“Don’t want it that bad,” I lie.
I wanther.
I want her bad.
“Uh-huh,” he says as Aspen’s laughter carries across the living room, over Elvis’s “Blue Christmas,” accompanied by the scents of cinnamon and ginger from the cookies the kids and grandmas are baking in the kitchen.
The multicolored lights strung around the window illuminate Aspen’s soft brown hair, and my cock twitches every time she takes a drink of her mug of spiced cider then follows it with a lick of her lips.
“You remember the time you wouldn’t let anyone else touch the blue darts and you convinced Tripp you’d swallowed them so the rest of us couldn’t have them?” I say to Davis.
He almost grins. Almost, but not quite. “Wasn’t as hard as it should’ve been.”
“We should take a road trip together. Get another tour bus. Pack up all five of us. See the country. Recreate the fun, but do it where we can stop and see shit.”
He takes a swig of his beer. “No.”
“We can get a bus with two bathrooms instead of just one. I know you like your own bathroom.”
He slides me another look. “Or you deal with your real problem and quit trying to pick fights to avoid thinking about it.”
“Life’s great. No problems here.”
He looks Aspen’s way as she squeals “Commander Crumpet!” loudly enough for half the house to hear.
I don’t have to look to know who Commander Crumpet is.
I helped her find Commander Crumpet a new home when she texted me around the first of the year, asking if I’d be around while she was gone on her first big road trip. She needed a babysitter for her pet hedgehog. Little beastie didn’t do well on car rides, she said, but he was very well-behaved when he was at home.
Timing didn’t work, but it was obvious she was going to have a bigger problem than needing a temporary babysitter for her carsick-prone hedgehog soon.
She didn’t realize it—or maybe she was in denial—but I saw the writing on the wall.
Between Aspen’s inherent talent and then her endorsement from Waverly, she was on track to being home less and less often because she’d be more and more in demand around the country.
But now Commander Crumpet lives with my buddy Levi, his wife, and their kids. Considering their first family pet was a squirrel, Commander Crumpet has been much easier on all of them.
And he’s spoiled as hell.
“Aww, how’s my sweet baby?” Aspen croons at the little creature. “You look so happy.”
Shit.
I know that catch in her voice.
I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t have spent nearly enough time with her to know that catch in her voice. Especially since ourschedules mean we’re rarely in California at the same time, much less in the same city.
But it doesn’t take long to catch an obsession.
“You wanna go downstairs and—” I start, turning to Davis, but he’s not there anymore.
Shit.
I’ve been staring at Aspen so long that I didn’t even notice Davis left me to look like a solo creeper in the corner.
Fuck this.
I might be too old for her, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be polite. I drop my empty beer bottle in Beck’s recycling bin, then head across the room, making small talk with my siblings and friends and their older kids on the way.
