Page 22 of Oops, I'm Having My Best Friend’s Baby!

“I feel like…” Kai drifted off again.

“What?”

“I feel like you just stopped getting in touch so often, you know. Or I’d reach out to invite you to something and you’d always be busy or just couldn’t make it. I thought…”

“That I didn’t want to be friends anymore?”

The silence was answer enough. And maybe it was because of the darkness, the silence punctuated only by the dull sounds of waves against the side of the yacht, but Amy suddenly felt brave enough to match Kai’s honesty. To actually be vulnerable for once.

“I don’t know how to be rich,” she said, just letting the words form organically.

“Oh… okay?”

“I mean… our lives are so different now. You want to include me in things and invite me to events and whatever and…”

She trailed off, feeling her face turn red in the dark and shuffling the bed sheet further up under her chin.

“It won’t hurt my feelings,” Kai says gently. So Amy sniffed and tried to keep talking despite feeling like she’d exposed herself on a whole new level.

“I don’t like you paying for things or giving me gifts or whatever.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“This whole engagement thing is different because it’s like a favor I’m giving you. I’m helping you out. But going to dinners and stuff and fancy parties or events is awkward. I think maybe you sometimes forget that I can’t afford that stuff and… I sound like a spoiled brat complaining about you wanting to invite me to do fancy, cool things.”

“No, you don’t,” Kai said firmly. “You had to fight and scratch for everything you have.”

“So did you.”

“Yeah, but we’re in different places because that’s how life works. I embrace this sort of money, this sort of life, and it makes me feel better about growing up the way I did.”

“For me,” Amy said, focusing on the threads of the bed sheet beneath her fingernail, “it just makes me feel like I’m the little kid sitting on the sidelines. Which is stupid, I’m twenty-nine…”

“Amy,” Kai said, voice still gentle. “When we get off this boat, do you want to go get burgers in a random parking lot somewhere?”

Amy laughed. “Yeah. I actually really would.”

“Good, because the food here is great but far too healthy. I desperately need something deep fried in a vat of oil.”

“Same,” Amy said. “That’s all I need, you know. To sit in a car with you and eat burgers.”

“Okay,” he said, voice soft and warm. “Let’s do that, then.”

He paused before tacking on the next sentence. “Thank you for telling me that.”

“It’s okay,” Amy said.

The conversation drifted off after that, mostly because Kai was falling asleep in front of her eyes. But after getting all of that off her chest, Amy found herself with a much quieter mind, able to follow him into sleep.

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