by Tara Wyatt
“What do you mean?”
She guided them up a path, towards a park exit at Columbus Circle. The restaurant where they were meeting Theo was only a couple of blocks south.
“Being the oldest, Lucian didn’t have anyone looking out for him, and he picked up a lot of bad habits from our parents. You name a vice and he’s probably dabbled in it, all in an attempt to find himself. He hides it with humor and sarcasm, but his scars run deep. You know, when Lucian was ten—so I would’ve been eight, I guess—our father accused our mother of having an affair. He thought Lucian was another man’s son, especially because the rest of us—Theo hadn’t come along just yet, but I think Mom might’ve been pregnant with him at the time—are all light haired with light eyes. And Lucian has nearly black hair and brown eyes.”
Javi’s eyes widened. “What happened?”
“Mom denied it. This was the mid-Eighties, so there was no such thing as a DNA paternity test. He took his suspicions out on Lucian. He treated him…” She trailed off and shook her head, remembering the shouted insults, the coldness, the way he’d gone out of his way to humiliate and punish Lucian. “Really badly. They don’t talk. I can’t blame him. I don’t talk to my parents much, either.”
Javi shook his head. “I’m sorry that you guys had it so rough.”
“Me too. But…” She bit her lip, hesitating. “You know, for the longest time, I was fixated on proving that the fairytale was real—that someone could have it, even if I hadn’t seen it growing up. Then, when everything with Eric hit the fan, I was determined to never let myself believe it again. But now, being with you…” She shrugged, blood rushing to her cheeks. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m starting to believe again.”
He smiled and stopped walking, pulling her against him and kissing her in the middle of the sidewalk, forcing the pedestrian traffic to navigate around them, earning them a few annoyed grunts and complaints. She wasn’t sure how long he kissed her right in the middle of Eighth Avenue, only that her entire body felt like it was melting into his and she wished they weren’t about to have lunch with her baby brother. Eventually, someone jostled them and he broke the kiss with a smile. She wove her fingers through his so they could continue their unhurried stroll to lunch.
Javi looked over at her as they walked, turning down West 58th. “Do you ever miss living here?”
She shook her head. “No. I used to love it here. There was a time when I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. But then…things changed. I changed, I guess. Moving to Dallas gave me a fresh start, and now it’s home. Although I do like coming back to visit, I don’t think I’ll ever live here again.” There were too many bad memories, both from childhood and her marriage. In the past, she’d felt like she was running away from them, but now she saw that there was a difference between running away and actively choosing to start over. Little by little, she’d been rebuilding her life, and that included taking a chance on Javi.
“I get that. I think this is the place, yeah?” he said, gesturing at the small white and yellow sign above a wooden door hidden in an alcove. She nodded and they ducked inside, her eyes taking a second to adjust to the sudden dimness.
The sushi restaurant was elegantly decorated in shades of cream, gold, and black, small lacquered tables dotting the space. The air smelled of soy sauce and wasabi, making her mouth water and her stomach rumble in anticipation. The interior was bigger than she’d anticipated given the non-descript entrance, and it took her a moment to locate Theo sitting at a booth in the back corner, even though he was hard to miss. At six-foot-four and with a thick head of dark blond hair and a neatly groomed beard, he almost always stood out, even in NYC. He was like a Hemsworth crossed with a teddy bear, with a hint of lumberjack thrown in for good measure.
A lumberjack in a three thousand dollar suit, but still.
He spotted them and waved, standing. A wide grin spread across his face and before Aerin and Javi had made it even halfway to the table, he’d eaten up the distance between them with long strides. Without waiting to even say hello, he scooped Aerin up, hauling her against his chest for a bear hug.
“AerBear, I missed you!” he said, kissing her cheek and spinning them around in a circle before setting her down again. Still smiling, he extended his hand to Javi. “You must be Javier. Nice to meet you. Theo Prescott.” They shook hands and then Theo gestured toward their booth. “Shall we? AerBear, I ordered you some seaweed salad and tempura sweet potatoes to start, but I waited to order anything else.”
As they followed Theo to their table, she caught Javi smirking at her, one eyebrow raised. “AerBear?” he mouthed. She leaned in close.
“If you repeat that nickname to anyone, I will straight up murder you.”
He mimed zipping his lips shut, but she could still see the humor dancing in his eyes.
They took their seats and once they’d ordered their food, Theo slipped a sheaf of papers from a leather messenger bag at his feet. He laid them on the table and then folded his large hands over them.
“So. I’ve gone over all of your documentation. The settlement, the custody agreement, everything you gave me.” He scratched his cheek, a hesitant look on his face. Aerin’s eyebrows drew together. “I’m trying to think of a nice way to say this…” He stared up at the ceiling, as if searching for answers there. Then he sighed and shrugged. “Dude, I really hope you didn’t pay your lawyer much money because this agreement is absolute horseshit.”
Javi snorted out a laugh. “I did, and I agree.”
Theo shook his head. “The good news is, I can help you. In California, the law says that custody agreements must be in the best interests of the child—depriving them of a paternal relationship, especially when the father wants said relationship—is not in their best interests. The laws in Texas are a little more pro-mother having custody, but even there, joint custody arrangements are preferred whenever possible.”
Javi nodded, his eyes fixed on Theo as he spoke. “So what do we do?”
Theo took a sip of his water. “We can either try to have an entirely new order drawn up, which is time consuming and means going to family court, or we can renegotiate the existing order, this time with me in your corner. That’s the path I would recommend. We’ll have to show that there’s been a change in circumstances since the last order was drawn up, and that renegotiating the agreement is in the best interest of your girls.”
“So we won’t have to go to court?”
Theo shook his head. “I’m confident we can renegotiate something that satisfies all parties.” He leaned forward, a smile on his face. “Tell me what you want and I’ll do everything I can do make it happen.”
Javi grinned, the tension easing out of his shoulders. He glanced over at Aerin. “Gee, it’s like you two are related or something.”
Their food arrived and they dug in, passing the soy sauce and pickled ginger around the table. “Once we have a renegotiated agreement drafted and signed by both you and your ex, we simply have to file it with the courts.”
Aerin watched Javi as he chewed his bite of spicy tuna roll thoughtfully. “So how do we prove that my circumstances have changed?”
“Well, we can argue that depriving the girls of a relationship with their father has lasting and negative consequences and is an undesirable effect of the current agreement. It would also help if you bought a place in San Diego, maybe even in the same neighborhood as your ex. If you set up a secondary home base close to them, I can argue against…” He glanced over at the papers. “Cara’s assertion that sharing custody when you live in Texas would be too disruptive.”
Javi shrugged. “Okay, guess I’m house hunting in San Diego then.”
“Perfect,” said Theo, dragging his salmon sashimi through his soy sauce. “You do that and leave the rest to me.”
Once they’d finished their meal, Javi took their check to the front, insisting on paying. As soon as he left, Theo leaned in, his bright blue eyes intent on Aerin. “You sure about him?”
Aerin frowned, popping a guava candy into her mouth. “What do you mean?”
Theo’s eyes darted up to where Javi stood at the front of the restaurant before dipping back down to her. “Don’t get me wrong—he seems great. Nice, smart, clearly cares about you. But this is real messy, Aerin. Nasty divorce, ongoing custody battle. Guy’s got enough baggage to fill an airliner. I’ve seen stuff like this go down a hundred times before. You’d be surprised how often there’s collateral damage.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Collateral damage?”
“Custody battles like this are emotional. They can bring up…unexpected things, sometimes, especially if there’s still baggage from the marriage.”
She scratched at her cheek, Theo’s words unsettling her just the slightest bit. She forced herself to meet his eyes, to say the words she hadn’t had the guts to say to Javi yet. “I think I might be in love with him.”
Theo’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, damn. Okay. Okay. I’m not trying to warn you off or tell you how to run your life. But keep your eyes open, okay? I just…I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”
She let out a sharp little laugh, feeling brittle around the edges. “That makes two of us, little brother.”
As soon as Javi saw Aerin, he felt a wide grin spread across his face. Adrenaline still coursed through him after that night’s win against the Yankees, solidifying the Longhorns’ grasp on the number one spot in the AL Central, but winning a baseball game was nothing compared to seeing Aerin emerge from the subway in a slinky red dress that clung to her curves and dipped low between her breasts. She hadn’t come to the game—she’d had a client dinner—so he’d asked her to meet him here after.
She laced her fingers through his, giving him a naughty grin he knew meant she wasn’t wearing any underwear. His heart thundered in his chest as they walked in companionable silence, the city vibrating around them. God, it was so good with her. So, so good in a way that still kind of shocked him given how they’d started out. But he couldn’t deny how he felt, both when he was with her and when he missed her. Abby hadn’t stopped teasing him about his “glow.”
Yeah. He was in love with this woman.
“Today was a good day,” he said as they walked, the night air cool and crisp. A siren blared through the air from a few blocks away, bright lights illuminating the night, making everything glow.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I got to wake up with you. We won against the Yankees. And now I’ve got a date with the sexiest woman in New York.”
She laughed and he pulled her against him, sliding his arm around her waist.
“Thank you for introducing me to your brother. For the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful that Cara and I can come to a new arrangement.”
She leaned into him as they walked, their steps in sync. “You’re welcome. I hope he’s able to help.” He could tell from the light in her eyes that she meant it. That his happiness mattered to her.
They turned down West 118th and came up in front of a small jazz club called Winston’s. He glanced over in time to see Aerin’s face light up.
“I’ve always wanted to go here! How did you know?”
He smiled, leading her inside. A set of steps led down a darkened stairwell, closed off at the bottom with a lush red velvet curtain. “I noticed your collection of jazz records a while ago. I did some asking around and was told that the woman singing here tonight is a dead ringer for Ella Fitzgerald. I thought you might like that.”
She bit her lip, a huge smile lighting up her face. “I can’t believe you thought of this.”
He winked, making her heart stutter in her chest. “Oh, just wait. There’s more.”
He pushed back the red curtain to reveal a completely empty club, save for one table, right in the middle of the room. A candle and a vase of roses adorned the table. Two chairs sat side by side, facing the stage. A bottle of champagne chilled in a bucket.
“Oh my God, Javi. What…?”
“I booked it out, just for us.” It had taken a lot of string pulling, but he’d wanted to pull off something romantic. Wanted to show Aerin how he felt about her.
“That’s crazy! This is crazy,” she said, moving towards the table. He held her chair out for her and once she was seated, trailed his lips over her neck, savoring her scent and soft skin under his lips. Just as she tilted her head to the side, a beautiful black woman strode onto the stage, decked out in a gold sequin dress and white feather boa.
“Good evening, lovebirds,” she said into the microphone. Wordlessly, her band followed her, taking their spots at their various instruments. “What would you like to hear? Any jazz standard you like.”
“‘The Nearness of You,’” Aerin said softly, her eyes glowing in the shadows.
With a smile, the singer nodded at the band and the music began floating over the empty space, encasing them in its shimmering magic. Javi stood and pulled Aerin into his arms, swaying with her pressed against him, hearts aligned with the rest of their bodies.
She’d started to believe in fairytales again because of him. The least he could do was give her a night out worthy of a princess. And later that night when he was moving above her, inside her, with her, making her moan his name and claw at his back, he was pretty sure he’d succeeded.
Fifteen
Aerin had never in her life been so nervous for what should’ve been a simple dinner meeting. She’d wined and dined some of the world’s greatest athletes. She’d faced down angry GMs and had courted cocky, arrogant talent. But it was an early dinner at an innocuous, bland Olive Garden in Dallas that had her sweating buckets.
She was meeting Javi’s kids.
April had bled into May and now that the school year was over, Cara had agreed to let them come out to Dallas for a week. Javi was going to fly back with them at the end of the week, and then he’d have his custody mediation with her back in San Diego. And while she wanted to meet them—she really, really did—she also wondered if it was too soon.
After New York, it didn’t feel too soon, despite Theo’s warning. No, once she and Javi had acknowledged their feelings, everything had felt as though it were moving at warp speed, and she couldn’t bring herself to feel anything but happy about it. Having Javi in her life—in her bed, in her thoughts, in her heart—was a hundred times better than she’d ever expected. And now that things were clearly getting serious between them—something that would probably shock the pants off of the Aerin from four months ago at Jake and Abby’s wedding—they were taking steps toward building a life together. Javi’s life included his kids, and so that meant that Aerin’s life would too.
With her heart thundering in her chest, she pulled open the door and then wiped her damp palms on her skirt, trying to calm her raging nerves. The hostess showed her to the table where Javi sat with two girls, both of whom bore a striking resemblance to him. Same black hair, same tanned skin, same brown eyes. She felt that resemblance with a physical pang in her heart. Something sad and wistful twisted inside her, but she forced her feet to keep moving.
“Hi!” she said brightly, smiling at the table. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cared so much about making a good first impression.
Javi stood and pulled her in for a hug, giving her a chaste kiss on the cheek. With his hand on the small of her back, he turned to the girls. “Chloe, Olive, this is my girlfriend Aerin.”
“Hi,” said Olive, the younger of the two, a wary but curious expression on her face. But then Chloe shot her a look, shaking her head slightly.
“Chloe, can you say hello please?” asked Javier gently.
Chloe didn’t look up from her menu. “Hey.”
Javi flashed her an apologetic look and she gave her head a small shake. It was fine. Javi hadn’t really dated since the divorce, so this was new for them. This was new for everyone. Aerin sat down in the chair Javi had pulled out for her and then reached into her bag, fishing out the two smaller gift bags she’d stashed i
nside earlier.
“I, um…your Dad told me all about you, so I wanted to get you a little something,” she said, hating how awkward and stilted her voice sounded. At the sight of the gift bags, Olive’s eyes lit up and Aerin handed her her present. She tore into it with all the grace and subtlety of a stampeding rhino and pulled out the intricate snow globe featuring a red-haired fairy with sparkly purple wings sitting atop an equally sparkly unicorn.
“Whoa,” said the little girl, holding it carefully. “It’s so pretty.”
Aerin smiled and she felt Javi’s hand caress her knee under the table. “I’m glad you like it. Chloe, I have something for you, too.”
“’Sokay. You can keep it.”
Javi frowned and leaned toward his daughter. “Remember when we talked about manners?”
She rolled her eyes and held her hand out for the present. Aerin passed it her way and watched in anticipation as she opened it up. She pulled the box free and scowled at it.
“What am I supposed do to with this?”
Aerin smiled around the panic tightening her throat. “It’s a smartphone printer. All you have to do is connect it to your tablet or your phone and you can print your pictures right away.” She cleared her throat just a little too loudly, trying not to wither under Chloe’s arctic pre-teen stare. “I…I heard you liked to take pictures.”
Chloe simply shrugged. “I guess.”
“Chloe,” said Javier, his voice a low warning. “Manners.”
She looked up, meeting Aerin’s gaze for a fleeting second. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” said Aerin, easing back in her chair. “I hope you like it.”
Chloe dropped the box unceremoniously back in the bag and sighed. “I’m hungry. Can we order now that she’s here?”
Just then, Javi’s phone started ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket, made a face, and then held up a finger. “I have to take this real quick. I’ll be right back. Five minutes. Go ahead and order.” He started to move away, taking his call somewhere a bit quieter, when he called back over his shoulder. “Get me the—”
