I Have to Give” hat routine.  I sighed as he jogged out the door, barely even able to enjoy the view that was so rudely obstructed by those obnoxious pants.  He may have won this particular battle, but when it came to those pants, I decided it was time for war.

“Brian, what do you think of these pants?”  Nick looked down at the man lounging in the floor during a much-needed “take ten” and wiped a drop of sweat from his eyebrow before turning to examine his rear-end in the floor-length mirror lining one wall of their rehearsal space.  AJ and Kevin simultaneously snorted from behind him.

“You’re asking him?” AJ guffawed.  “You might as well ask Baylee!”

“Hey!”  Brian retorted.  “My wife happens to have her own clothing line, you know.”

“For women!”  Kevin exclaimed with a chuckle.

“Not all for women.”

“Oh, excuse me.  Also for babies and effeminate men who like to wear women’s scarves.”  Kevin stooped down and tugged at the olive green jersey scarf wrapped around his cousin’s neck.

“Right, Mister I Used to Wear Skirts to Awards Shows,” Brian scoffed. “They’re not just women’s scarves.  They’re unisex!”

“Then, I’d like to see you put on the one she gave Kris for Christmas,” Kevin replied, crossing his arms across his chest smugly.

“Fine,” Brian huffed.  “They’re not all unisex.”

“Notice he didn’t deny anything about being effeminate!” Nick

whooped.

Brian’s ears burned a lovely shade of bright pink.  “I thought we were talking about your pants.”

Howie walked over to where the rest of them were gathered and gave Nick a friendly pat on the shoulder blade.  “Hey Nick-- is ‘what do you think about these pants?’ kind of like ‘do these pants make me look fat’?”  

Nick’s smug grin at Brian's expense was replaced by an expression of sheer panic as he turned back to examine his red behind in the mirror.  “Why?  Do they make me look fat?”

"Nick, these days, you couldn't look fat if you tried,”  AJ said seriously, understanding the need to build up his little brother.  Lord knows he needed that sometimes too.  “Since when did you care what we think of your pants?” he asked, piquing the curiosity of the rest of his bandmates.

Nick frowned and placed his hands on his hips as he examined himself in the mirror.  “Annie hates them,” he said somberly.

“Of course she does,” Howie replied matter-of-factly.

“Why do you say that?”  

Nick shoved a  cold bottle of water into Howie’s stomach, and Howie cradled into his hand with an “ooph.”  Sweat from the bottle left a dark spot on his grey t-shirt, and he opened the bottle and chugged half of it before answering.  “Have you seen them?” he gasped.

“What’s wrong with them?” Nick asked defensively.

“Well...”  Kevin started pacing back and forth in front of Nick, very business-like.  “One-- they’re red, two-- they’re sweatpants, three--” He ticked the reasons off on his fingers, one by one.  “They’re old.  I mean, you’ve had those things since before Never Gone, and I wasn’t around you much in the years before, so maybe even longer than that?”  Nick nodded meekly in affirmation.  “God, how do you even keep them up?” he asked, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Drawstring!” Nick squealed in indignation.

“Dude....” AJ breathed, looking down at the floor and shaking his head, with one hand on his hip.  “It’s not 1999 anymore!”

“Says the guy wearing a sideways trucker cap!” Nick retorted.

“At least I don’t need a shoestring to hold my pants up!”

“That’s just because you finally went through puberty and filled out!”

“Rrearr!” Howie screeched with his right  hand clawing at the air.  “Retract those claws!”  All eyes fell on him in stunned silence.

 “What?” he asked, putting on his clueless face.  “We’re talking about Nick’s pants here, not taking jabs at each other’s manhood!”

“Could have fooled me,” Brian growled with a playful glint in his eye.  

“So let’s get back on track,” Howie redirected, turning his attention to Nick.  “Why do you think Annie hates your pants?”

Nick sighed.  “I caught her trying to throw them away this morning.”

Brian nearly choked on his water and pulled the almost-empty plastic bottle away from his mouth, coughing and sputtering over his laughter.  “Welcome, man.”

“Welcome to what?”

“Having a wife,”  Kevin answered, nodding knowingly.

“We’re not married yet,”  Nick replied.

“Close enough,” AJ and Brian said simultaneously.  

“Listen, Nick.”  Kevin reached up to drape his arm around Nick’s shoulders, pulling his neck into the bend of his elbow.  “As scared baby deer in the headlights as Annie was at the beginning of this relationship, you should be excited that she’s already doing things wives do.”

Nick eyed his older brother through squinted eyes and contorted his mouth in deep thought.  “So, what you’re telling me is that wives throw your favorite pants in the trash?”

“Yes,”  Howie answered for Kevin with absolute sincerity.  

“Really?!”

Brian laughed.  “You remember that old white UK baseball cap I used to wear everywhere?”

“Yeah.”

“Leighanne hated that thing.”

“It was nasty, man!” Howie interjected.

“It had character!”  Brian rebutted.  “Anyway, I fished that thing out of the garbage like twenty times before it finally went missing five years ago.”

“But what I don’t understand is that I didn’t even know she didn’t like them!”  Nick whined.  “I just walk in the laundry room to find her dangling them over the garbage can without so much as a warning.

 She totally blindsided me.”

Kevin cocked a bushy eyebrow.  “I find that a little hard to believe.”  

“Me too,” Howie chimed in.

“Seriously!”

“Nicky. Nicky, Nicky...”  AJ sauntered over to Nick and Kevin and grabbed Nick by the elbow, then started leading him around the mass of hardwood floor surrounding them in a large circle.  “Walk with me.  Talk with me.”  Nick widened his eyes in bewilderment.  “Tell me Nick, have you ever gotten ready to go out-- either with or without her-- to someplace like the movies, or the gym, or even the grocery store, and as you’re on the way out the door, she asks you this question:”  AJ pulled his voice up an octave.  “Is that what you’re wearing?”  Howie, Brian, and Kevin all laughed in appreciation.

“Yeah...” Nick answered, his voice on edge.  “At least once a week.”

"Bingo." AJ winked.  “What’s your answer?”

“Yes.”  Nick gulped.  “Is that the wrong answer?”

“Oh, no! No. Yes is always the right answer to that question,” Brian answered, rubbing his hands together with a smile.

“But won’t that make her mad?”

“Yes,” Howie answered seriously.

“Do I want her to be mad?”

“No,” Brian answered.  

“What?!”

AJ rubbed Nick’s shoulder blade reassuringly.  “Not mad, just frustrated.”

“You want your wives to be frustrated,” Nick said, more as a disbelieving statement than a question.

“Not really frustrated,” AJ clarified.  “But when they’re frustrated over something as stupid as a pair of fugly red pants, they’re adorable as hell.”

“It’s kind of hot,” Howie concurred.  The rest of Nick’s Backstreet brothers all nodded in agreement.

Something about Nick always reminded me of my older brother, Josh.  Mainly, it was about personality and mannerisms, and then there were “the shorts.”  Josh played basketball throughout middle school and high school, and his first pair of practice shorts, acquired from the team back in seventh grade, became his favorite.  They were made of two layers of slick, deep royal blue mesh with “BC” (for Breathitt County, Kentucky) ironed on in white vinyl. At some point after Josh turned sixteen, he decided he needed a pocket for his wallet and newly-acquired car keys.  So, he took a pocket knife and cut a small slit in the first layer of blue material so that he could put them in there and the bottom seam would hold them in.  Of course, over time, the slit grew, and eventually he got it caught on the edge of a bleacher.  

By the time Josh  was a senior, the once deep blue shorts were more of a dull sky blue with little fuzzy nubs all over them from thousands of washes.  There was a large triangle of fabric where his makeshift pocket used to be that fell below his knee and just kind of hung there and flapped in the breeze, and the white vinyl “BC” eventually fell off, leaving a royal blue “BC”-shaped shadow as a reminder of the color the shorts once were.  Mom tried reasoning with my brother, telling him that maybe it was time for the shorts to go, but Josh wouldn’t have it.  She would attempt trashing them (hence my inspiration with Nick’s pants), but Josh would always manage to fish them out before the day the garbage truck was supposed to run.  Eventually, I became her accomplice, pulling the shorts out of his gym bag and hiding them, but alas, “the shorts” made it to college with Josh where Mom and I could no longer try to get rid of them.

I groaned as I watched Nick straddle his chair during the “As Long As You Love Me” dance.  The crotch of the too-big sweatpants stretched awkwardly against the back of the metal folding chair, nearly hindering his ability to sit comfortably, and pushing his behind to the edge of the seat.  I half-expected him to slip off and fall backwards onto the hardwood dance floor, long red legs flailing in the air wildly.  If I didn’t do something soon, Nick’s pants were going to go off to proverbial college (aka the tour) with him. Then, since I had my own career to look after, I wouldn’t always be able to save legions of adult women from having themselves immortalized in meet and greet pictures with Nick’s heinous red pants.  I imagined the atrocities glaring at me from grocery store magazine racks and YouTube videos that I secretly watched whenever I wasn’t able to make it to a sound check party.  Then I envisioned myself at eighty, rubbing a stain remover stick over the pesky coffee stain that just wouldn’t go away.

“Penny for your thoughts?”  Kristen nudged me with her elbow and flashed her megawatt smile at me as the choreographer counted aloud over the music and gave the guys tips on perfecting their steps.  I eyed her dubiously and wondered whether I should say anything or just keep it to myself.  In the end, Kristen felt like pretty safe territory to air mine and Nick’s (well, mainly Nick’s) dirty laundry.  They’d already run the entire show from start to finish, and we were basically waiting around while they ran back through some shaky spots.  What else was I going to do to pass the time?

“Red pants,” I said simply.

“Yep, they’re red,”  Kristin looked at Nick and grimaced.

I stifled a laugh.  “This morning, he caught me in the laundry room trying to throw them away.”

Kristin made no attempt to stifle her own laughter.  “Is that all?”  I raised an eyebrow.  “Welcome, honey,” she said cheerfully, pulling me into a hug with one arm.

“Welcome to what?”  I asked, confused.

“Being a wife.”

“But we’re not married yet.”

“Close enough.  The sudden impulse to throw away his unsightly favorite clothing makes you a wife.”  I can’t say I really understood her logic.  Here I was likening Nick’s pants to my brother's shorts, and I felt strangely like my mother.  Actually, I kind of felt like his mother.  Of course, it wasn’t the first time I felt that way, and I’m sure it wasn’t going to be the last, either.  

“Drew’s going to do it to you, too.”  Kristin glanced across the room to where Mason, James, and Drew were sitting in the corner playing with action figures, and smiled wistfully as she rubbed her baby bump with the pads of her long fingers.

“Yeah.”  That I had experience with.  I could totally see my three year old  giving me grief over a pair of shorts like his uncle Josh’s in 10+ years.  I just hoped Josh didn’t plan on resurrecting the same shorts.  

“See that blue super hero cape Mason’s wearing?”

“Uh-huh.”  

Mason was stooped over with his cape pulled over James and Drew’s heads on either side of him, and making what I can only describe as comic book noises.  “Bang! Zoom! Pow!”  Drew mocked him perfectly, holding up an imaginary gun with his thumb and forefinger.  I had a sinking feeling that my Sesame Street and Mickey Mouse days were over.

“He hasn’t taken it off in six weeks.”  I smiled.  “Well, he usually takes it off for baths, but not always,” she went on.  “And sometimes, I’ll take it off him after he falls asleep so that I can wash and dry it, but it has to be back on before he wakes up, lest he lose his super powers.  I wonder if Kevin thinks he’ll lose his super powers if he takes off that denim shirt....”

I glanced back up at the guys, who were now running through “I Want it That Way” again. As a Kevin fan from the beginning, I liked the way he looked in that denim shirt, in a purely platonic way at this point, of course. Well, mostly.  A girl can appreciate a good-looking man without any intentions, right? It was the same shirt he’d been wearing the day I met him while on the BSB cruise a year and  a half ago.  Come  to think about it, he did wear that shirt a lot.

“What are we talking about?” Rochelle asked.  She pulled up a chair behind us and spread out a blanket on the floor for Ava to crawl around on, then leaned forward and stuck her head in between mine and Kristin’s.  I wondered it she’d been a Happy Days fan, because at the moment, she totally reminded me of

“Potsie.”

“Kevin’s denim shirt/ Nick’s red sweatpants,” Kristin and I answered with simultaneous eye rolls.

Rochelle laughed and placed her hand on Kristin’s shoulder, then started talking to her pointedly.  “Does it have sleeves?”

Kristin furrowed her brows.  “Yes.”

“Is it acid-washed?”

“No.”

“Then it can’t be that bad.”  I looked up at AJ.  He was wearing a light denim vest that looked like an old jean jacket with the arms cut off, frayed edges and all.  I shrugged.  It was very AJ.  “I know!  I’m such a hypocrite!” Rochelle lamented.  “I mean, Skullee and I are all about supporting each other’s personal style, but that one just bugs me.  I jokingly asked him once if he stole it from the set of the “I Just Want You to Know” video.

Kristin snorted.  “What was his answer?”

“Yes,” Rochelle said seriously.  “He liked it so much he asked the wardrobe girl if he could take it.  I think he even paid money for it.  I’m all about shopping vintage, but apparently he does his shopping on the sets of videos poking fun at 80’s hair bands. ”

“Well at least he’s gotten a lot of use out of it,” I said with a laugh.

 “It even  reprised its role on the last cruise.”

“And today, and last Friday, and on the Tuesday before that,” Rochelle added with a frown.

“Oh, the cruise,” Leighanne muttered from a few feet away.  “Tickle Me Elmo.”  She sighed and shook her head in disdain.

“What’s that, Leighanne?”  I asked from afar.

Leighanne gave me a weak smile and got up to drag her chair over to where we were seated.  She took in a deep breath and let it out.

 “You remember those Elmo pajamas he wore on the cruise?”  We all nodded.  “He still wears them,”  she said, shaking her head with a dramatic eye roll.  Yet, along with it came an amused smirk.  “He wears  them to bed about three times a week, and every single time, he asks me to tickle him.”

“Well do you?”  Leigh walked up behind us and placed baby John in Kristin’s arms.  “He just ate, so here you go,” she said, handing her a white cloth diaper to use as a burp rag.  Kristin started cooing at John and lifted him over her shoulder, rubbing circles on his tiny back.  Then she turned to Leighanne with expectant eyes.

“Well, do you?”

Leighanne blushed and brought her fist up to her mouth as she coughed to clear her throat.  “Usually.”

“I knew it!” Leigh pumped her fist into the air triumphantly.  “But why are we talking about Brian’s pajamas?”

“Is there something Howie wears that makes you cringe every time you see it?”  I asked her.  “I mean, even Ro has something of AJ’s she doesn’t like....”

“The vest,” Leigh said with a knowing nod.  I raised my eyebrows in surprise.  “We’ve talked about it before.”

“Oh.”

“Howie has this baseball cap that he won’t let go of.”

“Been there,” Leighanne chimed in.  

“He wears it whenever he’s having a bad hair day, and that thing is do disgusting.  I mean, I washed it once thinking maybe it would fall apart, but no such luck.  He thinks that because it’s army green you can’t see the stains on it.  Well, maybe he can’t, and maybe the fans can’t, but I sure can.”  She crinkled her nose in disgust and groaned.

“At least it’s not white turned cruddy yellow with sweat stains,”

 Leighanne said.  “Brian had this awful UK cap that I finally just tossed.”

“Well, Annie got caught,” Kristin said with a giggle.

“Is this about the pants?”  Leigh pointed to Nick, who was “popping and locking “ between Howie and Brian.  He stopped momentarily to hike them up and re-tie the dingy drawstring.  “We’ve been trying to get rid of them for years.”

“You have?”

“Yep. But you know, we didn’t have much of an ally in the mission until now,”  Leigh rubbed her hands together excitedly and plopped down in the floor in front of us cross-legged.  “What are we planning?”

______________________________________

Kevin wiped the sweat from his forehead with a towel, tossed it on the floor and put his hands on his hips.  “What do you think they’re talking about?” he asked, eyeing the wives suspiciously.

“How hot we look doing the ‘Everybody’ dance?”  AJ guessed with a smirk.

“Ha!”  Howie scoffed.  “Looks like mine’s the ringleader.  You know it’s dirtier than that.”

“How they can’t wait to ravage our sexy bodies when we get home?”  Brian surmised with a Jim Carrey-esque grin and chuckle.

Kevin groaned.  “Doubtful.”

“What makes you so sure?”  AJ asked with a pout.  “I was kind of hopeful.”

“Two words, gentlemen.”  Kevin said seriously.  “Pelvic. Rest.” He held up his fist, bringing his fingers up one at a time as he said the words.

“Ouch!”  Howie winced as Brian and AJ moaned their “Aww”s of agreement.

Nick’s wide eyes darted back and forth between his bandmates.

“What’s that?” he asked apprehensively.  “Or do I even want to know?”

Howie laughed and have him a hearty slap on the shoulder.  “Let’s just say that per doctor’s orders, Kev’s not gettin’ any.”  Kevin coughed, his cheeks turning just slightly pink as he turned away from his bandmates and took a swig from his bottle of water.

“Heh,” Nick gave them a nervous chuckle.  “Well, neither am I,” he murmured.

“Doctor’s orders?”  Brian asked with an amused glint in his eye.

“Something like that,” the younger man grunted in return.  Annie had been a doctor before taking a leap of faith and pursuing her own musical career.  She had also convinced her fiancee that they should wait until marriage to consummate the relationship, and since the one and only time they’d slept together ended with bad results he’d rather not think about at the moment, he reluctantly agreed.  Of course, he didn’t expect that an unforeseen turn of events would have them pushing the wedding back until a break after their summer tour.  Still, this woman was worth the wait.  He watched Annie’s face light up with laughter as Leigh whispered something in her ear, and he couldn’t help smiling when he suddenly realized what the women were most likely talking about.  “This is about the sweatpants, isn’t it?”

“Of course it’s about the sweatpants.”

When I was a kid, my dad had these horrible brown patent leather penny loafers that he wore with everything.  They must have been at least fifteen years old before I finally realized how embarrassing they were.  It was a sunny Saturday afternoon in June and I was eleven.  I’d just finished playing a little league softball game (or rather, making clover chains out in left field and ducking for cover underneath Dad’s ratty old baseball glove whenever that blinding chartreuse ball headed my way).  My best friend, Beth, was going home with me to spend the night after the game, and we  ran excitedly towards my dad, who was leaning casually against the front bumper of his little red ‘76 MG convertible and puffing on an expensive cigar a few yards beyond the chain-link fence.  He’d apparently been mowing the lawn and hadn’t changed clothes afterwards, save for the shoes, because, god forbid he get grass trimmings all over his beloved loafers.  He wore a Kentucky blue polo shirt, completely unbuttoned at the top with wisps of curly hair sticking out from the top his darkly tanned chest, and a pair of my older brother’s discarded, faded denim cargo shorts that hit about two inches below his  leathery knees.  They were covered in thousands of tiny green grass trimmings that were starting to fade in color due to the fact that they had been cut off from their water supply in the  ground a couple hours beforehand. The mist of grass on his legs got even thicker and more noticeable on the bright white sweat socks he wore on his feet, which were shoved into clean,  brown patent leather penny loafers.  

“Hey, doc!”  Beth said cheerfully as I leaned forward on my tip-toes to button the bottom two buttons on his polo shirt before wrapping my arms around his neck and taking in his scent of freshly cut grass, sweat, and cigar smoke.  It was a welcome contrast to the scent of sterile antiseptic mixed with sweat and cauterized flesh I was used to experiencing on the few nights he made it home from the hospital after a long day of surgery before I went to bed.  

`“Thanks for coming, Daddy,” I said sweetly before going in for the kill.  “You can’t wear those shoes with shorts and sweatsocks,” I chastised as he took our bags and opened the tiny trunk of the car.  

“Oh?”  he grinned like the Cheshire cat.  “Did your mother put you up to saying that?”

“No!”  I put my hands on my hips and sighed dramatically.  “They just don’t look good!”

Beth raced to the back of the car and looked down at the shoes in question.  “I kind of like them.”

“Hush, Beth!”  I hissed as I climbed over the rolled down window and settled into the passenger seat.  The door worked fine, but I thought it upped my  “cool factor” when I hopped over the door of my dad’s flashy, antique convertible instead of the traditional way of doing things.  

“You got any pennies, doc?”  Beth was one of the few people in town who wasn’t intimidated enough by my father to call him the formal “Doctor Donohue,” or at least “Jack.”  Dad leaned into the car and fished a couple of pennies out of the cup holder, then handed them to Beth.  The knees of Beth’s grey softball pants hit the hot asphalt at Dad’s feet and she went to work at securing the pennies into the stiff leather.  “There ya go!” she said proudly as she stood up and knocked the tiny gravels off her knees with her hands.  “You can’t have penny loafers without pennies in them, can you?”  I groaned as she climbed into the two-seater beside me and squished my hip up against the console while Dad got into the driver’s seat laughing.  

That pair of pennies never left those shoes (thanks, Beth).  One was brand-new, shiny, bright copper, while the other was dingy and dark.  The shiny one was upside down  on “tails” while the dingy one was right-side up on “heads.”  Every time I tried to remove them, or at least flip them around so that they matched, Daddy would swat at my hands away and tell me to “shoo.”  After our conversation at the ballpark, he decided to stop wearing them with socks and thanked me for the fashion advice. I tried to explain to him that what I really meant was that he needed to only wear them with dress socks and long pants.  Alas, my father spent the rest of that summer wearing penny loafers with shorts and no socks.  Of course, he still had tan lines from where his short summer socks stopped at his ankle bone, and he still looked like he was wearing socks.  Over the years, my mom attempted to buy him suitable replacement shoes....

“New pants!” I nearly shouted up at the traffic light in front of me.  I got so excited I inadvertently jerked my foot up off the brake pedal. The car inched forward, and Mason shouted from the backseat.

“Red light!”  I scrambled to push my flip-flop laden foot back down on the brake while Kris laughed.

“That’s what I’m saying!  I totally need new pants.  I mean, my belly didn’t get this big with Mason, but I’m only six weeks away from my due date, so I might as well stick with dresses and skirts, right?”

“Green light!”

I pressed the accelerator and clicked on my left turn signal to drive down Kevin and Kristin’s street.  “I agree.  No sense in buying new maternity pants to get you through the next six weeks or less,”  I answered nonchalantly, as if I’d been listening to her the whole time instead of thinking about the men in my family and their propensity to wear unsightly clothing and accessories.  I smiled, imagining Nick would fit right in.

“Maybe I could give them to you eventually,” she remarked with a smirk.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said as I pulled up to the gated community and waited for Kristin to push the button on her keyfob to open the gates.  

“Just a thought.”  She shrugged and I glanced up in the rearview mirror to get a look at my sleeping child in his carseat.  I couldn’t wait to have kids with Nick someday, but we weren’t even married yet, and there was a year-long tour coming up.  Plus, I was just coming off of my own tour, and mothering a three year old was kicking my butt.

“How long do you think they’ll be?”  I asked as I pulled into the driveway.  The guys, perfectionists that they were, decided that they needed more practice before going their own separate ways for a week before they got on a plane headed for China, and the kids were getting antsy, so we decided to go home.  

Kristin shrugged as she opened the door and took a deep breath, before swinging her legs around and hoisting herself up out of the passenger seat.  “It depends on how much rehearsing  they’re planning to do once they get to China.”

I gave her an understanding nod.  “You think I have time to go buy Nick some new sweatpants?”

She laughed and opened the back door for Mason, who had already unbuckled his own seatbelt and jumped down to the floorboard from his booster seat.  “Good luck with that.  You should see Kev’s closet.  The man’s got more shirts than I so, and that denim one’s about the only one he wears.”

I shrugged.  “Well, Leighanne says to just close my eyes and toss them.  Leigh says to burn them so he can’t fish them out of the trash.  Rochelle says to just grin and bear it.  I’m not so sure I like any of those options.  We’re not married yet, so he’s still trying to impress me.  Maybe he’ll wear the new ones and put the old ones away in a drawer somewhere.  It’s worth a shot.”

Kristin gave me a sympathetic smile.  “Good luck with that.”

“And down they went to see, roly-poly, pell-mell, tumble-bumble, till they came to the green grass; and there they stopped short.  ‘What in the world are you doing?’ they asked.  ‘I see something!’ said the poky little puppy.”  I stood in the hallway and listened to the deep cadence of Nick’s voice as he read my son his favorite book.  I tip-toed into the doorway and leaned into the wood frame as I peered inside.  Drew was sprawled across Nick’s lap like a limp rag doll, the shirt of his Superman pajamas riding up so that I could see his little belly button, and his blonde head hanging off Nick’s forearm as he snored softly.  I was probably going to have to break out the allergy medicine in the morning.  “Strawberry shortcake!” Nick whispered excitedly.  He looked up at me and grinned as he closed the book and placed it back on the bookshelf beside the padded rocking chair he was seated in.  “Does he even know how it ends?” he asked softly.

“He does.”  I nodded and let out a little laugh.  “He stays awake every single time I’m the one reading it.”

“I must be boring,” Nick frowned and looked down at the sleeping child in his lap.

I shook my head.  “No.  He’s comfortable with you.”  His lips turned up into a smile.  “I’m his mommy.  Of course he never does what I want him to do.  This is why I’m nervous about you going to China for two weeks.  He’s gotten used to being here with you.”

Nick cradled Drew in his arms and stood up to place him gently in his toddler bed.  “It’s not too late to change your mind, you know.”

“You leave in eight hours, Nick.  Besides, none of the other wives are going.”  

“You’re technically not my wife yet, so maybe you could get a free pass.”  He gave me a hopeful smile and squeezed my hand as he led me out of Drew’s bedroom.  

“Good try, but technically, I’m on Kristin watch, and if you want Kevin to be able to focus while you’re over there, I think you’re going to want me here.”

“True.”  Kristin’s pregnancy had been a surprise to everyone, especially Kevin, and the thought of going halfway across the world while she was just a few weeks away from her due date was making him a nervous wreck.  The fact that a friend who happened to also be a doctor was going to be checking in on her made him feel at least marginally better.

“I have a surprise for you,” I told him as we started walking towards his bedroom.  

“I like surprises in my bedroom!”  he exclaimed, pushing me up against the wall and planting a wet kiss on my lips.

“Sorry.  It’s not that kind of surprise,” I laughed, placing my hands on his biceps and squeezing playfully.  He pouted dramatically.

 “You like presents, too, right?”

“Love presents.”

“Good.”  I took his hand and tugged him into his room.  His suitcase was laying open on top of the bed with the bulk of the clothes he’d be taking with him neatly folded inside.  On top of the folded clothing was a large box wrapped in blue paper with a big red bow.  

“You really got me a present?”  He asked, his eyes wide  with happy surprise.  He lunged forward and grabbed it.

“Think of it as a ‘happy travels’ gift.”  Nick grinned and slipped the bow off, then started tearing the paper off like an excited five year old on his birthday.  Once the area surrounding him on the bedspread was covered with crumpled strips of blue wrapping paper, he slid the lid off the box.

“You didn’t even tape the box together!” he exclaimed excitedly.  

“Just for you,” I laughed.

“These are nice!”  he said as he pulled out the first pair of sweatpants.  

“I thought they would be good for your trip,” I said cheerfully, but Nick’s smile turned to a slight frown as he pulled out a second and third pair of sweatpants.  I’d covered all the basic sweatpant colors- black, navy blue, dark grey.....

“Uh- thanks,” Nick said, obviously faking a smile.

“Don’t you like them?”  I asked, pouting a little for emphasis.

Nick rolled his eyes and pulled me down onto the bed with him, wrapping me in his arms and rolling over on top of me.  “Love them,” he said as he kissed me on the tip of my nose.  “This is about the red pair, isn’t it?”  He gave me a cheeky grin and I unsuccessfully attempted to wiggle out of his grasp.

“What?”  I feigned ignorance.  “Of course not!  I just thought  you might like some nice travel pants.  I know you hate wearing jeans on long flights, and you’re looking at a lot of plane and bus time in the next several months.  Just trying to help you out.”  I grinned sweetly and batted my eyelashes.

“Right.”

Early the next morning, Nick marched  down the stairs proudly, dragging his suitcase with an effortless swing.  “You like?”  He dropped his luggage onto the hardwood and turned around in a slow circle, modeling the new navy blue pair of sweatpants I’d bought him.  I bit my bottom lip as my eyes ran up and down his body.  He wore a simple v-neck t-shirt on top and an old pair of sneakers on his feet. Those sweatpants clung to him in all the right places without looking too tight.  I gave myself a proverbial pat on the back for not going for the next larger size up as I’d almost done.  

“I like.”  I nodded affirmatively.  “Sexy,” I said softly.

Nick smirked and pulled his carry-on onto his shoulder.  “Well, that’s a lot better than ‘Is that what you’re wearing?’”