“He was an asshole. I’m sure he still is.”
I wondered… “Is he why you don’t cuss?”
No-bullshit Aiden answered. “Yes.”
It was in that moment, that I realized how similar Aiden and I were. This intense sense of affection, okay maybe it was more than affection—I could be an adult and admit it—squeezed my heart.
Looking at Aiden, I held back the sympathy I felt and just kept a grip on the simmering anger as I eyed his scar. “How did he do that to you?”
“I was fourteen, right before I hit my big growth spurt.” He cleared his throat, his face aimed at the ceiling, confirming he knew that I knew. “He’d been drinking too much and he was mad at me for eating the last lamb chop… he shoved me into the fireplace.”
I was going to kill his dad. “Did you go to the hospital?”
Aiden’s scoff caught me totally off guard. “No. We didn’t—he wouldn’t have let me go. That’s why it healed so badly.”
Yeah, I slid lower into the bed, unable to look at him. Was this what he was feeling? Shame and anger?
What were you supposed to say after something like that? Was there anything? I lay there, choking on uncertain words for what felt like forever, telling myself I had no reason to cry when he wasn’t. “Is your dad as big are you are?”
“Not anymore.” He let out a rough sounding snicker. “No. He’s maybe a hundred and sixty pounds, five foot ten if that. At least, that’s how he was last time I saw him.”
“Huh.”
He shifted around on the bed for a second before abruptly saying, “I’m pretty sure he wasn’t my real dad. My mom’s a blonde, so is he. They’re both average. My grandparents were blonds. My mom used to work with this guy who was always really nice to me when I went to her job. My parents fought a lot, but I thought it was normal since my dad was always trying to fight somebody. It didn’t matter who.” The similarity to Diana’s boyfriend didn’t escape me. “My grandmother was the one who admitted to me that my mom used to cheat on my dad.”
I wondered if they were still together or not. “That sounds like a miserable experience for both of them.”
He nodded, his breathing slow and even as his gaze stuck itself on the television. “Yeah, but now I see that they were both so unhappy with each other that they could never be happy with me, no matter what I did, and it makes it a lot easier to go on with my life. The best thing they ever did was relinquish their rights and take me to my grandparents. I didn’t do anything to them, and I’m better off with the way things turned out than I would have been otherwise. Everything I have, I have because of my grandma and grandpa.” He turned his head and made sure to make eye contact with me. “I wasn’t about to waste my life away, upset, because I was raised by people who couldn’t commit to anything in their lives. All they did was show me the kind of person I didn’t want to be.”
Why did it feel like he was talking about my mom?
We both lay there for a while, neither one of us saying a word. I was thinking about my mom and all of the mistakes I’d taken upon myself in all these years. “Sometimes, I wonder why the hell I bother still trying to have a relationship with my mom. If I didn’t call her, she’d call me twice a year unless there was something she needed or wanted, or she was feeling bad about something she remembered doing—or not doing. I know it’s shitty to think that, but I do.”
“Did you tell her we got married?”
That had me snickering. “Remember that day we went to your lawyer’s office and you’d answered her call? She was calling because someone had told her; they recognized my name.” The next snicker that came out of me was even angrier. “When I called her back, the first thing she asked was when I was going to get her tickets to one of your games. I told her never to ask me that again and she got so defensive… I swear to God, even now, I think about how I never, ever want to be anything like her.”
My hands had started clenching and I forced them to relax. I made myself calm down, trying to let go of that anger that seemed to pop up every so often.
“Like I said. I don’t know your mom and I really don’t want to ever know her, but you’re doing all right, Van. Better than all right most of the time.”
All right. Most of the time. The word choice had me smiling up at the ceiling as I calmed down even more. “Thanks, big guy.”
“Uh-huh,” he replied before going right for it. “I’d say all the time, but I know how much money you owe in student loans.”
I rolled onto my side to look at him. Finally. “I was wondering if you were ever going to bring that up,” I mumbled.
The big guy rolled over to face me as well, his expression wiped clean of any residual anger at his memories. “What the hell were you thinking?”
I sighed. “Not everyone gets a scholarship, hot shot.”
“There’s cheaper schools you could have gone to.”
Ugh. “Yeah, but I didn’t want to go to any of them.” I said it and realized how stupid that sounded. “And yeah, I regret it a little now, but what can I do? It’s done. I was just stubborn and stupid. And I’d never gotten to do what I wanted to do, I guess, you know? I just wanted to get away.”
Aiden seemed to consider that a moment before propping his head up on his fist. “Does anyone know about them?”
“Are you kidding me? No way. If anyone asked, I told them I got a scholarship,” I finally admitted to someone. “You’re the first person I’ve ever admitted that to.”
“You haven’t even told Zac?”
I gave him a weird look. “No. I don’t like telling everyone that I’m an idiot.”
“Just me?”
I stuck my tongue out. “Shut up.”
* * *
It didn’t matter how old I got, the first thing that came to mind every morning on December twenty-fifth was: It’s Christmas. There hadn’t always been presents under the tree, but after I’d learned not to expect anything, it hadn’t taken away from the magic of it.
The fact I woke up the next morning in a room that wasn’t mine, didn’t curb my excitement. The sheets were up to my neck and I was on my side. In front of me was Aiden. The only thing visible other than the top of his head were sleepy brown eyes. I gave him a little smile.
“Merry Christmas,” I whispered, making sure my morning breath wasn’t blowing directly into his face.
Tugging the sheet and comforter down from where he had it up to his nose, his mouth opened in a deep yawn. “Merry Christmas.”
I was going to ask when he’d woken up, but it was obvious it hadn’t been long. He brought up a hand to scrub at his eyes before making another soundless yawn. He punched his hands up toward the headboard in a long stretch. Those miles of tan, taut skin reached up passed the headboard, his biceps elongating as his fingers stretched far, like a big, lazy cat.
And I couldn’t stop myself from taking it all in, at least until he caught me.
Then we stared at each other, and I knew we were both thinking about the same exact thing: the night before. Not the long talk we’d had about our families—and that raw honesty we’d given each other—but about what happened after that.