“You be good for your mama and stay in there while Daddy’s gone, okay, little buddy?” Kevin had taken to putting his hands on Amy’s belly and talking to it, which was both really cute and a little awkward, considering the lack of romantic involvement between the two.
“Kevin, stop worrying! My due date’s not for another three weeks, and Dr. Adler says first babies tend to be late. I bet he’ll come during the two weeks you guys have off between promoting the single and the album release,” she assured him.
Kevin looked up at her and grinned. “I hope so.”
“Well, I’m sure he’s in no hurry to put me out of my misery any time soon, so go to work, have fun, and chill out, okay?” she put her hands on her back for emphasis and blew a stray piece of hair out of her face. Kevin nodded and reluctantly stood up, slinging a bag over his shoulder.
He leaned down and planted a quick kiss on Amelia’s cheek, “Take care of yourself, okay?” Despite the fact that there were no romantic feelings between them, Kevin and Amelia had formed a great friendship, which was good, considering that soon they would become “Mommy and Daddy” to the same child.
“What else is there for me to do?” She gave him an exasperated sigh. Her frustration with the situation was definitely starting to get the best of her.
Kevin gave her a sympathetic little smile and turned around. “You ready, Howie?”
Howie leaned forward with his elbows on the kitchen table and stuck his face mere centimeters away from mine. “I’ll miss you,” he said before leaning in for a quick kiss. “It’s about to get crazy again.” They were flying out to Los Angeles to film the video for “I Want it That Way,” then embarking on a radio/TV station tour to promote the first single off their new album for the next two weeks. He had been making it a point to tell me how much he was going to miss me, but he couldn’t really hide his excitement either. The Backstreet Boys were getting really popular in the U.S., and the release of “Millennium” has the potential to shoot them into super-stardom. I was excited, too. We all were.
“Seventeen days,” I reminded him. “Then two weeks together before the crazy really starts,” I said, referring to the actual album release and world tour following it.
“Seventeen days,” he repeated with a nod. “I’m looking forward to those two weeks.” His mouth spread into a smile and he leaned in for another kiss-- this one much longer than the last.
“Ahem.” Kevin cleared his throat and pointed to his watch as we pulled away from each other and looked up at him.
Howie groaned and pushed his chair away from the table, standing up and slinging his own bag over his shoulder. “I’ll call you as soon as I land, okay?”
“I’m sure I’ll still be right here.” I rolled my eyes and gestured down to the open Biology book and pages of notes spread across the table. The break Forever had been forced to take due to Amelia’s pregnancy had been a good opportunity for me to take some classes, but with one more round of exams and finals quickly approaching after that, I feared that maybe I’d bitten off more than I could chew, and figured I’d be camped out in this spot all weekend. Cassie and Melissa were in New York visiting Carson (and whatever Mel was doing), and Chrissy was planning on moping around in her pajamas eating ice cream now that Nick was going out of town again. Come to think about it, ice cream sounded pretty awesome, and I knew for a fact that Kevin had dutifully stocked the freezer for Amelia just the day before.
“Love you!” Howie called out to me as he and Kevin walked out.
“Love you, too!”
Kevin pulled the door together, then immediately opened it back up and poked his head inside. “Call me if you need me,” he told Amelia, then turned to look at me. “Make her call me if anything happens. I’ll be on a plane back here ASAP.”
“I will, Kev,” I promised. “It’ll be fine! Now, go! Your flight leaves in an hour.”
He nodded and shut the door again. “Lock it!” he yelled. I got up and locked the deadbolt, then secured the chain. “Thank you!”
I giggled as I waltzed towards a kitchen drawer, pulled it open, and grabbed two spoons. Then, I opened the freezer door and peered inside. “Cookie dough or mint chocolate chip?” I asked aloud.
“Ooh! Mint chocolate chip!” Amy exclaimed excitedly. I grabbed a pint of mint chocolate chip and walked into the living room, then sat down beside her and handed her a spoon. “Great idea,” she remarked as I pried the lid off and offered her the first bite. She winced as she plunged her spoon into the pastel green confection.
“Amy?”
“Braxton Hicks,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I’ve been having them all week.” She licked the ice cream off the spoon and moaned. “Kevin always buys the good stuff.”
I shrugged and shoved my own spoon into the carton. “Any progress on picking out a name?”
Amelia frowned. “He really likes Michael, but it makes me think of Michael Hawthorne.” She shuddered dramatically and I laughed. Michael Hawthorne was this guy we’d gone to high school with. He and Amy had been really on-again, off-again through the years until she figured out he was doing the same with half the girls in school. “Is it weird that I want to name him Scott?”
I blinked in surprise. Hadn’t we just had a big conversation a few weeks ago about how they couldn’t name him after Kevin if they wanted to keep this under wraps? “Uh-- I like Scott, actually,” I replied honestly.
Amy smiled as she dipped her spoon into the ice cream carton again. “We haven’t done this in a while,” she remarked.
“We haven’t,” I agreed. She’d been my very best friend for basically my entire life, and we’d been sitting on couches sharing pints of ice cream for years. Now, here we were, twenty years old, singers in an up and coming pop group, one of us dating a Backstreet Boy, and the other nine months pregnant with the son of another Backstreet Boy. It was like we were living in some strange alternate reality, but still here we were, Amelia and Emily, just a couple of girls eating ice cream. It was nice.
The bottom of the carton appeared all too soon, and I went back to studying while she camped out in front of the television with the baby name book in hand. I was halfway through memorizing the Krebs Cycle when I heard her gasp. “Oh, no!”
“What?” I looked up from my notes to find her staring at me, her eyes wide in horror.
“Uh--” She was literally shaking.
“Amy, what is it?” I asked, jumping up from my chair.
“Well, uh--”
“What?!”
“Either I peed my pants or my water just broke.”
