That Blue-Eyed Boy

21. SURPRISE!

POV:  STELLA

"Stella! Connor and Alex are coming for supper tonight." Gemma calls through the door that she's currently walking through with her arms loaded down with grocery sacks.

"Hope you're planning on cooking because my ankles hurt too much to stand on for longer than walking to the bathroom." I groan, glancing over my huge stomach at my swollen feet that literally don't fit in any of my shoes. "Plus, I've been crying at everything today and I don't think they want tears in their food."

"Ew, yeah. I think I'll do the cooking tonight, even though Connor requested your famous sweet and sour chicken."

"You know the recipe." I groan at my stomach where Amora's foot just landed a kick to the left wall of my uterus.

"Has she been being difficult lately?" Gemma asks, taking things out of the shopping bags while I try to soothe my unborn daughter.

"Today has been awful. I didn't go to class because I thought I was going into early labor this morning, but that turned out to be nothing, and then this afternoon I've had heartburn like crazy, and she's restless. I called Dr. Adams and she said that's fairly normal since I only have about 3 weeks left in my term. She says that it's the baby's way of starting to work its way to the birthing canal." I groan at my daughter, who moves just wrong and I think she crushes my bladder, because I'm off the couch waddling my way to the bathroom faster than I've moved all day. I called and talked to Beau for a while this morning after I thought I was having contractions, but they turned out to just be Amora hitting the inner side of my uterus with what I think was her fist. He was ready to jump in the truck and head up here as soon as I said the word contraction, and it took me fifteen minutes to talk him out of it.

While I'm busy relieving my bladder that Amora thought I needed to empty, I hear the door to hour house open and Connor and Alex's voices start drifting through the house. I'm so glad Connor finally found someone who makes him as happy as Beau makes me and Fernando makes Gemma. I also can't believe that Beau used to think we had a thing. I think that may have been part of why we broke up in the first place, but I don't think Beau would ever admit that now that he knows Connor is gay. The whole reason I had invited him home for the first part of that summer was because he didn't want to go home and face the judgement of his aunt that had been staying with his parents while her house was being remodeled.

"Connor!" I grin, waddling back into the living room after washing my hands and slipping my feet into a pair of slippers that are cushiony and the only things that fit right now.

"Stella, my dear! Oh, you're just glowing! Isn't she just glowing, Alex?" Connor asks, grabbing my hand and pressing his palm against my stomach as Alex walks over to me and wraps his arm around my waist.

"Yes, you look radiant my darling. Here, here. Let's get you a chair." Alex frets for a while, trying to lead me to a barstool, but I resist.

"Thanks for trying to help, Alex, but I'm going to sit back on the couch where I can elevate my feet." I chuckle, glancing down at my way too swollen ankles.

"Of course, of course." He grins, leading me to the couch and lowering me to the cushions. "I guess this means no famous sweet and sour chicken that Connor hasn't shut up about since I met him."

"Gemma knows how to fry the chicken, and I think I can manage to whip up the sauce recipe." I wink at him, before propping my feet up on the coffee table and glancing at my phone at a text from Beau, sending me a picture of a newborn calf he just tagged. I sigh while I think about how much I miss him, but then remember that as soon as I'm graduated, I'm moving home and we're going to have a daughter to raise together. Even though I lived without him for nearly two years, now that I have him back in my life, it hurts being away from him even more. I wish he could be here with me now, but I know that he's running things back home, and he can't ditch. Not right in the middle of winter.