“You’re taking awfully good care of me,” he said, slowly shuffling after her and heading toward her kitchen. She settled him down at the table. Her living room, dining room, and kitchen were open plan, so it was easy to prep dinner and talk to him at the same time. “Seriously. I owe you, for grocery shopping, and saving me from Deb—twice. I feel like you deserve a kidney or my firstborn child or something.”
She frowned, pulling out the ingredients for cottage pie. It was hearty, perfect for fall. She used to make it all the time when Kit was home, because he was a growing teen with a black hole of an appetite and they could cruise on the leftovers for longer than a day. She put ground beef, vegetables, and potatoes on the counter, and started to go to work.
“You don’t have any kids, do you?” she asked. “I seem to remember you saying something like that.”
He’d made a passing remark about not being married or having kids, actually. Yet she remembered it clearly.
He made a face. “No,” he said. “I like kids, and I hope I would’ve been a good dad if I had any. But I would’ve wanted a solid marriage first. And at this point—God, this might sound like shit, but the thought of kids is exhausting.”
“You are not lying,” she said. “Kit is my heart, but there’s a reason we were one and done.”
Pain, sharp and unexpected, slapped at her.
“You okay?”
She looked up, startled. “What?”
“You just . . . I’m sorry,” Aiden said, and his deep rumble was impossibly gentle. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“No. No, it’s fine.”
Aiden shifted in the chair, studying her intently. “Was it your ex? Didn’t want children?”
She threw carrots, onions, and celery in the food processor, buying time by pulsing it before letting it whirl the large chunks to bits. Then she put it all in the large pan to brown in some ghee. “He didn’t want the child he had,” she said. “He probably didn’t want children at all. Kit was an unexpected accident . . . although I guess if it’s expected, it’s not an accident.” She laughed, but it was a dry, dusty sound. “And this is why I’m a paid editor, am I right?”
Aiden didn’t take the bait. “That sounds incredibly hard. Did . . .” He paused. “Did Kit know how his father felt?”
“Yes.” Fury burned, quick and familiar. “I thought I could compensate. I acted as a buffer for a while, but it never quite worked. Honestly, I probably shouldn’t have hung on for as long as I did, but . . .” She shrugged.
“You didn’t just tell him to fuck off, Bogwitch-style, I guess?” Aiden said, with a small, teasing smile, but his eyes were compassionate. Possibly just a tiny bit pitying.
“Eventually. Just took a while to get there. Too long.” She added some garlic and stirred, probably a little too vigorously, like the vegetables had somehow wronged her. “But he’s gone. Out of the state. Last I checked, he was in Wyoming.”
Aiden’s face darkened like a storm cloud. “He hasn’t even been in touch? With Kit, I mean?”
“No.” She added tomato paste, letting it brown with the mirepoix she’d created. “It’s probably better that way, honestly. They didn’t have a lot to talk about when they were under the same roof. But yeah, sometimes, I could strangle him with my bare hands. It’s probably safer for him, and better for my life outside of a prison, that he stays at least a state or two away from me.”
“I . . .” Aiden looked like he was gearing up. “Sorry, but . . . how did you marry this guy in the first place? How’d you meet?”
“He was from the town I grew up in,” she said. “I lived in a smaller city, outside of Napa, California. His family was friends with my grandparents, who raised me.”
“Nana Birdie?”
She smiled. “You are a good listener. You remembered that I had assignments coming up when you told Deb why me having internet was important, and you remembered my grandmother’s name. That’s impressive. Not a lot of people pay attention when other people are talking.”
“Thanks,” he said easily. “Although with a name like Nana Birdie, it wasn’t as hard. I was definitely curious.”
“She was from Tennessee,” she said. “Big Memphis family. She moved to California to be with my grandfather, who moved there after World War II. He was in charge of a farm there . . . was from a family of farmers. They made a decent living.”
“What about your parents?”
“Died. Car accident.” She saw the sympathy on his expressive face, and she shook her head. “I was two. I have no memory of them.”
“Still hard.”
She nodded, acknowledging it. The tomato paste had browned nicely, and the whole thing smelled good. She added red wine and beef broth, as well as peas, then set the whole thing to simmer as she peeled potatoes.
“So your grandparents knew your ex’s family?”
“It was sort of like the Falls, now that I think about it,” she said. “They went to the same church, and they were just tight. After my grandfather died, they basically absorbed my grandmother and me. We went over there for holidays and birthdays and things, all the time. I’d see Trev when he was in town. He didn’t like hanging out, because his parents kept bugging him about not getting married and not settling down nearby. He was four years older than me, so I didn’t really get to know him until after I dropped out of college.” She bit her lip. “Anyway, my grandmother decided to move to Tennessee to be with family, younger cousins and her sister, I think. I didn’t feel like I’d fit in there, so I stayed behind. I told Trev I wanted to move out of state, and he did, too, so we moved to Washington. It took a while for us to get settled—he got a bunch of different jobs, and we tried a bunch of cities, but he hated the west side. So we finally found property in Fool’s Falls, and he got a job, and we moved Kit . . .”
Shut up. Shut up. Why are you telling him all this?
It was like she’d been alone for so long, she was willing to unload all of her shit at once, on any ears that were even halfway friendly.
No. That wasn’t it. It was the fact that it was Aiden. She felt like she could trust him. So she did.
“Anyway, I hope you’re okay with cottage pie,” she said, cutting the potatoes and putting them in a pot of water to boil. “I’m making a full batch, so you’ll be able to bring home half if you like it. It’ll be one less meal for you to pull together.”
“I dropped out of college too,” he said. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I dropped out of Washington State, and moved to the west side and changed majors and graduated from Bellevue College. I was premed, but I decided to go into nursing.” He looked rueful. “The decision didn’t go over too well with my family, needless to say.”
“Nursing is tough,” she protested.
“Yes, it is,” he said. “But apparently it isn’t all that manly. And they . . .” He cleared his throat. “Me being manly was kind of a big deal.”