Straight Up Love (Boys of Jackson Harbor 2)

“I know you. I know what matters to you. Focus less on making the safest decision and more on making one that’s true to you.”

“Damn.” I prop my hands on my hips. “When did you get so wise?”

He grins. “I gotta jet. Let me know how dinner goes, and tell Molly I said hey.”

“Will do.”

He leaves, and I turn to look at the calendar on my fridge. My hectic schedule is all there—theater rehearsals, drama club meetings, and shifts at Jackson Brews. I love this life. I’m truly, truly grateful for everything that fills it. So grateful that I’ve spent years feeling guilty every time I wanted a little less busy and a little more meaning.

A baby. A family of my own.

Maybe Colton’s right. Maybe I should be a little less afraid of change and a little more willing to grab on to the life I want.

Ava

“I’m torn between the six-foot-tall physicist and the five-foot-eight therapist,” I tell Jake behind the bar on Friday. “I want my child to be smart but also empathetic, so it’s a tough decision.”

He folds his arms, and his dark T-shirt pulls across the bunching muscles in his shoulders. “You’re seriously choosing the father of your future child based on his height and profession alone?”

I shrug. “There’s some additional information too, but all other things being equal, the details are definitely limited.”

“So once you decide, then what happens?”

“Well, I’m going against the advice of the doctor at the clinic and taking the cheap route, which means self-insemination.”

“Turkey baster?”

I roll my eyes. “Not exactly.” But close.

“Why does the doctor advise against that?”

“The clinic offers all this fertility help, and he thinks that’s what I need. I want to be careful with my money, though, so I’d rather do it on my own. At least at first. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

“Fertility help?”

“You know, they’ll figure out when I’m ovulating and do the insertion at the best time. They can even give me some meds to make me ovulate, but all that costs money, so I want to try it this way first. Truth be told, I’m probably a prime candidate for the additional help, but I want to believe that my inability to get pregnant with Harrison was a fluke and doesn’t point to serious fertility issues.”

Jake winks at a girl across the counter and fills her beer before turning back to me. “Explain this to me. What makes the doctor think you need additional help?”

“I don’t have regular periods, so it’s hard for me to know when I’m fertile. I could buy those ovulation detectors, but really those are best used around the time you think you might be ovulating. Since I have no clue, it’s a giant waste of money.”

Wincing, he pulls a tap and pours himself a beer. I’m pretty sure the only time we’ve talked about this without Jake reaching for a drink was the morning at his apartment, and I’m starting to think he might have done so then too if it hadn’t been before noon. He looks horrified—like, truly horrified to be having this conversation—so I snap my mouth shut. I’ve been thinking about this so much that it poured out of me. I can’t tell Ellie because I know she’s not a fan of my plan anyway. But Jake’s a dude. He doesn’t want to hear about irregular periods and ovulation testers.

“I’m sorry,” I moan. “You were just being polite, and I responded with total diarrhea of the mouth. I’m becoming one of those women who overshares everything. I’m just trying to plan it all out before I get started, but I can’t plan like other women, and that’s frustrating.”

“Yeah.” He clears his throat and stares into his beer. “It’s too bad you can’t just have a guy you sleep with regularly, so you don’t have to worry about conserving the precious sperm for fertile moments.”

I grunt. “If I had a guy I slept with regularly, I wouldn’t be in this position, would I?”

He takes a long drink from his beer and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I guess not.”

“Am I being an entitled brat? I just want a baby. I’ve worked really hard to set my life up so I’d be in a good position for a family. I have summers off, and I’ve worked two jobs so I could pay off my little house and have a good nest egg. I don’t drive a fancy car or go on elaborate vacations. I make good decisions because—” I snap my mouth shut and shake my head. “I am. I’m being an entitled brat. I think that just because I want something, I should have it and I should have it now. But it’s gonna be fine.”

Jake rubs the back of his neck and stares at me. “Fuck,” he mutters. Then he grabs my arm and pulls me through the swinging door into the kitchen. “On your birthday, were you serious when you asked me to help you?”

“I mean, drunk serious, but yeah.” I make a face. Did I ever properly apologize for putting him in that position? I am the worst. “Jake, I’m sorry about that. No one should ever ask something that big from a friend.”

He taps his fingers to his lips and studies me. “You know you’re never going to get knocked up on your own if you’re this stressed about it.”