Chapter 24 – Aston
ASTON
The rest of my day didn’t improve much. It was nonstop surgeries, and in one of them, an equipment failure caused a dangerous situation for the patient on the table.
I ended up having to open her up instead of using the laparoscope.
Then there were weird orders for one of my patients that I had to completely redo before wrong doses of medications were administered.
After that, things settled a bit. Josh assisted in a surgery in the afternoon and managed to keep his mouth shut and do his job.
Even if anger was pouring off his body in waves.
It only fueled the whispers and gossip, but I knew that was going to happen.
I don’t trust him. I know he’s not finished with this, and the moment he discovers Skylar is pregnant, who knows how he’ll react?
By the time I get home, every part of me is exhausted. My mom texted me two hours ago to let me know they’d dropped Zoey off with Skylar after preschool, who only had an eight-hour shift today. It was news that brought a smile to my lips. It reminded me of why I’m doing all of this. Zoey.
And when I walk inside to find the two of them in the kitchen listening to music and singing along as Skylar makes something that smells insanely good and Zoey helps her, that reminder morphs into something else.
Into a pleasure-pain so fucking sweet I can hardly breathe for how it pinches my chest and knocks the wind out of me.
My girls laugh and sing. Skylar helps Zoey use a knife to cut up a cucumber for the salad.
Pride takes over Zoey’s face as Skylar praises her work.
For a moment, I allow my mind to drift. To wander to places it shouldn’t.
I picture wrapping my hand around Skylar, feeling her belly where her baby is growing while I kiss the top of Zoey’s head followed by Skylar’s lips.
It’s corny and cliché. Like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, and it makes me smile and inwardly laugh at myself for how ridiculous I’m being. But I also know that if this were real, if I could go into the kitchen and do that, I’d be the happiest motherfucker on the planet.
I’d feel like I finally had it all. Instead of perpetually feeling like everything is just out of my grasp or slipping through my fingers.
For now, I’ll hold onto this piece for Zoey. I already know I won’t get the other pieces for myself. I know it’s loneliness. Simply temptation. An existential crisis or two.
I’m married, but it’s not real.
I have a thing for my best friend’s little sister, and it’s unreciprocated.
I haven’t had sex in I don’t even know how long, and it doesn’t seem like that’s changing anytime soon.
My focus is my daughter and work, and there isn’t much left after either of those things for me.
That’s life. It’s just how it is. It won’t be like this forever.
I have to remember that. I can get through this if I can focus on something to hope for, but right now, I don’t know what that hope is.
It’s a mythical notion, a vague concept, so that makes this a bit tougher.
It makes me think about and focus on things—on people—I shouldn’t be.
Snapping myself out of my Nightmare on Hallmark Holiday moment, I take off my coat and hang it up in the closet.
“Smells good in here,” I drawl as I set my bag down and head into the kitchen.
Skylar glances up and treats me to a rare smile. One that touches her green eyes and lights her face. “Zoey and I decided we wanted to try shepherd’s pie. She’s never had it, and I told her it was good on cold nights like this one.”
“Daddy, we’re supposed to get snow this weekend.”
“Oh fun,” I tease as I kiss her cheek and give her a hug. “I hadn’t heard that yet. We’ll have to play in it in the backyard.”
Zoey is obsessed with snow. It’s snowed a few times since we’ve been here, but she hasn’t ever been in a storm or seen more than a few inches. Despite my playful tone, I think it will be fun to do all the snow things with her. Especially since I don’t have work this weekend.
“How was the rest of your day?” I ask Skylar.
She shrugs. “It was fine. A bit crazy, as I’m positive you know. Michaela seemed fine at first and then was distant with me, if not a little weird. But other than that, quiet.” She tosses the sliced cucumber into the salad bowl.
“Good. I’m glad. But why would Michaela care? I think I’ve spoken to her not even a handful of times, and a few of those were about you.”
She peers up at me. “She thought you liked her.”
I squint. “Huh? Where on earth did she get that from?”
“I told you the powers you have over the nursing staff.”
I smirk. “Not over all the nurses.” Unfortunately. “Can I help?”
“Sure. You can set the table.”
I lean in and whisper in her ear, “You’re being nice to me again.”
She coughs out a laugh and jabs back to elbow me in the flank. “A momentary lapse in sanity.” She turns her head over her shoulder and smirks at me. “It won’t happen again.”
I throw my hands out defensively. “I’m not complaining. I’m actually enjoying it. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of what you were doing.”
“I’m not very good at disliking people, and you’re becoming someone I don’t want to dislike.”
The urge to lean in and kiss her is so overwhelming I have to clench my fists. Thankfully my phone rings, pulling me away. I slip it out of my pocket and instantly blanch.
“What’s wrong?”
I flip the phone around so she can see. “We should get this over with. You want to answer the phone with me?”
She chews on her lip. “No. But we have to. Pick up before we lose him.”
I swipe my finger across the phone. “Hey,” I answer.
“Hey!” Micha’s voice comes barreling through the phone. “I’m sorry we haven’t caught up. It’s been one thing after another here. How’s it going? How’s my favorite goddaughter?”
“I’m good,” Zoey singsongs. “Uncle Micha, Daddy said we could send you another care package.”
“That would be amazing. You’ll put crunchy peanut butter and a picture of you in there, right?”
“Obviously.”
My eyes bulge. “Obviously?” I parrot. “When did you start saying that like you’re fifteen?”
She shrugs. “Can I go play? Grown-up conversations are so boring.”
“Yes, my sassy kid.” I rub the top of her head. “Go ahead.”
“We’ll call you when dinner is ready,” Skylar finishes.
“Bye, Uncle Micha.”
“Bye, Zoey-Zo.”
Zoey scampers off to the playroom we set up for her, and now it’s down to us.
“Sky, you’re there too?”
“I’m here.”
“Great! How are things?”
“Well, I’m pregnant with Josh’s baby, and Aston and I got married on Friday.”
I throw her a what the fuck look, and she returns it with an it was going to come out anyway, might as well rip off the Band-Aid look.
“I’m sorry. What? None of that made any sense. It’s probably the satellite phone acting up.”
Skylar launches into an account of the last however many days it’s been, while Micha sits silently on the phone.
“So… let me… fuck. Jesus fuck, are you kidding me? Aston is now my fake and temporary brother-in-law, and I’m going to be an uncle and likely have to stay in Sudan forever so I can fight extradition for murder?”
“You can’t kill Aston,” Skylar protests. “He’s helping me.”
Something warm and inappropriately comfortable rolls through me. Skylar just defended me. I’m almost tempted to look out the window to see if pigs are flying.
“I wasn’t talking about him, Sky. I was talking about the asshole who shall not be named. Fuck. Aston, take me off speaker. You and I need a man-to-man, brother.”
My stomach sinks, and I throw Skylar a fleeting glance as I walk into the gym Micha has off the main room.
“If you’re going to yell at me—”
“Are you sleeping with my sister?”
“No,” I answer easily as I sit down on the weight bench. I tuck the phone against my ear and pick up a twenty-five-pound dumbbell I have on the floor that I never put away after I used it last. I do bicep curls as I talk.
“So, you’re really just helping her out in exchange for her helping you with Zoey?”
He’s incredulous. I got this from my father last night, too. Because the truth is, if I had asked Skylar to help out with Zoey, Micha’s goddaughter, I’m pretty positive she would have said yes. That’s who she is. Everyone knows it. Skylar has a heart of gold and magic.
But I didn’t do that. I didn’t even offer to simply help her with Josh.
I asked her to marry me.
“He’s not a safe guy,” is my answer.
He sighs audibly into the phone. “I never liked him. He was the sort of guy who was combative for the sake of being combative while also trying to pretend he was your best friend and you could trust him. I can’t explain it beyond that.
But he was controlling while calling it love.
He was critical while calling it constructive.
All of those things I saw. What I didn’t see and only heard about later was the behind the scenes.
The things he’d say and do to her turned my blood cold.
A lot of women would have stayed, but Skylar was brave and strong enough not to.
If you feel that marrying her to protect her was the right call, then I trust you. ”
His trust is somehow a sucker punch, and I drop the barbell with a heavy clang on the rubber mat. Because I made his sister come on the kitchen counter and then was a dick to her after. I’ve kissed her and meant it too. I also think about her in ways that would have Micha seeing red.
It sits all wrong with me. And yet, I am protecting her. Even if it’s not because Micha is my best friend and I’m playing the role of big brother in his absence.
“I’m on it,” is how I reply.
“Good. Thanks. I appreciate it more than you know. Weird though, man. You’ve always been my brother, and now you are for real.
And I’m going to be an uncle. I’ll have to come home for that.
I want to see her pregnant, but I also want to see the baby.
” He laughs with something akin to wonder and excitement in his voice. “Josh still doesn’t know?”
“No. He doesn’t.”
“People will think the kid is yours.”
I dig my elbow into my knee and rub my forehead. “I know they will.” I swallow. “I’m fine with that. Especially with Josh.”
“Dude, this is fucked. Like seriously fucked. I don’t want him in her life anymore, and I’m glad you’re there with her.”
I close my eyes and nod, feeling like I’m betraying him.
“Just let me know when you plan to come home, and Zoey and I will stay at my parents’.”
“Nah. It’s your house now. In fact, we should discuss me selling it to you if you still want it.”
I open my eyes and stare sightlessly toward the far wall. “I still want it. Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. It’s where you and Zoey belong. It’s why I offered it in the first place. If I ever move back to Boston, I won’t need such a big place. Living here… it changes your perspective. I can’t explain it. But I want Zoey to have a home again.”
My chest pinches, and I’m flooded with warmth. “Thank you. I’ll have my attorney draw up the paperwork. Just let him know what you want for it.”
“You got it. It’ll be what I paid for it and not a cent more.”
I shake my head and rub my forehead. “You don’t have to do that. I know it’s appreciated in value, and I want you to get what it’s worth.”
“And I want my family to have my house, so don’t argue with me.”
I chuckle and shift on the bench, staring down at the black rubber between my feet. “Fine. Thank you.”
“I’m glad Skylar is there with Zoey. Maybe this fake marriage will be the right thing. Just be good to her, okay? She’s been through so much already, and now that she’s pregnant, it’s even more. Take care of her.”
I cover my eyes with my hand, pressing the phone into my ear with the other hand. “I will,” I promise him.
“Thanks, man. I wouldn’t trust her with anyone else, but I trust her with you.”
Bile rises up the back of my throat. I’m a son of a bitch. “She’s safe with me.”
I fly off the bench and start to pace. Fuck!
Tell him. Tell him the truth.
But what is the truth? That I have an ill-placed thing for a woman who doesn’t want me back? Who is too young for me? Who is my best friend’s little sister? Who is pregnant with a bad man’s kid and has enough problems? She doesn’t need me. Not in that way.
Even if I’m starting to need her more and more.
But it stops now. I vow to get myself in check and under better control. Distance. No flirting. Teasing is a thing of the past. No more fantasies either.
I owe that to Micha. But more importantly, it’s what Skylar needs from me. And for that, I can sacrifice just about anything. But realistically, what choice do I have?