Page 93 of Kai
“We were young and messing around,” I started, my voice tentative. “We both loved surfing. She was on track to go pro.”
“She?”Cece croaked.
“Yeah, she,” I said. “We’d just graduated from high school, and I was due to join the Marine Corps at the end of the summer. We had a great summer.” My lips twitched when I recalled some of the crazy things we did. “And then, she told me.”
Cece’s throat rippled with a swallow. “Who told you what?”
“Malia told me she was pregnant.”
Cece stiffened, and her eyes glittered with a flash of emotion.
“You have a kid?” she asked, her tone both surprised and accusatory, her eyes wide with shock. “Why have you never mentioned this before? You have a girlfriend? A wife? I asked ifyou—”
“I told you the truth,” I spoke over her, trying to stop her mind’s warp speed from spinning out of control. “Malia and I were eighteen. We’d had a senior year fling. We both thought of it as our last hurrah before we went our separate ways.”
“But then she got pregnant,” Cece realized.
“Accidentally, yes, we got pregnant.” He raked his hands through his hair. “Malia didn’t know about it for a while. She wasn’t paying attention, and we always used protection. By the time she found out and told me, she was already almost four months into the pregnancy.”
“Oh, shit.” Cece winced. “What did you do?”
“At first, I was mad. At myself, mostly. I’d taken every precaution, but I guess nature prevailed. Malia was mad too. She’d planned her future, a surfing career that didn’t include a kid. Or me. She said she was gonna terminate.”
“Did she?”
“I didn’t think it was the worst idea. I didn’t want to give up my own plans. But then I thought about the baby we’d made. That kid was my responsibility.”
“Had you ever considered being a father before?” Cece asked, her face guarded.
“As a matter of fact, I kind of expected I’d be a dad someday, but not at eighteen.”
Cece tried to suppress a flinch at my reply, but I saw it.
“My mom and dad had passed in my freshman year, and yet I’d had a great childhood and thought that one day, when I was older, as in much older, I would find the one fated for me and raise some happy kids.”
“I guess that’s what happens when you grow up in a happy family,” Cece murmured, then reluctantly asked, “Was Malia the one?”
“At eighteen? I had no clue, but the more I thought aboutit, the more I felt as if fate had chosen me to bring this little person into the world.”
“I can see that,” Cece said, her expression thoughtful. “I’m sure you’re a great dad—”
“Slow it down,” I suggested. “You’re getting ahead of me—”
“You’re a caregiver at heart,” she insisted. “It’s the way you’re wired.”
“I don’t know about that, but it took me a while to persuade Malia to keep the baby,” I continued before Cece’s assumptions got out of hand. “The summer turned hot and muggy as the weeks went by. She was so afraid of giving birth, of being a mom, of me being in the military, and she stuck alone with a kid instead of riding the waves. I got it. The thought of being a dad petrified me. I couldn’t blame her.”
“I can’t blame her either,” Cece offered. “Being a woman sucks fifty percent of the time.”
“I promised Malia so many things so she would have our baby. I told her that everything would be all right, that I’d always protect her and the baby. I swore that as soon as I finished bootcamp and got assigned to a duty station, I’d send for her. In my head, I mapped it all out. Base housing. Healthcare. Family life in the Corps, just as I’d grown up. I told her a baby wasn’t the end of her dreams, that I’d help with the kid, and we’d do this together. But…”
“But what?”
“By the end of the summer, she needed more than promises.” I remembered our fights, her tears, her demands. “She wanted to get married before I left.”
“And did you?”
“I thought we should wait a little, maybe grow our relationship until we were sure we were right for each other.”
