Page 180 of Always Us

Jade's 24th Birthday

JADE

So today is my 24th 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?”

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