A/N: lol Nope, I definitely plan on finishing this "season," so there will be three more chapters after this one. (And hint: the second to last chapter is called, "One Night At A Majorette Retreat.") Oh and this is the last chapter for this evening, folks! :P

Turning Tables

Maybe My Baby

"We take pictures of all our employees for our digital personnel records," Mr. Lentz explained as a camera flashed exploded in Adrian's eyes.

Something about the flash made her suddenly woozy. "I – sure, uh, do you mind if I take my lunch now? It's a little early but-"

"Of course," Mr. Lentz obliged. "You look a little peckish anyway."

"Thanks." The Latina retreated to the back room to find a protein bar and some fresh strawberries that her mother had bought just the day before. As she plopped a strawberry into her mouth, she noticed a light coming from her jacket pocket and took out her cell phone which was on, but turned onto the silent ring. "Hello, Grace," she said amusedly.

"Adrian, hey! I wasn't sure I was going to get ahold of you, I didn't think your lunch was until-"

"It's not, I'm early. Why are you calling?"

"I just wanted to see how you were doing! Between tutoring and your new job, I haven't gotten to see much of you outside of school and I miss when we get to hang out. How is it?"

Adrian shrugged while nibbling on the protein bar. "It's alright. We get a lot of…uptown people here."

"Snooties?"

Adrian snorted with laughter. "You're so vanilla."

"I love vanilla."

"Of course you do."

"How about your coworkers?"

Adrian shrugged. "I haven't really experienced them yet. I've mostly been doing on-on-one training with Mr. Lentz. He's – he's a bit eccentric."

"Like how?"

"Just – he likes things done in certain ways. I don't have a problem with that, but some things are just…odd, strange." She crumpled up her wrapped and shoved it into her jacket pocket. "I'll explain this weekend."

"Oh! Right, because you're at work now."

"Right," Adrian murmured, watching the door. "Anyway, how are you?"

"Great. Guess what!"

"What?"

"I'm submitting an application to the Young Healers Camp!"

"And what's that?"

"It's a prestigious program for high schoolers interested in a career in medicine! Only the best get in. I probably won't even get in, but still, doesn't it sound amazing? You go during the summer and do actual rounds with real doctors and get, basically, 'on the job' training. It would look incredible on my résumé!"

"I thought you were going to cheerleading camp this summer?"

"Oh, I was. Or am. I mean, that was my original plan, but then my dad found out about the Young Healers and it would be so much more beneficial for me to go there, if I could get in. If not, I'll still go to cheerleading camp."

"Wherever you go, don't forget to bring condoms."

"Adrian!"

"And get on the pill while you're at it. Obviously a condom by itself didn't work for me."

"Adrian!"

"I'm just being practical."

"I'm saving myself until marriage."

"That's what they all say." Adrian bit into another strawberry and savored the sound of Grace ranting on the other end of the line. "Are you done now?"

"Yes."

"Good, because I have to go. I need to pee about five times before my break's over. We'll talk more in depth on Sunday. Adios!"

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"This is becoming a pattern," Ben said as he sat down next to Ashley on his front porch step.

"I heard you talked to Amy."

"That was two weeks ago."

"Apparently she told Mom, but they chose not to discuss it with me. I didn't know until I saw your love note on Amy's French Horn case and asked about it."

"She didn't wash it off?" Ben asked, surprised.

"No, it's just one more thing for her to agonize over."

"I just made things worse between us by talking to her. Now she doesn't even show up at the band room in the morning. I never see her at school. Face it, Ashley. She doesn't want to talk to me."

"You listened to the tape, right?"

"Of course I listened to it. But I can't get through to her." Ben rested his elbows on his knees. "I have a question that I'd like to ask you and I want an honest answer."

Ashley returned his serious tone with a vacant expression. "Yes?"

"Are you sure you're not trying to get me and Amy back together just because you can't get your mother and father back together? I don't know how to explain this other than a case of really bad projection."

"I'm not projecting!" she snapped. "I just care about my sister, that's all. You know, on top of everything that's already happened, we found out our grandmother has Alzheimer's too."

Ben laid his hand on Ashley's. "I'm sorry."

Ashley snatched her hand back quickly. "She's coming down to spend a few weeks with us next week. We're not sure how bad it is yet. I guess we'll find out though." She shrugged and fiddled with the fibers on her skirt. "I think my mom's thinking about going up there to spend the summer with her."

"To Palm Springs?" Ben asked, assuming she meant Mimsy, their maternal grandmother that Amy had mentioned on occasion.

"Yeah, Mimsy's house."

"That might be good. You know, get away from all the craziness down here for a while."

"More like running away," Ashley growled. "It just happens to coincide with the expected arrival of Adrian's baby and the finalization of the divorce. There's a six month separation period, if you didn't know."

"I kind of thought Amy might go to band camp again."

"Yeah!" Ashley scoffed. "And possibly see Ricky? Or be the next Grant High kid to get knocked up? No. I don't think she wants that. And besides, I doubt Mom would let her go even if she did."

"Amy wouldn't get pregnant!" Ben said defiantly. "She's smarter than me. Way smarter. She said no to Ricky once already. And after the mistake she's seen me make, she'd never do what I did."

"Don't ever say 'never.'"

Ben cracked a smile. "That doesn't quite have the same ring."

"The ring of hypocrisy?" Ashley shrugged. "I'm fine with that."

Ben looked at his watch. "You should get home."

Ashley pushed herself off the step. "Don't stop trying Ben. Please? How many more things have to go wrong before you see how much she needs you?"

Ben sighed. "I'm sure I'll see you later, Ashley," he said, avoiding her questions. "Do you want a-"

"I'll take the bus."

Ben watched her disappear down the street and shrugged helplessly. Once out of sight, he jogged over to the mailbox and retrieved a handful of envelopes that he began to sift through as he walked inside. "Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad – me?" Curiously, he looked to the return address: Bologna, Italy. Stopping in the kitchen, he abandoned the handful on the table and tore open the single envelope in his name.

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Adrian stopped short of her apartment door, key in hand. "What are you doing here?"

Ricky was slouched beside the door, with a history book opened in his lap. "I've been waiting for you."

"I have responsibilities, Ricky. It's not like it used to be."

Ricky pushed the book aside and stood up. "You might be carrying my baby, doesn't that mean you have a responsibility to me too?"

"If that's the case, then I have an equal responsibility to Ben."

Ricky moved in on her, backing her up against the door. "Yeah," he said, motioning to the history book. "But you don't have history with Ben…but you do with me."

"Ricky-"

Ricky pressed his hand to Adrian's hip, half sliding it up her shirt and caressing her bare skin, effectively silencing her. "I've had a lot of time to think about things, Adrian. And I've come to realize that we have something other people don't."

Adrian grit her teeth. "Yeah," she agreed. "Really good sex!"

Ricky laughed. "That's the Adrian I know."

Adrian grabbed his wrist and pushed his hand off her hip. "Which is a point you've failed entirely to notice: I've changed. This pregnancy has changed me and you don't know this Adrian."

He leaned close to her mouth, smoldering breath coming from his lips. "But I want to. This Ricky wants to know this Adrian."

Adrian felt the breaths come quicker as he entwined his hands with hers, pushing her arms flat against the door. It felt just like old times and she could feel herself succumbing to those old feelings.

Ricky eased the apartment key out of her hand and lowered his mouth to Adrian's as he unlocked the door. They tumbled inside and he slid his arm around her back.

"My mom will be home soon," Adrian shuddered.

"Liar." He punctuated the word with another kiss.

"I don't want to do this."

"Liar."

"You don't want to have sex with a girl who might be carrying another man's child."

In response, Ricky slid his hand up the back of Adrian's shirt and unclasped her bra. "I've done it before. Does knowing make much of a difference now? It doesn't change what I'm feeling."

"It might hurt the baby."

"I can be gentle. You already know that. And before you try it, it's plenty healthy for pregnant women to have sex. I've looked into it." Ricky tugged up her shirt, pulling it over her head and arms. Her black bra was still in place, though awkwardly loose.

As a last ditch effort to resist him she asked, "What if we do this and it's not your baby?"

"A baby doesn't equal a couple, Adrian. Need proof? Look at the people who brought me into the world. Do you think Bob belongs with anyone? Besides death."

"So what are you saying?" Adrian demanded, as Ricky's hands circled her belly. "Are you trying to tell me you love me?"

Ricky stopped his hand over Adrian's naval. "I'm saying I don't care if the baby is mine. I go back to you and I don't know why. Maybe it's love, maybe it's something else. But I am saying that I want to explore that and I've never wanted anything like this before."

Adrian circled her arms around Ricky's neck and kissed him with the pent of energy of an exploding dynamite. She felt his hands wrap around her back and down her backside and reflexively wrapped her legs around his waist. "Be careful!" she hissed against his ear.

"For the first time in my life, I am."

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"You what?"

"I. Had. Sex. With. Ricky. Was that slow enough for you?"

Grace had gone a shade paler than death. "But you're pregnant!"

"I know." Adrian fell back into the pillows on Grace's bed. "And it was amazing! You know, I think being pregnant actually makes you horny."

"Adrian!"

"What? Your parents aren't home."

"Tom is downstairs!"

Adrian shrugged. "And what's he going to do?"

"Tell me parents!" Grace spun around in her desk chair a few times. "How does that even work, anyway? Doesn't your stomach get in the way? That can't be good for the baby…"

"Carefully," Adrian said simply. "In some ways, I think sex while pregnant is even better than regular sex. More intense!"

Grace covered her ears. "I'm not hearing this! Lalalalalalalala!" She scrunched her eyes shut for a full five minutes or more and then peeked one open. "Does this mean you're with Ricky now? Regardless of whose baby it is?"

"I don't know. We didn't talk all that much last night. And I think maybe we would've talked this morning – he stayed over, by the way – but we both woke up late and I had to rush to leave. He wanted me to skip with him today, but I had a test first period that's worth a third of my grade and an oral presentation due after lunch and then we both had our own things to do after school, me with tutoring and work and him with his community service."

"And so you came over to my house after work instead of going to your apartment to see if Ricky was waiting there for you again?"

"I had to tell somebody. I was bursting!"

Grace shook her face into her hands. "Why am I such a good friend?"

"I do have a small problem though."

"What?"

"Ben."

"Ben? Ben is small?"

Adrian smirked. "Despite what outward appearances might imply, he's not small."

"Oh God!" The blonde snapped up a pillow from under Adrian's head and tried to wrap it around her ears to no avail.

"But yes, he is the small problem."

"Why?" she groaned.

"Because I – well, I…maybe lately I've been thinking being with Ben wouldn't be so terrible."

"So you're in love with Ben too?"

"In love? Hardly! Come on, Grace. That's like calling someone who has gone to church once a convert. But I do…feel guilty. It almost makes me wish he was still with the Juergens girl, just so things would be simple. But simple would be too easy."

"The Lord likes to challenge us."

"Don't get all religious on me," Adrian grumped. "I only came over here to get this off my chest, not to be hear a sermon."

"And Lord knows you don't need more sermon."

Adrian wiggled her brows. "Was that a pun, I smell?" She sat up and looked over her friend who was turning a lovely shade of red. "And a dirty pun at that! Oh, Missy Grace, you're finally growing up!"

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"Hey, Dad," Ben asked as Leo wandered into the kitchen for breakfast.

Leo yawned as he poured himself a freshly brewed cup of French Vanilla coffee. "Mhmm?" he mumbled into his cup.

"Are our passports still in date?"

Leo nodded, sipping slowly. "I think so, why?"

"I got some mail yesterday." He pushed the letter from Bologna across the table to where his father usually sat. "We're being invited to Bologna this summer."

Leo stumbled over to inspect the letter before finally shutting it back in its envelope. "That's nice," he nodded, "but you know you can't go. You might have a new baby by the end of the school year."

"Yeah, I've been thinking about that," Ben agreed. "And I have a proposition for you."

Leo sat down and folded his arms across the table with interest. "I'm listening."

With a grin, Ben produced something from his robe pocket, a stapled, multi-page, handwritten letter on blue lined paper which he handed to his father. "I wrote them back, tell me what you think."

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"Excuse me, Adrian!"

Adrian paused mid-step. She was halfway past her boss's office when she heard him calling after her and quickly turned around and poked her head back in. "Yes?"

Mr. Lentz motioned his arm. "Could you come here a moment?" he asked, gesturing to his computer. "I've got something I'd like you to take a look at."

Adrian groaned inwardly. It was Saturday, her shift was nearly over, and her feet were killing her. The last thing she desired was to do another project. "Sure," she said anyway, forcing a smile. "What do you need?" She approached his desk.

"Your opinion." He beckoned her around the desk and pointed to his computer screen, revealing two dresses. "I'm working in inventory – what I should keep, what should go – and I'd like your thoughts. Both dresses have been low sellers, which do you think should go?"

Adrian examined both dresses: one slinky and black, the other a sleeveless satiny tan. "I've always been a fan of 'the little black dress' but I am rather fond of the cut of this one," she said, pointing to the tan dress.

"I am too," Mr. Lentz agreed. "So why don't we see how it fits?" He lifted his hands to Adrian's waist, forcefully turned her around, and brought her down on his lap.

Adrian's eyes bulged. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Mr. Lentz smirked. "You didn't think I really hired you for your ability to think on your feet, did you? Although I am interested in seeing what you can do off your feet." He slid his hands down Adrian's hips and pressed her legs firmly against his. "And I know you need this job, Adrian. Who else is going to hire you in your condition? I've done you a favor and in return, you need to do me one. So now it's time to pay the piper!"