by Whitley Cox
Aaron swallowed. Had he blinked?
He blinked.
His eyes burned.
“You know what though? You know what brought me to my knees, made me a real man, made me show more than just one emotion—the emotion that society says is the only one okay for men to truly express—having a good woman at my back. She showed me that real men are more than just angry. And then having two baby girls made me a fucking marshmallow. I’ve never cried more in my life than the days those two girls were born.” He took another sip of his beer. “Okay, well, maybe when they graduated college. I was a fucking mess then too.”
Why was he telling Aaron all of this? What was his point?
He must have read his mind. “I’m telling you all of this, son, because I was like you once. I nearly lost the best thing that had ever happened to me because I let my anger consume me. I know it’s not the same, but right before I met Harriet, I lost my best friend. He killed himself shortly after we were discharged and returned home. He’d lost both his legs and couldn’t cope with the change, couldn’t cope with any of it. I blamed myself for not being there for him. I had my legs, had a good job and I was busy chasing skirts. Perhaps if I’d gone over more than once a week for a couple hours I would have known how much pain he was in, how bad it really was. I let the grief and pain morph into anger and hate—because somehow it felt more acceptable to be angry at the world than sad. To hate the world rather than feel pain and loss because someone I loved was no longer a part of my world. I let the rage consume me. I nearly lost Harriet because of it.”
“You had a family though, right?” Aaron gritted his teeth. How dare he compare their stories? Yes, losing a brother in arms was hard, but Aaron lost his sister. His blood. His only family.
It was not the same.
Calvin guzzled his beer, then put the empty bottle down on the counter. “Yep. Had a supportive mom, dad, sister, brother. So?”
“I had no family. I have no family.”
“You have Sophie.”
He could feel the rage beginning to bubble up inside him. He finished his beer and set his bottle down on the counter, bunching his fists at his sides and squeezing his jaw tight.
Calvin’s head cocked to the side, and his eyes flicked down to Aaron’s hands.
“That a bag in the garage?” he asked.
Aaron grunted.
He jerked his head. “Let’s go.”
His feet moved before he knew what he was doing.
“You got a lot of anger in there, son. Need to let it out somehow. Last place it should be directed at is a woman as kind, sweet and patient as Izzy. That girl has a heart made of gold with a marshmallow center.” He opened the door to the garage and allowed Aaron to walk ahead of him. He grabbed Aaron’s gloves off the hook, tossed them to him and then walked around to stand behind the bag.
Aaron pulled his T-shirt over his head so he was just in his black tank top and cargo shorts. He slipped on the gloves.
“Show me what you got, son.” Calvin grinned, holding the bag steady.
Aaron bounced back and forth on his toes a few times before delivering a hard right cross to the bag. It didn’t even jiggle. His cut-up, now scabbed-over hand from earlier in the week hurt like a bitch though. Why he decided to pick a fight with a fence panel … fuck, he was a dumb fuck.
He shook it off and cracked his neck side to side, bouncing back on his toes.
Calvin pursed his lips together. “That all you got, son? Come on, a man like you, you’ve got more in there. I can see it. Let it all out.”
Jab.
Jab.
Jab, jab.
“That’s right. That’s better. More. Let me see the rage. Let me see you seethe. Let it out.”
Aaron hopped back on his toes, then stepped forward and drove his right fist into the bag in another right cross. Pain exploded across the top of in his hand.
Calvin lost his footing and stumbled back. “Good. Good.” He caught the swinging bag and regained his position behind it. “Show me some kicks. Pretend the bag is my face. Really knock out my teeth.”
Ignoring the pain shooting up his arm from his probably now bleeding knuckles, Aaron stepped back, bounced, turned to the side and then delivered an intense left side kick, once again knocking Calvin off his feet.
“Nice. Again.”
Aaron did it again, this time with the right.
“Family is what you make it. It doesn’t have to be the blood coursing through your veins that makes you a family. A family is made up of people who love you and who you love. People who have your back, who are there for you when the chips are down. Yes, Sophie is your blood—your niece, your daughter—but I know that there are a lot of people out there who would consider you family if you’d let them. If you let them in.”
Aaron stopped, wiped his wrist over his sweaty forehead. “You talking about Isobel?”
“Izzy, Mark, Tori. All those single dads.”
Shit, how much had Isobel told her parents?
“I can see the way she looks at you.”
Aaron averted his eyes. He’d never really gotten close enough to a woman to have to deal with her father giving him the hurt my baby, I’ll hurt you talk.
“I’m not one of those dads who blocks the threshold, crosses his arms over his chest, tells you about my gun locker, my knife collection and says that if you hurt my baby, I’ll break your neck,” Calvin said. Aaron met his gaze once again. The man appeared almost bored. “I raised my girls to be strong, independent women who can take care of themselves. They don’t need their father threatening boys on their behalf. They can do that all on their own. I taught them self-defense, encouraged them to learn how to fight properly, take down a man twice their size if need be. Raised warrior princesses so they can rescue themselves from the tower, slay the dragon and claim the throne. We’re merely their sidekicks, not their heroes.”
Aaron’s lip twitched. “Isobel has already read me the riot act about the fact that there are no such things as a man’s job or a woman’s job. She’s tough as nails. She could definitely hold her own in a fight.”
Calvin tossed his head back and laughed, slapping his thigh. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and his blue eyes glowed with love in the fluorescent lighting of the garage. “That’s my baby girl. I raised her right.”
“You certainly did.”
Calvin sobered. “She’s tough, but he’s also soft-hearted. Been burned before because she let that empathy of hers cloud her judgement. Was nearly abducted as a kid when some man at the park convinced her his puppy was lost and he needed her to help him. Always tries to see the good in people, even when there isn’t any.”
Aaron stumbled where he stood, and a fear like he’d never felt before dropped like a lead weight in his gut. God, what if that was Sophie? He would lose his damn mind.
Calvin saw the fear cross his face and simply nodded. “Yep. Tori scared the guy off, thankfully. But Izzy’s always been the bleeding heart. She gave her lunch away every day for a year to the homeless woman and her dog living on the edge of the school field. Never told a soul. Never complained about being hungry, never asked for more food in her lunch. She just gave it away. Sacrificed for another. Because that’s who she is, that’s who she’ll always be. She puts everyone else ahead of herself. Even when her brain is telling her not to, her heart is telling her it’s what she needs to do. She’s always listened to her heart over her head.”
Heat, not from his rounds with the punching bag, wormed its way up Aaron’s chest. Why was Calvin telling him all of this?
“Izzy will risk hurting her own heart to save someone else’s,” Calvin continued, a slight edge to his tone. “She’ll put her own happiness aside, always has. It’s just who she is.” His blue eyes turned dark, and he stared directly at Aaron, allowing everything to sink in.
It was a warning.
Aaron nodded and swallowed. “Understood, sir.”
Calvin’s smile was small but genuine. �
��Good.”
He exhaled, then gripped the bag in front of him again, encouraging Aaron to start punching. Aaron began to hop back and forth on his feet, jabbing at the bag once again.
“Raising girls is hard,” Calvin went on. He ran his hand through his short dark hair, his eyes going wide. “Especially during puberty. Holy shit. The hormones. The drama.” He shook his head. “The mood swings. Oh brother, the mood swings. I’m going to tell you right now, always, always have tampons, Midol and chocolate in the glove compartment of your truck.” Then his eyes softened, and he seemed to be seeing something buried in his memories as a serene smile slid across his mouth. “But it’s so worth it. My girls are daddy’s girls through and through. We text every day, send pictures and jokes. Talk on the phone weekly. I’d do anything for my babies—anything.” He released the bag and stepped around it. “And you’d do the same for Sophie. You might not be her father, but you’re all she’s got.” His head tilted to the side. “Unless you let other people in. Unless you build her a family, build her a village full of people who you can lean on, who she can lean on. People who love her. You don’t have to do this alone. You don’t have to be all she has, and she doesn’t have to be all you have.”
Aaron used his teeth to untie one of his gloves, slipped it off, opened the mini-fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. “Why are you telling me all of this?”
“Like I said, I see the way Izzy looks at you. She loves you, and I don’t want to see my baby get hurt. I don’t like your energy right now. You’ve got a lot of anger and hate in your heart, but I can see a lot of good in you as well. There’s a lot of good buried beneath all the pain.”
Aaron’s hand paused midair, the water bottle poised inches from his mouth. “She doesn’t love me.”
Calvin’s eyes narrowed. “I know my daughter. I see how she is with you. How she is with that baby.”
Aaron shook his head, turned away and took a sip of the water. “She’s in love with the idea of what this is. She’s a domestic at heart. Wants the white picket fence, the house, the family, the dog, the weekend dinner parties. That’s what she’s in love with. She’s not in love with me.”
Calvin rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought if you can’t see it.” He tossed Aaron his other glove again. “You got another pair around here? Do we need to go a couple rounds so I can knock some sense into you?”
He liked Calvin. Liked him a lot, actually. He reminded Aaron of Rob’s dad Malcolm: to the point, rough around the edges, but with a real, genuine heart at the center of it all. He was the kind of man Aaron wished he’d had growing up. A real father figure to look up to.
Aaron opened up a small cabinet and pulled out another set of gloves. “You think you can take me, old man?”
Calvin’s mouth split into a big grin. “Old man? Oh, son, I’ll have you flat on your ass before you can blink, just you wait and see.”
A short while later, covered in sweat, Aaron and Calvin left the garage, both of them smiling and tipping up beer.
“Ah, you were already warmed up,” Calvin said with a laugh, slapping Aaron on the back and resting his hand on his shoulder for a moment. “I demand a rematch after I’ve stretched and gone for a light jog.”
Aaron grinned as he took another sip of his beer. “You’re on.”
A quick glance in the kitchen and living room told him that Isobel and her mother were most likely down the hall in Sophie’s room.
Aaron and Calvin walked into the living room and took a seat, Aaron offering his preferred La-Z-Boy to Calvin, which the man was grateful for.
“I don’t know what the mission was that you’re holding on to, but you’ve got to let it go.” Calvin leveled his steely blue eyes on Aaron. “I know you’ve got one. We’ve all got one. That mission that was our last mission. Or the one that we can’t let go of because we either failed or could have done more. We all have that mission. We all have that cross to bear, that load to carry on our shoulders for the rest of our lives. It came with the territory.”
Why did he get the feeling Calvin Jones knew more about Aaron’s past than he was letting on? The man certainly had a way about him that spoke of cunning, intelligence and stealth. Maybe he’d figured out a way to look into Aaron’s time with the Navy.
He wouldn’t know about Colombia, hell no. That shit was classified. But maybe he knew other things, other missions that Aaron had been a part of.
“You need to let that shit go,” Calvin continued, his eyes softening. “Don’t let it eat you up until there’s nothing left of you but a husk of a man. Sophie deserves more than that. She deserves a daddy who is present and accounted for, not off living in the past, focusing on his failures.” He hinged forward in his seat and looked Aaron square in the eyes. “Because, son, we all have ’em. We all have failures. We all have fuck-ups. But it’s those of us who choose not to let those fuck-ups run our lives that still manage to find joy in the world, still manage to go on and live full lives with wives and children, friends and family. Choose joy, son. Choose to live a full life. Look to the future, not the past. Don’t let the demons win.”
Aaron’s mouth dropped open, but his throat seized, and he was unable to speak. Hot tears burned at the back of his eyes, and he shut his mouth and gnashed his molars together until he could hear them squeak.
Calvin watched him. Didn’t say anything for a moment but simply sat there, still hinged forward, elbows on his knees, and watched Aaron. Watched him battle with everything going on in his head, in his heart.
The man kept calling him son.
Normally, he hated when somebody called him that. He’d never been anybody’s son, hated the façade that the term of endearment painted. And yet, when Calvin called him son, Aaron didn’t hate it. It didn’t sound like rocks in a blender the way it usually did. It sounded … right.
Calvin cleared his throat, drawing Aaron from his thoughts. “You know, son, I have to thank you. Izzy told us what you did to save her and Mercedes that night.” Calvin cradled his beer bottle between both hands and looked up at Aaron. Genuine fear clouded his eyes. “You saved those girls. Truly. Sure, Izzy knows some self-defense, and it might be able to help her in a mugging or in a one-on-one type situation, but you and I both know she couldn’t have taken down both those guys. Not on her own, not after being drugged. I got connections at the precinct. Those fuckers are going to get theirs. Charges of assault, kidnapping, attempted rape, possession of illegal substance. We’ll hang ’em up by their sacs and watch ’em swing.”
That punishment was too good for men who hurt women. Those two motherfuckers didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as Isobel—as any woman.
Aaron bared his teeth and sniffed. “The thought of their hands on her, sir … Colton had to pull me off them or I would have … ” He picked at the beer label with his dirty, work-worn fingernails, unable to look the older gentleman in the eye. “I hate that I wasn’t able to get there sooner.”
Calvin’s gaze turned gentle. “You got there in time. What matters is that you got there.”
He swallowed, then finally lifted his head. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something had happened to her. I—” Aaron wiped a hand over his mouth and scratched at his close-shaved beard, stopping himself from saying anything more. Anything he might regret.
Calvin sat back in the chair and took another sip of his beer. “You know, even if you don’t come to your senses about Izzy and how much you love her, realize how much she loves you, let go of some of that anger and embrace all the good life has to offer, I could never hate you. Probably could never even really be mad at you. I hope you don’t break her heart, though, I really do.” He let out a sigh. His head fell against the headrest, and he shut his eyes for a moment. “You saved my baby girl. I am forever in your debt. Anytime, any place, anything, you need it, just ask.” He opened his eyes and pinned them on Aaron. “And I mean that.”
Aaron looked away and clench
ed his jaw until he thought his molars might chip, and all to keep that goddamn tear from dropping down his cheek.
27
Isobel and her mother returned from putting Sophie to bed only to find Aaron and Calvin sitting in the living room with beer in their hands and laughter between them.
It felt good to laugh. He was smiling.
The look Isobel gave him was one of utter confusion, but like the class act that she was, she stowed the puzzlement and instead smiled, pecked her father on the cheek and asked if he knocked Aaron down a couple of pegs.
Calvin chuckled warmly, wrapped his arm around his daughter and said he was demanding a rematch, needed to redeem himself.
Aaron found himself watching Isobel and her parents in quiet awe and total envy. He’d never had that. Never knew the love of a parent or parents. Never knew what it was like to know that even when you were at your absolute worst, at rock bottom and ready for the Earth to open up and swallow you whole, that there were people who loved you without quarter and would do anything to help make things better.
A few years back, Dina had hired a private investigator to look into their parents. Find out if they were still alive, if they had anymore siblings or family out there. His sister was on the baby train express and curious about their background and family medical history.
Unfortunately, what the PI found was not something neither Dina nor Aaron were ready to hear. Their father had been an alcoholic, and their mother a recovering addict with mental health issues. Apparently, shortly after Dina was born, in a drunken rage one night, their father killed their mother—and all over a twenty-dollar-bill that he wanted for booze, and she was holding on to for diapers.
Their father went to prison, obviously, where he was murdered by his cellmate a few years later.
After finding all of out that, Dina told the PI to quit his investigation. She didn’t want to know anything else, and frankly, neither did Aaron. If no family had come forward to claim Aaron or Dina, then they weren’t worth trying to find in the first place.
