Another Reason to Love

chapter 16

The restaurant was filled with people, mostly dressed in fancy clothing and drinking expensive wine. Lauren held Camila's hand comfortably as they followed the hostess to their table. Once they got there, Camila pulled out Lauren's chair, helping her get seated before she sat down in her own.

"Well, you're the most thoughtful person in the world today," Lauren commented after they had looked at their menus. "What brought all of this on?"

"Do I always need a reason to let my wife know how much I love her?" Camila asked. She reached across the table and took Lauren's hand.

Lauren laughed. "Just because you said that I'm going to assume there was a reason. Spill it, Camz."

Camila noticed how lovely Lauren's smile was tonight. She was glad that after a few rough weeks, she was seeing the return of that smile. "Alright. You caught me. I've noticed that lately you have been nervous about everything, you are feeling ill because of the morning sickness, and I just wanted to take away a little bit of your stress and give you an evening that shows you how much I love you."

"You really are the most thoughtful person in the world. Thank you," Lauren said, squeezing Camila's hand.

"Dinah Jane deserves a little credit too. We came up with the idea at preschool today," Camila revealed.

Lauren laughed. "I will definitely give credit where credit is due," she said. "You two normally come up with terrible ideas. This one was actually a good one, though."

The conversation was interrupted when their server came by to take their order. Her smile was bright and she had enormous blue eyes. Her hair was pulled back, but in an elegant way, not the way you would pull your hair back just to keep it from falling in your eyes. Lauren noticed that the woman was probably around their age.

"Hello, my name is Ashley. I'll be taking care of you tonight. Can I get you both something to drink?" the server asked. She first looked at Camila, who was scouring the wine menu.

All at once, Camila realized that her wife couldn't have any alcohol to drink because of the baby. She shut the menu. "I'll have some water with lemon, please," she told the server.

Lauren looked at Camila, wondering if she had made that decision based only on the fact that she couldn't have any alcohol. It took her a while to realize that Ashley was waiting patiently to take her drink order. It wasn't until Camila started waving her hands in front of Lauren that she finally spoke. "I'll have water with lemon as well."

"Alright, Ladies. I'll be right back with your drinks." Ashley winked at Lauren and walked away from their table. Camila felt her temperature rise about 10 degrees when she saw what happened between Lauren and their server.

"What was that?" Camila asked. She looked over at the table where her wife was still in thought.

Lauren lifted her eyes. "You know that you are allowed to have a drink when you want one, Camz. Please tell me you didn't just turn down a glass of wine at dinner because I can't have one."

Camila shifted slightly in her seat, wondering if she should say anything about how she was really talking about how their waitress had just winked at her wife. She sat there for a moment choosing her words wisely. She knew that if she were to string the wrong words together her wife might have a meltdown right there in the middle of their dinner date, so she tried to ignore the wink. "I decided that I would rather have water tonight," she said. She was only kind of lying. She did want to have water instead, but it was only because she didn't want to flaunt the alcohol in front of her pregnant wife.

Still wary of the whole scenario, Lauren started to pick at the hem of the fancy tablecloth. She wanted to believe Camila, but she knew her wife well enough to know that the thought had definitely crossed her mind that she couldn't have alcohol and Lauren was almost 100% sure that's why Camila had chosen to get another drink. Lauren shook her head to remove the thoughts. She was really going crazy with all of these pregnancy hormones. Every little thing caused her to think way too deeply into things. Camila wanted water so she ordered water. She needed to accept that and move on.