Ever After Always (Bergman Brothers Book 3)

by Chloe Liese

  “Ren,” I say pleadingly. “I thought I could count on you, man. What is this?”

  Ren’s eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror, uncharacteristically cool. “I’m giving up a night with my girlfriend, I’ll have you know.”

  “Hey, I didn’t ask to be abducted by my brothers-in-law. What is this even about?”

  As if you don’t know. This is how bad you’ve fucked up. The Bergman brothers are trying to save you. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

  Oliver says, “When you and Freya started dating, Dad sat us down and made something very clear.”

  “‘Leave Aiden out of it,’” Viggo says. “That’s what Dad told us. ‘None of your brotherly tricks or hazing, no sinister gang-ups. Be kind to him. Most importantly, stay out of his relationship with your sister.’”

  “And?” I ask.

  “And that worked,” Ryder snaps. “Until you started fucking shit up.”

  “Jesus.” I scrub my face. This is really the last thing I need.

  “At which point,” Axel says evenly, “we realized an intervention was necessary.”

  Viggo claps his hands on my shoulders and squeezes. “Welcome to your first Bergman Brothers Summit, Aiden. You’re in for a wild ride.”

  “I’m not talking about my marriage to your sister,” I tell them. “Not happening.”

  Ren eases into a chair on his back deck overlooking the Pacific. He has a beautiful home in Manhattan Beach, with a breathtaking view, because his genetics are made for hockey, and he lives and breathes the game. I’m happy for him. No one deserves it more than Ren, who’s so generous and level-headed in his success. But I can’t deny I’ve had moments, envying him and that prodigious athletic ability.

  Sure, I’m strong, coordinated. I can hold my own when things descend to wrestling with the Bergman brothers. But I’m nothing beyond average talent with a soccer ball, endurance for running and some weights. I can’t pretend I haven’t considered what kind of life I could give Freya if I were like Ren. He makes in a year what I’ll make in my lifetime.

  Unless this app takes off.

  As if he knows I’m thinking about our project, Dan starts blowing up my cell. Talking myself down from anticipating something catastrophic has happened, I unearth my phone quickly and scan his rapid-fire texts as they pour in. Skimming his messages, I see it’s nothing critical. And I breathe a sigh of relief.

  “Gimme the phone,” Ryder says, hand out.

  “It’s just my business partner.” I flip it over on the table we’re seated around. “I’ll silence it.”

  “Listen, Aiden. Believe it or not,” Viggo says, “we don’t want to know the details about your love life with our sister.”

  The five of them shudder.

  Ren pats my shoulder. “We just need the big picture.”

  “The big picture of what?” I ask.

  Axel rubs the bridge of his nose. “Of how Mr. Matchmaker Romance, who brims with confidence and knowledge in this area and has kept our sister seemingly happy for over a decade, managed to bomb it so badly.”

  “Axel,” Ren says out of the side of his mouth. “I thought we talked about a slightly gentler lead-in than that.”

  “Oops,” Ax says flatly.

  Ren sighs. “What Axel meant is that you strike us as a modern man with mature romantic sensibilities. A feminist guy who understands his partner, who supports her.”

  “Basically,” Oliver translates, “you don’t have your head up your ass.”

  “Correction,” Viggo says. “You struck us as such. Clearly your head is way up your ass. Or something is, because Freya seems miserable. So do you.”

  I grip my chair until my knuckles ache. “We’re not talking about this.”

  “Even though we can help?” Ryder asks.

  “I don’t need your help. I don’t need anyone’s help.”

  They all give me a look.

  “Yeah,” Viggo says after a long, heavy silence. “You definitely don’t need our help, not when you missed a family gathering—”

  “Which you never miss,” Oliver adds.

  “And our sister was on the verge of tears the whole time,” Axel says pointedly. “Now, I more than anyone here understand being an independent soul, but there’s self-sufficiency and there’s stupidity. Don’t let your pride get in the way of your good sense. Let us help.”

  Help.

  I glare at them. I’m thirty-six years old. This September, I’m ten years into marriage. Half of the Bergman brothers aren’t partnered, and with the exception of Axel, they’re in their twenties. What the hell could they tell me that I don’t already know? What wisdom could they possibly have?

  “How,” I say tightly, “do you honestly think you can help?”

  “Well.” Ryder clears his throat. “We could give you some pointers, seeing as we’ve known Freya—”

  “Twice as long as you,” Ren says.

  “You guys are freaking me out,” I tell them, “completing each other’s sentences like that.”

  Ren shrugs. “We just want to support you. Be here for you. And, if uh…”

  “If you’re screwing up stuff with her, we can point you in the right direction,” Ryder says. “Which would be a lot easier if you told us what happened.”

  I sink into my chair. No fucking way.

  “If we know what’s going on,” Oliver says, popping cheese cubes in his mouth. Looks like he’s going for filling his mouth with as many as possible, presumably in competition with Viggo, who’s quietly counting cubes as he watches him. “We can help get you two back on track,” he says around his mouthful. “Especially when we’re on family vacation.”

  Cue the record scratch. “Family vacation?”

  “Yeah,” Viggo says, still counting Oliver’s cheese cube capacity. “Mom and Dad’s anniversary gift. We’re putting our calendars together to go to Hawaii for a week of rest and relaxation.”

  Panic hits me at the prospect of such an out-of-the blue expense. I can hunt for a bargain flight, but the thought of spending that kind of money right now makes my chest tighten.

  “It’s a teammate’s house,” Ren says quietly, as if he’s read my mind. “His extended family lives there, but they’re traveling through Europe all summer, and he hasn’t been able to stay there as much as he planned, so he’s happy for us to use it rent-free.”

  “Great.” I massage my temples. Flights will still cost a pretty chunk of change.

  “Soon,” Viggo says, “we’ll all be there, and it would be best if the brothers knew what we’re dealing with when it comes to you two.”

  “I’m not discussing it,” I snap. “It doesn’t affect you.”

  “There you’re wrong,” Ryder says. “Anything that affects you and Freya, affects us. We’re family.”

  Axel stares out at the water, drumming his fingers on the arms of his chair. “Perhaps we should clarify. We aren’t without knowledge. I told them what I got from Freya at the art gallery. In an email. Because fuck group calls.”

  My stomach sinks. “What did she say?”

  “Can’t say that you deserve my intel when you won’t tell us anything,” Axel says coolly.

  “Dammit, Axel.”

  His sharp green eyes pin me. “You’re the one holding back. Trust us, we trust you.”

  “Aiden,” Oliver says, “I know the Liam Neeson angle sort of undercuts this, but you can trust us. I love you. We all do. You’re our brother.”

  Bittersweet pain knifes through me. He has no idea how much that means to me, coming from this man who was just a boy when I met him, all white-blond hair and knobby knees and better skills with a soccer ball than me. It’s strange, how you can know something cognitively—that the Bergman brothers love me—but how different, how powerful it can be to be told, to feel, even in this warped way, how much they care.

  I love you. We all do.

  “We want you and Freya to be okay,” Oliver says. “We just want to help.”

  “Exactly,�
�� Viggo says, around his own mouthful of cheese cubes.

  “Do you ever stop eating?” I ask him.

  He lobs a cheese cube at me, hitting my shoulder. “I have to get four more to beat him.”

  Oliver glares at him. “No way you’re getting four more in there.”

  “Try me,” Viggo says thickly, looking like a deranged chipmunk.

  I sigh and scrub my face, surrendering what I’m willing to. “I’ve got a lot going on professionally. I’ve been working more than ever. I think Freya’s fed up with how busy I’ve been.”

  “Okay,” Ren says gently. “That’s…it?”

  Shit, no. It’s not just cooler and quieter between us. Intimacy has broken down. And I know it’s my fault, but hell if I know how to begin fixing it. Not that I’m telling them any of that.

  “Guys, I’m not comfortable saying more. It’s between Freya and me.”

  Viggo leans on one butt cheek and extracts a small book from his back pocket.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  “A romance novel,” Viggo says, chewing thickly. “Ugh. Too much cheese. You owe me twenty bucks,” he says to Oliver.

  Oliver scowls at him.

  “A romance novel,” I say incredulously.

  He gives me a look. “You heard me. A romance novel. Not that you’d know one if it fell from a bookshelf and smacked your dick.”

  “I’d remember anything that smacked my dick.”

  “In that case,” Viggo says, lunging toward me.

  “Hey!” Ren shoves him back into his seat. “This is a nonviolent home.”

  That’s right—the hockey player is a pacifist. He has yet to get in a brawl in his almost four years with the NHL.

  “So,” Axel says calmly while Viggo thumbs through his book. “Why are you working so much?”

  I stare down at my hands, my stomach twisting as I think about when things began to change. Because it’s so horribly unfair. Because I want a baby, too. I want a little person to love and do right by. Even if they’re only half as cute as Freya’s baby pictures—squishy cheeks and wide pale eyes with a shock of white-blonde chickadee hair—I know I’m going to be ruined for them. Just ruined.

  But that’s when it all went downhill. That’s when it tripped something inside me that I haven’t been able to get under control. That’s when work became something I couldn’t stop fixating on, when preparing financially for a baby became consuming.

  “She was cranky at Ziggy’s party,” Ren offers. “Were things rough then?”

  “Yeah. I was an asshole that day. I’d been on a bunch of calls for this—” I clench my jaw. “This project that I can’t talk about that I’m working on. We’d hit some roadblocks on financing, and I was upset and discouraged and stuck in my head. I’m sorry, guys. I know I sound suspect as shit, and I know you love Freya, but I just want to get home to my wife and tell her I’m really fucking sorry that I was late.”

  “And by late you mean never showed,” Ryder reminds me.

  Oliver leans in. “Why, again, were you late?”

  “I’m not divulging that either.”

  “That’s a lot of secrets, Aiden,” Ren says. “Why are you keeping things from us? We’re family. You can trust us with anything.”

  This is what’s so hard to articulate to people who haven’t grown up like me. When things get difficult, I rely on myself. Because when life’s taught you that you’re the one person you can count on to survive, the thought of exposing yourself to other people when you’re at your most vulnerable feels…nearly impossible. That I’ve been able to do it at all throughout my marriage—admittedly not very well these days—is a testament to how much I love Freya.

  I stare out at the ocean, silent. Because I could try to explain it, but how can they understand?

  “You’re checking out on her emotionally, aren’t you?” Viggo asks. “You’re keeping all your shit to yourself, stonewalling her. You know that’s a relationship death sentence, right?”

  That hits too close to home. “I’m working on it,” I mutter.

  “No, I think you’re working on everything but that,” Viggo says.

  “Jesus Christ, Viggo. Who are you? Dr. Phil?”

  Undeterred, Viggo clears his throat and reads from his book. “In the words of the inimitable Lisa Kleypas, ‘Marriage isn’t the end of the story, it’s the beginning. And it demands the effort of both partners to make a success of it.’”

  “That’s beautiful,” Ren says.

  “Who the hell is Lisa Kleypas?” I ask.

  Viggo scrubs his face and sighs heavily. “The shit I put up with. She’s a romance author, Aiden. And her books are dripping with wisdom that you’d benefit from absorbing. ‘The effort of both partners,’” he repeats meaningfully.

  “I’m making an ‘effort,’” I fire back. “But I have only so many hours, so much brain space, so much emotional bandwidth. For a short time, I’ve directed that to financial success and work, okay? I feel like I have to choose between supporting us so we can be ready for what Freya wants from me and giving Freya what she wants from me. One has to come before the other.”

  Ryder leans in, elbows on his knees. “What is it you think she wants from you that you’re unable to give her while working on this project?”

  My heart pounds. I wrack my brain for how to say it without saying it. “I… I…” Swallowing nervously, I stare down at my hands. “I’ve realized the way I’ve been working in order to provide for us makes her miserable, but she wants a family, and this was necessary. I thought I could just bite that bullet and crank it out quickly, then we’d be okay. But that backfired and I hate that. Because this is all for her happiness. All I’ve ever wanted is to protect her happiness.”

  “And what about your happiness?” Viggo asks. “Does working like this make you happy?”

  “Happy? Fuck, I’m just trying to survive.” The truth lurches out of me, and God, what I’d give to wrench it back.

  “Survive?” Oliver sets his hand on my shoulder. “Aiden, what do you mean? You have a great job. Freya does, too. You’re both healthy, with a roof over your heads—”

  “You don’t get it,” I say, shooting up from my chair, my lungs heaving. “Y-y-you don’t understand the pressure, the-the weight of this. I didn’t grow up with a dad like yours. I didn’t have one. My mom cleaned houses all day. I went to school, got myself home, made myself dinner, did my homework. Mom came home, tucked me in, then went to work the late shift at the twenty-four-hour diner, had our neighbor across the hall keep an ear out while I slept.”

  Oliver’s eyes tighten with sadness. It makes my skin crawl.

  I glance around at the brothers and find some form of it in all of their gazes. “I don’t want your pity or your concern or your goddamn meddling. I just need you to understand what I’m up against: I have anxiety. I am a world-class catastrophizer. But I’m also ambitious as hell and determined not to let that hurt the woman I love.

  “I’m busting my ass right now because I don’t have the safety net you all have to catch me if I fall. I never have. Freya deserves better than that. She deserves solidity and safety, especially if we’re going to be parents. I can’t compromise on that. My wife and future kids will have what my mother and I didn’t. Money in the bank and absolute security. So that if anything happens to me, they won’t—”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to collect myself. My pulse pounds in my ears.

  “Aiden,” Ren says quietly. He stands and sets a hand on my shoulder. “You’re right. We have no concept of what it was like to grow up how you did, no understanding of how that affects you emotionally. But, Aiden, that family? That safety net? You have it already.”

  Oliver stands, too, and pats me affectionately on the back. “You have us.”

  “It’s not the same,” I mutter.

  “No, man. Don’t buy that bullshit,” Viggo says, slapping his book on the table. “This idea that you’re all on your own, that your financial su
ccess or failure equates to your success or failure as a man. It’s seriously damaging, and it’s the lie that an oppressive capitalist patriarchal society wants us to live enslaved to.”

  All the brothers blink at him.

  “Wow, Viggo,” Ryder says. “Got some fire in there, don’t ya?”

  Viggo throws up his hands. “It’s true! Life’s hard enough without this brutal financial pressure society wields via toxic masculinity. It’s even harder for someone who fights the uphill battle with anxiety that Aiden does every fucking day.”

  He turns back to me. “No matter what life brings, no matter what hardship, you will be surrounded by people who love you and are ready to help you, Aiden. People who know you’ve done everything you can to make it. Struggling will never make you less of a man or less of a husband to Freya. Struggling means you’ve been brave. It means you’re showing up to life and trying. And that’s enough, man. More than enough.”

  This is always how they talk, people who haven’t grown up like me. They think of their side of things—charitable solutions, how obviously generous they would be, should the worst happen, because Of course! That’s what family does! But they don’t understand what it is to feel helpless in a system that makes it so easy to fall through the cracks, what it feels like when the lights shut off and you have to scramble for resources, prove your desperation. They’ve never swiped their SNAP card to buy groceries and had it declined. They don’t understand that I’m not only protecting myself from that—more than anyone else, I’m protecting Freya and this baby we want. So they never, ever have to worry about facing what I have. Because I promised to love Freya. And love doesn’t abandon, love doesn’t leave the welfare of its wife and child to the whims of the outside world. Love protects and provides and prepares for the worst, so when and if it comes, they’re safe.

  I step away from the guys. Running my hands through my hair and sweeping up my phone, I order myself an Uber.

  “I have to go,” I mumble. “I have to—”

  “Aiden,” Ryder says.

  “What,” I say tightly, eyes on my phone.

  “I know we do and say some dumb shit,” he says. “But on this, we’re right. And I probably more than anyone—maybe barring Ren—have some insight on this: don’t isolate yourself from the people who love you. Don’t hide your problems from them. I love someone who’s spent a shit ton of therapy hours learning how to be vulnerable because the bridge between loving me and letting me in was almost entirely collapsed by her past pain.