Chapter 25 #2
“No,” I quickly say, snatching up the frying pan to portion out the eggs. “Ace, come sit at the table. Breakfast is ready.”
Dean clears his throat, and I can feel him staring at me, but he won’t press the issue in front of our son. “What do you want to drink, buddy?” he asks our son.
“Orange juice,” Ace replies on his way to the table.
Dean gets up to grab a cup from the cabinet and walks past me to get the juice from the fridge. “You’re concerning me, Vanna,” he says quietly.
“I’m fine.” I smile back at him as he comes to stand beside me to pour Ace’s juice. “Really.”
He stares at me a moment too long, filling the cup a little too high.
“That’s too much.” I nod at the cup and joke. “You’re setting our son up for failure. He will spill.” Dean lifts it to his lips, taking a few gulps, but never takes his eyes from me. I pick up the plate of eggs and hand it to him. “Bring Ace his breakfast. I’ll bring yours over.”
“You’re not eating?”
“I’m meeting Laura and Ethan for brunch in a little while. We’re hitting a few shops for their holiday sales.”
Dean turns to bring Ace his food, and I grab the coffee I made for him and his plate of eggs. After setting Dean’s breakfast down at the head of the table, I watch Ace pick up his fork and dig into his own scrambled eggs and piece of toast, no crust, of course.
“Are you keeping him with you today?” I ask as Dean sits. “I can bring him with me if it’s a problem. I’m sure Laura won’t mind.”
“You deserve a day with your friends whenever you can arrange it.” Dean insists, lifting his coffee mug to take a cautious sip. “I know it’s been difficult finding time to go see Laura.”
The past few years, Laura has been enjoying her retirement and beach cottage, on top of doing quite a bit of traveling with her husband.
“I’ll keep Ace with me. The guys won’t mind him sitting in on Church. If the day doesn’t get away with us, maybe I’ll bring down some of the Yule ornaments while you’re out.”
“Alright. Well, there’s still the lasagna I froze last week if you want to pop that in the oven later. I’m going to get ready.” I smile again, but as I turn, Dean’s hand gently grabs mine.
“I’d like to continue the conversation we started last night,” Dean says, subtly cocking his chin at Ace.
“Maybe after this one goes to B. E. D .” He spells the word, which earns him a suspicious glance from our son.
I can’t help but giggle at how much that little glare looks just like his father’s.
My laughter seems to ease some of the tension in Dean’s eyes.
“Okay,” I say, giving his fingers what I hope is a reassuring squeeze before he allows mine to slip from his grasp.
L aura and Ethan are already waiting for me in the parking lot of the Fort Fisher Ferry. We’re taking Laura’s car across the waterway to Southport for a bite to eat and some holiday shopping at a few small boutiques.
Within the hour, we’re moseying the beautiful historic streets of Southport along the river, and Ethan is already carrying shopping bags and gift boxes in both hands.
“I’m starving,” he announces. “I was told there would be food on this excursion.”
Laura laughs. “Alright. Let’s double back and put our things in my car. We’ll go find someplace to sit down and have lunch.”
We settle on a seafood restaurant overlooking the Intracoastal, dining on fresh-caught clams and shrimp cocktails while Ethan fills us in on the details of his new boyfriend, and I show off recent pictures of Ace.
I can’t help but notice Laura has been unusually quiet.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
Ethan looks back and forth between us before blurting out, “You didn’t tell her?”
“Tell me what?” I ask, but they both remain silent. “You can’t do that. You can’t say you didn’t tell her and then not tell. That never would have flown at the shop. What happened?”
Laura lets out a long sigh. “Robert and I are getting divorced. We’ve been legally separated for almost a year now. Arbitration starts next week to see if we can agree upon who gets what in the split.”
“Oh my god, Laura. I’m so sorry,” I say, “Why didn’t you say anything?”
She gives me a sympathetic look. “You had a lot going on and have been through so much these last few years. I didn’t want to add to it. It’s fine. People get divorced all the time. What is it, one in three marriages that fail these days?”
I try not to look down at the wedding band on my own finger.
“ I’m the one in our three.” She smiles. “Don’t look so worried. Dean is a keeper, and so are you.”
“You’re a keeper,” I insist.
“Yeah, well, Robert is an idiot.” She laughs, lifting her glass of wine to take another sip. “Over the years, people change. We tried to fix it with vacationing, but some fundamental incompatibilities are insurmountable. As long as I can keep the beach house, I’m fine.”
“Maybe you can hook Laura up with one of your biker friends when she’s ready to get back out there?” Ethan jokes. “Even if it’s just for a summer fling.”
Laura laughs. “I’m open to applications. I can rock a leather jacket and chaps.”
“ Chaps! This I need to see,” Ethan says enthusiastically, then shifts his attention back to me. “How about it, Vanna? Do you know any good-looking bikers looking for love?”
Grey eyes and a sharp-featured smile flash through my mind, and I nearly choke on my sweet tea.
“Um, no… Not off the top of my head. Not anyone that would be good for Laura, anyway. Though, feel free to come by the Twisted Throttle whenever you want and shop around ,” I joke.
Laura laughs, but Ethan definitely suspects something.
“Who’s the guy?” he asks, and the smile slides right off Laura’s face.
“What guy?” she asks.
“There’s definitely no guy,” I insist, shooting Ethan a glare at the insinuation.
“No, no. There was weirdness,” he insists. “You might not have any interest, but there’s something going on with some guy. You totally choked when I asked.”
“You really suck, you know that?” I pinch the lemon wedge on the side of my glass into the remainder of my iced tea and drop it on my plate. “You and your intuitive ways.”
He smiles proudly for a moment, but doesn’t let up. “Well, share with the class.”
I shift uncomfortably in my seat, stirring my drink with the straw. I can feel my own face wincing as I try to find the words to explain Legion. “There’s a man Dean believes has a crush on me.”
“ Dean believes?” Laura presses.
I nod.
“You don’t?”
“It’s…complicated.”
Ethan leans forward to capture the straw in his drink between his teeth. “I love complicated. You better not spare any details,” he says, before taking a sip of his mixed drink.
“That’s all there is,” I insist. “He thinks he likes me. I’m happily married. The end.”
“You wish.” Ethan grins. “What’s his name?”
“Damien.”
“That’s hot.”
“Stop.”
“Go on,” Ethan urges. “What’s Mr. Complicated’s sign?” I’m about to answer when Ethan starts waving his hand frantically in my face, “ Wait, wait, wait! Let me guess!”
“This is so pointless,” I huff. “Not to mention wildly inappropriate, Ethan.”
“When has that ever stopped me?” he chuckles. “Is Mr. Complicated an air sign?” I glower at him, though I know I can only stall for so long. “ Is he an air sign?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re the worst liar, Aries . Your face reveals everything your mind is thinking. That extra bump of stubbornness in your Taurus cusp isn’t going to save you, either.” Ethan pushes.
“Alright. Fine. He’s an air sign. So what?”
“Which air sign?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You fire signs, knock it off,” Laura attempts to intervene, though I can tell she’s vaguely curious where Ethan is going with this.
“Are you friends with him?” Ethan presses.
“I don’t know what to call it, honestly… He’s just…around.”
“Describe him in one word!” Ethan demands, snapping his fingers rapidly in my face. “ Quick! Quick! Quick!”
“Dark,” I blurt out while swatting his hand away.
“So, he’s not a Libra,” Ethan says, studying me harder. “At least not by comparison to the other two options. Libra wouldn’t be quite so alluring to you.”
I hate that he used that word. “Who said I found him alluring?”
“Your eyes when I asked you to describe him.” He smirks with a confidence that is beginning to rattle my nerves. “He’s an Aquarius, right? Dark. Alluring. Adventurous. A rebel .”
I fold my arms, refusing to speak, but I don’t have to.
“I knew it. Makes sense. Look how close you two are. Fire and Air,” he says, gesturing to Laura and me.
“Female Aquarians are very different from males,” Laura corrects him. “And you know we’re all more than our sun signs, Ethan.”
“But fire is very drawn by air, regardless,” Ethan goes on, turning to smile at Laura, and gestures to himself and me. “Why do you think you’ve got two fire signs around you all the time?”
“ Just lucky, I guess,” she jokes with a playful roll of her eyes.
“You’re damn right,” Ethan teasingly scoffs.
“Well, now I don’t even want to talk about what I wanted to talk about because this flaming little jerk will read way too far into it if I do.” I sigh.
“ Flaming ?” Ethan grins at me.
“Shut up. You know I was only talking about your damn element .”
“I’m just teasing you.” He rolls his sassy eyes at me. “And I promise I won’t read into anything you tell us. I’ve mostly just been playing with you,” Ethan insists. “I know you’re head over heels for your husband. And he is for you. Scorpio is the fieriest of the water signs after all.”
Laura nods, “And his depth of love for you easily rivals the Challenger Deep.”
I know it does. Dean’s healing, ocean-deep love is incomparable to anything I’ve ever felt before. And I love him back just as much, despite the wild dream I had last night.
Those smoldering memories force themselves to the forefront of my mind again... Dean fucking me from behind, pulling me back against him by my hips, forcing me up onto my hands and knees on the mattress, which brought me face to face… with Legion .