Page 40 of Oops, I'm Having My Best Friend’s Baby!

That was just great. Just fantastic. This was exactly what she needed, in the middle of a massive gala event, to get food poisoning. To make it ten times worse, she’d obviously gotten it from her own food because it was the only thing she’d eaten all day. And now it was being served out on the floor to a hundred people.

Think, Amy.

It was the shrimp; it had to be. That’s what she’d stuck to snacking on because there was so much of it. But as she made it back to the kitchens, the trays of the most likely contaminated canapés were already gone, taken by the waiters and presumably being handed out on the main floor.

Amy took a second, just one second, to take a deep breath with her eyes closed, gather herself, and lock down any rising panic. Then her second was done, and she pulled off her stained apron and made her way as calmly and quickly as she could into the gala to find Andy. Thank God he was close by, hovering around like a meerkat on alert.

“Hey, Andy,” she hissed, and the gangly teen loped over obediently to where she was standing by the edge of the room in her jeans and blouse while all the guests glided around in ball gowns and suits.

“You okay? You looked really sick for a minute there,” he asked, so genuinely that Amy felt bad for ever doubting him. If anyone asked for a review, she was going to say he was the best waiter to ever serve canapés and cocktails.

“Yeah, but here’s the thing, I think it was food poisoning…” she said quietly, keeping it on the down low.

“Food poisoning?!” He exclaimed and Amy put a finger over her mouth shushing him, he looked around guiltily before lowering his voice. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine now, I think. But I’ve been eating the shrimp all afternoon.”

Andy looked over his shoulder where there were platters of the shrimp now doing the rounds. Luckily it was the tail end of the night and people weren’t really hungry anymore, no longer leaping for every waiter that passed by.

“I’ll take the left side of the room and you take the right side?” he suggested with a determined expression. “And I won’t mention anything about foodpoisoning, don’t worry.”

“Good man, Andy. I owe you.”

With a serious nod he was off into the crowd, taking a tray from one of his coworker’s hands with no explanation, leaving them looking around like they’d been pranked.

Amy started in on the right side of the room with pretty much the same strategy.

“Excuse me, I need that back,” she said to the waiters she encountered with as much authority in her voice as she could muster and they gave her the tray without argument, even if they did look confused as they handed it over, not sure what to do with their empty hands.

Andy, like an awkward gazelle appearing on the plains of the savannah, swept past her with the newfound elegance of an ice skater, taking her stack of trays along with his own and disappearing back into the ether. The kid sure could be sneaky when he wanted to be. And he was going to get a five-star review, that was for sure. Ten stars, even. A million stars and he deserved every one of them. She hoped he got the best car ever and that he never got a flat tire or ran out of gas. Continuing to heap blessings upon him, Amy did another sweep of the room and couldn’t see any more waiters with trays of shrimp. Making her way through the crowd, awkward and underdressed, she spotted a man holding a skewer as he talked with a friend, and Amy, no longer concerned with feeling embarrassed, made a beeline for him.

“I’m so sorry, let me get that for you,” she said as if this were a perfectly sane thing to do and plucked the skewer out of his hand. “That’s better, you’re so welcome. Have a lovely night.”

He stared at her with an open mouth and confused eyes, his bowtie slightly crooked. Amy took the opportunity to disappear before he recovered and thought to ask any questions.

Back in the safety of the kitchen, Amy threw the skewer into a trash can where Andy, bless his heart, had already dumped the other offending seafood.

“That was like, super stressful,” he said, hands on hips. “But also really fun.”

He held up a hand ready for a high five, and Amy wasn’t about to leave him hanging. She smacked her palm against his and sagged against the wall.

“Thank you,” she said. “Seriously.”

“You might have to explain to my boss why I was stealing everyone’s trays,” he said with a slightly worried grimace. “Like, I was totally happy to do it, but she’s gonna want a reason.”

“Don’t worry,” Amy said. “I’ll only say good things about you.”

Amy was managing to keep the seasick waves at bay as she cleaned up the kitchen at the end of the night, but it was taking some effort. The fumes from her disinfectant spray weren’t exactly helping either. If she just kept moving, though, she seemed to be able to stay one step ahead of it. Stupid shrimp.

“Uh, Amy?”

She looked over and Andy was in the kitchen, his uniform now more disheveled than earlier in the evening. There was also a supremely guilty expression on his face.

“Hey? You okay?” she asked, genuinely concerned now. “What’s up?”

“Um, well, I was thinking about it, and I kind of have a confession.”

“A confession?”

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