“Should’ve let me know?” My tone was incredulous. “What do you mean, let me know? You should’ve never made that decision.”
Ace’s lips pinched. “It was a little spur of the moment. The kid—”
“Aiden. His name is Aiden,” I said, cutting Ace off. “He’s notthe kid. And he’s not…” I snapped my mouth shut.
“Not who?”
“He’s not AJ,” I fumed.
Ace took a step back as if I’d shoved him, but I kept going.
“He’s not our son, Ace. Our baby died. Aiden is not a replacement for the son we lost.”
Ace stood there, glaring down at me once I finished. The look in his eyes turned cold. I hadn’t seen such a stony, icy look in them since I first arrived in Harlington. My stomach churned in anguish.
“That’s what you fucking think?” He growled low. “You think I don’t know the fucking difference between Aiden and our son?” It was his voice now that turned incredulous.
“You should’ve taken him to school,” I murmured, avoiding his question.
His nostrils flared in anger. “Don’t ever worry about it happening again.” He charged past me.
I turned and watched him stomp up to the front of the door and pass through without a backward glance.
When I made my way back inside, my entire body felt heavier than it had when I awakened that morning. Not only had I been confronted by the man who threatened to tell Aiden’s birth father about him, but I knew I’d hurt Ace’s feelings.
“Where did Mr. Ace go?” Aiden asked as I entered the living room. “We weren’t finished with our game.”
“Help me clean up these pillows,” I told Aiden instead of answering his questions. I could hear Ace moving around upstairs and knew I likely wouldn’t see him for the rest of the evening.
“Way to go, Savannah,” I mumbled to myself.
CHAPTER15
Ace
Two and a half weeks after that bullshit argument with Savannah, I pushed through the doors of some dive bar outside of Vegas. My squadron and I had been in Nevada for specialized training.
We were due to head back to Texas in two days.
Since the rigorous part of our training passed, and we had the following day off, all I wanted to do was get shitfaced and forget the bullshit in my personal life. Work and flying were the only things that kept my mind off of Savannah and Aiden.
The downtime was the most brutal.
My heart felt like it twisted in my chest just thinking about them.
“Hey, have you been here before?” Josh, more commonly referred to as Hazard, his call sign, asked.
“Once or twice,” I answered as I held up two fingers to the bartender. A minute later, she slid two ice cold beers down the wooden bar. I caught both of them with ease in either hand.
“Someone’s planning on getting trashed tonight,” Blake, another member of the squadron, said.
“Easy with that shit,” Maple commented, patting me on the shoulder. “We have to fly in two days.
I shrugged him off. “I know how to do my job.” The last thing a fighter pilot wanted was to be hungover or dehydrated when climbing into the cockpit. It could mean the difference between life and death.
Though I wanted to get plastered, I would cut myself off after two beers to prevent later issues. The beers would give me at least a bit of a buzz.
“That was some flight today,” Blake said to Maple as we strolled over to an empty set of tables in the middle of the small bar.
