He’s the crazy ass in their group of friends, just like I am. We get along great, but there was never that spark. It was almost like looking into a mirror, and it got old very quick.
Instead, I got a great guy who I can count on as a friend. I also think that, had I ever crossed that line, he never would have met Charlie, the woman he was meant to be with.
“Ashton?” Clara calls my attention back to her.
“Yes?”
“Have you told anyone about this? Any support system in place? I hate to ask, but I think it’s more important than we think it is. Most of the success cases have a large number of people there for the triumphs and losses.”
“I told Cat.”
She nods. “And?”
“And I’m sure she told Jackson. Gretchen also knows.”
“What about your parents?”
“Not yet. I want to get through this part first.”
We come to a stop outside the door to the lab. “I understand you wanting to wait, and this is me talking as a friend, but if the labs come back and say that it’ll be more difficult than we thought, you’re going to want someone there to hold your hand. I’m asking you to think about it, that’s all.”
If it goes down that road, I won’t need a hand to hold, I’ll need someone to hold me together.
It’s just that the person I would want is the last person I will ever tell.
7
Ashton
I have never been more physically exhausted than I am right now.
It’s eight o’clock, and I’m just leaving the office. There was an issue with one of the freezers that house the frozen eggs, and my team and I worked fast and tirelessly to make sure we lost nothing.
Thank God we have alarms set to warn us about temperature variations.
At least the chaos of my afternoon helped keep my mind busy. My test results will be back in a few days, but I have what I’m calling the “Baby Daddy Book” in my bag. Clara said it’s best to start combing through it now and at least narrow down the options.
I love shopping, but this is a whole new version of a catalog.
I step outside, cracking my neck and breathing in deep. Not only did I come into work earlier than I normally would but also I’m leaving later, and I missed my spin class. Oh, and I had three crackers for lunch.
“You okay?”
I jump at the sound of Quinn’s voice. “Jesus!”
“Usually, you would call me God.”
Idiot. “What are you doing here? No—” I stop and shake my head. I don’t need this today. “You know what? I don’t care or want to know. You’re just some creepy guy on the street, and I don’t talk to creepy guys.” I don’t wait for a response before I stick my earbuds in, turn the music up, and tune him out.
There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s following me. He’s either been waiting outside my workplace all day or he put some tracking device in my bag. Neither would be entirely surprising.
Right when I’m starting to get lost in the lyrics about fucking the police on my way to the subway, I feel him beside me. I try not to look at him, feel him, smell his cologne amongst the smells around me, but I can’t stop it.
Quinn Miller has always been my weakness, damn it.
He pops an earbud out and puts it in his own ear. “Hey!” I protest.
“I wasn’t sure what angry rap song you were listening to. I was curious.”
“As if that gives you the authority to find out?”
He smiles. “You should get a new playlist.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my playlist.”
Seriously, some people just don’t appreciate the classics of rap. The new stuff lacks the anger and feelings the rappers of the 90s embraced.
“You need to get with the times.”
Quinn is baiting me. I know it, and the smirk on his perfect lips tells me that he’s enjoying bothering me. One does not mess with me regarding my music.
“I’ll take that under advisement. Now, give it back.”
“But we’re walking.”
“No.” I huff. “I’m walking, you’re stalking. Stalkers usually hide in the bushes or stay out of sight, you should try that.”
He smiles. “Thanks for the tip.”
I try to ignore him, but it’s really hard. Quinn is a big guy, almost six foot three, stocky, but it’s not just his size, he bends the space around him, making it conform. Quinn has this way that makes it impossible to not be aware of his presence.
Yet, when he wants to be invisible, he’s somehow able to do that. Right now is not one of those times.
He wants me to be completely aware of him.
As we walk the few blocks to my station, I try to let the lyrics hold my focus but continue to glance over at him.
He doesn’t seem at all bothered by me. He’s simply walking along as though he doesn’t have a care in the world.
Being quiet has never been my strong suit. There’s no such thing as comfortable silence in my world. He also knows this. Each step that we take with him keeping his eyes straight, pretending as though I’m not here, is making me fucking crazy.
“Where’s your crutch?” I ask after I can’t take any more.
“Huh?”
Asshole heard me. “Your crutch. I noticed you’re walking fine today.”
“I didn’t need it today.”
“Why is that?”
If he’s willing to suffer because of whatever crazy mission he’s put himself on, I’m going to injure his other leg for him.
“Because I can’t exactly maneuver this city with a crutch. Lord knows you weren’t going to slow down.”
“Nope. I sure wouldn’t. So, if I start to run, you’ll . . .”
“Run with you.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re hurt and you’d run to keep up with me?”
“There’s not much I wouldn’t do to be close to you right now.”
Don’t fall for it, Ashton. Don’t let him make you think this is more than just his pride.
Even after telling myself that, my chest tightens, my heart races, and a part of my wall cracks a bit. Damn him.
“Too bad you didn’t realize how fantastic I was before everything went to shit.”
His hand wraps around my elbow, causing me to stop. “I knew how fantastic you were the first moment I saw you, Ash. I’ve always known. It was that I didn’t deserve you or your love.”
My eyes lock on his deep blue ones, looking for any sign that he’s lying and finding none. The sincerity in his gaze makes it hard to breathe. How I wish it was a few months ago because it would’ve mattered then.
“And now you are?” I ask, unable to stop myself.
“Now, I’m willing to prove that I can be that man.”
I shake my head. “It’s too late, Quinn. You and I have been through this too many times. I can’t do it anymore. I want more. I want it all. I wanted you to be that man for me, but you closed that door the last time.”
I see the regret flash in his eyes. “I know.”
“So, why do this now?”
Here on the busy streets of Manhattan, we stand at the corner, as if no one else exists.
Quinn lifts his hand, pushing back a strand of my hair and tucking it behind my ear. “Because I can’t walk away again.”
It’s not his decision anymore.
“I already did. You don’t have to. I won’t keep trying and begging and hoping that things will work out the way I hope. It’s been years of pretending and years of heartache.”
“I won’t hurt you again,” Quinn promises.
I want so badly to believe him. No matter how stupid or how much I wish it was different, my heart is his. I love him beyond all reason, and being this close to him is going to make me do stupid things.
My feet shift back, needing a little distance. “I wish I could believe you.”
“I’ll just have to prove it.”
“Please don’t do this,” I implore. “Walk away b
efore either of us forgets the hell we’ve put each other through.”
Quinn moves in, not allowing me the space I want. His voice is soft and pleading. “I want us to forget, Ash. I need to find a way to make you see that it’s the past and I can’t walk away again.”
I release a heavy breath, trying to push out the want to crumble back into his arms. He would catch me, I know he would, but when he pushes me aside, it’ll hurt.
“Well . . . that’s too bad about your leg, because I can.”
And then I walk off, with one less earbud.
I move through the crowds, twisting and turning so I can get away. I’m too worn out today to deal with him. Whenever I decide to battle with Quinn, I have to have my full wits about me. He’s smart, knows me, and can wear me down too easily.
When I get to the next red light, I cross the street, knowing that, if I stop, he’ll catch me.
“You could slow down a little,” he says now occupying the space I wish he wasn’t.
“Damn it!” I stomp my foot. “You can’t even give me this?”
“I told you, I’m not letting you go.”
“No,” I clarify, “you said you weren’t walking away, which is what I did. You’re just following me.”
He laughs once. “This is true. I’ll clarify. I love you. I’m not walking away, letting you walk away, giving you up, or doing anything that even comes close to ending with us not being together.”
My heart is pounding so hard I can’t be sure I heard anything after his second sentence. I stare at him, wondering if he knows what he said or if maybe I am making it up.
“What did you say?”
“I said I wasn’t letting you go.”
I shake my head. “Yeah, I heard that, you said something before it.”
He takes my hand in his. “I love you.”
“That was what I thought you said.”
“I didn’t plan to say it like this.”
I never anticipated hearing it. In all this time, he’s never uttered those three words—as though saying them would weaken him in some way. Natalie explained it once, saying that if they pretend to be these big, strong, unfeeling men that it’s easier for them when they leave. She said that she and Aaron would fight before a deployment so it was easier for him to leave.
In some ways, I can understand that, but then, what the hell has changed?
“What did you plan?”
When someone pushes him from the side, he moves a little closer to me, shielding me with his body. I guess Jackson was right about Quinn trying to protect me.
“I wanted us to sit down at a dinner, and I was going to explain it all. I should’ve known that you would never agree to that or make it easy.”
I scoff. “Because you’ve made anything easy on me?”
“No, and that’s why I never should’ve thought it should be for me.”
I rub my head, feeling the beginning of a headache coming on. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Just walk home and know I’m right behind you in case you need me.”
He’s making it really hard to hate him. “Maybe you can walk with me . . .”
“Is that what you want?”
Yes. No. Maybe. No. I have an inner war with myself and decide whatever the next thing out of my mouth is the truth. “Maybe.” I don’t feel any better about that answer.
“It’s better than no.”
“It’s not a yes,” I clarify.
“It will be,” he says with self-assuredness that makes me want to throat punch him.
“Don’t be so sure.”
Quinn leans in so that his lips barely brush against my ear. “I know you too well. I know your eyes, your body, and your thoughts even when you think you’re hiding them. You and I both know that as much as you want to deny that, you can’t.”
I grab my earbud from his hand. “Well, my maybe has been switched to a no.”
“That’s fine. I’ll be right behind you, waiting for you to turn around and see that I’m ready for whatever it is you want.”
And then the petty part of me comes out in full force. I laugh because he will never be ready for what I want. He only thinks he does, and the sooner I can get it through his thick skull, the better. “You think you’ll be here for whatever I want?”
“No, I know I will.”
So he thinks. “Well, in nine months when my baby is born, I guess we’ll see where you are.”
Before he can say a word, I walk away, leaving him stunned as I take the stairs to my train.
8
Quinn
“She’s pregnant?” Liam asks as I sit in my rented apartment in her building, trying to fucking make sense of what she said.
“It seems so.”
“Who’s the father?”
That’s the million-dollar fucking question. Some asshole touched her. Another man has been inside her, where only I belonged. I was a fool to think it wouldn’t happen. I knew there was a possibility of her moving on, but I never anticipated this.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
Liam laughs. “Right. You don’t care.”
“I don’t,” I toss back. Sometimes, I question our friendship. Not that either of us wouldn’t lay down our lives for the other. Not that our friendship isn’t rock solid, but I wonder why the hell he likes me.
He’s loyal, kind, and would do anything for anyone. I’m a bastard who fucks up everything.
“You’re either the dumbest asshole I know or the biggest liar. You wouldn’t have told me to call you from the sandbox if you didn’t care.”
He’s the only one I trust enough to talk to about this. So, yeah, I told him to call me from the deployment and then I sent the dickhead forty bucks for the call online. At least he can’t call me cheap.
“I didn’t say I don’t care that she’s pregnant,” I inform him. “I don’t give a shit who the mother fucker is she screwed.”
Again the asshole laughs. “The hell you don’t. How about you stop bullshitting me and yourself. You care because you love her. I don’t know when the hell you finally got your head out of your ass, but here’s the thing . . .” He pauses and releases a heavy sigh. “You have a choice. You can be a man and go to her. Do the opposite of what she expects, which is for you to act like an idiot. Or you can live up to her expectations.”
“I’m not you, Liam.”
“What does that mean?”
It means I’m not a good man like he is. I can’t step into another man’s family and do right by them. He’s that guy. He walked into Natalie’s life and picked up the pieces. There wasn’t any hesitation where he needed to go back and think about it. No, he dug in and loved her and her kid.
“Just what I said.”
“Oh,” he says with a knowing voice. “You mean that you’re not as good as me. We already knew that. Not many are.”
“Dick.”
“You’re so damn busy beating yourself up that you forget the good things you do. Look, I wouldn’t be friends with you if you were a piece of shit. That’s just me being honest. The choice is yours, Quinn. If you lose her, then it’s because you let her go. If she loves someone else, then you have to love her enough to let her be happy.”
I love her more than she’ll ever know. Letting her go isn’t the issue because I’ve already done that. It’s when I see my life without her that I can’t fucking take it. My heart aches each night at the thought of her not being with me. I fight so hard to stay away, and I always find myself on her doorstep.
My eyes close, and my head falls back. “So many things I would’ve done differently.”
“I get that. Regrets are a man’s worst nightmare.”
Chief says that before every deployment. We have a team meeting where we find out a little about what our missions and goals are, and then he tells us to go home and wrap up all our loose ends. He always says that it’s not what you do before you leave that’ll fuck your head up, it’s what y
ou don’t do.
According to him, having regrets is the highest cause of casualties.
“It wasn’t until the accident that I understood that saying.”
“Yeah, almost dying will do that to you.”
Liam and I talked about this before I left to head back to the States. I explained the conversation I was having with Trevor, King, and Bennett before the Humvee accident. The four of us were laughing, talking about how King was going to get married when he got back. We were joking about how he wouldn’t be the king of anything anymore because he was about to be shackled.
Only he didn’t look sad about any of it. In fact, he smiled at the idea of marrying Tessa. He was happy because he never questioned her love and she was willing to put up with his shit.
Then, in the midst of him explaining how love wasn’t a shackle, we were airborne.
“I can’t stop seeing his face. I can’t help but wonder if he felt like he missed out by not marrying Tessa sooner. Then all I could think about was Ashton. I knew that, if I died, I would regret letting Ash walk away. It was all there, and I have to fix this.”
Liam is quiet for a few seconds. “If I died, I would have no regrets. I know that my wife loves me and is very much aware of how I feel about her. My kids are everything to me, and they know it as well. You’ve spent your entire adult life worried about what would happen to the people around you if you died that you forgot to live.”
“I’ve done what I thought was right.”
“Yeah, and how’s that working for you?”
To think I called him for support. “You should be a motivational speaker, Dreamboat, or maybe a therapist because you’re super fucking helpful.”
He snorts with a low chuckle. “No, I’m honest. You don’t need me to blow smoke up your ass, buddy. You’ve been doing that to yourself for long enough. I’m not going to lie because, if I remember correctly, you didn’t do it when I was dating Lee. So, I’m going to say this and then I’m going to hang up because my wife is waiting for me to call. If you love Ashton, then figure out what you need to do to show her. If you can’t love her and the baby she’s carrying, walk away and nurse your broken heart away from her. She’s going to be a mother now, and she doesn’t need to take care of you along with a kid.”
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