Chapter 38
“Uncle Gavin!” Mia screamed at the top of her lungs, her arms held out from her sides like wings as she ran towards him.
Only two weeks had passed since they’d met at the fairgrounds, but from that enthusiastic greeting, she treated him as if he was her favourite uncle since birth.
Aberlour quickly snatched her up, placing her on his hip, and listened intently as she started babbling about her day. He struggled to make out what she was saying, but she didn’t seem to mind.
Aberlour walked the path leading to the back of Oliver’s house.
Unlike Aberlour’s digs that were in a bad part of town and its condition a perfect reflection of its owner, Oliver’s was beautiful.
There was no red door—which Abe was thankful for—but there was a large wrap-around porch.
The white woodwork fit the background beautifully.
As Abe rounded the corner of the backyard carrying Mia, he found Oliver lying on a lounge chair next to the pool, wearing a pair of sunglasses, his head tilted to the side like he’d fallen asleep.
“Mommy make burgers,” Ali proudly informed him. The three-year-old was Oliver’s oldest child. She looked more like Abby than Oliver. Abe didn’t hold it against her. She was as cute as a button and sitting in the sandbox by her daddy’s feet.
“Yeah?” Abe asked, amused by how serious she was in issuing this late breaking bit of news.
She gave an exaggerated nod.
“Daddy says she’s the grill—” she hesitated, searching her memory for the right word.
“Master,” Oliver finished for her with a proud smile. He stretched out on the chair, lifting both hands above his hair, and yawned.
“Don’t wake up on my account,” Aberlour teased.
Oliver snorted and sat up, pushing his glasses to the top of his head and giving Aberlour the heartbreaking smile he loved so much.
“Ali, Mia, why don’t you go give your mom a hand. She’s gonna need help bringing everything outside,” Oliver suggested with an affectionate smile.
“Race you!” Ali told her sister before jumping to her feet and sprinting towards the back door. She was halfway up the back porch steps before Aberlour could set Mia down.
With a screech of outrage, Mia raced after her sister.
“Missed you,” Oliver said, as Abe sat down next to him, sharing his lounge chair. It was a tight fit, but they made it work. He shook his head and clucked his tongue in mock disappointment.
“I was gone less than eight hours.”
Oliver shook his head like it didn’t matter.
“Think of all the things we could have done in eight hours,” Oliver replied, a smug look on his pale face.
Eight hours. They thought of time in hours now.
They could have had years, now they focused on hours, and minutes.
So little time. So much had been wasted.
But Aberlour shoved that thought aside. He had better things to do, such as live in the present, and take advantage of having private time with Oliver.
Aberlour quickly checked the back door for any observers, and noting that the coast was clear, leaned over to give Oliver a quick kiss.
“Plenty of minutes left,” Abe lied smoothly with practiced skill.
This was as far as they’d gone since Oliver had come limping back into Aberlour’s life.
He was—afraid wasn’t the right word—worried that he might break the man if they did more.
Oliver kept rolling his eyes at the insinuation that he couldn’t handle more than that but had yet to push the issue.
There was also the fact that Abby was always around, and though she knew, there was a difference between knowing and having their desire for one another shoved in her face.
They sat there for a minute, side by side. Oliver leaned against him, obviously very tired, resting his head on Aberlour’s shoulder.
“The girls love you,” Oli said with a smile. “Mia asked questions about you all day.”
“Yeah, I drive all the women nuts.”
Oliver snorted and elbowed him.
“What about Abby?” he asked, voice roughened by suppressed emotion.
“Abby—” Oliver hesitated. “Abby understands.”
She did. At least she tried. She smiled like a broken woman if she smiled at all.
No longer the high society Barbie who Aberlour met years ago.
The fake blond, so easy to despise, was now a mother watching her life fall apart.
A wife who was losing her husband very soon and learning that he’d never really been hers to begin with.
Aberlour still hated her, but not—it definitely was different now.
He hated her for existing. For taking Oliver from him for so long.
He no longer blamed her. In fact, he broke for her a little.
He understood, all too well, how devastating these months had been for her.
When he glanced at her now, he wanted to scream at Oli that it wasn’t fair.
He wanted to, but he wasn’t altruistic enough to do anything about it.
So, he just accepted his limited time with Oliver and closed his mind to anything else but grabbing what happiness he could get with both hands.
“Sabine called me,” Oliver said, breaking the silence.
“She has your number?” he asked, but Oliver didn’t answer.
“They’re organizing a celebration. At Sabine’s house. All the wives are in on it. We’re invited.”
A celebration. What was there to celebrate? They’d been dead for five long years. Five long years and their bodies were still somewhere out there, far from home.
Aberlour could barely recall what he’d been like five years ago. There was so little left of that guy. Everything was different now.
“We’re invited? Or you’re invited and she doesn’t know I’m coming?” Aberlour asked.
“Abe, come on.”
“They don’t want to see me, Oli,” he explained gently, as though it wasn’t obvious enough.
“They don’t blame you,” Oli reassured him.
Aberlour heard it again. The lilt, the change, the tone.
He was lying.
“They don’t need to,” Aberlour answered. “The blame is mine. I own it.”
Oliver looked as if he was garnering an argument for that, but Aberlour shot him a dark look.
He sighed, giving up on that particular fight.
“I want—need you to be there. If not for them, for me.”
It wasn’t quite right, Aberlour thought. If he went, he’d go for Oli, in spite of how the widows felt about it.
“I’ll think about it,” Aberlour replied, knowing he’d already lost. He cupped the side of Oli’s face, content to lose himself in the pools of cerulean for a minute.
Then another, and another. Three minutes had passed, so how many were left now?
“I’ll think about it,” he repeated, but Oliver heard the yes just as Abe had intended.
Abby made burgers on the BBQ, and Abe helped to finish preparing the tossed salad.
All five of them ate outside, enjoying the summer weather.
Oliver’s daughters, both little rays of sunshine in their own right, monopolized the conversation, dizzying Abe with dozens of questions and demands.
It was—easy, almost. So much easier to exist than it usually was.
After dinner, they played in the pool some more, Aberlour tossing the children up in the air, their giggles and shouts echoing around the neighbourhood.
Oliver watched from his chaise lounge with a smile, too tired to participate.
Abby pretended to read. Then, as the sun set, they lit the fire pit and made s’mores.
The girls ended up sticky and covered in chocolate.
In the background, Aberlour could feel time ticking away.
Make it count. Make it count. It was the underlying thought in every interaction. Every game. He had to make it count, for Oli, for his daughters, for himself, and though he’d never admit to it, for Abby as well.
Aberlour was putting out the fire in the backyard when he caught sight of her.
She was dressed for bed, wrapped in a robe she kept tightly closed with her arms crossed over her chest.
“He’s asleep,” she said, in lieu of a proper greeting.
She’d removed her makeup, and her hair was up in a messy bun. He’d never seen her like this. Abby was always well put together. Always polished—respectable.
“I’m just putting out the fire and I’ll be on my way.” He completed the task of dousing the fire and then straightened up to face her.
Strangely enough, this was the first time they’d ever been alone together. Oliver had always been present, acting as both a buffer and a moderator.
He didn’t know how to interact directly with her. Didn’t know where to stand or what to say.
“Don’t bother,” she said, shaking her head. Her shoulders were slumped, sounding tired but resolute. “He’s in the room downstairs. I put some of his old clothes in the bathroom. They should fit you.”
“Why?” Aberlour asked, more than a little confused.
She cocked her head to the side and bit her bottom lip, then she looked away as though unable to stand the sight of him.
“I know you think this—” she gestured to the house and the backyard.
“Was just a facade, but it wasn’t. He loves me, and his kids, and his life, and—” she swallowed against the lump in her throat.
“I love him. And I had him,” she added with a shrug that didn’t come across as casual at all.
“And although he loves me, he always loved you more, and he deserves—he deserves to love like I did. He’s a great husband, and an even better dad, and he deserves this. ”
He could barely stand the sight of her, but he forced himself to continue to face her.
There was an emotional strength to her that was remarkable, all things considered. She had an air of resolve and determination that she carried with her now that Aberlour reluctantly admired.
Aberlour could never have acted this way.
He’d have burnt the world down before he’d given Oliver up.
It wouldn’t have mattered what Oliver would have deserved.
He’d have been incapable of what she’d just done.
Too selfish to have extended this level of consideration on Oliver’s behalf.
Maybe that did not speak well of him to be that way, but that’s just the way he was.
“I hate you, Gavin Aberlour. I hated you the moment I laid eyes on you.”
Her eyes glittered with a kind of hatred that Aberlour has previously reserved for enemy combatant situations. But, in this instance, he understood and accepted it for what it was.
“Thank you,” he said, because—she deserved it.
Without another word, she turned and walked back into the house, head held high, back straight, ready to face the war all by herself.
He waited for a few minutes before going in to change and then find his Oliver.
The last time Abe had slept next to Oliver, they’d been hours away from the funerals of their best friends. As he crawled into bed, moving carefully so as not to disturb Oli, he couldn’t help wondering how many hours he had left before he had to bury Oli.
“I’m cold, Abe,” the other man muttered, reaching back for Aberlour’s arm.
Aberlour wrapped his right arm around Oliver’s torso, inwardly cursing at the diminished size of his love.
Like holding a corpse.
“How’d you know it was me?”
“I always knew it was you.”
Oli—heartbreaking and beautiful, now just a soul hanging onto life by a slender thread.
He squeezed Oliver closer, very gently pressing himself against Oliver’s back to share his warmth. Maybe if he pressed him close enough, he’d warm him back to life. Maybe they’d wake in the morning to find the Oliver who Aberlour remembered so fondly.
“Abby lent me your old clothes from basic training,” Aberlour remarked as he snuggled closer to Oliver.
“She deserved better,” Oliver commented pensively.
Better? Better than a dying husband? Better than a husband who’d loved someone else? Better than a family with two beautiful children and a seemingly happy marriage?
“Do you love her?”
“Yes,” Oliver replied without hesitation. “I love her as much as I can.”
And he believed him. Aberlour hummed. This at least, was a relief. Their whole story—Abby and Oli—it had caused him a great deal of suffering and soul searching, but at least now he knew it hadn’t all been in vain.
“If I asked you to look after her, would you?” Oliver asked, running his thumb along the length of Aberlour’s forearm.
“No.”
Oliver only hummed his acknowledgement of Aberlour’s refusal, not expressing any surprise in hearing it. Aberlour had never been selfless. Oliver knew that very well. He wouldn’t be a martyr. Not even for Oli.
Oliver said nothing else. He turned over to press his face against Abe’s chest, settling even closer. Abe wrapped both arms around Oliver and squeezed him tightly. He listened as Oliver’s breathing slowed and he relaxed in his arms, lulled to sleep by Abe’s warmth.
Aberlour didn’t sleep that night. He was too busy making every second count by committing everything about the man in his arms to memory.