Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
AVERY
It had been a long time since I’d felt this…protected. This cared for. This looked after. And I didn’t hate it.
While my mom had always been my most favorite person in the world, she hadn’t exactly been a caretaker. And it had taken me almost the entirety of my twenty-six years to realize that while she was amazing at a lot of things, that wasn’t one of them.
And now, it was undeniable. Especially when faced with Aiden’s reaction to what had happened to me.
He didn’t brush it off. He didn’t sweep it aside.
Did he overreact? Maybe. Probably. But since I couldn’t remember ever before having anyone overreact on my behalf, I wasn’t even going to pretend my chest didn’t warm from it. At least a little.
When he’d stormed out of his room following my half explanation, I knew he’d hit the point of no return.
It took a lot for Aiden to get mad—I’d never seen it in my time here, and that spoke volumes.
Frustrated? Yes. Overworked, stressed, impatient?
Also yes. Irritated? Almost daily. But this had been different.
That man in the cottage—whoever he was—was obviously already down on his luck, an alcoholic if I had to guess, and didn’t deserve Aiden’s wrath for what had essentially been an accident. And Aiden shouldn’t have to deal with the repercussions of whatever he’d planned on doing to take care of it.
Because of that, I’d called Brady. I’d known if anyone could talk sense into Aiden, it would be his older brother.
So as soon as Aiden had stormed down the stairs, I’d grabbed my phone and called the sheriff, letting him know the situation, and he said he’d handle it.
And since my temporary boyfriend was currently behind me, soaking in a steaming hot bath and not in jail on assault charges, the eldest McKenzie had come through.
Though the tub in our shared bathroom wasn’t as big or as luxurious as the one that had been in the Cozy Garden Hideaway, it was good enough.
I rested back against Aiden’s chest, his legs on either side of mine, bent so they could fit.
While the tub was a perfect fit for my five-foot-six stature, it was comical watching Aiden attempt to fold his much taller frame into it. But he did it. For me.
Without question. Without hesitation. Just like everything.
When he’d come back, twenty minutes after storming out, he’d cupped my face in his hands and pressed a soft, lingering kiss against my bandage, then my lips. Then he’d closed his eyes and rested his forehead against mine, breathing deeply before murmuring, “How about a bath, bunny?”
He’d slid in behind me with barely more than a wince at the near-scalding water, his hands not leaving my skin for even a second. He brushed them up and down my arms, swept them over my stomach, massaged my shoulders…his touch a gentle but firm presence reminding me he was with me.
With me, but silent, not having strung together more than ten words since he’d gotten back.
“So…” I said, dragging out the word. I’d waited patiently for him to tell me what was going on. But, as he often did, he’d retreated into his head, had gotten lost in his thoughts, and I was all too willing to pull him out of them. “How long is this elephant going to be in the room with us?”
His hands stilled for the briefest moment before returning to their path over my thighs. “I don’t even know where to start,” he admitted.
“How about we start with the biggie.” As much as I wanted to, I didn’t meet his gaze.
Somehow sensing this would be easier for him if I weren’t looking.
If he could whisper it into the darkened room without the pressure of my eyes on him.
“Who was that man, and what was he doing in Cottage Thirteen?”
Aiden’s touch grew firmer now, his hands a comforting weight against me, and I sensed it was more for him than it was for me.
“That man,” he started, then took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
“Is my father. And he’s been in Cottage Thirteen, without any contact with me or any of my siblings, for ten years.
Since our mom took one of our boats out during a storm and died at sea. ”
I gasped and turned over, no longer able to sit with my back to him.
I’d known about their mom—it had recently happened when I’d met Addison—but I hadn’t known this.
I rested my hands against his chest, over the heart that was beating steadily beneath my palm.
The one I had come to love, despite trying with everything in me not to.
And I offered him the only thing I could. “Oh, Aiden. I’m so sorry.”
He reached up, sweeping the hair back from my face, and shook his head.
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.
He’s an alcoholic—he’s always been an alcoholic—and he will always choose alcohol above everything else.
Including us. I’m the one who should be apologizing for getting you wrapped up in this in the first place. ”
“Well, I was the idiot who went stomping over there like fucking Veronica Mars.”
His lips twitched at that. “Yeah, please don’t ever do that again.”
“Promise.”
“We still should have told you about it when you started working here.” He blew out a heavy sigh. “Not that it’s an excuse, but the thought didn’t even occur to me. We’ve spent the past decade never talking about it or him, so it’s easy to forget.”
“Never?”
“Never,” he confirmed. “We each played our roles in his life while pretending none of us was doing it. But not anymore. He’s gone—or he will be by morning.”
This was a part of their life they had shoved into a box, sealed it shut with chains and a padlock, and thrown away the key. It had to be, because Addison shared everything with me, but she hadn’t shared this.
“So,” he said, “it looks like between the two of us, your dad is definitely winning Father of the Year.”
A huff of a laugh burst out of me, and I shook my head.
Aiden had absolutely no idea. No idea what kind of person my dad was or why I also hadn’t spoken to him in a decade.
No idea just how similar our paths were.
We both had these huge father-shaped holes in our lives, had both dealt with absences from the people who were supposed to care for us.
We had a shared history that had fundamentally affected the people we were now.
He’d just given me a huge part of himself. Had shared something with me he never spoke about. Something I had no doubt he’d kept between himself and his siblings…no one else.
Except me. He’d shared that with me.
I could do the same.
Lowering my gaze to the smattering of dark hair on his chest, I ran my fingers through it and tried to work up the nerve to say what I needed to. “Actually, I think they probably both tied for worst.”
I swallowed down my apprehension, my stomach tying itself in knots, because the last person I’d told this story to had been Addison. And that had happened eight years ago, following our first college party when we’d been blitzed out of our minds.
But I wasn’t drunk now, and unfortunately, my head wound wasn’t bad enough that I’d be able to forget about this come morning.
As if sensing I had more to say, Aiden kept quiet. He ran a hand down my back, settling his palm just above the curve of my ass in a way that made me ache for him. Not just for sex—though that was always something I craved with him—but for the comfort he provided me, without fail.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he murmured. “This doesn’t have to be a tit-for-tat situation. Just because I shared why my family is fucked up doesn’t mean you need—”
“When I was sixteen, my mom and I found out the reason my dad never stuck around for longer than a day, never visited more than a couple times a year, and never moved to our town to live closer to us, was because he had another family. In Connecticut.” Avoiding Aiden’s shocked eyes, I swallowed back the anger that still bubbled up when I thought about that day.
“A boy and girl, one older than me, one younger. He kept that secret from us—from everyone—for years. But then his wife found out about me and my mom, and she gave him an ultimatum. No surprise that he chose them. Cut off all contact with us without so much as a goodbye.”
“And that’s why you hate secrets so much…”
I pressed my lips together and nodded.
“Jesus, Avery. I’m so—”
“You don’t have to say you’re sorry. I’m not.
Anymore, at least. I’m so much happier without him in my life.
My mom is, too. He’d never really been there anyway.
I’d only see him a few times a year, and only for a couple hours at that.
It took me a long time to realize that I wasn’t a problem.
That I wasn’t unlovable.” As much as I tried to stop it, my voice still cracked on the last word.
Aiden made a rough sound in the back of his throat. “Fuck, bunny. Don’t say that. It’s the furthest thing from the truth. How else could you explain a grumpy ass like me falling?”
It took a moment for his words to seep in, a handful of seconds for my brain to register what he’d said.
But when it did, when I realized exactly what he was saying without actually saying it, my stomach flipped, a flurry of butterflies somersaulting within it.
And I knew there was no more denying it.
I loved him, too.
While I thought I’d been in love before, it was now blatantly obvious I never had been. Couldn’t possibly have been because they never generated a fraction of what I felt burning inside me for Aiden.
As much as I wanted to tell him that…as much as I wanted to let him know he wasn’t just a grumpy asshole—that he was the perfect man, at least for me—I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
I was leaving, and no amount of declarations would change that. I had a dream that was finally in my grasp, and I’d learned the hard way not to give that up for anyone.