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“I think so too, and I already call them my little monkeys,” she said softly. “Though I know they aren’t mine.”
Without thinking, I took Bella’s hand in mine and turned her toward me. I lifted her chin up to meet my gaze. “Bella, did I ever tell you why I was happy you offered to be my surrogate?”
She shook her head.
“It’s because I admire you. Your brains, your ambition, everything you’ve become despite your shitty upbringing,” I said. “And I understand that those traits aren’t just magically inherited.”
I wasn’t even sure what I was trying to say. My heart was pounding, and she just stared up at me, almost as if in shock that I had my hands on her. Shit. I let go of her and stepped back, remembering what Ava had told me about respecting Bella’s boundaries. I shouldn’t have touched her, not like that.
“Anyway, what I am trying to say is… I know you’re going to be in our lives, you and Ava have been best friends since kindergarten, and I don’t see you going anywhere once the babies are born. I don’t expect you to just disappear, you know? I’m not sure what the relationship will look like between you and them, but I do hope that you will be in their lives.”
My words seemed to relax Bella. She took a deep breath and seemed to ponder what I was saying.
“Thank you, Gabe. I know that I won’t be able to be their mother, not in a traditional sense, but it means a lot to me that I will still get to be in their lives.”
“Absolutely. Everything I’ve read has said that it’s actually a good idea for the babies to know where they came from, and I want what’s best for them, and for you.”
She smiled again, and it was like someone was doing somersaults in my belly.
Shit. When did she grow into such a gorgeous young woman? I had always known she was pretty, but looking at her now… I could hardly believe this was the same freckle-faced kid who used to sleep over with my sister and giggle every time I walked into the room.
She was beautiful, and so grown-up. So mature. So smart. Everything I could have wanted in a mother for my future children.
And she’d been in front of me all along.
3
Bella
Istared at my phone for a long time, working up the nerve to hit the call button. Finally, after a deep breath and some pacing in my room, I went for it. It rang three times, and I half expected it to go to voicemail when my mom’s voice finally came through on the other end of the phone.
“Bella?”
“Yes, Mom,” I said. “How are you? I haven’t heard from you in a bit.”
“Just busy with work,” she said, not even bothering to ask how I was doing.
“Yeah, I know things have been hard since Dad, well—”
“Since he got locked up? Yeah, it’s been really fucking hard.” Her tone was harsh, not that I was surprised. She had every right to be angry at my dad, considering he was going to be in prison for a long time.
“I know, and I’m sorry.”
“Have you spoken with him?” Mom asked me.
“Not since the trial, no,” I said. That was over a year ago. Considering we didn’t really talk much before that, not speaking to him for so long wasn’t hard.
“I can’t believe that shithead got caught,” my mom muttered. “I was always telling him to stop making fake IDs for those high school kids, they don’t need to be drinking at sixteen, but he said they paid well and that’s why he did it. Not well enough if you ask me, look where it got him.”
I knew that my dad was in prison for forging IDs and other legal documents. It’s how he’d made a living, apparently. I’d had no idea; my parents had kept it hidden from me growing up. Or they tried to at least. Dad had been selling IDs to my classmates for years and they all told me about it in high school. It finally caught up to him.
I cleared my throat. “Anyway, Mom, I was calling because I have some exciting news to share.”
I waited for some response from her, but I was met with silence, so I continued. “I’m a surrogate for Gabe De Luca, you know Ava’s older brother?”
“You’re what?” she asked.
“A surrogate. I’m carrying his babies.”
