Tears run down my face and I hide in my hands.
“I didn’t want you to leave me before we even got to know each other. I figured you would when you knew how bad everything was,” I wail.
“Oh, Little One. No matter what, I’m not going to leave you. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that way. It was not my intention,” he coos at me. “Can you tell me how you ended up in the hospital?”
“Explain everything from beginning to end,” Aiden adds.
I take a deep breath and pull my hands away from my face.
“I passed out at work and hit my head on a desk. They rushed me to the ER. That’s when the doctor called Aiden to let him know that I had passed out but was okay,” I explain. “When I woke up, the doctor told me that I was exhausted, malnourished, and if I didn’t start taking care of myself, then things were going to get bad. He said I would have a heart attack and didn’t know if my body was strong enough to handle it.”
“What else?” Daddy prompts me.
“When I got discharged, I told my boss. He said that he was firing me before anything happened and that they no longer needed me. That’s when Aiden said he wanted me to come visit him. I agreed and came up with the plan of only staying for two weeks before coming back home and searching for a job,” I say quickly.
“And stress yourself out trying to find a job before landing yourself in the hospital again?” Aiden asks.
“I’ve got a lot of money saved up and I was going to take it real slow, I promise. I haven’t really spent much of it because I’ve been working. So I was going to take some time off so that I wouldn’t be stressed.”
Aiden shakes his head. “You were going to be stressed anyway. You do know that, right?”
“I know.” I sigh. “But it wasn’t going to be as much, and my body wasn’t going to be as stressed. I had it all figured out.”
“You aren’t getting a job,” Daddy declares.
“I’m with Tobias on this one. You are going to stay here for the rest of your life and you aren’t getting a job,” Aiden says.
“But… but… you can’t do that!” I yell.
“We can and we are going to,” Aiden says. “You don’t need to worry about getting a job, and you aren’t going back there.”
“But that’s where I live and where everything I own is!” I say.
“We will break your lease to your apartment, and you can move here,” he declares.
“But—” I take a deep breath. “What about visiting my mother and brother’s graves?”
“Aiden is getting ahead of himself right now. While I do agree with him about you not getting a job, forcing you to move here isn’t something that we can do,” Tobias says calmly. “What we can do is weigh the pros and cons to both staying here and going back home.”
“No,” Aiden growls. “We don’t want her to live there.”
Tobias glares at Aiden. “You don’t get to decide where she lives.”
“Whose side are you on?” he asks. “Do you even want her here or are you trying to push her away?”
I turn my head to look at Tobias, waiting for his response.
“Of course I want her here. I want to tell her she isn’t allowed to go anywhere and has to live here with me for the rest of her life. That we are going to break her lease and bring her stuff here, but I can’t and I won’t. As much as I want to, Mila is an adult and she can make her own decisions,” Tobias replies. “That is unless she allows me to make these decisions for her, and she hasn’t given me that consent.”
But it’s so tempting to give it to him. To let him control everything because I know no matter what, he’s going to have my best interests at heart.
I feel safe with him.
“So what do you say?” Aiden asks. “What are you thinking?”
I open and close my mouth. He wants me to decide right now?
“Don’t,” Tobias growls. “Don’t force her to make a decision right now. Give her some time and space to think about it all.”
