Chapter 11 Reed
REED
One month later
The last month has been incredible.
Every day is better than the last. Even when Camila and I don’t agree on things, I love her being here. There is no other place I would want to be.
But something is going on. The last couple of days have had me on edge.
Something’s up, and I’m starting to worry that maybe my sunshine hasn’t been as happy as I’ve been. I’m not sure what it is. I can’t put my finger on it. She’s acting the same, but there is something in her eyes. Something she’s holding back. A worry or maybe second thoughts. And today didn’t help.
She went to town.
Alone.
She said she just wanted to work at the coffee shop in town and go shopping. I had orders that had to get shipped out, and I couldn’t talk her into waiting until the next day so I could go with her.
Am I suffocating her?
I need to figure out how to give her some space.
I look out the window and scowl. The sun’s starting to set, and she isn’t back yet. Anxiety starts to bubble up, and the collar of my tee feels too tight. What did I do? I wonder to myself, but nothing comes to mind.
Nothing but her smiling face shines in my head as I think about the last four weeks. I force myself to walk to the kitchen and get dinner started. It isn’t another thirty minutes later when the front door opens and shuts, and I’m wound up tighter.
“Hi!” She walks into the kitchen, taking off her coat and beanie, setting it on the table before she walks up and kisses me.
“Hey, sunshine. Good day?” I ask, trying to keep my cool.
“Yeah. Very,” she mumbles, looking over my shoulder. “That smells good.” she says unenthusiastically, and she presses her lips together and swallows. Hmm. She usually loves my cooking.
“You okay?” I ask, looking at her more closely. She looks a little pale. Maybe even a little green around the edges. I study the skillet. It looks fine. I’ve made this for her before, and she loved it.
“Yeah.” She shakes her head, moves to the fridge, and serves herself a glass of water.
I put the flame on low on the stove and watch her closely.
She’s fidgety and can’t seem to stand still.
Not that that isn’t usually how she is. The girl is a bubble of energy.
But there is something different. I’m just not sure what.
“Work go alright?”
“Yeah.” She nods, leaning against the kitchen counter across from me.
She’s sipping at her water slowly. “They have a new ginger tea,” she mentions, and I nod.
“Hey, umm, I was wondering if I could get the key for the cabin.” She avoids looking me in the eyes, and anxiety melds into serious trepidation.
“You have a key for here,” I remind her, and she bites her lower lip.
“I mean mine. My place. Across the street,” she clarifies, and I swear it feels like my stomach drops below my feet.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, umm, you kept my set of keys after Eli and Brandon left that day they moved me in,” she reminds me. I don’t take my eyes off her. She wants the keys to her place back. This was all too good to be true. This is where she asked me to help move her back because she isn’t happy.
“Right,” I grunt and turn, reaching into the drawer they’re in. My heart feels like it’s beating in sludge, and my head’s swimming. Did she meet someone else? What did I do?
No matter how much I beat my brain in, I can’t come up with what I did. Life’s been good.
Too good.
Too easy.
Too beautiful.
I should have known something like this was going to happen.
“Thanks,” she mutters when I put them in her hand, but I don’t move away. I’m about a foot away, but it might as well be the Pacific between us. She looks at them and smiles.
“What do you think about renting it out?” she asks and finally looks up at me.
“What?” The sludge my heartrate has been in washes away, and it starts to pick up speed. She’s not ending us?
“I just think it’s a great place and it should be lived in.
Someone should. Not me or anything, but my uncle left that place to me for whatever reason.
I’m not sure why really? I never met the guy, and he knew where I was my entire life.
But…” I try to listen to what she’s saying, but the relief that hits, hits hard as I move in close and finally have my hands on her.
Holding her by the hips, I listen as she rambles, and I wonder if that’s what has been on her mind.
But it can’t be.
There is something else. I can sense it. Trusting my gut like I usually do, I pick her up, and she gasps.
“Big guy, what are you—”
“Shh,” I quiet her as I turn off the stove and walk us to our bedroom. On the way over, I avoid stepping on one of her flip-flops, and a canvas on the wall catches my eye. Something my buddy Brandon painted and she insisted on buying from his gallery to make our place homier. Her words, not mine.
I step into our room ignoring the way she’s looking at me like a deer caught in headlights and notice other things.
Her perfume next to my cologne on top of the vanity.
A mustard-yellow throw over a chair I keep in there and that knitted blanket from the first night, full of color, at the end of our bed.
It’s only been four weeks, and she’s more than under my skin.
What I feel for her isn’t some fleeting thing, and I know it isn’t for her, either.
Whatever she has in her head, we can fix.
Together. Because what we have is a bone-deep connection, and fuck if she thinks I’m not going to fight for what we have.
I toss the throw pillows she added, and she complains, but I smirk at her. Yeah. A month, and she’s made this place feel like a home, a real one. But honestly, the place could be down to the studs, and as long as she was next to me, it would feel like home.
“What’s up?”
“What? What do you mean?” she asks the moment we’re settled on our bed, her body over mine, straddling me. I love how she fits this way. The closeness and her warmth seeping into my skin. But I can fell the tension in her shoulders, and nervousness radiates off her.
“What’s going on, Cami girl? Talk to me.”
“I don’t know what….” I shoot her a look that makes her go quiet.
“Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay. Are you not happy? Am I too overbearing?”
“No,” she says softly. Her shoulders slump forward, and her eyes move to my neck.
“Do you need me to give you space? Do you not like it here? We can sell this place and—"
“I’m pregnant,” she blurts out and swallows hard before her gaze moves up to meet mine.
“What?” I swallow hard, because I’m not positive she said what I think she said.
“I know you said things in the heat of the moment. And I’m not sure if it was just dirty talk or not, but we haven’t really talked about the future.
Real things like kids and stuff. And we get carried away all the time, and I didn’t think.
If this is too much, we can figure it out.
We’ve been together for a month, and a baby is a lot of change, and I can move out if that’s what you want and—" It dawns on me that I’ve been quiet this entire time.
Holy shit.
A baby. My sunshine’s going to give me a little rainbow.
“Fuck no,” I grunt, rolling her over onto her back, my body hovering over hers. “You’re not leaving. This is home. Both yours, mine, and this little baby’s.” My hand moves down to her tummy, and she smiles, hope shining in her eyes.
“You’re not upset?”
“Were you worried I would be? Is that why you’ve been acting…off.”
“I just… I love you, Reed. I love you so much, and every day just gets better with us, and I was scared this was too much for you. Cou like peace and quiet and a baby obliterates that!.”
“Camila, I moved your sweet ass in here two days after I had you.”
“I know, but… a baby.”
“A baby,” I repeat with the biggest smile I think I’ve ever had. I kiss her lips and move down her body until my face is above her belly and I pull her shirt up. “You’re giving me a baby,” I say in wonder as I look at the tan flesh and glance back up at her with tears in my eyes.
“Are you happy?” she asks, and I laugh.
“Never been happier, baby,” I confess as I drop a kiss on her tummy. She strokes my hair, and we stay like that for a long time. I tell her how much I love her, and then I talk to my little guy or girl.
“Thank you,” she whispers hours later as we’re cuddled into one another, her head in the crook of my neck.
“For what?”
“For giving me a place to belong,” she says, and I hold her tighter.
My girl has been alone for a long time, and if I have anything to say about it, she will never feel that way again.
Not ever. If that wasn’t enough, my girl keeps talking, “Thank you for giving me this little family we’re about to start,” she whispers into the darkness, and fuck, my heart can’t stand when she’s this sweet.
“Thank you for giving my life a reason. Purpose,” I confess honestly, completely vulnerable.
That night, I love her nice and slow, letting my body tell her everything that’s in my heart. Just like I will for the rest of our lives.