Chapter Twenty-Eight - The Trip We Took Anyway

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The Trip We Took Anyway

WE ALMOST CANCELED.

It felt irresponsible.
Flying across the ocean with the secret still barely real, her hormones acting like they were directing a telenovela, and me watching YouTube videos called “So You’re Gonna Be a Dad?! (10 Tips That Won’t Help at All).”

But she looked at me, half-packed bag on the floor, boarding passes open on the laptop, and said, "We’re still us, right?"

And I said,
“Yeah. We’re just us… plus a little hitchhiker now.”

She laughed.
And we went.

The flight was hell.
She cried during the safety video and turbulence.
I spilled orange juice and complained about airplane mode.
We argued about whether she could eat peanuts.

But when we landed?

Oh man.

Hawaii hit like a dream we forgot we’d had.
Salt air. Warm rain. The smell of mangoes and street food and second chances.

We didn’t do much.

She napped a lot.
I rubbed her feet a lot.
We laid in hammocks and talked about names.
What if it’s a girl?
What if it’s twins?
What if we suck at this?

And every time she got overwhelmed, she’d put my hand on her belly, even though it was still flat, and whisper, “He’s gonna be just like you.”

And I’d whisper back, “God, I hope not.”

One night we found this little beach no one else was on.
She danced in the water while I played songs on my phone.
Said it felt like we were the only two people on Earth.

We didn’t take a single photo that night.

Didn’t need to.

We lived it.

That trip wasn’t a babymoon.
It wasn’t an escape.
It was an anchor.

A slow, sun-soaked reminder that before we were parents, before we were married, before we became a unit of three, we were just two wild hearts who said yes to an adventure.

And this?
This was just the next one.