beginning, my love,” she said, as the first notes of the song hit him—the Austin Powers theme song. One of the first movies they saw together. The one she’d called porn.
“Good choice, suga.”
And with that, the doors opened and their life as husband and wife began.
Mia
Los Angeles, September 2011
Mia leaned against the wall, her eyes closed, her head pounding as she stood backstage at an awards show, waiting to perform. Even though it was a little awkward to play the guitar with her huge soccer ball of a stomach in the way, she had wanted to play this show. When the band had accepted, it felt right to have this be her last performance for a while. But as she waited to go onstage, it didn’t feel right. She had felt like utter crap all day. And now, she had this killer headache. She tried to think about good things. Like the fact that she was married to Ethan. Life as Mrs. Christopher was fantastic. Life as Pregnant Mrs. Christopher was even better. Ethan was awesome. He catered to her every need, including midnight runs to get her a chocolate banana shake.
It still blew her mind. In a little over three months, she’d be the mother of twin boys. She looked down at her huge stomach, wondering as she did just how big her stomach would get. The movement of simply looking down caused her head to hurt even more. She closed her eyes yet again and felt her heart racing.
Five minutes before they got onstage plus five minutes to perform.
Ten minutes.
She could make it that long and then she could go and relax. Hell, maybe even leave the damn awards show. Right now, she didn’t care that they were nominated for anything.
“You look pale,” Marty noticed, standing by her side.
“Probably the lighting,” she replied, not wanting to worry him.
“You sure? Is everything all right?” he pushed.
“Yeah, just nerves,” she deflected, hoping that may truly be the case. “I haven’t played in front of an audience in months.”
She could tell Marty wasn’t buying it. Ever since she’d told the guys she was pregnant, they’d been very protective of her, especially Marty, and right now, she could tell that he wanted to push even more, but luckily Todd saved her.
“She’s nervous because she’s stuck in one spot and doesn’t know what to do.”
“Haha! For once this works to my advantage. That guitar will hide my enormous belly.”
“I still can’t believe that in a few short months one of us is going to have little ones running around,” Clark said, giving her shoulders a squeeze.
“Dude … they don’t come out running,” Todd shot back. “That happens a couple months later.”
Mia laughed at the absurdity of the conversation, feeling a little better, though it felt like a panic attack was still lurking in the background.
“Okay, guys. You’re up,” announced one of the stage crew.
Mia pushed off the wall and followed the stagehand. Before going on, she slipped on her guitar. Marty fixed the strap for her and they headed out to the dark stage. She found her spot and adjusted her microphone and took a deep breath as she placed her fingers on the keys of the keyboard to her right. She’d be playing both guitar and keyboard for this song.
The band waited quietly for the host to introduce them, and when the introduction was over, Mia started with the keyboard, followed eight notes later by Todd and his hypnotic drums. It was just her and Todd for the first minute of the song until the chorus when Marty and Clark added their guitar work.
About half-way through the song, she fought against the crippling anxiety. Her heart was pounding so hard and so fast, she thought it would fly out of her chest. Her stomach was extremely unsettled. And to top it off, the headache she had earlier felt a hundred times worse, like a vice was squeezing her head from all sides.
Fuck. This was not a panic attack. This was something more.
And that scared her.
Two more minutes.
Focus on the music. On the words.
The last three lines were here … she thought as a pain shot through her abdomen.
One final, long note.
The moment the note was finished, Mia doubled over, unable to catch her breath. She collapsed to her knees, trying to breathe, knowing something wasn’t right. She heard the murmurs from the audience, but she didn’t care.
“Mia?” Marty called as he ran to her. She heard Todd yelling Ethan’s name as he