Page 34 of Oops, I'm Having My Best Friend’s Baby!

CHAPTER 12

AMY

The final evening on board had rolled around and Amy was having a whole host of mixed feelings. It was kind of scary, if she was being honest, how quickly she’d settled into this sort of life; the luxury and ease of it all. She’d felt so awkward at first, so out of place, like this was all some sort of weird fever dream. Like she’d stumbled onto a stage while a play was happening and she just had to follow on as best as she could. But now it was all so familiar that the boat felt homey, which was a ridiculous thing to say about a mega yacht, but it was true. Maybe it was the people that had her feeling nostalgic over a luxury vessel that she’d only been on for a week.

She’d only done this for Kai, to help him out, and she had waltzed in here thinking Jason and Jess would be cartoon cutouts of rich people, empty and flat. So how was it, that in such a short space of time, Amy knew that she was going to miss seeing them every day. Jason was loud and obnoxious, sure, but he was funny and sweet. He doted on Jess like she was a princess, and he took his business seriously, working harder than Amy thought possible anyone in an office could work.

And Jess… There was a pang of guilt when she thought about how much she liked Jess, because her first impression was just some pretty blond woman who’d never experienced a lick of hardship in her life. Amy had taken one look at her and thought bully, past traumas and experiences overriding the present. And now here she was, hoping that they would stay in touch, knowing that she was going to miss having Jess bouncing around happily every morning, excited for whatever the world had in store. Not only that, but Amy also wanted to protect her, much like Jason protected her, from people who were so much harsher and more miserable and wanting to take Jess down with them.

Suffice it to say, there was a lot going on in Amy’s head as dusk hit and not a whole lot she could do about it. She was definitely going to make the most of the cocktails on board, though, and was savoring her mai tai as if it was the nectar of the gods.

“I should probably branch out,” said Jason, appearing beside her and leaning on the yacht’s railing, a beer in hand, nodding at Amy’s drink. “I like routine too much, though.”

“You seem pretty adventurous to me,” Amy said. “I mean, we went on jet skis yesterday.”

“Yeah, but it was a pre-planned jet ski trip. I like a good schedule.”

“It’s not often someone makes an effort to convince you that they’re actually boring.”

“Yeah, but you’re cool,” Jason said with a shrug, sipping his beer as they watched the horizon. “You’ve got your head screwed on right. You know what’s really important.”

Amy couldn’t help but be touched by such a simple-sounding compliment.

“I’ve had a really great time,” she said, hoping how sincere she felt about it came across in her voice. Apparently, it did because Jason looked at her and grinned.

“I’m glad. Jess adores you. It’s been really great for her to have a new friend, you know? And I mean it makes total sense now why Kai was willing to blow off a meeting months in the making to be with you instead.”

Amy blinked a couple of times, waiting for her brain to catch up to what Jason just said.

“Sorry, what?”

But Jason just assumed she hadn’t heard him over the clash of the breeze and the waves. “Our original meeting to get things officially signed, you know, to start having our companies doing a whole supply and demand thing. Remember? It was supposed to be the evening that you had that high school reunion going on. Kai said he had something more important and canceled on me at the last minute. And I mean, I get it, you know. You’ve gotta make time for your family. But the idiot could have just told me, and I would have understood. Instead, he had me questioning if I was even going to keep doing business with him. Communication, man, it’s all about communication. But it all turned out good in the end, huh?”

“Uh, yeah. Definitely. Communication.”

“See, you get it,” he said with a jolly grin and raised his beer to her. “I’m gonna go get another one of these. You need another drink before dinner gets started?”

“No, thanks, I’m good.”

He wandered off, on top of the world, leaving Amy feeling even more overwhelmed and confused than before.

Kai had said that the meeting was canceled, no… rescheduled. That was what he’d said. He’d mentioned nothing about the fact that, apparently, he ditched it at the last minute in order to come to the high school reunion with her, and she knew that he had done it all because she’d been begging him for help at the last possible second. He’d canceled an insanely important meeting because she had been scared and desperate and needed her friend.

She needed to sit down, the realization of it all hitting her like a ton of bricks.

His career, his company, making his way up the never-ending ladder of business, all of it was so important to Kai. Achieving these sorts of heights was what had gotten him through school, through college, and out the other side. She’d never seen him jeopardize any of that for anything. But apparently, he’d been prepared to throw away one of the biggest opportunities to ever fall into his lap for her. And he hadn’t told her, hadn’t expected anything in return. He could have guilt-tripped her into coming on this yacht trip with him to fix it all, but he hadn’t. She knew without a doubt that if she’d said no, then he wouldn’t have pushed it. He would have just accepted his fate.

The crush she’d been trying to ignore, suppress and stamp out altogether flared back to life in her chest with enough intensity that Amy could no longer keep lying to herself and call it a crush. She didn’t know what it was, but it was something else altogether. And learning what Kai had done, just to make her happy with no other expectations, only added fuel to the flames.

Then there was the whole matter of the kiss they had shared in the pool yesterday afternoon… She had treated his suggestion to “act out” a kiss as a joke because, at first, that’s all it was. She was in denial about her feelings for him, and she had never, not in the entire time she’d known the guy, even entertained the notion that he could feel anything for her. Amy had parked herself so firmly in the “friendship” category that nothing else was even a possibility in her mind. So she’d gone through with the kiss because Kai was acting so awkward and it was funny, and maybe he was right that in order to sell their engagement, they needed to show more affection than just sitting next to each other. But then the kiss had changed, morphing into something that wasn’t just pretend. By the time she had pulled away, it hadn’t been pretend at all, from either of them. She’d pretty much run away from the whole situation, and neither of them had mentioned it.

God, she was an idiot. She was an idiot, and she was a coward, and maybe it was time to step up and be braver about what it was she wanted in her life.

Amy stayed out on deck late that night, just needing some time alone to think. She went over everything thoroughly, analyzing her every interaction with Kai through the lens that maybe, just maybe, he might feel the same way about her. She really was ridiculous. They both were. And she really was a coward to have never thought to do anything about it until now. But if she left it any longer before confronting Kai about her feelings, then she really would be missing out… It was going to have to be now or never because she had the feeling that if she waited until they were back on land again, she’d sink quickly into old habits and convince herself that she was just being silly. So, it would have to be tonight.

When she entered their cabin, the lights were still on and Kai was reading on the sofa, still fully dressed.

“Not tired?” she asked, sitting down next to him.

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