The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

Chapter Twenty-Four

Diana’s horrified face warned me about what she was going to say before she actually vocalized it. “Get inside before anyone sees you,” she practically hissed.

I made sure she watched me roll my eyes as I brushed past her into her apartment. Yeah, I knew I had about an inch of my natural hair color peeking out from my roots, but I didn’t really care. The only reason why I hadn’t dyed it back to its normal reddish brown was because I’d texted her for the first time since Thanksgiving to ask what box of dye at the pharmacy she recommended, and gotten:

You’re already on my last nerve. Buy it and I’ll kill you.

Which was why I found myself driving an hour to go visit her on her day off a couple of weeks after Thanksgiving, putting up with the sneer on her face as her gaze roamed over my hair again. I swear she might have even shuddered a little.

Her repulsion wasn’t enough to keep me from kissing her on the cheek and giving her butt a slap in ‘hello.’ It had been way too long since we’d last seen each other. She’d pretended to be mad long enough.

She gave me a parting smack in return as her eyes wandered over me briefly. “Besides your hair, you look really good.”

I felt really good. “I’ve been running four days a week and riding a stationary bike once a week.”

Diana eyeballed me again. “You should probably buy new clothes soon.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged and looked her over, not so subconsciously looking for finger-shaped bruises on any of her exposed skin. I didn’t find any, but I did notice the bags under her eyes. “You look tired.”

The fact she didn’t flip me off when that would have been her normal reaction didn’t hit me until much later. “I am tired. I’m glad you noticed.” She knew better than to wait for me to apologize. “I’ve been working doubles, I’m not getting enough sleep. I’m turning into you.”

“A successful, hardworking woman. I think I’m going to shed a tear.”

“Oh, fuck off. Go into the kitchen and take your shirt off,” she cracked up. I didn’t even get a chance to make a joke about her wanting me to strip before she stopped me with a hand. “This isn’t Striptease. I’m not giving you a dollar or taking you out to dinner first.”

“Fair enough,” I muttered and made my way into the kitchen where I peeled my T-shirt over my head.

“So… how have you been?” she asked slow and purposely awkward.

I used the same dull tone. “I’m fine. And you?”

“Good,” my robot-voiced best friend replied.

Our eyes met and we both smiled. She shoved at my shoulder and I tried to pinch her stomach. “Are we fine now?” I asked with a laugh.

“Yeah, we’re fine. Now tell me everything I’ve missed.”

We spent the next hour talking. I told her about Thanksgiving and going to Aiden’s game. Twenty of those minutes consisted of us going over the day of my little brother’s game, how Susie had showed up, what Aiden had said to her husband, and then explaining the hatred on the big guy’s face as he’d stared at my sister. I told her about him helping me with the Christmas tree and lights. How he got into a fight with Christian, whom she remembered clearly from that night at the bar because she’d threatened to kick his ass after I told her what had happened.

By the end of it, she had me under a helmet that looked like something out of the NASA space program, and she looked dazed.

“Jesus,” she said twice.

“I thought I was over this stage in my life.”

“No shit. It’s like something out of those novelas my mom watches.”

“The same ones we used to watch with her,” I pointed out. It was how I’d learned Spanish.

Diana laughed from the spot she’d taken in front of me, sitting with her legs crossed. “We would run home after school and watch them, didn’t we?” She made a wistful noise. “It seems like forever ago, huh?”

It really did. I nodded. They were some of my fondest memories before I’d been moved across town and never experienced them again. While living with my mom had left me with a handful of good memories and a dozen terrible ones, it had still been everything I’d known.

Di seemed to brush off whatever distant memory she was thinking of and asked, “What are you gonna do then?”

“With what?”

“With your husband. Who else?”

She could have been talking about my sister. Smart-ass. “Nothing.”

Diana gave me this expression that said, ‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’ “Don’t ‘nothing’ me. You’re still goo-goo with him. I can see it.”

I opened my mouth to tell her I wasn’t goo-goo over anybody, but she did her hand thing again, stopping me.

“You’re really gonna try and lie to me? I can see it, Vanny. Hello. You can’t sneak anything by the master.” I’d snuck my marriage by her, but why bring that up? “Seems to me like he likes you too. I don’t think he’d spend so much time with you if he didn’t.”

All I could do was let out a restrained grunt.

“You’re gonna be together for the next five years. Why not make the best out of it?” she brought up.

I wanted to mess with my glasses, but I kept my hand lowered. “We made a deal, Di. This was supposed to be business. It isn’t his fault I’m an idiot.”

“Why are you an idiot? Because you want someone to love you?”

“Because he doesn’t love anything. He doesn’t want to. How awkward would it be if I did or said anything? I’m not going to back out on our deal now. He cares about me, but that’s all.”

If there was anyone in the world who knew me almost as well as I knew myself, it was her. And what she said next confirmed that. “Vanny, I love the hell out of you. You’re my sister from another mister, you know that, but you have a messed up conception of what you’re willing to work for and risk. I don’t know if he’s capable of loving you or not, but what’s the worse that will happen? You guys are married. He isn’t going to divorce you now.”

What was the worse that would happen?

I’d lose my friend.

Diana reached forward and tugged at the hem of my jeans. “Do whatever you want. I only want you to be happy. You deserve it.”

I scrunched up my nose, not willing to talk about Aiden any longer, every time I did, especially when it was with the L-word in the subject, it made my entire body hurt. I’d loved enough people in my life who didn’t love me back and didn’t bother hiding it. So I guess Diana was right—there was only so much risk I was willing to take.

That was depressing.

Clearing my throat, I pointed at the Christmas tree behind her, ready to talk about something else. I couldn’t believe the holidays were less than a week away now. When I’d worked for Aiden, time had gone by fast, but since I’d quit, it went by even faster than before. “When are you leaving for your parents?”

“I’m leaving Christmas Eve. I have to be back at work on the twenty-sixth,” she explained. “Are you staying here?”

Where else would I go?

“I’m takin’ off,” Zac said from my doorway a few days later.

Spinning in my chair, I blinked over at him before coming to my feet. “Okay. I’ll walk you down.”

“Aww, you don’t have to.”

I rolled my eyes and pushed at his shoulders when I was right in front of him. “I want to give you your Christmas present.”

“In that case, lead the way, darlin’,” he said even as he took a step back and let me walk ahead.

The Christmas tree lights were turned off when we got downstairs, and I pushed the gifts underneath it aside to find Zac’s. Picking the two perfectly wrapped boxes out from the corner where I’d stashed them, I handed them over. “Merry Christmas.”

“Can I open them now?” he asked like a little boy.

“Go for it.”

Zac ripped the paper off each box and opened them with a grin on his face. Inside were sleep pants and slippers. What do you get a man who had everything? Things he really liked, even if he had a dozen other of the same stuff.

“Vanny,” he gurgled, holding his arm wide with one gift in each hand.

“You’re welcome,” I said, stepping into his embrace.

He squeezed me and rocked me from side to side. “Thank you.”

“Sure.”

He took a step back and put his things into his bag before shoving half his arm in and yanking out what looked like a card. “For you, my girl.”

I took the card from him with a big smile on my face, touched that he’d gotten me one. I tore it open and pulled the card out, opening it to find a gift card inside for one of the local sporting goods stores. But it was the horrible scrawl inside that really caught my eye.

To my closest friend,

Merry Christmas, Vanny. I don’t know what I would’ve done w/o you the last few months.

Love you

-Z

“I’m not good at buyin’ presents, so buy yourself some new shoes for the marathon, ya hear? You better have ‘em by the time I come home. Don’t go buyin’ somebody else somethin’,” he prattled.

“Thank you,” I muttered, giving him another hug. “I promise I’ll buy myself something. When are you getting back?”

“I’m gonna stay through New Year’s. My PawPaw hasn’t been doin’ so well, so I wanna spend some time with him.” He winked. “And this real sweetheart I used to date in high school messaged me a few days ago to see if Big Texas was gonna be in town.”

I snickered. Big Texas. There was no way she was referring to him as a person. “What happened to that girl you were talking to here?”

Zac made a noise. “She was cuckoo.”

“Have fun back home then.”

“I will.” He leaned down and gave me a peck on the cheek. “Go visit Diana if you get lonely, hear me?”

“I’ll be fine.” This wouldn’t be my first Christmas spent without a big group. I knew I would survive. I slapped him on the butt when he turned to head to the door. “Drive careful and tell your mom I said hi.”

Zac grinned at me over his shoulder, and just like that, he was gone and I was home alone.

I shut the garage door with a slight smile on my face, Aiden’s Christmas present in hand, torn between feeling pretty lousy and slightly excited about the little treasure waiting for tomorrow morning.

Going for a ten mile run earlier had exhausted me, but not enough. I’d baked sugar cookies shaped in trees, candy canes, and stars took my mind off of everything for a couple of hours, and then the doorbell had rang and the post office delivery person presented me with four different boxes labeled to me. I’d opened them up like a little kid.

My foster parents, Diana, her parents, and my little brother had all sent me gifts in different levels of wrapping. I’d gotten a pack of water colors, colored pencils, several pairs of new underwear—from the only person who would buy me that—a pretty watch, and pajamas.

Miss u, a card in my little brother’s gift said. He was spending the holidays with one of his teammate’s family in Florida.

I’d sent them all gifts two weeks before, even sending my mom and her husband a gift basket. Luckily, I hadn’t been expecting a present from them, otherwise I would have been sorely disappointed. The gifts served to make me feel loved and lonely, and I wasn’t sure how the hell it was possible to feel two such conflicting emotions.

Aiden had been home since noon, and I could tell he was in a strange mood. He’d been awfully quiet, spending his time working out and also working on a puzzle in the breakfast nook while I’d made cookies, and then he’d headed upstairs saying he was going to take a nap. I stayed downstairs only long enough to make sure Aiden was asleep; then I’d taken off to pick up his present. Luckily, he’d still been asleep when I got home, and I set his gift up in the garage, confident that Aiden wouldn’t be leaving anywhere and spoil his surprise. Inside, I turned on the television to drown out any possible noises that came from the garage, then sat on the floor and used the watercolors my foster parents had sent me.

I kept checking the garage every hour since then. Nearly all the lights in the house were turned off when I made my way through the house with the package in my hand, my back aching from so much time hunched over. At the bottom of the stairs, I listened for Aiden, but there wasn’t a peep. Why would there be? Despite it being Christmas Eve, he’d had to wake up early and report to team headquarters to check in with the trainers because his lower back had been giving him trouble the last couple of weeks.

In the laundry room, I set the carrier down. I’d already put two blankets inside, refilled the water bottle mounted to the door, and put food into the small bowl that attached to the door too. I’d let the little rascal out on the front lawn and waited until it pooped and peed. The cute face peeked out at me through the grate and I stuck my fingers in there to give its nose a rub.

While the garage was well insulated, and I knew it wouldn’t be cold, I hated the idea of leaving him in there. Taking it up to my room was out of the question because I had a feeling it would bark. I left the light on for him and made my way back to the kitchen where I cracked open the container of sugar cookies I made and inhaled two of them.

I turned off all the lights except the set under the kitchen cabinets, filled a glass with water, and headed upstairs. In my room, I grabbed clothes to take a shower, feeling downright off. I stayed under the stream longer than I usually would have and climbed out of the tub, telling myself to quit being such a party pooper.

I had just opened the bathroom door when I heard, “Van?”

“Aiden?” Okay, that was a stupid question. Who else would it be? With my dirty clothes under my arm, I walked down the hall. His door was open. Usually when he went to sleep, he closed it, and I guess I hadn’t glanced over when I’d come upstairs.

Sitting with his back propped up against the headboard, a bedside lamp illuminated part of the room. Half of his body was under the covers and the other half was unfortunately covered in a T-shirt by one of his endorsers. Aiden gave me a speculative look.

“Are you okay?” I asked, resting my shoulder against the doorframe.

“Yes,” he answered in such an earnest, easy way that I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Huh. “What are you doing?” The television wasn’t on and a book was set on his nightstand.

“I was thinking about the game last week, and what I could have done differently.”

Of all the things in the world, why did that just happen to reach straight into my ribs and grab my heart? “Of course you were.”

Aiden lifted one of those big, brawny shoulders, his eyes going to the super, sexy long-sleeved button up flannel pajamas I had on. “Are you going to sleep?” he asked, even as his gaze raked its way back up to my face.

“I’m not that tired. I’ll probably watch some more TV or something.”

Even in the dark light, I could tell his cheek twitched. “Watch it with me,” he suggested easily.

Wait. What?

“You’re not tired?”

“I took a long nap. There’s no chance I’m going to sleep soon,” he explained.

I smiled and rubbed my foot along the edge of where the hardwood floor hallway met the carpet of his bedroom. “Are you sure you don’t have more plays to think about?”

Aiden gave me a sour look.

He was inviting me to watch television with him. What other answer was there besides, “Okay”?

By the time I got back to his room after depositing my dirty clothes in the hamper in my room, the big guy had scooted over to one side of the bed and turned on the forty-something inch television propped on one of his dressers. With his hands linked behind his head, he watched me as I came in, feeling just slightly awkward.

I gave him a tiny smile and kept eye contact as I pulled the comforter up and slipped under it, waiting to see if he’d complain. He didn’t. There was about two feet of space between us on the California King. I moved the pillow against the headboard and settled in with a sigh.

“Van?”

“Hmm?”

“What’s wrong?”

Tugging the sheets up to my neck, I blinked at the ceiling. “Nothing.”

“Don’t make me ask you again.”

And that only made me feel bad. It was easy to forget how much he knew about me. “I’m fine. I’ve just been feeling pretty mopey today for some reason, maybe it’s hormones or something. That’s all.” I wrung my hands. “It’s dumb. I love Christmas.”

There was a pause before he asked, “You don’t visit your mom?”

“No.” I realized after I said it how dismissive I sounded. “My sisters spend it with her. She’s married now and has step-kids that go over there. She’s not alone.” And even if she were all by herself, I would still not go. I could be honest with myself.

“Where’s your brother?”

“With his friend.”

“Your friend? Diana?”

With how busy he’d been, we hadn’t spent much time together other than saying ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ and catching some TV at the same time. “She’s with her family.” After I said it, I realized how it sounded. “I swear, I’m usually okay. I just feel off, I guess. What about you? Are you fine?”

“I’ve spent most of my Christmas’ alone for the last decade. It isn’t a big deal.”

Of all the people to spend the holidays with, it was with the one whose history was a little too similar to mine. “I guess the good thing is, you don’t have to spend it alone anymore if you don’t want to.” I’m not sure why I said what I said next, but I did. “At least while you’re stuck with me.”

Could I sound any more pathetic?

“I am stuck with you, aren’t I?” he asked in a deceptively soft voice.

He was trying to make me feel better, wasn’t he? “For the next four years and eight months.” I smiled over at him even as this incredible sense of sadness filled my belly like sand in an hourglass.

His head jerked back. The action was tiny, tiny, tiny, but it had been there.

Or had I imagined it?

Before I could wonder too much about whether he’d reacted or not, the big guy who seemed to swallow up his bed, bluntly asked, “Are you finally going to tell me what your sister did to piss you off?”

Of course he would ask. Why wouldn’t he? It wasn’t like I considered it a secret. I just didn’t like talking about it. On the other hand, if there were someone in the world I could talk about Susie with, it would be Aiden. Who would he tell? The thing was, even if he did have someone to, if I really thought about it, he was more than likely the most trustworthy person I knew.

I wasn’t sure when that had happened, but I wasn’t going to wonder about it too much, especially not on Christmas Eve when he’d invited me to his bed, and I was feeling lonelier than I had in a long time.

Shifting a little on the mattress, I propped my head up on my hand and just went for it. “She hit me with a car when I was eighteen.”

Those incredibly long black eyelashes hovered low over his eyes. Were his ears going red? “The car accident,” his voice was hoarse, “the person that you told me ran you over…” His blink was so slow I might have thought there was something wrong with him if I hadn’t known otherwise. “It was your sister?”

“Yes.”

Aiden stared straight at me, the confusion apparent in the slight lines that crept out from the corners of his eyes. “What happened?” he ground the question out.

“It’s a long story.”

“I have time for you.”

“It’s a really long story,” I insisted.

“Okay.”

This guy. I had to stretch my neck as if warming up for this crap storm. “All of my sisters have issues, but Susie’s always been something else. I have anger problems, I know. Surprising right? The only one of us who I think doesn’t have problems is my little brother. I think my mom was boozing it up while she was pregnant with us or maybe our dads were just different levels of assholes, I’m not sure.”

Why was I telling him that? “Anyway, things have always been bad between us. I don’t have a single decent memory of her. Not one, Aiden. There was the closet thing, her coming up and smacking me in the face for no reason, yelling at me, pulling my hair, breaking my things for no reason… I mean, all kinds of crap. I didn’t fight back for the longest until I got tired of her shit, right around when I grew to be bigger than she was, and I finally had enough. She had already been drinking and doing drugs by then. I know she had been for a while. But I didn’t care. I was tired of being her punching bag.

“Well, this one time, she really kicked my ass. She pushed me down the stairs and I broke my arm. My mom was… I don’t know where she was. My little brother freaked out and called 911. The ambulance came and took me to the hospital. The doctors or the nurses or someone called my mom. She didn’t answer. I didn’t know where she was and neither did any of my siblings. The hospital finally called CPS and they took me, and then they took them. I don’t know how long it took my mom to figure out we were all gone, but she lost custody.

“I spent the next almost four years with my foster parents and little brother. I saw my mom a few times, but that was it. Right after I went away to school, she started calling me asking what I was going to do during the summer, telling me how she’d love to see me. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking back then. She had a steady job, so I went… and it wasn’t until I got there that I realized she wasn’t living alone. Susie and my oldest sister were living with her. I hadn’t seen either one of them in years.

“I should have known then that it would have been better for me to go somewhere else. My friend Diana’s parents were still living next door, but she was doing something that weekend so she wasn’t going to be home, and I didn’t want to stay there without her; my foster parents had told me I always had a home with them—I mean, my little brother was still with them. But for some stupid reason, I wanted to give my mom a chance. We—Susie and I—started fighting the moment I got there, and I should have fucking known. The moment I saw her, I could tell she was on something. I tried to talk to my mom about it, but she blew me off and said Susie had changed, blah, blah, blah.

“Seriously, it was my second night back, and I had walked by my mom’s room and found her going through my mom’s drawers. We started arguing. She called me a bunch of ugly stuff, started throwing things at me, and nailed me with a vase. I barely saw her grab my purse off the kitchen counter when she ran out of the house with whatever else she had grabbed before I caught her. I was so pissed off, Aiden.

“It’s so dumb when I think about it now, and what’s even dumber is that I still would have chased after her even knowing what would happen. She got into her car, and I started yelling at her through the window when she backed out of the driveway. I didn’t want to get my toes run over, so I went to stand in front of her car when she suddenly put it into drive and hit the gas pedal.”

Anxiety and grief kind of grabbed my lungs as I kept telling him what happened. “I remember her face when she did it. I remember everything. I didn’t black out until the ambulance showed up, which was after she peeled out of the driveway and left me there. Diana had gotten home early and she was in her room when it happened, and overheard us shouting. She came out right before Susie hit me and called 911, thankfully. The doctor told me later on that I was lucky I had my body turned just right and that she only hit one of my knees and not both.”

How many times had I told myself that I was over this? A thousand? But the betrayal still stung me in a million different sensitive places. “Lucky. Lucky that my sister hit me with a car and only hurt one of my knees. Can you believe that?”

Something bubbled up in my throat and then made its way up to the back of my eyes. Some people would call them tears, but I wouldn’t. I wasn’t going to cry over what happened. And my voice definitely wasn’t cracking with emotion. “My tendon was ruptured. I had to miss an entire semester of school to recover.”

The big guy stared at me. His nostrils flared just slightly. “What happened after she hit you?”

“She disappeared for a couple months. Not everyone believed me when I told them she’d done it, even though I had a witness. I was pretty sure she’d been sober when she did it—that’s probably why she was stealing money, to go get whatever it was she wanted. My mom wanted me to forgive her and move on, but… how could she ask me to do that? She knew what she’d been doing. Susie had stolen money from her too. She’d chosen to do it, you know? And even if she’d been high, it would still have been her choice to get high and steal shit from the people she was supposed to love. Her choice led her to that moment. I can’t feel bad for that.”

I couldn’t. Could I? Forgiveness was a virtue, or at least that’s what someone had told me, but I wasn’t feeling very virtuous.

“I went and stayed with my foster parents afterward. There was no way I was going to stay at Diana’s right next door. My foster dad had me do his accounting work, be his secretary, all kinds of things so I could at least earn my room and board because I didn’t want to freeload off of them. Then I went back to school once I was better.”

“What happened with your sister?” he asked.

“After she hit me, I didn’t see her again for years. You know what kills me the most though? She never apologized to me.” I shrugged. “Maybe it makes me a little coldblooded, but—”

“It doesn’t make you coldblooded, Van,” The Wall of Winnipeg interjected with a crisp tone. “Someone you should have been able to trust hurt you. No one can blame you for not wanting to give her a hug after that. I haven’t been able to forgive people for less.”

That made me snort bitterly. “You’d be surprised, Aiden. It’s still a sore subject. No one besides my little brother understands why I’m mad. Why I don’t just get over it. I get that they’ve never liked me for whatever reason, but it still feels like a betrayal that they’d be behind Susie instead of me. I don’t understand why. Or what I did to make them feel like I’m their enemy. What am I supposed to do?”

Aiden frowned. “You’re a good person and you’re talented, Vanessa. Look at you. I don’t know what your sisters are like, but I can’t believe they’re half of what you are.”

He listed the attributes so breezily they didn’t feel like compliments. They felt like statements, and I didn’t know what to do with it, especially because in the back of my head, I knew Aiden wouldn’t say those things to make me feel better. He just wasn’t the type to nurture, even if he felt obligated, unless he genuinely, really wanted to.

But before I could think about it anymore, he admitted something so out of the blue, I wasn’t remotely prepared for it. “I might not be the best person to give you family advice. I haven’t talked to my parents in twelve years.”

I jumped on that wagon the second I could, preferring to talk about him than me. “I thought you went to go live with your grandparents when you were fifteen?”

“I did, but my grandfather died when I was a senior in high school. They came to the funeral, found out he had left everything to my grandmother, and my mom told me to take care of myself. I’ve never seen them since then,” Aiden recounted.

“Your dad didn’t say anything?”

Aiden shifted in bed, almost as if he was lowering himself to be flatter on the mattress. “No. I was four inches taller than him by then, sixty pounds heavier. The only time he talked to me when I lived with them was when he wanted to yell at someone.”

“I’m sorry to talk about your dad, but he sounds like an asshole.”

“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.

The movie. The damn movie.

I didn’t know what the hell I’d been thinking, fully fucking aware I was already mopey, when I asked if he wanted to watch my favorite movie as a kid. I’d watched it hundreds of times. Hundreds of times. It felt like love and hope.

And I was an idiot.

And Aiden, being a nice person who apparently let me get away with most of the things I wanted, said, “Sure. I might fall asleep during it.”

He hadn’t fallen asleep.

If there was one thing I learned that night was that no one was impervious to Little Foot losing his mom. Nobody. He’d only slightly rolled his eyes when the cartoon started, but when I glanced over at him, he’d been watching faithfully.

When that awful, terrible, why-would-you-do-that-to-children-and-to-humanity-in-general part came on The Land Before Time, my heart still hadn’t learned how to cope and I was feeling so low, the hiccups coming out were worse than usual. My vision got cloudy. I got choked up. Tears were coming out of my eyes like the powerful Mississippi. Time and dozens of viewings hadn’t toughened me up at all.

And as I’d wiped at my face and tried to remind myself it was just a movie and a young dinosaur hadn’t lost his beloved mom, I heard a sniffle. A sniffle that wasn’t my own. I turned not-so-discreetly and saw him.

I saw the starry eyes and the way his throat bobbed with a gulp. Then I saw the sideways look he shot me as I sat there dealing with my own emotions, and we stared at each other. In silence.

The big guy wasn’t handling it, and if there were ever a time in any universe, watching any movie, this would be the cause of it.

All I could do was nod at him, get up to my knees, and lean over so I could wrap my arms around his neck and tell him in as soothing of a voice as I could get together, “I know, big guy. I know,” even as another round of tears came out of my eyes and possibly some snot out of my nose.

The miraculous part was that he let me. Aiden sat there and let me hug him, let me put my cheek over the top of his head and let him know it was okay. Maybe it happened because we’d just been talking about the faulty relationships we had with our families or maybe it was because a child losing its mother was just about the saddest thing in the world, especially when it was an innocent animal, I don’t know. But it was sad as shit.

He sniffed—on any other person smaller than him it would have been considered a sniffle—and I squeezed my arms around him a little tighter before going back to my side of the bed where we finished watching the movie. Then he turned to look at me with those endless brown eyes. “Stay here tonight,” he’d murmured, and that was that.

Had I wanted to go to my room? Not when I was lying in the most comfortable bed I’d ever slept on, snuggled under warm sheets. What was I going to do? Play hard to get? I wasn’t that dumb. So I stayed, and Aiden eventually turned off the lights save for the one in the en suite, and we finally shared a brief “good night.”

If I didn’t know Aiden any better, I would have figured he’d been embarrassed to have gotten so sad over a cartoon, but I knew him. He didn’t get shy.

But he hadn’t said a word about needing a moment or asking me to get out of his bed.

Now, we were facing each other and we both knew what the other was thinking about. Neither one of us was going to say anything about it though.

I gave him a gradual smile, trying to play it off. “Thanks for letting me sleep in here with you.”

He did something that looked like a shrug, but since his arms were still up past his head, I couldn’t be sure. “You don’t take up any room.” He yawned again. “You don’t snore. You didn’t bother me.”

I’m not sure what it said about me that I felt clearheaded and way too well rested. Mostly though, I felt antsy like a little kid.

“Do you want your present now? Or later?” I asked, knowing that I damn well wanted to give him his present now. I was so giddy, and the reality that I was probably more excited than he was going to be was a real predicament, but…

Who cared? If he didn’t want it, I would keep it. I’d love the hell out of the eight-week-old puppy downstairs if he didn’t. It was a golden retriever because I knew he was going to need to be the sweetest thing in the universe to put up with Aiden’s bullshit.

“Later is fine,” he said like a true adult instead of like a little kid eager to open his presents on Christmas morning.

For a split second, I felt totally disappointed. But only for a split second before I made a decision. “Too bad. Don’t leave the room. I’ll be back in a second.”

I hopped out of bed and practically ran toward the laundry room downstairs. I fished the little yellow guy out of his crate and cursed when I realized he’d pooped and laid on it. Actually, it looked like he’d rolled around in it. “Damn it.”

I gave him a kiss on the head anyway and then ran up the stairs to give him a bath, only stopping by my room to pick up the bow I’d bought for him that had been sitting in my nightstand drawer for the last week since I’d put down a deposit on him. I couldn’t give Aiden a poopy puppy, could I?

Just as I made it to the bathroom, I yelled, “Give me fifteen minutes, big guy!”

Rolling up my sleeves, I gave the little guy a few more kisses on his soft head and waited for the water to warm up enough. The second it was ready, I grabbed the bottle of honey almond puppy shampoo and began lathering him up. Considering I hadn’t given a dog a bath ever, it was a lot harder than it seemed. He had too much energy. He peed inside the tub. He kept jumping up on the edge, trying to get out, or get on me, I couldn’t be sure.

The soap went everywhere; I could feel it on my face. My top was soaked, and it was still one of the happiest moments of my life. That face just killed me a little.

Why hadn’t I gotten a dog before? For me?

“What are you doing?” the voice asked from behind me.

I froze there with my arms in the bathtub; one was busy holding the puppy who had his paws on the edge while his head peeked over the rim and the other was on the tap in the middle of turning it off. Looking over my shoulder, I frowned over at him, grabbing the towel I’d left on top of the toilet seat.

“I told you to wait in your room,” I muttered, only slightly disappointed he’d ruined the surprise in a way. I only had to look at those expressive big, brown eyes on that beautiful puppy face to get over it.

I was in love.

And a huge part of me didn’t want to give the puppy over, but I knew I had to.

“What is that?” Aiden’s grumbling voice grew just the slightest hint louder, curious, so curious.

Wrapping the towel around the wet, almost scraggly looking ball of innocence, I pulled him to me as I got to my feet and snuggled him one last time before glancing up at the man standing the in the doorway. Aiden’s eyes were wider than I’d ever seen and might ever see them. Down at his sides, his fingers twitched. Those dark orbs went from the bundle against my chest to my face and back again. Pink rose up on the tips of his ears and he asked once more, “What is that?”

I thrust the little guy forward. “Merry Christmas, big guy.”

The man known as The Wall of Winnipeg took the towel-wrapped bundle from me and simply stared at it.

Should I have gotten him something else? There were a couple other small presents I bought him, but this was the big one. The one I’d been shaking in excitement over.

“If you hate him…”

The dog let out a sharp playful bark that sliced through the air. I got to watch as four emotions flash across Aiden’s features. Confusion, recognition, surprise, and elation.

He brought the baby up to his face.

Aiden stared at the retriever for so long, I started to think I’d imagined the elation that had been on his face a moment before. But I knew he liked animals, and he’d mentioned once in an interview how much he wanted a dog but wanted to wait until he had more time to be a good owner.

But the longer I waited, watching, not sure what to expect, the more surprised I was when he tucked the soft yellow buddy under his chin and moved his arm to cradle it to his chest like a baby.

Ah hell. I hadn’t been prepared. My body wasn’t ready for Aiden holding a puppy like a baby.

Shit, shit, shit.

“Vanessa…” he kind of choked out, making the situation worse for me.

“Merry Christmas,” I repeated hoarsely, torn between smiling and crying.

He blinked, and then he blinked some more as his free hand touched the small, perfect features on the young, innocent face. “I don’t know what to say,” he kind of mumbled, his eyes glued to his puppy. His chin tipped down, and I swear he cuddled the dog closer to him. “I’ve never…” He swallowed and glanced up at me, our eyes meeting. “Thank you. Thank you.”

Was I crying? Was I seriously crying?

“You’re welcome.” I might have, kind of, smiled at the blurry vision of these two. “I know you said you don’t have time for relationships, but there’s no way you can’t make time for him. Look at him. I loved him the moment I saw him. I was almost about to play it off like I bought him for myself when you walked in.”

He nodded quickly, too quickly for my heart to handle appropriately. “Yeah, you’re right. I can make time.” Aiden licked his lips and pierced me with a brief look that had me frozen in place once again. It was the single sweetest, most eye-opening expression I’d ever had anyone directed at me. “I’m starting to understand that you can always make time for the things that matter.”

Hours later, we were sitting on the floor in the living room with the new love of Aiden’s life, and I was thinking that this had turned out to be the best Christmas ever. We’d spent the day with the puppy, which surprised me. I guess a part of me had expected Aiden to take off with it and disappear so he could enjoy his new child alone, but that hadn’t been the case at all.

As soon as he’d realized the puppy was still soaking wet, he’d looked at me and said, “What now?”

For the next hour, we dried the unnamed puppy and took it out to pee while Aiden sprayed out his dirty kennel and I supervised. Then he set up the food bowls I’d brought along with some kibbles and water. What followed that was breakfast in the kitchen together with him running around, then taking it outside again after it peed in the kitchen. Aiden hadn’t even thought twice about wiping it up.

Since then, I’d showered and gone downstairs to watch some television, and that’s where Aiden had found me after he’d apparently showered… with his little guy in his arms.

It was seriously killing me. This gigantic guy carrying an eight pound dog around in his huge arms. God help us. I needed to find some puppies and pay some ripped up models to pose with them. I could make a killing if I put them on calendars.

Or maybe it was just Aiden that I found so attractive holding a puppy that he was clearly enamored with.

I wasn’t going to overanalyze it too much, I decided pretty quickly.

With the gas fireplace going, the Christmas tree lights on, and everything just so peaceful, the day just felt right. I’d called my extended family—my brother, Diana, and my foster parents—after I’d showered to wish them a happy holiday.

I stretched my legs out in front of me, keeping an eye on the blondie curled up on the floor right between my feet, when Aiden, who was sitting next to me, suddenly turned and said, “I still haven’t given you your presents.”

I blinked. He what? I hadn’t been expecting anything, but I’d feel like an ass saying that out loud.

“Oh.” I blinked again. “You got me something?”

He narrowed his eyes a little, like he was thinking the same thing I had just been. “Yes.” Getting to his big feet a lot more effortlessly than someone that large should have been capable of, he tipped his head in the direction of the stairs. “Follow me.”

Follow him I did, up the stairs, down the hall, and toward… his office.

His office?

Ahead of me, he pushed open the door and tilted his head for me to go forward.

I hesitated at the doorway, watching him watch me as I did. Aiden’s hand reached in front of my face and flipped on the switch. Stacked on top of his big, hardwood desk were two presents carefully wrapped in peppermint striped paper. I didn’t have to ask to know that those big, careful hands had done the wrapping, not some stranger.

That alone made my nose tickle.

“Open the first one,” he instructed.

I shot him a glance over my shoulder before walking inside the office and taking the gift off the top. Slowly, I undid the wrapping and peeled the slim box out. I knew what it was the instant I saw the name of the company. It was a brand new, top of the line tablet. It was the one most graphic designers would salivate over but never actually buy because you could talk yourself into spending less money on something almost as good, pretty easily.

Holding it to my chest, I turned around to face him with my mouth wide open. “Aiden—”

He held up his hand and rolled his eyes. “Thank me after you open the next one.”

About ready to ignore him and give him a hug right then, I decided to be a good sport and open the next gift first since he’d asked so nicely. The next present was in a bigger box, like a fancy scarf case I’d seen my roommate in college collect things in. Just like the last present, I opened it up slowly and pulled out the perfectly cube-shaped box out.

Peeling off the top, I couldn’t help but crack up at the pile of nightlights and flashlights inside. There were two small ones with keychains looped through the base of them, three different plug-ins: one shaped like Jupiter, another of a star, and the third was a plain column-shaped one that promised to be the best on the market. Apart from those were four flashlights in various sizes and colors; pink, red, teal, and black. I picked up the metallic pink one.

“They reminded me of your hair colors.”

Oh no. “Aiden—”

“I know it isn’t much compared to what you gave me, but I thought it was good enough at first. I haven’t bought anyone a present in years—”

“It is enough, dummy,” I said, looking at him over my shoulder, holding what was the most thoughtful gift anyone had ever given me.

The big guy cleared his throat. “No. It isn’t. I owe you.”

He owed me? “You don’t owe me anything. This is… this is perfect. More than perfect. Thank you.” Fucking nightlights. Who would have thought?

Two big hands landed on my shoulders. “I owe you, Van. Trust me.” Just as quickly as they’d gotten on me, his hands retreated and he added, “This isn’t a present, but hold out your hand.”

I did, cupping it high above my shoulder, curious as to what he was going to give me. Chewed up gum?

Something cool and small fell into my palm. It was pretty heavy.

When I lowered my hand, all the saliva in my mouth went just about everywhere else in my body.

“It isn’t a gift. The jeweler called yesterday and said it was ready. I was going to give it to you, but...”

At first, I honestly thought it was a rock. A big, light blue rock. But I must have been so confused I didn’t see the white gold band that lay against my hand. Then it hit me: it was a ring. Holding it up closer to my face, years of shopping at vintage thrift stores came back to me. An emerald cut, slightly bluish-green stone—aquamarine to be exact, my birthstone—was mounted to the thin band. On each side of the stone were three accent diamonds. Just below the plain white gold was a simple diamond encrusted band that fit around the bigger ring like a set, very subtle.

It looked like one of those cocktail rings people in the 1950s wore… except I could tell, my heart could freaking tell, this wasn’t some cheap knockoff from a catalogue.

“I figured you needed an engagement ring. I didn’t think you’d like a diamond. This seemed more you.”

“Shut up.” I gaped at the ring a second more, my breathing getting heavier.

“No,” he snapped back. “If you don’t like it—”

“Stop talking, Aiden. It’s the most amazing ring I’ve ever seen.” I held my hand up closer to my face and shook my head in a daze, looking up at his eyes with my heart on my tongue. “It’s for me?”

“Who else would it be for? My other wife?” the annoying ass asked.

He’d gotten me a ring.

And it was—

Damn it. Damn. It. I couldn’t love him. I couldn’t. I couldn’t, especially not because he’d chosen me something perfect. Something me.

I tried to beat back the emotion just enough. “You could have just given me a band. I don’t care what everyone else thinks,” I kind of whispered as I slipped the wedding set onto the appropriate hand and finger.

“I don’t care either, but I got it for you anyway.”