“Aston,” I whispered, “I don’t think I can. I’ve been waiting for this moment, it seems ... all my life. But I don’t think I can now. It hurts. The memory of what we were, what we could have been, what later happened. There are too many sides, too many lies,” I said, rambling as my eyes began to sting.
He held my face close, looking deeply into my eyes. “Love isn’t scripted. It’s not a movie or a book where there’s a formula. There’s no plan. In real life, it just happens. This is our story, and it’s my time to come back into your life. We may have had a messy middle, only to get a little messier with this shit going on. But the ending is going to be perfect.”
I felt weak everywhere. My heart, my knees, even my toes. “How can you be sure?”
Ignoring my question, he said, “Now we’re going to eat, and then I’ll tell you what I learned. Go sit.”
Somehow the tables had been turned. I was now sitting on my kitchen stool, and Aston was walking toward me with half an omelet.
“Coffee? Pancakes?”
I could only nod. He poured me a cup of coffee, and I couldn’t help myself. “You make pancakes?”
“Damn straight.” Without another word, he started rifling through my cabinets, apparently looking for pancake mix.
Aston
“Here, take this, and we’ll talk.” I handed Bexley the coffee and took a plate for myself.
As she took a long sip, I watched her swallow. It was a beautiful sight. Bexley had always thought she was plain, had never realized how stunning she truly was. She was natural and real, everything I’d never been exposed to, and all I ever wanted to have.
It hadn’t been possible years ago, but now it was. I was through with being a pussy. Through bending for my dad. And definitely through with being accused of something I didn’t do.
I grabbed my plate and a cup of coffee for myself and stood next to where she sat on the stool, leaning my hip against the counter. “My dad thinks you and Milly had something to do with all of this.”
“What?” Bexley jerked as she looked up, almost knocking her coffee off the counter.
“He does, and now I have to prove him wrong, in addition to proving my own innocence. So I need to ask you ... do you think Milly would do something like this?”
“How dare you!” Bexley went to get up, and I eased her back onto the stool.
“There’s a lot going on with Milly that you don’t know about. Try not to get your panties in a bunch.”
“Oh yeah? Are you spying on her too?” Bexley chugged the rest of her coffee, never taking her death stare off me.
“No, but the guy my dad had watching you couldn’t help but learn some stuff about her. A casualty of the job ... we’ll call it.”
Bexley’s mouth hung open, and I couldn’t help but want to shut her up with something on her mouth—like my own. But I knew better than that.
“I thought you had someone watching me. Now it’s your dad who has someone? Who else will you blame in all this?”
“It’s both of us, actually. He had someone watching you, which is how he found out I was keeping tabs on you. It’s a bit of a sordid affair, if you ask me.”
Bexley’s eyes narrowed. “Damn straight it is.”
“Listen, the heat is going to be on us. Mostly me, but you as an unintended casualty. You know my dad’s like a bulldog when he gets his teeth into something, but this time I’m going to outsmart him and fix this.”
Her head tilted to the side, and she looked at me in the compassionate way I craved like a starving man at a buffet. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
I started to nod, words of affirmation about to spill from my mouth, but then she leveled her gaze on mine, a truth serum if there ever was one. Eyes as green as the grass on the golf course pinned me, her dark blond hair swirling around her face.
“Don’t lie, Aston. It’s okay to say you don’t know. It’s okay to look for help. It doesn’t make you any less of a man to ask for help. Seriously, take it down a notch.”
She was right, but I’d never let my guard down. I’d been the strong one, resilient, and had developed my take-charge attitude after my parents’ divorce.
Unable to stay away, I made my way closer and turned Bexley’s stool so she was nestled between my thighs. “I wasn’t man enough years ago to fight for you. Now I have to be double the man. Understand that? I need to fight for you, my freedom, and my family.”
Her forehead met my chest, and I listened to her uneven breathing. “I’ve lost you once, twice, but a third time will kill me, and I have kids now. I can’t get them mixed up in this. The last few years haven’t been easy on them. Seth, he ... he’s not always there for them.”
