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CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

JADE'S 24TH BIRTHDAY

JADE

So today is my 24 th birthday and I got a gift I wasn’t expecting. It’s a good gift, and it’s what I wanted, but I didn’t think this little present would arrive so soon.

I went off the pill last July. I didn’t tell Garret, because for one, he was traveling at the time and I didn’t even think to tell him, and two, the doctor said it might take a while for my body to get back on its regular cycle and I wanted to get it on track before we started trying for a baby. According to my doctor, it can take months to get pregnant after going off the pill. But apparently, I’m the exception to the rule.

The past few weeks, I haven’t felt so great. I haven’t felt sick, just really tired. I hid it from Garret the best I could because if he knew, he’d think I’m sick and he’d make me go to the doctor. And I didn’t need to go. I was just tired. I thought maybe I wasn’t sleeping well or maybe going off the pill messed up my body. I thought the tired feeling would go away, but it didn’t. It just got worse. I could hardly keep my eyes open during the day. I was starting to get worried that maybe I really was sick, so I called the doctor and the only appointment they had open this week was for today. My birthday. Who wants to go to the doctor on their birthday? But I wanted to find out what was wrong with me. I assumed I had to be sick if I was that tired all the time.

Turns out, I’m not sick. I’m pregnant. When the doctor told me, I asked her to test me again to make sure. I didn’t believe her. I thought it would take at least six months for this to happen, maybe a year.

But nope. It happened right away. And now I have to tell Garret. I’m a little worried he might be mad at me for not telling him I went off the pill. We said we’d start trying to have a baby when we turned 24, but we said that a long time ago. Since then, we haven’t really discussed it. He has so much going on right now with the company that I’m worried he’s not ready to have a baby. That maybe he wants to wait. But it’s too late now. I’m pregnant. And I’m not sure how he’ll react.

GARRET

It’s Jade’s birthday and I got stuck going to a meeting for work. It was the only time I could get all the right people in a room to make some decisions that had to be made in order to move forward with some stuff. But there was no way I was going to waste even more hours of Jade’s birthday driving down to the company headquarters in LA, so I made my employees drive here. We’re meeting in a hotel conference room. I rent out an office in town but it doesn’t have enough space to hold meetings.

I made Jade breakfast this morning, then went to my meeting. I scheduled it to end at noon so that I’d be home in time to have lunch with her. She wasn’t upset that I had to go to this meeting. In fact, she seemed like she was in a hurry to get rid of me. She acted like she had somewhere to go. Maybe she had errands to run and wanted to get them done before I got home.

As long as she’s okay with it, I don’t mind going to the meeting. I love my job. The company is a lot of work, but I love it. I’ve always dreamed of running my own company, and the fact that I ended up with a sporting goods company shoots that dream straight out of the ballpark.

My life is pretty fucking awesome. I have the best wife ever, who I love more than anything. I live in a beautiful house on the ocean. And I own a company that sells sports gear. I mean, shit, it can’t get any better than that.

I’ve got some balance in my life now, too. Last year, I was working way too many hours and traveling too much. It was stressful on both Jade and me and I didn’t even realize I’d been working that much until my birthday. I’d been traveling for two weeks straight, which is the longest I’d been away from Jade since we got married. When I finally got home and we were together that night, it hit me that my life had gotten off track. I was becoming my father and that scared the shit out of me. I don’t want to work all the time. I want to spend my time with Jade. Enjoy our house. Our life. And I wasn’t doing that when I was constantly working. Now my life is more balanced. Less work, more time at home. I like it that way.

When I get home from my meeting, Jade is waiting for me in the living room, which is odd because she’s usually in the kitchen. She still doesn’t cook much but she likes hanging out there. We have a huge kitchen with a see-through fireplace. On one side of it is a little sitting area where Jade likes to read or drink her coffee in the morning. Or she’ll just sit there and gaze out at the ocean. The kitchen is in the back of the house, which is all windows and has a great view of the ocean.

“Hey, birthday girl.” I take a seat next to her on the couch. “What are you doing in here? The TV isn’t even on.”

“I was waiting for you.”

“Well, here I am.” I kiss her. “I’m taking you out to lunch. You ready to go?”

“Not yet. I want to talk to you about something first.”

That doesn’t sound good. But she’s smiling so it can’t be that bad.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I want to go over some of the new products I think we should stock in the store this spring.”

I put Jade in charge of the women’s merchandise in our stores. And damn, she’s good at it. She seems to know exactly what our customers want. We sell out of the women’s clothing and gear way faster than the men’s.

“Jade, we can do this later. We don’t need to go over it now. I don’t want to talk about work on your birthday.”

“I know, but I’m excited about this and I wanted to ask your opinion.”

She does look excited. She’s on the edge of her seat, her face beaming.

“Okay, go ahead.”

“I was thinking we should start carrying baby and kid clothes. A lot of parents shop at our stores and I know they’d buy kids’ clothes if they were there. We don’t have to change the whole store layout around. I was thinking we could just start small, with some displays, maybe in the women’s section.”

“I think it’s a good idea. At the last marketing meeting, we were just talking about this. Someone mentioned that customers were asking why we don’t sell stuff for kids. I think we should look into it.”

She pulls a small bag out from behind her back. “I got some samples to show you what I’m talking about.”

She hands me the bag. I open it up and take out the tiniest pair of board shorts I’ve ever seen. They’re bright green with a white stripe on the side. Then I pull out a tiny white rash guard t-shirt. “Are these for infants?”

“Yeah. Aren’t they cute?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if we want to sell clothing for infants. We should probably start with stuff for older kids first. See how it sells.”

She takes the board shorts and t-shirt from me and holds them up. “If I was a surfer and saw these in the store, I’d totally buy them. Parents like to dress their kids the same way they dress. So surfers would definitely buy this stuff for their baby. I know they would.”

I lean over and kiss her. “Well, you seem to know this stuff so I trust you. If you want to try this in the stores, we’ll try it. But we’ll need to test it at a few locations first to see how it sells before rolling it out to all the other stores.”

“Then I’ll start looking for suppliers.”

“Talk to Christine. She already knows all the suppliers. It’ll save you a lot of time.”

“Okay.” Jade hands me the clothes again. “Here.”

I laugh. “What am I supposed to do with these?” I hold up the tiny shirt that’s about the size of my hand. “It’s a little small for me, Jade.”

She nods, nervously. “Yeah. I know.”

I put my hand on her arm. “Jade, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just—” She takes a breath. “I don’t want you to be mad at me.”

“Why would I be mad at you?” I set the clothes down and hold her hand.

“Because I—” She takes another breath.

“Jade. Just tell me.”

“Um, I had something else to show you.” She reaches behind her back again and hands me another tiny shirt. Just a plain white t-shirt with some words on it.

I hold it up. It says ‘Daddy’s Little Surfer’ and has a surfboard on it. “Yeah, it’s a cute. I’m sure the customers will love it.”

Jade’s giving me this look and I don’t know what it means. I set the shirt down but she gives it right back to me.

“It’s not for the customers. It’s for you.” She pauses. “I mean, not for you specifically, but for—” She stops.

I still don’t know what she’s trying to tell me or why she’s so nervous about it. She’s looking down at my hands, which are still holding the tiny ‘Daddy’s Little Surfer’ shirt.

Wait. Is she telling me what I think she’s telling me? That can’t be right. She’s on the pill. We had planned on starting a family this year, but we haven’t talked about it for a while. I was thinking Jade wanted to wait a little longer. Maybe she missed her period and just thinks she’s pregnant, like she did right after we got married. But if that were the case, she would’ve taken a pregnancy test. Maybe she did.

“Jade, are you telling me you’re—”

“Pregnant.” Her eyes move up to mine. “For real this time.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I went to the doctor this morning.”

I cautiously smile, not sure I believe this. “You’re not joking here, right? You’re really serious?”

She shakes her head. “I’m not joking.”

“We’re having a baby?” I grab her and pull her into a hug. “We’re really having a baby?”

“Yeah,” she says softly. “Are you mad at me?”

I let her go just enough to look at her. She looks worried.

“God, no. Why would I be mad at you?”

“Because I went off the pill in July and I didn’t tell you. You were out of town and when we talked on the phone, I didn’t even think about it. And then you were gone all those weeks in August before your birthday and then after that I—”

“Jade.” I kiss her. “You don’t have to explain.”

“I just never thought this would happen so soon. The doctor said it takes months to get pregnant after you go off the pill. But I guess that’s not true for everyone. I’m sorry, Garret. I should’ve talked to you before I went off the pill.”

I hold her face and set my eyes on hers. “Jade. I want this. I’ve always wanted this with you. I didn’t give a shit when it happened.”

She smiles. “So you’re happy?”

“Are you kidding? I’m more than happy.” I hug her, then gently push her back so I can see her face. “Jade, are you happy about this?”

She nods, smiling. “Yeah. It’s what I want. It’s exactly what I want. I just wanted to make sure it’s what you wanted, too. I mean, the timing of it.”

“You can have as many babies as you want, whenever the hell you want them, and I’d still be happy. I’d have a thousand babies with you.”

She laughs. “Let’s just have this first one and see how it goes.”

I glance down at her stomach. Holy shit! There’s a baby in there. My baby.

I look back at Jade, holding her hands. “What did the doctor say? Are you okay? Is the baby okay?”

“Everything’s fine so far. My next appointment’s in a few weeks.”

“How do you feel?”

“Okay, except for being really tired. I couldn’t figure out why I’ve been so tired the past few weeks. That’s why I went to the doctor. I thought I was sick or something.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“Because you worry too much. I was just tired. I didn’t feel sick.”

“So you haven’t been sick? Like morning sickness or anything?”

“No, I didn’t have any other symptoms except missing my period, but the doctor said that might happen after going off the pill. That’s why I didn’t think I was pregnant.”

“Do you know your due date?”

She smiles. “May 15 th .”

I smile back. “The day I proposed.”

“And the day you told me you were free from the organization. It was a really good day. And it’s going to be even better now. There’s something else, too.”

“What?”

“The doctor can’t say for sure, but she thinks I conceived on August 22 nd .”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Your birthday. So we made the baby on your birthday and found out about it on mine. And our baby will arrive on the day we got engaged. I guess this baby’s into celebrations, just like you. She’s just like her dad.”

“She? You already know—”

“No. I just didn’t want to call our baby ‘it.’”

“Our baby.” I smile as I hug her against my chest. “I like the sound of that. Actually, I fucking love the sound of that. I can’t believe we’re having a baby.”

“I know. I can’t either. It hasn’t really sunk in yet.”

I sit back and look at her. “I love you. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.”

“Holy shit. We’re having a baby!”

Jade laughs and I hug her again. Then I take her for lunch, then a movie, then out for a nice dinner, followed by a romantic sunset cruise on a sailboat. Jade still loves sailboats.

Later, when we’re in bed, Jade thanks me for giving her a great birthday. But the fancy dinner and sunset cruise were nothing compared to the news we got today.

It’s Jade’s birthday, but we both got a gift. A gift that will make our life together even better.