Page 1 of Oops, I'm Having My Best Friend’s Baby!

CHAPTER 1

AMY

After hours of deliberation, Amy decided to just make the phone call and be done with it. She knew she looked like a mess, her apron still around her neck over jeans and a ratty tank top she only ever wore at home, her short dark hair sticking up in weird places. Who even knew what her face looked like? Probably a mishmash of olive skin and smeared eyeliner at this point. But she needed to make this phone call, and it didn’t matter what she looked like, only what she sounded like, so she put on her friendliest, most chipper voice as the call was answered.

“Hi. I need to speak to Kai Nichols, please.”

Amy had spent an hour debating whether she should call or not, walking back and forth in her kitchen so much that there was probably a track in the floorboards. There had been multiple reasons not to call swirling through her brain, keeping her from just picking up the phone and dialing. Kai was a busy man. He ran a billion-dollar company and, unlike her, he worked the normal schedule that a human was supposed to. It was two in the afternoon, so he’d be busy. That was excuse number one for avoiding picking up the phone. Number two was that she hadn’t talked to Kai in… months? Really, had it been months? That was depressing. And somehow the length of time between calls made it infinitely harder to make this one.

They’d known each other basically their entire lives, then became best friends in high school and practically inseparable for years. But now Amy had to admit that it really had been months since they’d properly spoken, since they’d had a tangible conversation and not just texted a random meme through at two in the morning and getting an “lol” in return. That hardly counted as talking; it was mostly just checking that the other person was still alive.

All that to say, calling out of the blue and making a last-minute request was walking the line between potentially rude or downright bizarre and a cry for help. Especially when the request was to please go with her to their high school reunion, even though they had both hated high school with a fierce passion and vowed never to set foot in that place ever again. But here she was, phone to her ear, making the call because the reunion was tonight and Amy had agreed to cater the evening. Now, a few hours out, she thought she might implode. She should never have agreed to take on the catering for the event in the first place, and the anxiety spiral she now found herself in was entirely her own fault. Kai was going to think she was insane for ever agreeing to it. She was insane for agreeing to it. He was only going to point it out.

But the most important reason for not wanting to make the call, for delaying it all afternoon, the reason that she hated admitting this to herself even in the privacy of her own thoughts, was that she was utterly terrified that he was going to say no, that he wasn’t going to go with her. Then she’d officially be screwed, and really, it was no one’s fault but her own.

In the end, despite her reluctance, Amy called just so that she could force herself to stop pacing the floor like a caged animal. If she was going to panic, she wanted to at least be able to sit down and do it. Wasn’t it just the icing on the cake that Kai didn’t pick up? Instead, it was his assistant who answered in a perfectly polished, professional tone.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” she said, after Amy’s request to speak to Kai. “Mr. Nichols is very busy today and won’t be taking any calls. If you’re happy to leave a message, I can schedule a call at a different time?”

“Uh, well, it was kind of more urgent than… Are you sure I can’t just speak to him? It’ll be super quick.”

“Unfortunately not, ma’am,” the assistant said, her voice a perfect mix of professional sympathy. “I’m afraid a call will have to be scheduled. How does tomorrow at eleven sound?”

Amy stamped down the urge to roll her eyes. The woman was just doing her job, and she was happy that Kai had become successful enough to need an assistant to field phone calls like an armed guard… But it was kind of just rubbing salt in the wound of how far they really had drifted apart, that she needed him and couldn’t get in touch with him.

“It’s fine,” she said, trying not to sound annoyed. “I’ll try again later, I guess.”

Then the call was over, and Amy was still stuck in her kitchen panicking about the reunion. She wasn’t nervous about the food she had prepped and ready to go. Her food was good; she had that much faith in herself. Enough faith that she’d quit a very well-paying office job in favor of being an emotional wreck in her kitchen with barely enough money to clear her bills each month. Honestly though, it was still better than being stuck in an office every day. She’d been going insane sitting in front of a computer screen for eight hours at a time. She had no idea how Kai did it…

Amy wanted to sink into the floor. No. Actually, she just wanted to speak to Kai. No matter how long it had been since their last proper conversation or how long since the last time they’d really hung out — just the two of them — right now, she just wanted her friend to tell her that everything was going to be okay.

She tried calling again, but this time his assistant didn’t even pick up the phone, letting it go straight to voicemail.

Amy hung up in frustration, her pride taking a blow at the same time because even though she was desperate at this point, she didn’t want to literally beg on a voicemail message. The desperation needed to stay inside her own head and not be recorded for the world to hear, thank you very much. She had to draw a line somewhere, after all.

Begging might not be an option. But a somewhat dramatic performance wasn’t outside the realm of possibilities…

She called again, and this time, when the beep of the message recording started, she made sure to put a waver in her voice. High school theater still came in handy every now and again, even if she’d failed the class spectacularly.

“Sorry to bother you,” she said contritely. “But it’s just that Simon’s results came back positive… and…” She sniffed for dramatic effect. “I wanted to let you know, okay? I’ll stop bothering you now. I’m sorry.”

She hung up and waited all of a minute before her phone rang, Kai’s name flashing on the screen.

“Well, jeez,” Amy said brightly as she picked up. “Finally deigning to talk to me?”

“God, Amy,” he said in a rush of breath. “I had my assistant filter any calls that weren’t business today, and she just ran in and played me your message. I’m so sorry about Simon… He’s a friend of yours? I don’t think I’ve met him. But is he all right? What was the test positive for? What’s going on?”

Amy kind of felt bad at Kai’s outpouring of genuine concern. But only kind of.

“He is a friend, and the test results for being a very good boy came back a hundred percent positive. He also got an A-plus in the big stretches department.”

There was a beat of silence where Amy could only imagine Kai was blinking like an owl.

“Oh, my God. Simon is your cat, isn’t it?” he said.

“You forgot my cat’s name?” she deadpanned, managing to sound more offended than was strictly necessary. “How dare you.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t have trouble remembering if you didn’t name a cat Simon. People names belong on people.”

---