Aspen places one of the lanterns on the island and runs upstairs with the other. I get up slowly, confused and shocked. Javi scrambles to his feet too but doesn’t run this time. He stands on the other side of the island and adjusts his towel. Because that’s all he’s wearing.
“What the actual fuck?”
“Yeah. Hi,” Javi replies awkwardly and when his towel is secured around his waist, he rubs the back of his neck and stares at the marble countertop between us. “Just don’t freak out, okay? Andie is already a little worked up about the storm. Your energy will make her panic more.”
Thunder booms just as Aspen appears again in the kitchen doorway. She’s holding a squirming, screeching Andie. Even in the dim light I can see her face is red from wailing. “I thought I’d calmed her down. She was okay when I went hunting for the candles.”
Javi reaches for my niece before I can and starts to bounce her on his hip. I realize how comfortable he seems with Andie and look over at my sister. That’s when I realize she’s wearing a bathrobe. Her feet are bare and her curls look like they were styled in a tornado.
I walk closer to Javi and force myself to look at my niece. “It’s okay Andie, baby. You’re okay.”
Her cries soften and she dips her head, butting it against Javi’s very bulky chest. God, I remember him as a skinny kid living with Deck and working as a dish washer at the lobster shack. That completely changed and I didn’t bother to notice. Clearly my sister noticed though. I turn to her again as Andie reaches out and I give her my pinkie finger. She latches onto it and squeezes. She’s been doing that since the first time I saw her in the hospital.
“So…”
“So there’s a storm and that tree might come down,” Aspen says. “I was worried. When you didn’t answer your phone, I called Javi.”
“I had no idea you had Javi’s phone number,” I reply and Aspen sighs. “Or that he responds to thunderstorm emergencies in nothing but a towel.”
“We became friends when Finn hired her to try and find Declan last spring,” Javi explains, ignoring the towel comment.
“Friends with benefits,” Aspen adds, and Javi looks like he wishes he could run again. “Pregnancy makes you horny. Javi was okay with helping me scratch an itch.”
“This is too much information,” I tell her bluntly. “Also Andie will be speaking one day and I don’t think we should use words like h-o-r-n-y in case she repeats it.”
“She’s too young for that,” Aspen argues back. “Anyway, this isn’t a big deal. I’m not going to raise my daughter to be ashamed of sex. Or lust or anything.”
“I’m on board with that, but like maybe wait until she’s out of kindergarten to teach her words like h-o-r—"
“Abbott, relax.” Aspen laughs as Major grows bored with the lot of us and trots off into the living room. “And you too, Javi. I know you’re freaking out.”
“He thought I was a serial killer or something,” Javi replies. “I didn’t exactly want to tell him this way.”
“I didn’t want to tell him at all,” Aspen replies and sighs.
“Yeah. You’ve made it clear you want this to continue to be your dirty little secret,” Javi says, and I can hear the pain in his voice. He swallows and looks down at Andie. “I’m going to give you to yourtionow, okay Andie? Be a brave girl. He’ll keep you safe.”
He gently hands me the baby and she squirms for a second before settling into my arms. I adore her and I have to approve of the way Javi seems to handle her too. He marches past me, towards the stairs to the second floor. “I’m just going to get my clothes and I’ll get out of your space.”
“Javi! Come on…” Aspen calls out after him, but he doesn’t respond. She swears under her breath and drops the lantern she’s still holding on the counter before sitting, defeated, in a chair at the island. “This is not how I was hoping tonight would go.”
“I’m sorry. Your message freaked me the hell out so I had to rush home,” I explain.
“You don’t need to apologize for rushing home to save me,” Aspen replies and tries to smooth down her hair with her hands. “But if you’d gotten here twenty minutes earlier, you’d have seen a hell of a lot more than Javi in a towel.”
I close my eyes and try not to visualize whatever she just said. “So this has been going on since before you were pregnant?”
“No. Just while I was pregnant. And after.”
“So he’s not...?”
“Andie’s biological?” Aspen sighs again. “I wish, but no.”
“Do you wish?” I reply as Andie yawns and snuggles into my shoulder. “That Javi was her dad?”
“Sometimes,” Aspen admits. “He’s great with her and he’s good to me. Like really good, and I’m not just talking in the sheets.”
“Oh God, Aspy, please don’t.”
