“I’m serious, Abbott. He’s a great guy. He’s been there for me. Emotionally,” Aspen says. “He would come over and hang out when he knew there was no hope in hell of sex, right after she was born. He even pulled some night shifts when it came to feeding her, when you were back playing, and I was here all alone.”
“He’s a good guy,” I say. She nods as the ceiling above us creaks. He’s walking towards the stairs, I can tell. The front set, that lead to the front hall, not the ones that come down here into the kitchen. He’s going to leave. “So why didn’t you want to tell me about him?”
“Because if I tell someone, even you, it becomes real and real never works for me,” Aspen replies and I can see tears glinting in her eyes in the flickering light. “I fuck up real. Always have.”
I grab her hand off the counter and squeeze it. “Aspen, we’ve both made mistakes, but we both deserve second chances. Terra gave you one, remember? And you didn’t fuck that up. So why do you think you’ll fuck this up?”
“Because… things might get messier,” Aspen whispers. I can hear Javi’s feet on the front stairs. “Because Andie’s biological will eventually come out and it will be… messy and hard and Javi doesn’t need to be pulled into that. He won’t want to be. And I shouldn’t let her get attached to someone who’s going to bail.”
“I know everything, Aspen, and I’m still here.”
She jumps at the sound of his heavy, sure voice but I don’t because I saw him standing in the doorway behind her. She wipes at the tears staining her cheeks and turns to face him. “You’re too young and have too much to offer to be involved in the inevitable chaos that is my life.”
“Wait a minute, you know everything? You know who the dad is?” I incredulously ask Javi.
“Andie doesn’t have a dad. She has a biological sperm donor,” Aspen tells me firmly. I nod, because she’s right. It takes a hell of a lot more than DNA to be a real dad.
“But you told him? And not me?” I’m truly wounded by that.
“She didn’t tell me. I figured it out,” Javi explains as he steps closer to Aspen. “I’ve told her she needs to tell you. I’ve also asked her to go public with me, but apparently neither are in the cards. So I’m done.”
Javi walks over and cups her face in his hands, putting the pad of his thumb over her lips to keep her from arguing, because he knows that’s what she’s about to do. I stand up and take Andie over to the playpen we have set up in the corner of the kitchen so she can be in here playing while we cook and stuff. I gently lay her in it, taking my time to get her comfy so their conversation has some level of privacy. But I can hear everything.
“I have real feelings for you and I don’t give a shit how it looks to anyone else in this town,” Javi tells my sister. “But you don’t have the feelings it takes to have the courage to admit we have something here, so that’s that. Until you do.”
He dips his head and kisses her and then leaves through the back door, out into the storm. Aspen runs to the door calling his name but he doesn’t stop. I get up and watch through the kitchen window as he runs down the street and gets in his car, which is parked a few houses down, and drives away.
When she turns around, even in the dim flickering candlelight, I can see the heartbreak on her face. It rocks me because Aspen has never looked like that. I have though, so I know the pain she must feel. I walk over and pull her into a hug. She tries to choke back a sob. “Why are men so stubborn?”
“Says the queen of it,” I reply softly and rub her back. “Aspen, it’s clear you love him.”
“Then why did he leave? Why is he pushing me away?”
“Same reason Deck pushed me away when we were kids,” I tell her, and the revelation is like my own personal flash of lightning in my heart. “He knew I loved him as much as he loved me. He just needed me to be ready to admit it like he was.”
“And you weren’t,” Aspen replies, pulling away and wiping her tears on the sleeve of the bathrobe. “And I’m not and now it’s going to end up being this long drawn out, torturous on-again, off-again melodrama just like you two.”
She’s almost wailing that last part, she’s so distraught. I’m kind of offended. “Deck and I haven’t been on-again, off-again. We’ve just been off. The whole time he was married.”
“And now?” Aspen lifts an eyebrow and sniffs, quelling her anguish as she focuses on my love life. “You look just as ridden hard and put away wet as I do at the moment.”
I reach up and run a hand through my hair. “Storm.”
“So you weren’t just fucking your high school ex?”
“No,” I repeat and then immediately relent because she’s the absolute only person I can confide in, so I might as well do it. “I was blowing him.”
Aspen lets out a laugh that sounds like a hiccup and instantly clamps her hand over her mouth, looking over at her daughter to make sure she didn’t wake her. I pace the kitchen, trying not to think too hard about what I just did with Declan. I want to focus on my sister right now. “Aspen, you’ve always run from love. And trust me, I get it. I know Mom and Dad’s zealot ways did a real number on your emotional growth. It did a number on mine too. But Javi… I mean, I don’t know him well, but he seems like a stand-up guy and what I just saw — what he said to you and how he was with Andie — that feels like something real. Something worth taking a chance on.”
“He’s a few years younger than me. He deserves someone easy and fun, not someone who comes with a high-risk job and an instant family,” Aspen asks.
“You realize Javi is way more grown up than you, right? Mentally?” She looks immediately offended so I smile, showing her I mean no harm. “His dad was stolen from him when he was a teenager. His mom died before that. Declan once said he and Nova didn’t so much as raise Javi but that they all grew up together. They raised each other. Kid could pay utility bills and cook at a professional level before his eighteenth birthday. You still can’t do either of those things.”
“Shut up!” she barks but she kind of smiles.
“Plus, Javi has kind of made it clear he wants you and Andie,” I remind her. “When people show you who they are, and what they want, believe them, Aspen.”
“I’m scared.”
