Chapter 30 Cam #2
Which is why I’ve spent months reading various books, trying to prepare myself in case Ivy ever let me back into her life again.
Mom chuckles and sets her purse on the end table next to Gladys. “I’m always happy to help. And I don’t mind waiting until you’re ready, Ivy.”
I motion back into the kitchen. “I was just making breakfast. Pancakes and bacon. You want some?”
Waving me off, she shakes her head. “I already ate, but I wouldn’t turn down a cup of coffee.”
“I can do that.”
She settles on the couch, and I slip past Ivy, dragging my hand gently across her stomach and squeezing her hip before I head to the coffee maker.
“You’re coming with us, right?”
Ivy’s question floats over to me, soft, unsure, but powerful enough to make my knees wobble.
My hand freezes with the pod halfway to the coffee maker, and I squeeze my eyes closed, swallowing through a tight throat. “You want me to come shopping for the baby?”
I’m too afraid to look at her and see what’s on her face or in her eyes right now. Terrified I’ll break down completely if I so much as glance her direction.
Soft footsteps move across the kitchen, and she sidles up next to me at the counter. Her warm hand slides across my bare back, and she presses up on her toes so she can get close to my ear. “Of course I do.”
That light at the end of the tunnel gets brighter.
That hope flickers more solidly.
The churning dark waters it feels like I’ve been hopelessly treading in for so fucking long start to calm.
I swallow all the things I want to say to Ivy but can’t while Mom is seated in the other room. “I’d love to.”
Ivy presses a kiss to cheek. “Good. I’m going to go sit with your mom. Let me know if you need any help.”
“I’m good.” I pour out some batter. “I may not be a master chef, but I can handle pancakes and bacon.”
An amused grin plays at her lips that suggests she has some reservations about me in the kitchen—which would be completely fair. “I’m sure you can.”
She slips away, leaving me standing stunned.
The ease with which she just invited me to do something so important with her somehow makes all the months of angst and turmoil worth it. Because she wants me around. Not just for herself, but to be in this baby’s life, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted since the moment she told me about her.
To be there for both of them.
To make up for everything I caused them to lose.
Starting with breakfast…
I start the Keurig and move to the stove to flip the pancakes. Mom and Ivy chat in the living room, occasional laughter hitting my ears and making me grin as I work on our breakfast. It doesn’t take long for them to finish cooking, and by the time they’re ready, so is the coffee.
“Mom, your coffee’s ready.”
“Oh, great!” She pushes up from the couch, interrupting whatever conversation she and Ivy were having, and moves into the kitchen, stopping next to me where I plate up breakfast for us. A knowing grin tugs at her lips. “So, you two seem…”
I clear my throat, glancing at Ivy, who seems intent on looking at something on Mom’s phone. “I don’t know, Mom, but yeah, it does seem that way.”
It’s all I can say right now.
Just like I don’t want to get my hopes up, I don’t want to do that to Mom, either. After everything she lost, all the pain she’s suffered, she deserves something good as much as Ivy does, but I can’t promise her something that could be gone tomorrow so easily.
I could fuck it up again.
I could relapse.
And it could rightfully scare Ivy away.
“Hey, Cam?” Ivy pushes up from the couch awkwardly and walks over to us, flipping the phone around so I can see the screen. “Could you paint something like this?”
The nursery in the advertisement has the baby’s name written in stars across the night sky on the wall of a nursery.
It would be incredible in the room.
“Of course. As soon as you decide on a name, I can add it to the mural or put it on one of the other walls. Whatever you want.”
Ivy smiles and rubs her free hand on her stomach. “I have a name.”
Mom’s eyes widen. “You do?”
“I’ve kind of been waiting to tell you guys, but it’s going to be Andrea. Drea, for short.”
The vise around my chest tightens, and my eyes immediately fill with burning tears.
Fuck.
Mom releases a little sobbing noise as she pulls Ivy into her arms and hugs her tightly. “Oh, that’s beautiful. That’s perfect.”
Ivy’s eyes meet mine over Mom’s shoulder, and I don’t bother trying to fight the tear that slips down my cheek.
She’s naming her after Drew…
Nothing else would have felt right the way this does.
When Mom finally releases her, I step in and tug Ivy up against me. At this point, I don’t care if Mom sees us and the questions start coming.
I can’t not touch her, hold her, after she revealed that.
Ivy stares up at me with an uncertain smile and searching eyes. “What do you think of the name?”
“I think it’s absolutely perfect.”
Just like the baby will be.
The perfect mix of Ivy and Drew.
I take her face between my hands and angle it up so I can ghost my lips across hers. “She will never want for anything. That promise I made you applies to your daughter, too.”
She clings to me, her warm hands pressed directly over my thundering heart. Her eyes fill with tears, and she opens and closes her mouth a few times, searching for whatever she wants to say. “I’m so sorry about everything…”
“No.” I shake my head. “Never apologize to me for anything you did or said. The apologies are all mine to give. Forever, if that’s what it takes.”
This woman has always been my obsession, my addiction, the one thing capable of making me do equally terrible or beautiful things, and now that we’ve finally reached this place, I will do whatever it takes to keep us like this.
“Forever…” The word comes out barely a whisper, then she smiles.
“I thought my agony after losing Drew would last that long, but you’ve proven to me that the only way to move forward is one second, one minute, one hour, one day at a time.
That isn’t so scary anymore”—one of her hands slides up my arm and she twines her fingers with mine against her cheek—“because I have you by my side. And together, we can withstand any storm.”