18. Kai
CHAPTER 18
KAI
“ O h, my goodness! This is the most exciting thing ever!” Jess said, clapping her hands together and practically jumping out of her seat.
“We’ll have to do a second toast,” Jason said in much the same mood. “Congratulations, guys! That’s awesome.”
Kai was stuck. That’s how it felt. Like he was physically stuck in place, his blood not even pumping anymore, frozen from head to toe.
A baby. Amy was having a baby. He and Amy were… the excitement reared up, the thrill of the thought of having a baby with Amy, of having a family with her. The sheer, unadulterated joy of it all was right there, within reach, but the look on her face…
She had looked so depressed all night. Amy had hidden it from the others well, but Kai had noticed it as soon as he’d seen her in the restaurant foyer. Looking at her now, right next to him but feeling so far away, he thought she might burst into tears at any moment. The question had just fallen out of his mouth. He hadn’t even consciously thought about saying the words. They’d basically said themselves, but it was painfully obvious that Amy had had absolutely zero intention of saying anything about being pregnant in front of Jess and Jason. And Kai had messed things up for her, again. Now if they were going to untangle the mortifyingly awkward moment, she would have to pretend everything was fine on his behalf, again . Always covering up his mistakes because he was too much of a coward to face the consequences and set things straight.
Enough. It was enough. No more.
Besides which it was already clear that Jess at least knew this wasn’t your typical, happy pregnancy announcement. Things were already disintegrating.
“I mean, congratulations?” Jess asked, not sounding so sure anymore if this was something they should be celebrating or not. “If you don’t want congratulations, that’s fine too, I guess?”
“No, congratulations are fine,” Amy said, sounding mortified not matter how much she tried to sound upbeat, her cheeks and ears turning bright red.
“Oh, good,” Jess said. “Then why is everything suddenly really tense and awkward?”
“Um, well…”
“I can answer that,” Kai said with firm authority in his voice, and all of them looked at him in surprise. Amy was the most surprised of all. Kai steeled himself and plowed on ahead.
“I have some things to set straight,” he said. “More of a confession than anything.”
“Kai…” Amy said, her voice barely above a whisper, looking frantic. “You don’t have to.”
“No, I do. I do need to do this because I’ve dragged all three of you around and around in circles, and I need to man up and untangle it all.”
Jess looked confused. Jason looked stern, but like he was listening intently. Amy looked horrified. She even shook her head just a fraction, wanting to keep helping Kai even now. And that small action from her was just more proof that Kai needed to step up and take some responsibility, no matter the consequences.
This was going to hurt, and it was going to hurt bad. But he had only brought it on himself.
“I’ve been… well, I’ve been a whole lot of things,” he said, only able to meet Jason and Jess’s eyes in small glimpses, and right now he couldn’t bear to look at Amy at all.
“Kai?” Jess said, sounding like she wanted to give him a hug.
“Let him talk, Jess,” Jason said gently, taking her hand and kissing her knuckles. “I know you want to help but let him talk. Go on, Kai.”
Jess sat back in her chair with her lips pressed together as if to keep herself from talking, and Jason didn’t sound remotely upset. It might have been Kai’s imagination, but the man almost sounded supportive… God, all of these people were just so good . He owed them the truth.
“So, back to the beginning,” he said, “I called Jason the night of our initial meeting and canceled at the last minute without any real reason, and you were upset, understandably.”
“But weren’t you out celebrating with Amy?” he asked, still level and controlled. “Because of the engagement?”
“Well, no, I wasn’t, because there wasn’t an engagement. There never has been.”
It hurt to say out loud. He knew it would. And it hurt even more when Jess looked between him and Amy with wide eyes and when Jason sat back in his chair with an appraising sort of expression. But at the same time, Kai felt a ten-ton weight lift off his chest, and he could breathe properly for the first time in months. Now that the hardest part was over, the words came naturally, waiting to be brought to light and purged.
“I did cancel last-minute to go be with Amy because she was catering our high school reunion and she was nervous and… anyway, the short of it is, I went there instead of our meeting. We pretended to be engaged at the reunion as a joke. Just to see people’s faces who had bullied us all throughout high school, but those people don’t even matter. It was funny. We were being ridiculous. It was all just a laugh we had for an evening. But then the tabloids got hold of the photos and of the lie — because they always do — and published it everywhere.
“You saw it, Jason, and called to offer congratulations and to offer another shot at this merger because you’re a better human being than I am. And I should have told you the truth right then and there. I should have cleared up what had happened. But I so badly wanted to save face that I clutched onto the second chance you had given me and dug myself a deeper hole. Then I dragged Amy into it as well, and because she’s the best friend anyone could have asked for, she said yes to playing along with it. All just to help me out because I couldn’t clean up my own mess.”
He looked to Amy then, for the first time since he’d started confessing to all of this, and she looked like a deer in the headlights, eyes wide and unblinking, sitting perfectly still in the chair next to him. Kai did what he’d been wanting to do for so, so long. He reached out and took her hand in his.
“I’m sorry for making you play along in all of this…”
“You didn’t make me,” Amy said quietly.
Kai shook his head. “Not at first, but you kept doing it to make me happy. To help me. And I’m sorry I put you in that position, to have you lie to everyone. And I’m sorry I went behind your back with those emails.”
“It’s okay…”
“Would you let me grovel, please?” he said with a half-hearted laugh. “Let me tell you how wrong I was?”
She stayed quiet at that, but her lips were pressed firmly together to stop herself from saying anything further. Kai stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. Nothing else existed right now. Just Amy and his burning need to tell her absolutely everything.
“I am so sorry that I didn’t listen to you, even when you made it clear so many times.”
A tear rolled down her cheek, but she was frozen and let it drip off of her chin. He reached out a thumb and wiped it off for her.
“And if I’m going to be facing up to facts and getting rid of all these lies, then I might as well tell you that I’ve been completely in love with you for years, and I always will be. I can’t see how anything on earth could change that fact.”
More tears fell on Amy’s cheeks, and Kai reached across and kept wiping them away.
“You asked me for one thing, and I didn’t do it, and I know it made you feel so small. I’m so sorry, Amy. Your business is yours and you get to run it however you want. If you don’t want my input, I’ll keep my nose out of it. But…”
He had to clear his throat for a second before he could keep going.
“But if you’ll let me try to make it up to you. If you’ll let me, I want to be the best dad I can be… I want to be the best partner to you I can be… I just hope that you’ll let me try, that’s all.”
Amy said nothing, it didn’t seem like she could say anything. Instead, as Kai finished speaking, she hid her face away in her hands, the only movement the tiny hitches in her breathing. Kai didn’t know what to do, how to help her. He felt stuck all over again.
“Can I say something now?” Jess asked, and Kai turned to her, still terrified, hand still hovering over Amy’s. But there was a small, knowing smile on Jess’s face.
“You should give Amy a hug,” she said, sounding quite sage.
Kai obeyed, not knowing what else to do, and stood from his chair to fold himself around Amy, whose face was still in her hands, trying to hide.
“I’m sorry, Amy,” Kai said, quiet this time, just for her to hear.
She mumbled something, but it was muffled by her hands and her tears.
“I didn’t catch that,” Kai said gently, leaning his face closer to hers. Finally, Amy pulled her hands away, and despite the tears streaming down her cheeks and her fingers shaking, there was a smile on her face.
“I said I love you too.”
Jess stifled a squeal of delight, slapping her hands over her mouth. Even Jason had a smile on his face, watching them over the rim of his wine glass.
“Are you sure? Because you look about as upset as it’s possible to be right now…”
“No, they’re happy tears. Also hormones. Also you’re an idiot, but I love you too.”
“I meant it,” Kai said. “Everything I just said.”
“I know you do. I know.”
And that was all that really needed to be said with words because, in that moment, the rest fell into place between them. All of the touches and looks over the years, the late-night conversations in cars and empty parking lots, the unwavering loyalty, all of it… it was so obvious now what it all meant. Not caring that they were still sitting in the middle of a restaurant, not caring who saw and not caring what they thought, Kai leaned in and kissed Amy, not caring about anything in the world except her. She was the only thing that had ever mattered, and that was never going to change.
Jess had swept Amy away to the bathroom to wash her face, and Kai didn’t expect them to return for quite a while, so it was just him and Jason at the table, the first minute or two perfectly quiet between them as they sipped their drinks. Kai wondered if he was in shock… He didn’t know what the symptoms of shock actually were, but it felt like he must definitely have at least some of them. Even if he didn’t have shock, he certainly wasn’t feeling normal and was a heck of a long way from feeling his best. But it didn’t matter what he was feeling because Kai was painfully aware that he still had some loose ends to tie up, and he might as well get it over with.
“Jason,” he said, looking the man in the eye because it was the least he deserved. Jason looked at him placidly, not seeming at all angry at the revelations that had just been dumped out on the table, so Kai stumbled forward into what he had to say.
“I get it that… well, that there is no reason for you to continue any sort of working relationship with me. The way I’ve screwed you around and strung you along… It’s been unprofessional of me. Childish. And I’m sorry for lying to you. I am.”
He felt his neck growing hot beneath his shirt collar but kept his chin up and eyes on Jason the whole time. He could manage that much, at least, after so much cowardice.
Jason set his wine glass down on the table, more measured and calmer than Jason had ever really seen him, and he didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.
“I was only being quiet, man, mostly because you seem like you’re in shock. I wanted you to have a chance to let things sink in, you know?”
Kai nodded. “Yeah. I guess that’s pretty accurate.”
“You look like a fish out of water right now, not going to lie.”
“That sounds about right. A fish out of water with shock, that sums it up pretty well, actually.”
“Here’s the thing, man,” Jason said, leaning back in his chair with a philosophical air. “It’s one thing to never do anything wrong or short-sighted. That’s impressive, for sure. It’s noble, you know? But it’s a whole other thing to mess up, like, royally mess up bad enough that you want to go crawl in a hole somewhere, only to come out and admit to it all. It takes a lot of guts, man, to do what you just did, setting it all straight and saying it to our faces. I’d prefer to work with someone like that. Someone who has the guts to own up to what they’ve done, even if it takes them a while to do it. That’s what’s impressive.”
Kai just blinked at him across the table. Was he… did he really mean that he still wanted to work together? Even after this hurricane of chaos Kai had caused? Was this really happening right now?
Jason grinned. “Are you still in shock, bud?”
“Yeah,” Kai said flatly. “Yeah, I think I am.”
“How about we save any technical talk for later in the week, then?”
“That sounds amazing, honestly.”
Then all thoughts of work, of contracts, of numbers and signatures left Kai’s mind altogether as he spotted Amy walking back towards their table, glowing in her cocktail dress and smiling at him as she crossed the room. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so beautiful.