Page 27 of You Are Cordially Invited

The back of my head hit the booth and I closed my eyes. In truth, I was desperate to talk withsomeone—my head a mess of conflicted emotions, bile churning in my stomach. Also true—there was probably no better choice than Sandy.

Oh god.I swallowed hard and opened my eyes, hoping I was doing the right thing. “Okay, okay.” I leaned forward on the table. “I’ll tell you, but you have to swear to say nothing, and only because you mentioned that you and Miller were thinking of starting your own family.”

Sandy’s brow creased.

“At your brother’s fortieth a couple of months back,” I reminded him.

“Oh, right.” He smiled. “So is it something to do with Cory?”

“No.” I locked eyes and took a deep breath. “We’ve been given the opportunity to adopt a baby.”

“A baby?” His eyes popped and a smile instantly appeared. But he schooled it to something more neutral when my lack of excitement became apparent.

I explained, “An adoption from inside my family. My young cousin’s pregnant, fifteen weeks, and she’s asked us if we would be interested in being her baby’s legal parents.”

He fell back against the booth and blew a long, low whistle. “Wow.”

“Yeah, wow.”

“But that’s great, right?” He smiled once again. “I mean, Miller and I have just started looking into surrogacy, but man, that’s a complicated path. To have the possibility of an adoption just come out of the blue like that, well, shit, that’s amazing, Cam.” He noted my frown. “Isn’t it?”

I slipped down in my seat and pushed my champagne flute aside. “You’d think so, but it’s not that simple.”

He studied me for a few seconds. “Okay. Tell me.”

And so I did. And by the time I was done, Sandy’s expression was as pinched as my own.

“Well, fuck me. You guys sure know how to complicate shit.”

I blew out a sigh. “Tell me about it.”

He looked thoughtful and I waited. Sandy was one of the few people whose opinion I paid the slightest bit of attention to. He’d been through a lot learning to accept himself, and we kind of got each other in that way, except he was one of life’s nice guys, whereas I... was a work in progress.

He met my eyes with a soft look. “But regardless of all that shit, I’d have thought the decision is still kinda simple.”

“Funny, I must’ve missed that bit,” I deadpanned.

He huffed. “I’m not saying all that other stuff doesn’t matter, babe. I’m just saying that it probably boils down to the same question at heart, and sometimes our brain just overcomplicates it. I mean, Stella didn’t have achoice, right? She’s had to face this life-changing event, along with millions of others who fall pregnant at inopportune moments in their lives, or whose families disintegrate for lots of reasons and need someone to take up a parent role they weren’t expecting.”

I saw where he was going. “So, what you’re saying is that actually having a choice might be crowding out the basics?”

“Yeah, I’m just playing with it though, so feel free to ignore me. But I wonder if it would help to clarify things, if you just imagine what you’d feel if this landed on youwithouta choice? What if you’d just found out you were pregnant?”

My brows hit my hairline. “I’d earn a fuckton of money on the talk shows. Also, you worry me sometimes, but okay...” I closed my eyes and imagined being hit by that life-changing information.

Panic filled my chest, and all those same worries alarmed in my head. “Terrified,” I answered, opening my eyes to find him watching me intently.

He wasn’t fooled.

There’d been more than just panic.

“And?” he pressed.

I narrowed my eyes. “You are way too good at this, but okay.Andexcited.And... full.” My hand covered my chest. “In here.” I side-eyed him. “Fuck, you’re clever.”

He smirked and blew me a kiss. “I know. It doesn’t mean you should agree to adopt this baby, but—”

“At least I know that I want it, yeah, I got that part. And Reuben saw the same thing in me, so you can wipe that smug look off your face.” I blew out a shaky breath. “But it helped to think of it like that, without a choice, I mean, so thanks. And if you asked my mother—she’s practically got booties swinging in her eyeballs already. God knows what she’ll say if we turn the baby down.”

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