After a while, he leaned over me to look out the window and we both watched the ground approaching. “Don’t try to carry your bag again, ok? I’m getting it down for you,” he told me.
“Sure, sure.” I was more worried about what was in the bag. I had been ok wearing big-ish sweaters to work and his t-shirts over my PJ bottoms around the house, but that wasn’t going to be possible once we were in the Florida sunshine. Summer clothes were going to show off quite a bit more than I wanted to.
César did take my bag and rolled it through the airport once we had landed in Tampa. “Look,” he said, nudging me. There was a small group of people ahead of us, holding balloons and flowers. “They all come to meet me, like I’m getting home from war or something. Every time,” he said, embarrassed but obviously also happy.
I hung back as he got a huge grin and was enveloped in hugs from his family. “Meet Camdyn,” he told them, and put his arm around me to pull me forward. I met his mom, Ana, and his sister, Valeria, and his Grandma Miriam. They all hugged and kissed me, and his mom was clearly overjoyed. “We’re so glad to have you here, we’re so happy about the baby,” she kept telling me. Valeria, his sister, hung back, and César walked out with her to the car, still pulling my bag. The family talked in a mix of English (which I understood) and Spanish (which my studies hadn’t helped me to understand at all). We drove over two bridges to a beautiful town on the Gulf of Mexico where both Valeria and César had their homes.
“Let me go,” he told his mom as we got out of the car and she still held his arms. “We’ll be down to Valeria’s in a few minutes. I swear.”
She kissed him again. “I’m happy to see your face. We all missed you so much.”
“All of you missed me?” he asked. “Not everyone came to the airport.” I had also noticed that his dad hadn’t been there.
“Every single one of us loves you and missed you,” his mom told him firmly, and she finally tore herself away.
César’s house was beautiful. It wasn’t anything like his rental in Michigan with the excess and gilt—this was like walking into a beach cabana, all blues and whites and breezy. The whole back of the house opened, first to a pool and then to the beach with the ocean beyond it.
“Do you like it?” he asked me.
“I love it. This is amazing! I understand why you want to be down here all the time,” I told him, and his shoulders dropped, like he relaxed.
He carried my bag up the stairs and I followed. “This is my bedroom, and this is yours,” he said. “I’m giving you the one next to mine like we have in Michigan, in case you get homesick. Come on, change and let’s go.”
“What are you planning for us to do right now? Like, what should I wear?” I asked nervously.
“A bathing suit, right? We’ll head to the beach and take out my boat. We can sail down to my sister’s house.” He shut the door behind himself as he left my bedroom.
A bathing suit. Right. I stood and looked out the window for a moment before I quickly put on my bikini, not even glancing at myself in the mirror. Then I threw on a big shirt and my old cutoffs.
“We’ll stay close to shore,” César told me as he got the little sailboat ready. “There’s not much wind today, so it will be a slow trip.” He handed me a life jacket.
I nodded. “I love boats and I’m a good swimmer. I was on a team for a few years.”
“Good. We just need to be careful.” He looked at my stomach, covered by the thick life jacket.
“Will your dad be down at your sister’s house?” I asked, and he frowned.
“Yeah. I may as well get it over with,” he told me. Then he pulled off his shirt and I had to wipe drool off my chin with the back of my hand. Despite the fact that the beach was nearly empty, a small crowd started to form around César in his trunks. He managed to separate himself and we left.
“Doing ok? Is this making you sick?” he asked me as we skimmed along the water parallel to the shore, the little sail puffed out in the slight breeze.
“No, it’s wonderful.” I lay on my back and trailed my fingers through the salty ocean. Waves splashed gently over me and I practically purred with happiness. His sister’s house wasn’t too far down the beach, and way too soon I was sliding down into the water so César could pull the boat up on the sand. I tossed my life jacket into the small footwell in the hull.
“That’s her…” he started to say, but stopped and froze, staring at me. “Camdyn.”
I looked down at where my wet t-shirt cupped my tummy. My bump. It wasn’t very big, but it was there.
César walked across the beach to me, still transfixed. He reached for the bottom of my shirt and I let him pull it over my head, exposing that I had left open the top two buttons of my cutoffs, because I couldn’t fasten them anymore. “Can I?” he asked, and stretched out his hand, stopping before he touched me.
I nodded, frozen myself. He palmed my stomach, stepping to me with his chest to my side. He put his other arm around my back and I leaned into him, feeling his sun-warmed skin.
“There she is,” he murmured, and smiled down at his hand.
“I think it’s a girl too,” I said, my voice breathy. He was so warm, so close. “In my mind, I always say ‘her.’ We’ll find out for sure next week.”
He nodded, still transfixed. “I couldn’t see
