Chapter Fifty-Three Fractures #2
He didn’t say a word. He just shoved her hummingbird paperweight into her hand along with the pendant and walked out. Nissa appeared immediately and brought Cecilia into a side room while Evie chased after Aaron.
She got outside in time to see his car peel out of its parking space. It stopped beside the dumpster, and a second later, two of the hummingbirds flew out of the open driver’s window and landed inside the bin, followed by the dull thud of breaking glass. Then Aaron was gone with a squeal of tires.
When Evie went back inside, she told the minister to start and sat near the back with Thorn.
“Is Aaron okay?” he murmured.
Evie shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
**********
A week after the disaster of a memorial service, Alex approached her with the idea of moving in together, pointing out that they had been together for almost two years.
If they were living in the same apartment, he wouldn’t feel like he never got to see her, which would help reduce the number of arguments they had been having.
Evie, who had actually been considering ending the relationship altogether, decided after some thought that this would be her last effort to try to make things work.
She had her new lawyers, friends from a couple of her pre-law classes in her first year at Columbia, draft a lease slightly skewed in her favour.
Namely, if one of them ended the relationship, Evie would move out of the apartment for thirty days, and Alex had to find a new place to live and vacate the premises by the end of the thirty-day term.
Alex, insisting that moving in together would fix all their problems, happily signed the lease and moved in with Evie at the beginning of November.
Evie struggled to adjust to having someone else living in her space and taking over parts of it, but eventually they found a system that worked for them and, to her surprise, their relationship improved quite a bit.
Alex hadn’t realized just how much time she spent with Tommy and Thorn and complained about them constantly dropping by with no more warning than HELIX letting her know they were on their way.
She asked them to give her a heads up or to ask her to come to their apartments, because she recognized it wasn’t fair to Alex to have them dropping by randomly all the time.
Still, aside from a few issues with Alex not being quite as clean as she was, they cohabitated very well.
**********
Aaron had taken to seeking her out in her office more often just to talk, and she got the impression he was very lonely since Paula had died.
Not surprising, given how much Paula had isolated him from everyone else.
With Beau in Iraq, Evie and Nissa became his go-to people whenever he wanted to grab a coffee, lunch or the occasional drink after work.
He was away on a particularly long assignment when Evie let Alex move in, and when he came back, they got lunch at Sherlock’s, a nearby British-style pub that Alex had introduced her to, and she told him about it, he scoffed.
"Do you seriously think that's a good idea?"
"I don't know," Evie admitted. "It's a trial thing. If we continue arguing, or if our arguments get worse, I only have to give him thirty days to move out. I still have a bedroom in Tommy’s penthouse, so it’s not a big deal."
"Evie, if you don't know, the answer should be no." Aaron rolled his eyes and shook his head as he ate his burger.
"He made a very valid argument about the amount of time we spend together and how we only start having problems when we aren't seeing each other.
" She shrugged, feeling a little defensive.
"And it might be sunk cost fallacy, but we've put too much work into the relationship not to give it every chance we can. "
"Sunk cost fallacy is exactly what it is.
" He waved a French fry in her face. She frowned, snatched it from him and popped it into her mouth with a smirk. He gave her a mockingly annoyed look and picked up another fry, dipping it in ketchup so she wouldn’t take it from him. "Is he still pushing boundaries?"
"Yeah." Evie's voice was quiet. It had been bad the night before.
She had been playfully teasing him about something and had gone too far.
He had made her bend over his knee and spanked her hard enough that it hurt to sit today.
She had almost screamed her safe word at him and had squirmed off his lap, locking herself in the bathroom while he apologized and cried for losing control outside the door. "But that’s really rare now."
It was the truth; the previous night was the first time in close to a year that he’d lost control like that.
Aaron frowned and leaned forward, lowering his voice so no one around them could hear. "Evie, what boundaries is he pushing?" She never gave him a straight answer to that question, but she must have looked uncomfortable enough for him to guess. "Does he hurt you?"
She shook her head quickly. "No! Of course not." She fidgeted. "He sometimes forgets I'm uncomfortable with things and pushes a little. That's all."
"Right." Evie knew Aaron didn’t believe her, but there was nothing he could do without proof. Alex was the Golden Boy with Thorn and Tommy, even though Nissa and Cole sided with him.
**********
At the beginning of January, Evie finished her novel, a fantasy about a half water nymph and half Shadow Caster named Adria, who had her hydrokinesis stolen from her as a child and was sent to live with her Shadow Caster father and brother in the hopes she had some latent umbrakinesis that could be developed.
Instead, Adria ends up embarking on a quest with a Shifter to recover her stolen water powers from the Mage who took them.
Evie sent the manuscript to several publishing companies, hoping someone might be interested.
She hadn’t told anyone about her writing. If she managed to get published, she’d let everyone know, but if there wasn’t any interest, she wouldn’t have to answer any questions about it.
A few days after sending out her manuscript, she joined Thorn and the other contractors in the conference room first thing in the morning for a meeting that had appeared in her calendar two days prior. Tommy walked in, closely followed by a girl who didn’t look old enough to vote.
"Ladies and gentlemen." Tommy grinned as he stopped in front of his chair.
"I would like to introduce you to Dr. Willa Harris, our new psychologist and behaviour analyst. Willa just graduated from Yale and has doctorates in psychology, sociology, anthropology, humanities, forensic psychology and behavioural science.
She's also only twenty-one and graduated from high school at fifteen. "
There was a moment of silence as everyone stared at the girl, and then Cole let out a low chuckle.
"So you're smart."
"Gifted is the term that keeps getting thrown around.
" Willa smiled, and Evie thought she was absolutely adorable.
She had long mouse-brown hair, big brown eyes, a button nose and a short, boyish figure.
"I've always been fascinated by human behaviour and wanted to learn about people and why they do the things they do.
I'm really excited to be working here. It’s an incredible opportunity to observe a wide range of personalities. "
Her excitement was infectious, and Evie could see everyone smiling warmly at her.
Tommy went around the table and had everyone introduce themselves.
When Thorn finished the introductions, Tommy told them to see Lana to get their first scheduled appointments and excused himself and Willa, saying he had a lot of paperwork to go over with her.
“Evie, can I get you to create a page on Umbra so people can schedule appointments with her as they need to?” Tommy asked, smiling at her.
Evie nodded and made a note to add it to her to-do list for the day. “Yep, will have it done by the end of the day.”
“That’s my girl.” He turned to leave, his hand on Willa’s shoulder, guiding her gently. “Remember, monthly meetings are mandatory to keep track of your mental health,” he called as he left the room.