"Prom, bro?" someone questioned.

Cameron relaxed in the lounge with some of his friends, sipping beer and taking their digs. Smiling at their comments, he glanced over the baby stuff piled in the corner. Seeing it reminded him that he needed to send his mom a list of things they still needed. "She asked me to go with her, guys."

"But Prom?" another guy wrinkled his forehead and took a huge mouthful from his bottle.

"It's just like our formals," Cameron stole Kith's reasoning.

"Yeah, but our formals have alcohol," Felix commented. Cameron tipped his bottle in his direction. That was a very valid point.

"She really wants to go," he answered. "I'm only going to make her happy."

Cries rang up from the guys.

"What?" Cameron questioned once they quieted down.

"You're so whipped, man," one of the juniors smirked at him.

"Hey," Cameron held up a finger. "Whipped? I am not whipped."

"You're so whipped," one of the seniors sided with him. "So whipped, man. Do you remember your freshman year? You were one of the craziest partiers this house has ever seen; you were banging girls every other night. Hell, you were banging that Heather girl on a pretty regular basis for the longest time. Now you're on boyfriend duty."

"Heather's hot," someone commented. Murmured agreement drifted around the room. Wordlessly, Cameron agreed.

"So is Kith," Cameron answered, sipping more of his beer. He should've been studying, but he reasoned that he'd spent enough time poring over his textbooks. And even though it was roughly noon, he wanted to drink. Obviously he wouldn't have more than one watery beer because he had to pick up Kith in two hours, but he wanted to get a nice warm feeling sloshing around in his stomach.

"That's true," they agreed.

"Okay," Cameron spread his arms wide and made a face. Everything was better. Even pregnant, Kith was still one of the prettiest girls he'd ever seen.

"If she tells you to jump, do you ask how high?" Graham questioned. Everyone snorted and laughed, including Cameron, who almost spit out his beer.

"I'm a boyfriend now," he played along. "I'm still a fucking legend in this house. But now I have to be legendary at something else."

"Aww!" His friends elbowed him and loudly mocked him.

"Okay, okay!" Cameron shoved them back and held his hands up. "That did sound a little..." Laughing, he finished off his bottle and set it on one of the end tables. "How was Spring Break? Stop busting my balls and tell me about Miami for a bit."

"So. Many. Girls," one of the guys commented, reclining against the sofa. "There was this really sweet wet t-shirt contest. God, you would've loved it."

"Sounds cool," Cameron spoke through a bit of jealousy. Spending time with Kith had been great. But a wet t-shirt contest? Great ones didn't happen every day.

"I went deep," someone else recounted. "So many times..."

"There were these insane parties..."

"We boat raced against another chapter in Florida!"

"Nate had a threesome!" someone shouted.

"Shut up!" Nate glared at him.

"What? You don't want me to know?" Cameron made a face. Nate's reaction had been the attention-getter, not the announcement. That was the annoying part about missing out on house-trips. Everyone else had experiences, memories, and embarrassing stories; he could only hear about them now instead of witnessing them firsthand. Cameron was out of the loop.

"No, it's not that," Nate replied. Whipping back to the guy who'd announced it, he gave him a look that said 'shut the hell up'. "I just thought we all agreed to not speak of it."

"Why?" Cameron glanced around the suddenly silent group. Half of them were stifling laughter. Obviously it was funny, to everyone but Nate. Which meant that the story was awesome.

"No reason," Nate shook his head indifferently. "So how was your-"

"No," making a face, Cameron stopped him. He wanted to know too. The story was obviously embarrassing. And if the entire house already knew, it wasn't fair for Cameron to be in the dark. Plus, they were best friends. Regardless of how shameful the story, Nate was obligated to tell him so Cameron could laugh and judge. "What is so special about this threesome that you don't want me to know?" One of the guys wiped tears from his face while struggling not to laugh aloud. "I want to laugh."

"No," Nate shook his head again. "No, you don't."

"One of them was a guy!" the same guy who'd announced it revealed the secret.

"Fuck you!" Nate shouted. "We agreed not to say anything!"

"You had sex with a guy?" Cameron raised his eyebrows. Eyes wide, he gaped at his best friend.

"I did not have sex with him!" Nate shouted over the din.

"How the hell did you not know he was a dude?" Cameron yelled loudly.

"He-I don't know!" Nate sank back into his seat and raked fingers through his hair. Pausing, he struggled to collect himself and provide a suitable answer. "I met them on the beach, late at night, right after this party. I was kinda drunk and we somehow ended up back in my room. Stuff started happening and we got naked and more stuff started happening..."

"He doesn't realize he's slept with a dude until the next morning," Ty jumped in, laughing hysterically.

"I did not have sex with him!" Nate repeated firmly. Pressing his lips together, Cameron shot him a skeptical look. To each his own.

"Did you kiss him?" Felix asked.

"Shut the fuck up," Nate replied, shrugging and leaning back in the recliner. More jeers, laughs, and comments erupted. "Screw you guys! Talk about something else. Better yet, let's go back to Cameron and Prom."

"It won't be so bad," Cameron said knowingly, conceeding to relieve Nate from his anxiety. None of their frat brothers seemed to care much whether Nate had sex with guys or not, but enjoyed busting his balls about it.

"You guys should think about coming. There'll be plenty of age appropriate girls down to have some fun, if you know what I mean."

"Yeah," Ty cleared his throat and gradually stopped laughing. "I think you're the house example of why we shouldn't have 'fun' with high school girls anymore."

"Suit yourselves," Cameron shrugged and stretched. "While you guys are studying for finals, I will be dancing in an Alice in Wonderland themed hotel ballroom." As much as he groaned and complained about the night to Kith, he was kind of excited. He liked Alice in Wonderland, both the newer Disney style and the hand-drawn one. Plus, half of Prom was seeing how the decorations looked.

"That sounds really gay," Nate responded.

"I won't be having sex with a guy," Cameron stood up to actually go study. Laughs, jokes, and comments flew from everyone in the room. Cameron half-saluted over his shoulder.

"I did not have sex with him!" Nate protested.

Kith felt the slow, steady thud of Cameron's heart against her upper thigh as he rest his head on her mountain of an abdomen. He lounged in silence, moving his ear around until he found a suitable spot. It's okay, she told herself. Cameron never tried anything, but his close proximity brought back memories. Kith shivered.

"What?" Cameron started.

"Nothing," she said quickly, coming back to reality.

"I can get off," lifting his head, his brown eyes searched her face.

"No," stopping herself, Kith continued staring at the ceiling. "It's not you."

"Kith, I'll move," he sat up fully.

"No," shaking her head, she motioned for him to stop moving. Where he was sitting with one hand on her thigh and his body resting between her legs was awfully intimate, and she didn't know whether it was butterflies or Tristan fluttering in her stomach. Kith was impressed by his perceptiveness, though. "It's like your hugging him."

His lips slowly curved into a smile. Relaxing, he replaced his head. The peaceful silence of the room filtered back in. A light wind danced into the room. "What do you think it's gonna be like?" Cameron asked.

"What?"

"This whole parenthood thing," he moved his head again.

"I don't know," she answered honestly. She knew it wasn't going to be smooth sailing. A screaming baby came to mind. Inhaling, she considered all the possibilities. Out of all of them, she just didn't want it to be a catastrophic event. Hopefully, it wouldn't be because Cameron's mom had supposedly turned over a new leaf and stopped hating her. According to Cameron, she planned on helping them with Tristan for the first few weeks before letting them loose as actual parents. "Have you ever held a baby before?"

"No," he shook his head. "Have you?"

"No."

"Shit," he groaned a little. "We're screwed."

Kith couldn't counter that. It accurately summed up her feelings. "How does it feel to be a father at nineteen?"

"Father at nineteen?" he echoed. "I'm pretty sure this is every guy's worst nightmare." Again, Kith found herself speechless. Cameron was on a roll with the insightful statements. "And if I was with some other girl-say, Heather-this would literally be hell. But, since I'm with you, it's not so bad."

Kith smiled a bit.

Pregnancy and parenthood were two different ends of the spectrum though, two drastically different stages. They were in the home stretch of the whole pregnancy ordeal. In approximately two months, a tiny human being would be constantly relying on them for feeding, changing, bathing; life wasn't going to be so easy anymore. Her due date, although frightening, was nicely placed.

Perfect, was actually a better word. Going into labor in mid-May meant that she would have Tristan and then spend a little less than a month in school before graduating. Her freshman year a junior started the school year four of five months pregnant. Kith distinctly remembered her fourteen year old self staring at the girl, wide-eyed, wondering how she could've been so stupid.

"If you leave," she licked her bottom lip. "I understand."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." sliding up, he pressed his chin into her stomach and stared at her, confused. "Who said anything about leaving?"

"No one," Kith sighed. "I just... technically, we're teen parents. Statistically, situations like ours don't play out very well. Yeah, we're fine now. We're happy, we go out for ice cream, we watch movies together. Two, three, maybe four months down the road? Could be a whole different story, Cameron. You'll start hanging out later and later. My small requests to... I don't know, feed or change Tristan will start pissing you off. You'll start hanging out with girls your own age, maybe older, girls without babies keeping them up at night." Kith had seen enough MTV to know the variety of outcomes. Nine times out of ten, the relationships deteriorated. "You might even end up hating me."

"Get your hormones together, Kith," he shook his head. "They're causing you to be overly dramatic."

"Cameron, I'm serious," she said stubbornly. Every single day that went past brought them closer to a hospital and stirrups. Everything was going to change.

"I'm serious," he laughed and rubbed his forehead lightly across her stomach. "Hating you? Never."

"Cameron." His name came out sternly. His compliments were normally appreciated, but they were detracting from the seriousness of the conversation.

"What?" he asked innocently. "You're talking like a crazy person, and I've already dealt with one of those this year, so..." Kith sighed with exasperation. "I promised you that I'm not going anywhere, ever. I meant that. I'm gonna be here for you and him, always."

"Everything's going to be different," she pressed. How did he not understand the gravity of their condition?

"Look," losing the smile, he locked eyes with her. "Kids need dads, Kith; take it from me. I know firsthand what it's like to have a shitty one, alright? And... and you've kinda lost yours. We're both dad-less. The same thing will not happen to ours, not Tristan, swear on my life. And-" sitting up, he sighed and ran his hand over his head-"if I ever say something to contradict what I'm telling you now, you have permission to hit me. Right here." He pointed to his groin. "As hard as you want, 'cause obviously I don't deserve to have any more kids."

Kith briefly turned her head to stare at his desk, at his backpack on the floor. She turned back to Cameron's raised eyebrows with a smile. She couldn't hate such a passionate answer. Clearly, their discussion was only headed in one direction. Only time would tell where Cameron would end up. He'd argued with such conviction that it was almost moving. He took her smile as acceptance of his intentions.

"Can I touch your stomach?"

"Yeah," she consented.

"Under the shirt?" he raised his eyebrows even higher. He curled his fingers into fists in anticipation.

"Uh... yeah," she agreed.

"Sweet," rolling her shirt up, he planted his bare palms, which were shockingly cold, onto her uncovered stomach; it took some time before his hands acclimated. Leaning down, he ran his tongue over about an inch of skin.

"Cameron, what are you doing?"

"What?" he looked up.

"That's weird," she wrinkled her nose and smacked at his hands when he went to do it again. "What are you doing?"

"I just wanted to see if you taste as good as you feel," he reasoned, shrugging. Dodging one of her well-aimed slaps, he licked another spot, a smaller one. "And yeah, you do."

"That's gross," she hissed. "Stop."

"I'm doing it because I lo-"pausing, he hovered over her, smirking.

"What?" What was he not saying? Kith felt her blood pressure skyrocket. He was not going to tell her he loved her. That-no. No. Absolutely not. Now was not the time. The distant future wasn't a good time either. And if that was his admission, he'd certainly chosen a weird way to show it.

Feigning laughter, he flopped down beside her, and registered her silence as confirmation. "You will be relieved to know that I don't love you, Kith." Elbowing her, he planted a kiss on her cheek before rolling on his side to face the wall. "I do like you a lot though, so..."

"You're ridiculous, Cameron," shaking her head, Kith readjusted to allow him more room.

"That's why you keep me around," he muttered, grabbing hold of her hand and pulling her under his arm. Kith felt strangely at ease. "Can I tell you something?"

"What?"

"I think about you when I masturbate."

"Cameron!" Kith smacked him lightly in the ribs with her free hand and tried to mask the flush creeping up on her face.

"You and Inbar Lavi," he revealed, moving around once more. With considerable effort, he rolled over and looked at her, lips twitching to conceal a smile. "Sometimes together, but not always. And if that's not love, I don't know what is."

Kith grimaced; Cameron laughed and buried his face in her neck.

"God, you smell so good," he inhaled deeply and continued laughing. Calming down, he wrapped a heavy arm around her. "I'll leave you alone now, Kith. You're free to go to sleep. My apologies if I offended you."

"No." It wasn't offensive. Just shocking. Tiny breaths snaked from his mouth across her neck. She could still feel the impression of his hands on her stomach. The spots where his tongue left light traces of saliva tingled.

She didn't plan on openly admitting it to him, but... she liked it.

I hope no one was offended by anything in this chapter.