22. Jack

22

JACK

I can't even look at her.

It's too painful.

Her typing is louder than ever, though, as everyone fields their opinions about the hibiscus latte.

I can't pretend. Can't fake a smile. Can't laugh at the stupid joke Nate is making at Mason's expense or the retort Laney has locked and loaded.

How can I when the woman I love can't stomach the idea of having my baby?

Of course, it's scary. I'm terrified.

When we returned to the table, Camilla laughed it off. Laughed .

"Sorry, I was just so nervous," she told everyone. And that endeared her to them even more.

I would have loved their reaction if my feelings weren't in a frenzy.

An accident…I promised myself no child of mine would ever be an accident. It would be planned and set out, we'd have sex at the right time, plan out her cycle, and when we finally got those pretty pink lines on the test, it would be such a relief, such a celebration. And that's the story we'd tell our child.

How wanted they were.

I didn't give myself a fighting chance with that. I agreed from the beginning to go bare with her. Always finish inside her.

It was too good, too tempting.

So, it didn't follow the plan. Fine.

Just because it was an accident doesn't mean our child has to be a mistake.

My heart doubled, tripled in size when she brought up the possibility.

And immediately deflated when her reaction was…anything but good.

She was scared. Angry maybe. Don't want to talk about it, wanted to put her head down and get back to work. As she always does.

Not a drop of happiness that she might be carrying my baby at this very moment.

I know I'm not being fair. It's her burden to literally bear, and the idea of that must be scary.

But she has me. Surely that helps, right? I'm her partner. Her partner . In all ways. And behind closed doors, I've made it clear every moment that I am dedicated to taking care of her.

It's not that simple.

And yet, it is.

There's a lull in the conversation. I should be the one to pick it up, but I can't.

Camilla does. "Okay, I think I've got enough on the hibiscus. Maybe we should move onto the pastries?"

I press my lips together to keep my expression from curdling.

How can she be so peppy, act like the realization she had in the bathroom wasn't a huge bomb on everything?

She looks at me. Nods at me like I'm supposed to say something. "Sound good, Jack?"

I bite on the insides of my cheeks.

I'm a businessman. I used to run the floor at the Stock Exchange, act like I was an unfeeling robot, crunching numbers, working myself to the bone. I can make it through this. I can.

I have to.

I press a smile onto my face. "Wait until you guys try the lilikoi bars."

"I think it's just so cool, man."

Nate is the last one to go, and he's got me trapped in the front door of the café.

"Thanks," I say with a tired smile.

"Seriously, I mean, you me, and Abs, we're the same but we're different, you know?"

I chuckle. "Yeah."

"Like, we share Dad, but we all have our own heritage. And…I don't think you've ever shared this much with us. Or I just didn't ask," Nate says.

My older brother spent most of his twenties in his old world of being a bad boy surfer. Hell, he spent three years no contact with Dad, which pulled him out of my orbit too. I don't want to think about the accident he had, the one that almost left him without the use of his legs, but it changed something in him. Made him realize what's important.

So, yeah, he never asked.

But we have time now. And Nate makes the best of using it.

"We'll all have to go down to the farm some time," he says.

"That would be cool," I say. And I mean it. Yes, Hawaii means my mom. But it's not just her place. It's mine too.

Nate claps a hand on my shoulder, then glances back into the shop. "And I know it's early, but you two are really good together."

I look where he's looking, holding my breath. Camilla is leaned against the counter, typing on her phone.

"Maybe it's just the working rapport or something, but just…when you know, you know. Don't question it if you feel it."

I hadn't questioned that knowing until sitting on the bathroom floor. "I'll keep that in mind."

Nate gives me a hearty pat, says a final goodbye, then heads out the door.

I close it behind him, lock the door, and keep my hand there for a long moment.

It's just us. Me and Camilla. Family and friends are gone. The baristas took off after their last service.

I have to turn around. Have to face it.

"Did you know that pregnancy can make your hands go numb?" Camilla asks.

I turn to look at her.

She raises her phone in the air. "I'm looking at symptoms."

"Have your hands been numb?"

She shakes her head. "No, I just…that's crazy." She looks back down at her phone, then clicks the screen off. "So much is going to change. If I am. You know."

"Yeah, I know."

"Like, hemorrhoids. I could get hemorrhoids," Camilla says, looking off, her gaze distant.

I take a few steps toward her, sliding my hands in my pockets to avoid running to her and wrapping her in my arms to start begging for her to be happy like I am.

"And heartburn. I've never had heartburn."

I say nothing, but keep approaching, careful as can be.

"I don't…" She looks at me. "I don't even know who I am, Jack."

I tilt my head to the side. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I don't know who I am . Or where I come from or–" She stops, closing her eyes. "Um, I'm adopted."

If she thinks that will change something in me, it doesn't. "Okay…"

"I've been looking for my birth mother for a long time now. And I can't find her," she says. "I even hired a private investigator, and I thought that would do it. But every lead comes up empty. It's been months."

Camilla sighs. "And I've always said I'm going to find her before I ever have my own kids."

I lean up against the counter beside her, leaving enough space for us to not touch. "Why?"

"Because I don't know where I come from."

"You were adopted, you have a family, right?"

She sighs. "It's…complicated. People think I'm ungrateful. I have great parents. I love them, I really do. Just because I need this doesn't mean I don't love them and am not grateful. I–" Her head falls forward.

"They're white. I'm not. And they did the best they could, but they raised me as if I was white. I don't know Spanish. I don't have a Mexican last name. The only reason I even know I'm Mexican is because of a DNA test."

My shoulders sag with the weight of what she's said. I might have my own problems, but I've always been able to be proud of my heritage. I know some Hawaiian, I have customs, and connections based on my heritage.

"So, I've never fit in anywhere, even after I knew that. When I went to college, I thought I could join some sort of identity groups, you know, get to know myself through that."

"Yeah."

Camilla smiles. "I never felt like I fit in. No one was mean, but there were just expectations, and I never felt Mexican enough for them."

"That's fucked up."

"It is…what it is. I don't blame them. My name isn't even spelled the Spanish way. Two Ls instead of one. So, it can't even be pronounced the way it should be."

We settle into silence. The shop is bending in the late afternoon light, shadows cast across the floor.

"So, I took all of that confusion and instead of wrapping it up in my identity, I threw myself into my studies and into guys."

There's an unfair pull in my belly, jealousy over men that are no longer in her life.

"And I had a college sweetheart by sophomore year. Mike. As white bread as they come. Country clubbers from Connecticut."

"Oh god, yeah that'll do it."

Camilla laughs.

I relish it. I'm worried it will be the last time I make her do that.

She sighs. "I planned my life with him. We were going to get married after we graduated, and I'd move with him to Connecticut and immediately abandon everything I'd worked for to have his babies."

I suck in a breath.

"Doesn't seem like me, right?"

"Not the Camilla I know."

She nods, a few curls bobbling. "Right. Well, the night I thought he was going to propose, he broke up with me. Said I was too clingy. That I didn't have a personality."

"Fuck him."

"No, he was right. He was my personality," Camilla says. "And it broke my heart bad. But I thought, fine, then my life is going to be a big fuck you to that white picket fence dream with the two and a half kids or whatever."

I smile to myself.

"And the fuck you turned into a life I really liked, working at CipherBit. And eventually Mike faded into the background." She looks at me, her gaze hardened and intent. "But the feeling that I needed to know me before I could invite anyone into my life didn't."

I scratch my cheek, a nervous tic. "You invited me in."

"Yeah, I did, you're right. And that was…"

Please don't say, a mistake. I can't have you thinking I'm a mistake.

She smiles. "I'm glad I did. You've made me stronger."

Yes!

"But I didn't think I'd have to let anyone else in any time soon," Camilla says, her voice turning to a whisper.

I look down at the tips of my shoes. "We don't know for sure, yet."

"I know, but I have a feeling I'm not wrong."

Slow, so she has time to draw away, I lower my hand by my side and guide it toward her side. To my relief, she takes it, and we stand there, holding hands for a long time.

"If you are, you don't have to keep it," I say, as much as it breaks my heart. "I mean, we know as well as anybody what it does when you feel unwanted."

"That's just the thing, Jack, I'm not scared for lack of wanting." Her eyes glint with tears. "You think I wouldn't want to have a baby with you?"

All the heaviness lifts. "I wasn't sure."

Camilla turns into me, wraps her arms around my waist, and presses her head against my chest.

I hold her back, hard, kissing the side of her head.

"There's no one I would rather have a baby with," she says into me. "I'm just so scared that I'm not ready. That I won't be good enough."

"That's ridiculous."

Camilla lifts her chin. "How? When I don't even know who my own mother is?"

"No one ever said that was a prerequisite to becoming a mother."

It's sinking in. That we're standing here on the precipice of another huge leap. Not just a business, not just a relationship…

A baby.

I can't help but smile. It trembles and tears threaten my eyes, but I have to be strong.

"I don't want to lose myself," she says. "And if I don't have the touchstones–"

"I would never let that happen."

She scoffs. "How would you do that?"

"I just wouldn't." I don't let my confidence falter. Because I believe it. "Because if anyone is lost, it's me. I'm the one lost here. In you."

Camilla smiles. "You're silly."

"No one in the entire world will ever be above you. So, if you ever start feeling lost, I'll do whatever I can to make you feel found again, Camilla. That's my job. You're my baby girl."

She sighs, cheeks flushing.

"And if my baby girl is having a baby…" I stop in my tracks, trying to catch my breath. "We make our own way together. Our own family, our own history. Everything our way."

Camilla slides her hands up my back. "I like that."

I kiss the top of her head. "I don't think I can express to you how happy I am."

"Try."

"Oh, god. Happier than I've ever been. Ever." A tear escapes my eye. "So, if you're scared, you can remember that I'm not. Not at all. Because the best woman in the world might be carrying my child, and I won't let her ever think she's not enough."

Camilla buries herself in my chest and starts to cry.

I hold her there, tight and protected, stroking her hair, shushing her with calming words while my own eyes cloud with tears.

When we finally are able to split apart, we manage to get our act together to hurry to the nearest drugstore and grab a pregnancy test. And in the bathroom where hours earlier I was holding her hair back and felt like my life was ending, Camilla holds up a test to me with two pink lines.