We’d planned to have three children once upon a time. Two boys and a girl. Ethan had insisted the girl be in the middle so her brothers could protect her.
“Ms. Cassidy?”
“Yes?”
He fidgets with his fork, pushing pasta around his plate. “Will I get a new family before Christmas?”
Ethan’s fork pauses halfway to his mouth, and guilt forms in my throat.
“I... Axel, that’s not really how it works,” I say carefully. “Finding the right family takes time. Social workers want to make sure—”
“But Christmas is in three days,” he interrupts, his voice getting smaller. “I won’t get any presents if I’m not in a family.”
Ethan sets down his fork entirely. The silence stretches until it becomes unbearable.
“You don’t need to worry about that right now,” Ethan finally says. “Right now, you’re safe and warm and fed. That’s what matters.”
But as Ethan speaks, I can see in Axel’s eyes that he doesn’t believe him. And I’m not sure I believe it either.
The Broken Things
Ethan
The couch is a piece of shit.
I punch the flat cushion for the third time in ten minutes, trying to find a position that doesn’t make my back scream. But it’s not really the couch keeping me awake; it’s the sound of Cassidy moving around upstairs.
When the temperature dropped earlier tonight, I’d hauled Axel’s mattress downstairs. The living room was the only place we could keep reasonably warm with the fireplace.
I’d offered to bring down the mattress from the guest bedroom for Cassidy, but she’d stubbornly declined, insisting she would be fine upstairs. Pride always was her favorite weapon, even when it’s aimed at herself.
I can hear her restless movement overhead. Probably freezing but too stubborn to admit it. Too stubborn to come down here where it’s warm. Too stubborn to accept any help from me.
Another creak from upstairs, and my dick hardens at the thought of warming her up by sliding into her tight, warm—
Fuck this.
I sit up and scrub my hands over my face, trying to push away the memories that surface every time I close my eyes. Cassidy beneath me, her coily hair spread across the pillow, whispering my name. The way her toes curled when I petted her sweet pussy...
And now I have fresh memories to torment me. That kiss in the kitchen today was unexpected, electric and over too soon.
It was as if the last eight years never happened. Her lips were just as soft, her body just as responsive pressed against mine.
Until that damn timer went off.
At dinner, she barely looked at me, focusing all her attention on Axel while I sat there remembering how her lips tasted, wondering if she was doing the same.
Stop.
Cassidy made her choice eight years ago. Chose to believe what she saw instead of trusting the man she claimed to love. Chose to cut me out of her life without giving me a chance to explain myself.
She took one look at Britney and me in that bed and decided I was exactly the kind of man who would betray her with her own sister. After six years together. After talking about marriage and kids and growing old together.
She treated me as if I were a fuckboy. Like everything we’d built meant nothing.
The anger that’s been simmering in my chest for eight years flares hotter. She’s upstairs right now, probably thinking about her ruined vacation, playing the martyr who’s stuck caring for her sister’s unwanted child.
Poor Cassidy. Always the victim in her own story.
