13. Aidan #2
Magnolia looks disappointed, but I know I’m making the right decision.
I shovel the last scoop of ice cream in my mouth, wash my bowl, and bid my farewells as effortlessly as I can make them seem.
Kendall grunts and waves, and Magnolia walks me out to the mudroom.
Her eyes are wide and beautiful. I blink a couple of times to erase my stymie.
“Thanks for tonight, Aidan. That could have gone awry, and you reined it back in. Sorry for Kendall. The gossip around here really is something.” Magnolia shakes her head.
“You’re so good. I can’t believe my luck.
Thank you.” She goes on her tiptoes and kisses me quickly on the cheek.
We’re far enough from the dining table that Kendall can’t hear us, but she would be able to see our heads above the swinging doors that separate the kitchen and mudroom.
“Hey,” I say. “I was honest. I think that’s the best course of action for me. I caution you that I have no idea what I’m doing. This is all fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, but I’ll always try. Okay? Know that.”
“I know,” Magnolia replies.
Kendall flies past us both, hitting the screen door at a bolt. “Riding my bike down to the beach. I have my cell. I’ll be home in an hour, Mom. Nice meeting you, Aidan. Remember, I’m watching you!”
“Be careful,” Magnolia yells at her back.
“Sure thing, Mom!”
“Don’t talk to strangers,” Magnolia adds.
“Strangers shouldn’t be your worry,” I whisper. “Boys she knows already are the problem.” I grin.
Magnolia swats me on the shoulder. “Do I need to remind you that I was younger than she is when I got pregnant with her? I have every right to worry about every boy in the world. Strangers or not.”
“I’ve never been more acutely aware of that fact now that I’ve met her.
She is a carbon copy of you. I’m sorry. She seems to have a good head on her shoulders.
Don’t worry. Too much,” I add. Magnolia turns to watch Kendall pedal her bike away.
“That must have been hard. Giving up your childhood like that. So quickly.”
“It wasn’t easy,” Magnolia says. “But I’d do it again if given the chance. She’s everything to me.”
“I know,” I say. “You are doing a good job, Magnolia. In case no one has told you that lately. She went to bat for you against me because she cares about you.”
She turns. “Thank you for saying that. Sometimes I think I can’t do anything right by her.”
Taking her waist, I bring her closer. “Don’t think that for a second. I’d be happy to call you ‘Mom.’”
“Aidan, that’s weird as hell.”
I chuckle. “I know. But you smiled, and that made it worth it.”
“I read these articles that say once you divorce that the child should be the only focus, that parents having other relationships just ruins the kids even more. That was my worry, you know? That her seeing me with another man might trigger something and make her even more miserable.”
“I’m not Paul, Magnolia. Kendall knows that. Do you?”
Her glassy eyes pool, and a tear slips. “I’ve never been more acutely aware of a fact in my life,” she says, using my words. “I didn’t expect happiness ever again. Especially by using a dating app. It feels like a dream.”
I kiss her lips. She tastes like vanilla. My dick responds, but I pull away before I get too carried away. “Dream about me tonight.”
“Banging me up against a wall?” Magnolia adds, pecking my lips with hers once more.
I press my lips into a firm line. “I meant something more sweet and romantic, but you went ahead and took it there, so yes. My lips on your neck. You moaning into my ear. My body filling yours. An orgasm or two that makes your legs tingle. Me coming inside you. It dripping down your legs and onto the floor. Me kissing you. Putting you to bed. Dream of that.”
“Well, that sure gives me a vivid visual,” she says, breathing heavily.
“I should go before it’s a reality instead of a dream.”
Magnolia nods. “Did you mean what you said about the best part?”
I lay both hands on the sides of her cheeks. “You are my best part, Magnolia.”
She smiles, and another tear falls.
I wipe it away with my thumb.
The work meeting was tiresome, and there’s a possibility I might have to head to San Diego for some medical studies they do on SEALs every so often.
San Diego is still the main base that houses the bulk of our specialized facilities.
It would just be for a week or so, but the thought of leaving Magnolia makes me uneasy.
It’s foreign. The attachment—this tug on my heart that’s never been there before.
“You’ve been busy lately, man,” Mercer drawls from an old leather chair in our rec room at work.
There is a bar in here, and we eat lunch here some days.
Photos of our brothers killed in action line the walls, and awards and news articles of our accomplishments are tacked on the wall with haphazard care.
It’s a man cave to the extreme. It smells a little like sweat and gunpowder.
Someone is cleaning a gun on the counter behind me.
Tahoe walks in and slinks into a chair next to me. “He’s got a lady now. My, how things change, am I right?”
I hate that he’s right. Hate the years I spent naysaying, calling coupled dudes pussies.
Quite the opposite is actually factual. Being in a relationship takes fucking balls.
Huge ones. More nerve than is required to steal a life.
It takes diligence. Persistence. Patience.
Work. “You were right,” I say, taking a sip of keg beer.
“You heading to medical tomorrow too? I’m trying to get out of it. ”
“Yeah, I’ll head over there. My back’s been hurting,” he says, rubbing his lower back.
“Should have the specialists check that over.” The sleek black boats we ride are torture on our bodies.
We don’t sit on them. We stand. And our spines take a beating as we speed on the wake.
Most of the SEALs have some sort of lingering pain due to the trauma of our training.
Hearing loss is common. So is back and neck pain.
“You can’t get out of it, dude. Might as well do it now. ”
“I know. I was just settling into small-town life. Heading back there won’t be good for the mind, you know?” That’s where all of my mistakes are buried. The women who I passed my time with. The failed relationship. The atmosphere that fostered a person I’ve walked away from.
Tahoe chuckles. “It will be different. Feel different. Plus, it’s just for a week. Even Aidan Mixx can stay out of trouble for a week.”
“I can,” I affirm. Then I ask him about his life and listen to him talk about his family.
I leave the conversation feeling a resolve—an unwavering commitment to the decision I’ve made about my future with Magnolia.
It’s a huge step, one I never in a million years thought I’d want to take.
It’s because I never met her. Never knew something this strong could exist.
I visit Magnolia at her store on my way home from work, and she locks the doors, and we ravage each other on a bare mattress upstairs twice before I finally leave for home.
When I stopped in, it was to just say hello, and I told her as much, but I think that it stoked the flame even more because she jumped on me almost immediately.
She wasn’t happy when I told her I had to go to San Diego for a week, but she understood.
Quality time with Kendall would never be a bad thing, she said, and there were a ton of activities going on at her high school that Magnolia could attend and help out with.
Just because she’s okay with it doesn’t mean I’m okay with leaving her.
My apartment is silent and dark when I come in and throw my keys on the table—the blankets from our sleepover still on the floor.
I slept there last night, too. It smells like her.
It’s safe. I shower and I’m about to turn on the television when I catch sight of a note on the countertop.
It’s written in Magnolia’s girly script.
It’s an address. Somehow, and I’m not sure why, maybe it’s my SEAL intuition, I know it’s my parents’ address.
It didn’t take her long to figure this one out.
Even though she has my best interests at heart, I’ll never be able to face them again.
My parents are near San Diego. Where I’ll be for an entire week.
They must have moved there recently. I wonder why they went there.
It couldn’t possibly be because that’s where I was, so what was the reason?
The address gives me enough to contemplate and to fill my brain with.
I text Magnolia to tell her good night but make no mention of her note.
I fall asleep in our love cocoon dreaming of the SoCal skyline.
The dream swiftly morphs to fucking Magnolia against a wall. Her whispering that she loves me.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you talking about?”
Kendall is furious, standing in front of me in the kitchen. I came to say goodbye to Magnolia before I boarded the plane for San Diego. When I saw her busy in the garage, I decided to meander into the house for a drink of water. Obviously, a huge fucking mistake. Huge.
“He told me you are a player. That you’re just using my mom. He told me you’re going to leave her because she’s too old. All you SEALs like them young,” Kendall says, face tear-stained.
I hold up my palms. “Who said this?”
“That doesn’t matter! It’s true, isn’t it?”
“It’s not true. I’ve told you this before!
Who told you that?” The panic sets in. I’m not equipped for this scenario.
I have no idea what to say to calm a teenage girl.
When Kendall first confronted me about this, I assumed it was town gossip.
It’s evident now that’s not the case. “I love your mom.”
“Bullshit. You’re using her to get to me.”
I swallow hard. Her father. The younger woman he had an affair with. Kendall is projecting her fears onto me. That’s the only explanation. “Kendall, calm down. That’s not true at all.”
“I’m off-limits, so you’re getting to me through her. That’s what Leo said.”
Anger. Seething red anger beats at my rib cage like an animal seeking freedom. “Leo told you that? What else did he say?” I’m going to kill the kid. Slaughter him like a goddamn enemy on the battlefield. He’s miserable, and he’s taking everyone down with him. The guy is a motherfucking grenade.
“I can assure you everything he said is false. Did he touch you?” Another breed of fury rears when I envision Leo doing anything untoward to Kendall. “Be honest with me.”
Kendall looks away, out the window. “Don’t do that,” she yells.
“What?” I ask, my tone louder than I intended.
Her face wilts. “Pretend that you care about me.” My heart breaks.
“I do care about you. I love you and your mother. This is it for me, kid.”
She aims a finger at me like a gun. “You’re such a liar. Like all men. Every one of you! All you do is lie!”
It takes a second or two for her accusation to settle in. For the horror and shock to take hold. I don’t say anything.
“You want me.”
I shake my head sadly. How fucked up is this? “Not like that, kid. Not like that.”
“He told me so. I believe him,” Kendall says, glancing quickly out the kitchen window. “And I’m going to help my mom now before it’s too late. I want her all to myself, and I’m going to save her before this goes on any longer.”
I furrow my brow. “What?” My anger is so permeating, I can’t calculate her next move, and I should, because it’s my job to predict others’ actions. Love has fucked me up and down and every which way a person can be fucked.
The back screen door slams. Magnolia. Kendall throws herself into my arms, and I think she’s hugging me. Like maybe she’s upset and wants to be comforted by a father figure. She’s distraught. That’s not a leap, right? But then she twines her fingers into my hair and presses her mouth against mine.
What.
The.
Fuck.
Is.
Happening?
I put my hands against her shoulders, but my body is shocked, unable to process what is taking place. I don’t move my lips as Kendall’s work against mine, in fact, I don’t move a fucking muscle—not even to breathe.
“Aidan,” Magnolia yells. “What the hell is going on?”
Her sweet, albeit broken, voice dashes the haze surrounding my body. I push Kendall away in a stiff, jerky movement. Facing Magnolia, I see the pain. The betrayal reflecting in her eyes. I see her reliving her worst nightmare once more. My stomach churns and my heart pounds.
“Magnolia. No. No,” I plead. My voice sounds wrong. As if I’m outside, listening to someone else say the words. I see the sever—the disconnect—and I know nothing I’ll say will matter. There is no witty joke or cocky swagger that can repair the scene she sees in front of her.
I swallow hard.
Fuck.