Four hours, thirty boxes, and five Red Hot Chili Peppers albums later, we decided to give up on the entire enterprise and hire movers.
“We really should have just done this from the beginning,” I mused, perched atop our overturned couch, sucking on a popsicle.
“Yeah, like before we ripped the upholstery in my limo with your ice skate?” Marcus muttered petulantly. “Do you even skate?”
“No,” Amanda volunteered, sucking on a popsicle of her own, “she doesn’t.”
“But I like to encourage the habit in myself,” I added cheerfully.
The freezer door slammed shut, and Barry walked suddenly into the living room, his face a mask of bewilderment. “Do you guys know that you have like a wad of cash in a bag behind the ice cubes?”
Amanda and I shared a look and burst out laughing. She hopped down off the kitchen counter and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Oh, honey,” she grinned, “have we got a story to tell you.”
As soon as we’d instructed the movers, the four of us headed down the street for a final pizza at our favorite spot. Every pie was roughly the size of our bathtub, and as the waiter set it in the middle of the table, we each pushed our chair an inch or two back.
“I just can’t believe it!” Barry exclaimed for the seventh time. It was the most animated I’d ever seen him, and I watched him and Amanda cuddling with a grin. “This whole time, everything you guys have done up until now? It was all fake?”
“Keep your voice down, sweetie,” she chided gently. “The whole point of a secret is to keep it that way.”
“Not everything was fake,” Marcus added. He squeezed my hand with a smile. “We just got off to a bumpy start, that’s all.”
Barry shook his head. “So the wedding, the engagement—all of that is real? You’re actually pregnant, right?”
I laughed and slipped a hand automatically over my stomach. “Yes, that’s all real. And yes, I’m actually pregnant.”
“With baby Olivia,” Amanda added.
“Ooh,” I turned to her with delight. “I love Olivia.”
“I knew you would,” she said importantly. “Olivia for a girl, and maybe…Cameron if it’s a boy?”
I frowned. “Didn’t you date a Cameron? He was a real asshole?”
“Oh that’s right,” she shuddered, “we’ll have to come up with a replacement.”
“Or I could have just told you that I’m not naming my son Cameron,” Marcus said sweetly.
Amanda stared at him cautiously, before turning to me. “Have you guys had the talk yet where you tell him that since you’re pregnant, you’re naming the baby? And…by you, you mean, you and me?”
“Isaac and Rosemary,” Barry announced with sudden flair.
The three of us turned to him, and Amanda paled in horror. “Rosemary? As in…Rosemary’s Baby?”
“I think it’s perfect!” Marcus snorted mischievously.
Amanda’s eyes locked on Barry. “I can’t tell if you’re serious.”
He flushed immediately and looked down at his plate. “…of course I wasn’t serious.”
I tuned them out, hand still resting on my stomach as I considered my options. “Maybe I’ll name him Alexander. I’ve always loved that name.”
We left soon afterward, heading our separate ways after fierce hugs and plans to meet for lunch on the following day. It was a little sad; I’m not going to lie. I twisted around in the limo and gazed after Barry’s car until I lost it in the traffic. I liked to imagine that Amanda was out there doing the same thing.
“Hey,” Marcus squeezed my knee and gave me a warm smile. “You going to be okay?”
“I think so.” I snuggled back into him with a sleepy grin. “I’m leaving with the prospect of starting a family, on a billion-dollar estate, with the man of my dreams. I think I’ll be okay.”