“Better late than never,” he said. “But maybe we shouldn’t wait another eighteen years for the next one.”
The conversation shifted, slipping into something easy and familiar. The heavy stuff had been laid out on the table, and we weren’t running from them. We weren’t pretending like they didn’t matter or that we could outrun them. After eighteen years, we were exactly where we were supposed to be. Sharing the same hopes. Wanting the same things. Building the same future.
CHAPTER 97
maverick
You know, the fact that you got them to make these might go down as the best use of money ever,” I commented around a mouthful of brownie. After dinner and under Harley’s direction, we took dessert to go and walked on the beach. But somehow, dessert was a brownie in a mug. The fact that the coffee mugs were massive and clearly not the restaurant’s only made it all the more amusing to me.
“I think the chef had an aneurysm when I asked.” Harley chuckled. “And I think he might never serve me again.”
“Fucking worth it.”
“Oh, definitely.”
We’d left our shoes and socks on the hood of his SUV, despite the chillier weather. The cool sand was a nice contrast to the warm dessert. The beach was nearly black under the night sky, the lake stretching out in a smooth sheet of dark glass. Only the faint hush of water rolling onto the shore broke the silence.
“To be honest, I was surprised when I found out you still make them,” I admitted. “Can I ask why?”
I didn’t need to know—not really—but I was curious.
“Honestly, the first time I did it, it surprised me,” he said. “But Holly was… probably five or six months pregnant, and she was struggling. Aria’s small for her age, and she’s always been small. She’s healthy, and that matters. But when Holly was pregnant, she was also very small, which was a little concerning. She was healthy, but her size wasn’t where it should’ve been for her gestational growth.
“Unfortunately, Vivienne was a bitch about the whole thing. She was a bitch about everything, but this one was harder on Holly because she took it personally—like she was doing something wrong to impact Aria’s growth. And so one day, to try to make her feel better, I made a brownie in a mug. It was the only thing I could think of. It always made me feel better.”
My chest tightened as he told the story.
“It helped her feel a little better,” Harley continued. “And over the years, it became a thing I fell back on. Sometimes it was after a hard therapy session; sometimes it was just because. Aria likes making them because she calls them Aria-sized desserts. For one of her birthday parties, she had me make a bunch of them for her and her friends to put toppings on.”
“Well, that’s adorable,” I replied.
“Yeah, they talked about it for weeks.”
“Can I ask what happened between you and your ex-wife?” I wasn’t sure if it was my place to ask—maybe I didn’t need to know. Or maybe I didn’t deserve to know. There were still gray areas we had to navigate. Boundaries we had to set. “Only if you want to talk about it right now. We can always save it for another time.”
“It’s fine.” He shook his head. “I’ve worked through my feelings about Vivienne. I never loved her. I didn’t lie about that. She’s just like my mother in every way.”
“Cool, so we hate her, got it,” I commented and enjoyed the little smile it pulled from him.
“I didn’t have the courage to leave her for myself,” he whispered. “In fact, I was convinced that I could make a lifetime work with her. That we could have a kid or two, and I’d stay. I could make it work. I could run my business, be a dad, be a husband… I thought I could do it.
“And then Holly was in a car accident when she was six-and-a-half months pregnant. It wasn’t her fault. Some asshole ran a red light and hit her. It was chaotic, and Aria had to be delivered early. As a result, she had to stay in the NICU to help her grow. It was… a lot.”
He faltered, his voice tightening with the memory. My fingers slipped through his, squeezing for reassurance. Or maybe just to let him know he wasn’t alone.
“Vivienne believed that because Holly didn’t make it to full term, that our surrogacy contract was nulled,” Harley said. “That was our first big fight—real fight. Up until then, I hadn’t held my ground on too much of anything, but I couldn’t let her leave Holly floundering to cover all her bills just because of a car accident.
“And then came the fighting about the fact that Aria had to stay in the hospital. Vivienne didn’t want kids. She wanted ashow pony that she could parade in front of her friends, who also had show ponies. I didn’t want my kid to be a show pony. I’d grown up that way, and I couldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t. It just became fight after fight. Why did she have to stay so long in the hospital? Why was I always at the hospital? When would she be home so that Vivienne could start taking her to different social gatherings? My ex-wife didn’t give a fuck about Aria’s well-being, and it showed in every conversation.”
I said nothing—I wanted to, but I didn’t. There weren’t enough words to describe how awful this woman sounded.And I just knew he was glossing over a lot of the details.
“She spent eleven weeks in the NICU before I could take her home. I still had my company, I was still fighting Vivienne, and I was still trying to figure out how to be a dad. I couldn’t be around every minute of every day. I had been real clear that, even though she was home, we still had to be careful. She was fragile. And it sucked because Vivienne was still her mother, so it wasn’t like I had a reason not to leave Aria with her. I had no choice.
“And the first day I went back into the office for fourteen hours, my ex took Aria out of the house. She took her to some ridiculous social event with all her country club ladies, which included a round of passing our fragile daughter around to strangers.”
“Jesus fuck,” I muttered.
“Yeah,” he agreed tightly. “Aria got sick and ended up back in the hospital. And that was my breaking point. The only thing Vivienne cared about was when she was getting discharged because of event obligations. Meanwhile… I can’t tell you what it’s like to see your kid hooked up to all these tubes and machines. It was too much, and it could’ve been avoided. I kicked her out of the hospital, and I called my lawyer to set up a divorce. Vivienne didn’t fight me for custody. She just wantedmoney. I gave her a lot of money and one percent of my company to keep her satisfied.”
