A/N: Hehe, glad to see you're enjoying things so far, BasicHBKnomics! You should get a couple of the things you mentioned in this chapter, but I'm not sure if they'll be exactly how you hoped. Anyway, one more update today because I'm not sure if I'll be able to update tomorrow or not.

Turning Tables

Price Of Life

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay home this weekend? I have a friend who would jump at the chance to pick up another flight, Francine's always looking to pick up some more hours-"

"I don't want! Gooo!" Adrian literally walked her mother to the front door. "I'll be fine. I'm always fine."

"But in your condition-"

"I'm pregnant, not dying." Adrian ferociously shook her head. "Besides, we need the money. I'll be fine, I promise."

Cindy resigned and gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead. "I'll see you Sunday night, Chica."

"Adios." Adrian tapped her fingers against her hips as her mother pulled up the extendable handle on her luggage case, opened the door, gave another longing look at her, and then finally left. She watched the top lock slide into place as her mother looked it from the other side of the door and then waited until she couldn't hear the squeaks of the wheels on her mother's luggage before she collapsed against the door in relief.

George poked his head around the corner. "Is she gone?"

Adrian frowned. "She's gone."

"Are you still sure about this?"

Adrian nodded. "The condo is yours until tomorrow morning."

"Where are you gonna be?"

"Not your problem."

George nodded. "Fair enough." He smiled. "I really appreciate you doing this for me, Adrian."

"I'm not doing it for you," Adrian glared. "I'm doing it for your daughters. Kids shouldn't have to grow up without their fathers."

"You know, you're pretty wise for a sixteen-year-old."

"Don't try to humor me."

"I'm not!" he insisted. "I really mean that. You're a smart girl, Adrian." George looked around the room. "You've got such a nice place, I think Amy and Ashley are gonna love it!"

Adrian gulped. "Amy?"

"Yeah, Amy Juergens."

"Y-your last name is Juergens?"

"Yeah, you didn't know that?"

"My mother never mentioned it," Adrian replied bitterly.

George shrugged. "You don't know her, do you? She's a year younger than you…"

"No!" Adrian replied quickly. "I've heard of her, but I don't know her and she doesn't know me, so you should be good." She snapped up her purse. "I'll see you later."

TSLOTAT TSLOTAT TSLOTAT TSLOTAT

The beach wasn't that appealing in November. Not the way it had been in the last few days of August, when he'd first met Adrian. He recalled how sexy she'd looked, how exotic, compared to all the other scantily clad women in their bikinis that day. He'd seen her around school prior to that, but they'd never officially met, which in retrospect, had been quite the shame.

Ricky kicked at the sand with his sneaker. A part of him wanted to tug off his shoes and socks and dig his toes into it, but the logical side of his brain warned him that it was probably ice cold this time of year. Unlike the teal of the water on the day they'd met, the ocean was a stony color today, reflecting the way he was feeling like some bad move from the fifties. It was almost tempting to just run out into the choppy waves and be taken under, never to return.

He pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and pulled up his most recent text conversation, it had been with Adrian. Ricky hadn't been expecting to hear from her at all, especially after what had happened the day before, so he thought he was hallucinating when he saw that the text had her name attached to it:

Hello?

Did U make a mistake & accidentally send this 2 the wrong person?

Not unless this is someone other than Ricky Underwood.

What do U want?

I want to get together with you, to talk.

I wanted 2 talk yesterday.

I wasn't ready.

Clearly.

Stop being a dick. I want to meet you, I refuse to talk about this over text or the phone.

Where?

Where we first met, the beach.

Now?

No. At noon. I'll see you in a few hours. Bye.

Ricky read and reread the lines in his head. It was already five minutes past noon and the beach was empty, but he'd had yet to see any trace of Adrian. He wasn't even sure if this was a good idea. After the way she'd treated him and left him out of the loop, he felt bitter and angry in a way he hadn't felt in a long time.

"Ricky!"

The drummer lifted his head and saw her running down the beach. The strain in her voice made her sound breathless. He quickened his pace to get to her, so she didn't have to run as far to get to him. They didn't quite meet in the middle, but it was close enough, and he felt a twinge in his stomach by the way she bent over and placed her hands on her knees to pant. "Are you okay?"

"I'll – I'll be fine," she coughed. "I like to take daily power walks, but I haven't been the last couple weeks, so I guess I'm not in shape." Adrian threw her head back, allowing an obsidian waterfall of hair to drape her shoulders. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Meeting me."

Ricky looked away, suddenly remembering why they were there in the first place. "You've got a lot of explaining to do."

"I don't know what you think I need to tell you, but there's not much to say: I met Ben, we had sex, and the next week I met you and we had sex. Now I'm pregnant. It's as simple as that." Adrian hugged herself as a gust of cold wind rolled by. "And before you say anything else, I want to tell you why I asked you to meet me here today."

Ricky studied her, shivering in the cold. The idea of offering his jacket to her crossed his mind. He reached to pull down the zipper when she began to speak again.

"I'm having the baby."

Ricky's fingers stopping on the zipper. "What does that mean?"

"That means for another seven-ish months, I'm going to be pregnant, balloon up like an elephant, and then I'm going to push a watermelon out of my vagina."

"You know what I meant!" Ricky snapped. "What does that mean for me?" He shoved his hands back into his jacket pockets and balled his fists. "And that weasely little Ben kid?"

"Only one of you can be the father."

"Yeah, tell me something I don't know." He rounded on her. "When are you going to do the paternity test? I want to know as soon as possible!"

"It's not going to be for a while," Adrian replied without looking at him.

"How long? A few weeks? A month?"

"Nobody'll know anything until it's born."

"What!" Ricky grabbed her roughly by the arm, jerking their faces together so that their noses were practically touching. "You can't do that!"

"I can do anything I want!"

"No! If it's my baby – and especially if it's not – I want to know! I'm not going to waste my time for seven more months!"

"Well you don't have a choice!"

"You can get the amniocentesis as early as fourteen weeks!" Ricky screamed.

"I'm not getting an amniocentesis!" Adrian slapped her hands against his chest, shoving him away from her.

"Why the fuck not?"

Adrian absently placed her hand to her belly. "It carries a risk of miscarriage. They stick a fucking needle through my stomach into the womb to take a sample of amniotic fluid, if you didn't know! The puncture can cause a miscarriage and I'm not willing to risk it!"

"You bitch. You bitch! You're just doing this on purpose, aren't you? To keep Ben and I clamoring over you so you can take advantage of his money and my feelings for as long as possible!"

Adrian stopped dead in her tracks. "Your feelings?"

Ricky hesitated. "I didn't mean that-"

"Yeah you did." She raised her finger to his face. "You have feelings for me?"

Ricky refused to meet her face. "Why are you even having this baby anyway? You're not the motherly type. And I'm not the fatherly type! And Ben, he's just a baby himself! Why would you want to ruin your life to have this baby?"

"My mother was a teenage mother," Adrian said slowly. "You think I ruined her life? You think I should've been scraped from her womb and disposed of in a thousand little pieces down a drain?"

"Your twisting my words-"

"But it's the same thing."

"No it's not! And don't to play the guilt card with me, you're more pro-choice than anyone I've ever met, so don't try to pretend that you suddenly care what happens to a fetus during an abortion!"

"You're right," she nodded. "I am pro-choice and I'm choosing to have this baby, just the way I chose to have sex with you."

"And Ben."

"And the way you both chose to have sex with me. I didn't make this decision alone, Ricky, and now we're all going to have to live with it."

"You're not changing your mind?"

"No."

Ricky stopped walking and felt the water rush up around his ankles, soaking his sneakers and the edge of his jeans. "And then what're you going to do after you have it? Are you going to keep it? Or are you going to give it up?"

Adrian shrugged. "I guess that choice depends on what the three of us – or four of us – make in the next seven months, doesn't it?"

Ricky shut his eyes, listening to the thunder of the waves in the background. Seven months, give or take. He wasn't sure if he could take it.

TSLOTAT TSLOTAT TSLOTAT TSLOTAT

The sound of typing was harsh, each keystroke coming in rapid succession, forced and angry, like a pianist taking out his aggressions through song. Ben sat at his desk, working furiously on an essay for his history class. For a moment, he stopped typing and his eyes fell down to the Internet icon on the corner of the screen. It had a yellow triangle with a black exclamation point on it, signally that the wireless connection was not connected. Ben angrily struck the Enter key and resumed the next paragraph.

A knock sounded a few words before Ben reached the end of the paragraph. "Ben?" his father's voice called. "Ben, I'm coming in."

Ben pushed his chair out from behind his desk and whirled around to face the door as it opened. "What now?" he asked, expecting to see his father, which he did. But from behind his father stepped a familiar Latina and Ben's nerve dissolved. "What're you doing here?"

"Ben!" Leo snapped, his face hard. "That's no way to speak to your guests!"

"It's alright, Mr. Boykewich." Adrian looked as uncomfortable as Ben felt. "This isn't any kind of pleasant or ideal situation for anyone."

"Nevertheless, I – we – appreciate you coming over tonight."

"You don't have to be so kind." Adrian shifted her eyes to Ben. "I'm here tonight to talk about our situation. You and your father went out of your way to seek me out about the pregnancy, so I've been making my rounds today as well. As you know, I've been with someone else this year, Ricky Underwood, and so – as hard as it is for me to say this – I don't know who the biological father is." She avoided looking at Leo. "But I've decided that I'm going to have the baby."

Ben felt as if soap had just been thrown in his eyes. "You're keeping it?" he replied rhetorically.

"Having it. Only time will tell whether or not I'll keep it. I don't know, my life is so up in the air right now. Now, I'm not expecting anything from you and your family, I'm just telling you what I've decided to do."

"Ben and I will do everything in our power to support you," Leo assured.

"Well, Ricky will be around too…I hope. I'm not going to ostracize him."

"Of course not," Leo agreed. "He has just as much right as Ben to be involved, until the father can be identified."

"When will that be?" Ben interrupted.

"Not until after the birth. There are paternity test options pre-birth, but they're invasive options, with risks of miscarriage, and I'm not willing to take those risks. I – I'm sorry."

Leo placed his hand on Adrian's shoulder. "You have to do what you believe is best and nobody can fault you for that."

"Well," Adrian sighed, looking at Ben. "They can, but thank you for the sentiment." She shook her head as Leo attempted to respond and cut him off. "Anyway, I have some things I need to do tonight, so I have to go. I…guess I'll be seeing you later." She turned to leave.

"If you need anything – anything at all – don't hesitate to let us know. I believe your mother still has our numbers-"

"She does, that's where I got your address from. Thanks, Mr. Boykewich."

"Call me Leo."

"Thank you, but I prefer Mr. Boykewich." Adrian nodded. "Good night…I can see myself out."

"I –"

"Dad."

Leo turned at the sound of Ben's voice, while Adrian quietly slipped off down the hallway. "You could've been much more polite to her, Benjamin."

"I'm still adjusting too, Dad. I just had a bomb dropped on me and my whole life is going to change now."

"Yes it is."

"So excuse me if I'm hard up for words." Ben spun in his chair, facing his laptop. He closed it and turned back to his father. "I need to talk to Amy."

"Ben-"

"No, listen to me! Amy is my girlfriend and so this effects her life too. I need to talk to her! I don't know what the hell I'm going to say yet, but I have to."

Leo nodded. "Good. She deserves to know the truth." He looked down at his watch. "But not tonight. Tonight I think you just need to think things over for a while and let the implications of what just happened here sink in." He stepped into the hallway. "I'll see you in the morning, good night, son."

TSLOTAT TSLOTAT TSLOTAT TSLOTAT

It was a picturesque Sunday morning, with a blue sky and singing birds, like something out of a fairytale. In Ben's opinion, it was Mother Nature having a go at him. Again. Everything inside of him just wanted to abandon the whole reason he'd come to the park and just spend a delightful afternoon with his girlfriend, eating chicken wings and talking about trivial things and maybe even kissing those one of a kind lips.

Amy laughed as she watched him struggle to carrying the giant picnic basket. "Are you sure you don't want my help?" she asked. "We could carry it together, it would be much easier on you."

Ben shook his head. "I'm good. I don't want you to have to share the burden." He forced a smile as they rounded the park fountain. "How about over there?" he asked, nodding to the bench.

"Perfect."

Ben hunched over and dropping the picnic basket in front of the bench. It felt like a million pounds, but it had nothing on the weight that was on his mind. He dropped onto the bench beside Amy with an exhaustive gasp and soaked in the sound of Amy's chuckle, even if it was at his expense. He leaned over again and flipped the top of the basket open and took out a plate of Boykewich Butcher chicken wings, which thankfully, hadn't toppled over in the basket.

"Wh-oa!" Amy gasped. "Wow! Ben, these look amazing!" Her eyes scanned the inner compartment of the basket. "Where are yours?"

Ben smiled sadly. "Someone's in a good mood."

"Well I haven't been out with you in over a week, of course I'm in a good mood!" She snatched up a chicken wing and nibbled on it with unadulterated delight. "What changed your dad's mind?" She moaned as she took another bite. "These are really good, by the way!"

"I'm glad." He rubbed the back of his neck, then reached into the basket and retrieved a bottle of 7-Up and two plastic flute glasses which he set on top of the basket and filled to the brim.

"Seriously, though, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Ben pursed his lips and handed her one of the glasses.

"Aren't you gonna eat?" she asked, reaching for another chicken wing.

"Yeah," he sighed. "In a minute." The 7-Up bubbled in the flute glass, entrancing Ben's eyes.

"You okay?"

His eyes returned to her. "With you, I'm always fine." They clinked glasses and he took a sip while watching the various people around the park: a young couple, the man Caucasian and the woman African-American, pushing a young baby girl in a stroller, a little girl and a little boy playing on the other side of the fountain, and an elderly couple walking hand-in-hand down the sidewalk. Gathering all his courage he finally blurted out: "I have to tell you something."

Amy looked a little surprised, but set her glass down and wiped the corners of her mouth with her finger. "Yeah, Ben, of course. You can tell me anything."

Ben nodded, though he felt his eyes tearing up again. "Amy, have you ever made a mistake?"

"I'm not perfect, Ben," she said, almost laughing. "We all make mistakes, don't we?"

"Well, what if I told you that I made a really big mistake?"

"What kind of mistake?" Amy touched his knee thoughtfully. "It can't be that bad, can it? You didn't kill anyone or anything, right?"

Ben shook his head, the idea making him laugh nervously. "No, I didn't kill anyone." He bit down on his tongue, then reached across his leg and took Amy's hand, clasping it between his hands. "Remember when you told me about Ricky at band camp?"

"Yeah," she nodded.

"Well, something similar happened to me over the summer too. But, unlike you, I didn't have the courage to say no. In fact, maybe I even stupidly wanted it...because – because…I don't know. I've never been a guy girls have wanted. Nice guys always finish last, you know? And it felt good to be wanted for once, so – so I…" He closed his eyes. "I had sex."

Amy was silent for a time, then moved her free hand around to Ben's and touched his hands. "It's okay," she said. "I understand. The pressure, the feeling of elation at the idea that someone you never would've thought would be into you seemed into you. I get it, Ben. I understand. And it's not your fault, I don't blame you for it."

Ben felt a couple tears run down his cheeks. Inside, he cursed himself for crying in front of Amy. "I appreciate that, Amy. You have no idea how much it means to hear you say that. But…"

"But what?"

"There's more." Ben swallowed, feeling his Adam's apple vibrate in his throat. "The – the condom broke." He felt her hand stiffen in his. "And she's pregnant." Ben felt the tears run off his chin and splatter onto his pants. "But I don't know if it's mine. She's been with someone else, too."

Amy removed her hand from his, but allowed him to remain clutching the other. "Wh-who?"

"Her name's Adrian," Ben swallowed. "Adrian Lee. She's a majorette. And she's been with-"

"Ricky." Amy pulled her other hand free of Ben's grasp and just stared at him.