Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Bishop
“I assume you’re at least willing to negotiate if you’re meeting me to discuss it,” I say as I hold the door open to the bunkhouse, and Aspen makes her way past me into the kitchen.
I’ve been waiting thirty-six long hours to hear her decision on whether or not she was going to accept my proposal, and in that time thought of a hundred ways I could have done it differently.
“I’m willing to talk it through. But I have a list of things.
” She holds up a piece of paper. “Things we’re going to have to agree on.
I want to help my brothers. With everything they’ve been through, I feel like it’s the least I can do.
I want to pull my weight around here, but I have to protect Fallon in this too. ”
“Of course,” I agree easily. Fallon comes first. Always. But I need Aspen to realize we’re on the same page.
“We have to tell her the truth about you being her father. I’d like the chance to tell her myself first, since she’s still getting to know you.
I want it to be a safe space for her to vent if she’s upset or angry about it, and I worry she’ll either feel like she can’t because she wants to spare your feelings, or, worse, she’ll say something that will hurt you.
She’s a good girl. The best, really. But she’s been through a lot the last couple of years, and I know it’s a possibility she could say something hurtful.
I’m prepared for it, but I don’t know if you are. ”
“I can take a few shots. If we’re being honest, I can think of a few things she could say that I deserve.” More than a few. But I’m willing to take the hits if it means there’s hope we can get through it.
“She might say some you don’t too.”
“I’m all right with that. I still remember what it’s like to be an angry teenager.
I know it’s been a minute since I was, but I get it.
I won’t blame her for that. Her parents split.
Her bio dad reappears out of nowhere and wants to know her.
I’m sure that’s going to be a lot on her doorstep all at once. ”
“Are you okay with me telling her first?”
“Whatever you think is best. I’m just thrilled that you’re going to let me know her at all.”
“Which brings us to the next thing. One I know you’re not going to like but I feel strongly about.”
“Which is?”
“I want you to quit all this mercenary work. It’s dangerous.
I know you said you help people, that a lot of it is rescuing people and helping them, escorting nonprofit aid agencies into and out of dangerous situations.
That’s all well enough. But I also have to imagine you’re operating at a huge risk to your own lives, and it takes you away for long periods of time.
Last time you couldn’t even tell me what you were doing. ”
“That’s part of the job. We owe our clients security.”
“Fair enough. But I don’t want her to meet her father and then spend her first months of knowing him constantly worried he’s dead somewhere, and we won’t ever know for sure what happened to him. That’s not a fair ask.”
“I gotta tell you, working with your brothers, it’s not much different from what they have me doing.”
“But I’d know, and she’s perceptive, Bishop. She’ll pick up on the anxiety. I can’t lie to her. Not to mention, my brothers listen to me. They appreciate the risk to their own families. They’d feel potential consequences more immediately, and they make decisions accordingly.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’d make them feel something.”
“If they broke my daughter’s heart like that, absolutely. I’d do the same with your current company too. You know what I’m capable of when I set my mind to it.”
I smirk as I nod.
“Well, you’ll be happy to know I already quit.”
“You did?” She’s surprised, and she looks at me wide-eyed.
“I did.”
“When?”
“After I got back here. I was contemplating it, and then when you got sick, I made it official.”
“I thought you were just taking a hiatus.”
“Then I saw how sick you were that weekend. That you needed someone, and if I’d been gone, I wouldn’t have had the chance to take care of you. I want to be there. For you and for Fallon when you need someone.”
Something flashes across her face that I can’t quite read, but she clears it as fast as it appears, and she shifts in her seat.
“Well, that’s good. I’m glad. Because the next part is that I don’t want Fallon to know this is a…
a farce, I guess. I’m not sure what to call it.
It’s not fake exactly, but it’s not real either, and I can only imagine how it would make her feel to know we were doing this for anything other than love.
I’m not even sure she’ll accept that story. ”
“Is that the story we’re using? That we’re in love?”
“We need your grandmother and brother to believe it, right? I think it’s best if the secret about how we really feel stays just between the two of us.
The more people who know it’s not real, the more chances there are for someone to slip up.
And I don’t want to ask that kind of thing of Fallon.
I don’t want her lying to anyone for us, you know? ”
“I agree.”
“The problem with that is… If we tell her we’re in love and then break things off in a few months when this is over, I worry it’s going to shatter her belief in love altogether.
It’s already on the rocks with her feelings about my first divorce.
If this second one happens too fast… I’m a horrible mom for even being in this situation in the first place. ”
“You’re not a horrible mom, Jones. You’re taking care of your daughter and your family.”
“Are you gonna tell her therapist that in ten years when she’s sitting on a couch explaining to him why she doesn’t believe in love?”
“She’ll believe in love. We’ll give her every reason to, and the divorce can wait for as long as you think it needs to.” I want to tell her I have zero interest in a divorce. But I’m pretty sure if I tell her that now, I’ll never get her down the aisle in the first place.
“Until she’s in college. At least. Maybe longer if you think it would hurt your Grams to see it happen sooner or if it’ll be part of her conditions for the property transfer.”
I do the math in my head. That’s a little less than three years. I can work with that. That gives me plenty of time to prove to Aspen just how much she needs me around.
“Works for me.” I nod, and I see the little rise and fall of her eyebrow at my easy agreement. “What else you got?”
“I think we have to keep our distance from each other.” The next rule feels like it’s coming out of left field, given the last two.
“How do you figure we’ll do that? I assume we’ll be living in the house together. Sleeping in the same bed.”
“Yes. Well… I’m still working out the bed bit. I’m thinking I could get a daybed or something put in the bedroom. You could take the bed, and I could sleep on that. If we keep the door locked so she can’t barge in, we could make it look like we’re sleeping together without actually doing it.”
“You don’t want to sleep in the same bed as me?” The hits keep coming today, apparently. I guess this is preparation for what she’s worried Fallon will say.
“I don’t think it’s wise.”
“Because?”
“Because the proximity could lead to familiarity, and the familiarity could lead to being familiar.”
“Sex?”
She nods.
“You can say the word. We’re all adults here. Fuck, we were each other’s firsts.”
Her lashes flutter, and her brow furrows.
“What are you talking about?” she asks.
“You know what I mean.”
“I was not your first,” she insists. “Annabelle was.”
It takes me a long minute to even remember who Annabelle is, but then I remember that she went to high school with us. She kissed me once when she was tipsy from a few beers after a football game. But I never slept with her.
“Annabelle?” My brows knit together. “Nah. I think I’d remember that.”
“She said—” Aspen starts. I can imagine what she said. She never did seem to like Aspen much.
“Then she lied. You were my first. I didn’t tell you that at the time. I was… I knew you thought I was experienced and wanted me to take the lead on things. So I figured it didn’t hurt to let you believe it, but… nah. No Annabelle. Just you.”
“Oh.” She looks down at her list, her thumb tracing over the edge of the paper while she’s lost in thought for a moment. “Well, um.” She clears her throat. “At any rate, I just think we shouldn’t be having sex.”
“You want us to be celibate for almost three years?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then you’ll have to clarify it for me.”
“If you think you can be discreet, and you want to keep your place up in the Springs… then you could still, you know, have sex—with whoever.” She’s talking faster than before.
“But it just can’t be here in town, or with any of the moms or anything.
They’re all so gossipy, and if anyone saw you at the inn or the Avarice…
well, it would travel quickly, and if Fallon heard about it… ”
“Fallon? Not you?”
“I don’t really want to hear about it either.
Other than knowing you’re being discreet and careful with whoever you choose for that sort of thing.
And understanding that you can’t be with someone you’d risk falling in love with.
Because like I said. We’d have to stay together until she finished high school and was off to college.
Then we can slow-walk a separation and say we just grew apart and got busier and busier. ”
“And you’re planning to do this too?”
“I mean, maybe not at your place in the Springs, but if I was out of town for work or on a girl’s trip, I might take advantage of being someplace new.”
“No.” The word comes out harsher than I intend, and it elicits the quirk of one of her eyebrows.
“No?” she asks, her tone icy. “You expect me to stay celibate while you get to fuck whoever you want?”