by Claire Adams
“What about him?” I asked sharply. Defensively. Did Ace suspect? Was he trying to trick me into admitting that he was the dad?
Ace shrugged and looked back at me, clearly surprised at my tone. “Is he a good guy? Does he treat you right?” He smiled faintly. “I’m sure he does. You wouldn’t put up for much bullshit, would you?” There was something admiring in the way he was looking at me, and I had to look away.
“Her dad isn’t in the picture,” I said slowly. It was the truth, after all.
“Oh!” Ace said in surprise. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He sounded genuinely apologetic, like he felt as though he shouldn’t have asked. Or as though he wanted to give me a hug. But maybe I was just reading too much into it.
I frowned at him and stood up, dusting off my hands. On the one hand, I was relieved he hadn’t connected the dots and realized that Ava was his. But on the other hand, I wondered whether maybe I should tell him. I remembered what Mom had said, about how maybe I was being selfish by not letting him know. About how maybe Ava would want him to know.
But I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.
“Seems like a lot has changed since the last time I saw you,” Ace said thoughtfully. He cocked his head to the side, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Are you sure we can’t get a drink and catch up sometime?”
I wondered why he was still so persistent. And I was especially surprised that he still wanted to get a drink with me, knowing full well I had a kid. I wouldn’t have expected that from him. I would have expected him to hightail it out of there once he found out.
Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to let him know that Ava was his. He had called her beautiful, after all.
But there was a big difference between acknowledging that a kid was beautiful and wanting to be a part of her life, I knew. And I still wasn’t sure that I trusted Ace to want to be around. I wasn’t sure that I trusted him with Ava.
“One drink,” I found myself saying. I paused. “But I really think we should let the past rest there.”
Ace smiled and inclined his head toward me. “One drink,” he agreed. “I’ll give you a call, and we’ll figure out when.”
I blinked, surprised that he didn’t want to push me to commit to a time and a place right then. He was giving me time to rethink it, time to say no.
I wasn’t sure what to do with that.
“Anyway, I’ve got to get Sandy’s miles in. It’s part of her exercise regimen,” Ace told me. “But I’ll see you around, okay? Have a good day.”
I was struck by the sudden urge to do something; I don’t know, to kiss him or at least to hug him or something else. But he was already turning and walking away, the big dog lumbering after him.
I let out a breath I hadn’t been aware I was holding. Then, I turned back toward the blanket, glad that Ava had slept through all of it. But when I looked back at her, she was sitting up and rubbing at her eyes, a frown forming on her face. “Want doggy,” she said, making grabby hands toward Ace and the retreating German shepherd.
I sighed, hoping this wasn’t the start of another almost tantrum. So much for recognizing her father; Ava only had eyes for the dog next to the man.
I smiled and sat down next to her, trying to coax her into a good mood even though she hadn’t gotten to pet the doggy.
12
Ace
I had my appointment with the therapist and left there feeling almost more unstable than when I’d arrived. She’d latched on to the fact that Harper had a kid, and instead of asking me what I’d expected I might get with Harper or questions that would get at why I was fixating on her, she started asking me to come to terms with how I felt about Harper having a kid.
I didn’t know what I felt. I was positive that I shouldn’t be around kids. With my whole upbringing, with everything with my dad, there was no way I was cut out to be a dad. I wouldn’t know the first thing about being a dad. I knew I was more and more like my dad, the older I got. Just as stubborn and self-righteous, full of my principles. Throw a kid in the mix, and I might be just like him.
I swallowed hard, remembering some of the worst things from my childhood. I couldn’t do that to another generation.
But I was so damn drawn to Harper. Even though she had a kid. And I kept finding myself running into Harper, so I needed to figure out a way to deal with it.
Granted, some of those interactions I had brought upon myself. But not all of them. I hadn’t planned on running into her in the park the other day when I was out running around with Sandy. It made sense that we would see each other now and again. We were practically neighbors, after all.
I knew that I couldn’t start something with Harper, knowing that she had her kid. But there was also part of me that had to wonder what it would be like. That kid was so adorable, so precious. Surely, I could never be as terrible as my father in my interactions with her.
But I couldn’t take that chance, and I knew that.
The therapist could tell that I was getting upset the more we talked around the issues. She kept telling me that I needed to just go with the flow, to let things play out, to not get so agitated. She didn’t tell me not to get drinks with Harper, like I’d expected her to do. In fact, she almost seemed to encourage it. I wondered if getting drinks would resolve the chaos in my head.
I also knew that that was precisely why I wasn’t supposed to be giving in to baser needs, not when I was still trying to reintegrate into normal life. I couldn’t ask Harper to help me fix myself. I needed to do that on my own.
Not that there was anything that really needed fixing. This momentary crisis aside, I was handling everything well. I didn’t have PTSD, and I wasn’t just another statistic.
I had to stop talking about Harper, so I switched to talking about my new job. It was a cop-out, and I knew it, but it’s not like we were getting anywhere on the Harper front anyway. I knew I needed to forget about her; I just didn’t know why it was so difficult to do.
Anyway, I liked talking about the new job. Training dogs was great. It was something I’d done with the SEALs in the past and something that I was confident with. Plus, dogs just made sense in ways that people never would. They reacted to their basic needs. If a dog was hungry, it found something to eat. If it was thirsty, it found something to drink. None of this worrying about women and children and futures. Dogs just existed in the now.
I wished I could be more like that sometimes.
After my therapy session was over, I called Harper and invited her for a drink that night. I was surprised when she said yes, even though she’d already agreed to one drink the other day at the park.
And now, I stood in my room giving myself a short pep talk before I went to meet up with her. “It’s going to be okay,” I told myself. “She’s not going to have the kid there with her. You’re just going to go, ask how things have been, talk about the past few years. It’s going to be fine.” I nodded at my reflection, as though that somehow sealed the deal.
I shook my head. I felt stupid. I was acting like a girl. But I was nervous about going to meet her. It felt like I didn’t even know her anymore, and for some reason, that bothered me. Even though I hadn’t kept in touch with her all this time. If I’d really wanted to continue to know her, I would have gotten in contact with her.
I tried not to think about the fact that it had hurt that she had left without saying goodbye. Even though I’d been the first one to leave without saying goodbye.
I rubbed at my forehead. Things were complicated.
Finally, I shook my head at my reflection. “You're an idiot,” I said succinctly. Then, I turned on my heel and headed for the door.
When I got to the bar we had arranged to meet at, Harper was already there, sitting in the corner. She looked gorgeous, from her braided hair down to her long legs. She was wearing a sexy green dress that accentuated her curves in all the right ways. I paused for a minute, just staring at her, wanting to keep that image in my mind ri
ght there next to that image of her in her bed, the night that we’d had sex when I’d slipped out.
I smiled as I approached the booth, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “Hey,” I greeted. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me. You look incredible, by the way.”
“Thanks,” Harper said, ducking her head. It was hard to tell, given her dark complexion, but I was pretty sure she was blushing, and it made her all the cuter.
“You know, I didn’t think I was ever going to see you again after you disappeared like that,” I commented. It was what I’d been thinking for a few days, so it was no surprise to find the words on my lips, but I could have kicked myself for actually saying them.
Harper looked at me in surprise. “You were the one who disappeared,” she accused.
“We had a mission,” I told her. “All I had time for was to pack and head out. I thought you’d understand that. You’d been there long enough to know how things worked by that point.”
“I know,” Harper said unhappily, picking at the label on her beer bottle. She shrugged. “I guess I just started thinking that I might never see you again.”
“So you left.”
“There were other stories that needed to get done,” she said, but I could tell from the way she looked off to the side that there was something more to it than that.
Had she wanted more than she thought I was ready to give? Oh.
But no, I was probably reading too much into what she was saying. And anyway, what did that information give me anyway? I still wasn’t prepared to give her anything more than I’d been able to give her back then. In fact, I was probably less prepared to give her anything. Where once a fun relationship that mostly ended up with us naked between the sheets would have been something I might consider trying, even if it risked my job every time I ended up trysting with her, now there was the secondary consideration: Ava.
I still knew I shouldn’t be around the kid. That meant things were even more complicated now. There would be no fun flings; it was all or nothing.
The idea of having all of that, the family life and Harper and Ava, scared me so much that that was pretty much my answer right there. I couldn’t start that. Even if both of us wanted it.
Which I still wasn’t convinced of.
“So you’re still working for the Globe but just freelance now?” I asked, trying to change the topic. “Your choice or theirs? I know there’s been a lot of changes in the publishing world in recent years, with print turning into a dying art.”
“It was my decision,” Harper said, shrugging one shoulder. “Gives me a bit more flexibility on my stories. And my schedule.”
“You still seem pretty busy, though,” I pointed out. “You’ve got your name on a lot of important pieces over the past few years. I was pretty impressed.”
“I’m busy by choice,” Harper said. Yet again, she looked embarrassed by my praise, and I made a mental note to tone it down a little. “I like what I do; you know that.”
“I knew that in Kuwait,” I agreed. “I’m glad that hasn’t changed.”
“It’s weird getting to cover stuff here in Boston, though. It was a pretty big transition, coming back. I can only imagine how it must feel for you,” Harper said.
I made a face. “It actually hasn’t been as difficult as everyone kept telling me it was going to be,” I told her. Leaving out the whole fixation on her, things were pretty normal. I shrugged. “I got a job, I live with another former SEAL, and things are pretty good.”
“Why Boston?” Harper asked curiously. “Did you get to choose where you ended up?”
“I got the job—the dog training thing—through some contacts that I had,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. I wasn’t sure that I should tell her about that postcard of Cape Cod, or the fact that I’d clung to the idea of her, here, next to the ocean, all the sweetness in the world, for the rest of my time over there.
I wasn’t going to start something with her. I didn’t even have the guts to ask about Ava. I didn’t want her to feel like I was prying. I wanted to know more about the girl. And more about her father, too. Why wasn’t he in the picture anymore? Harper didn’t strike me as the kind of girl who would end up sleeping with some deadbeat. But then again, I imagined finding out that you were going to become a father might make a person react in unpredictable ways. Maybe he’d seemed like a good guy until she told him.
I never once considered that she might not have told the father that she was pregnant.
“But seriously, what’s been the hardest part about coming back?” Harper asked.
I snorted. “Figuring out where all the butter knives kept disappearing to,” I told her, only half-joking. When she gave me a quizzical look, I elaborated: “I knew we had, like, eight of them, for just the two of us. But I kept having a hard time figuring out where they were. They weren’t in the drawer or in the drying rack next to the sink. I thought Stone must be using them for something. When I confronted him about it, turns out they were all in the dishwasher the whole time. I’d just forgotten that we had a dishwasher.”
Harper burst out laughing. “God, bet that’s one of the things that they don’t think to go over in your reintegration and debriefing stuff.” She shook her head. “I know I was so happy with the first long shower I got to take back here. What a relief.”
I swallowed hard, thinking about her in the shower, water sliding over her naked form, dripping down off her breasts and streaking toward her navel.
She gave me a knowing look as she took a sip of her beer, and I knew she knew exactly what I was thinking about at that moment. But she didn’t seem to care.
I had to look away first, my eyes restlessly scanning the bar. This couldn’t work out between us. I remembered what my therapist had said about going with the flow and just taking things as they came, but this was one thing that I definitely couldn’t take. I couldn’t start a relationship with Harper. I just couldn’t.
But man, I wished I could.
13
Harper
Catching up with Ace felt really weird. But curiously normal as well. Almost like when we’d hang out at the canteen in the desert. It was surprisingly easy to chat with him. I’d expected things to be more awkward. I’d expected him to ask more of the personal questions about Ava and life as a single mother and maybe even something like what had happened to Ava’s father.
But instead, he didn’t ask any of those questions, letting me decide how much I wanted to say to him. I appreciated that.
I still wasn’t ready to tell him the truth, that Ava was his daughter. I was starting to think that maybe I would, eventually. Especially when he talked about staying there in Boston for the foreseeable future. He seemed simultaneously so much like the guy that I’d known in Kuwait but also so different. Very adult, very put together.
I almost wondered if maybe his stance on children had changed. I wished there was some way I could ask him that, without it coming off as though I was pressuring him to make a decision on me, on us, right away. The only thing I could think was to bring up that question from before, about what he saw his future being like once he left the service. But I was still miffed on that one.
That was the big question I couldn’t ask him: why had he left the service? The closest I could come to it was asking why he had chosen to settle down there in Boston. His answer to that question had seemed guarded as well, like there was something more he wasn’t telling me.
I started to wonder if maybe he really was there just for me. But that was silly. We hadn’t been in touch in years.
“Do you want another drink?” Ace asked, nodding toward my empty bottle.
I blinked down. I’d been so caught up in our conversation that I hadn’t even realized it was empty. I looked at my watch. Maisie was happy to watch Ava until whenever I got back, but I didn’t want to keep her there too late. I really appreciated everything that she did for us. But it was still early.
“You know what?” I said, smiling slowly at Ace. �
��Yeah. I’d like another drink.”
He smiled back at me and went over to the bar to order. A few minutes later, he was back with two more beers, sliding one in front of me. “So what’s the best story you’ve written since Kuwait?” he asked.
I frowned, thinking about it. Then, I smiled and started answering him. It was nice just having someone to talk to like this. I mean, I had Maisie. She and I talked all the time. But she and I usually talked about Ava. And Mom and I usually talked mostly about Ava. And there was a limit to the types of conversations I could have with Ava.
I hadn’t realized how much I needed this, someone I could talk to about things that had nothing to do with Ava. It was really nice.
We ended up closing down the bar like that, just catching up. So much for getting back early to relieve Maisie of her babysitting duties, I thought, only feeling a small flicker of guilt, though. I’d just have to do something nice for her on my next day off. Bake some brownies or something. Ava would love to help me with that.
Ace and I were the last two people to spill out into the night, and I couldn’t help giggling with the absurdity of it all. I’d never expected to see Ace again, and yet here he was. And I was enjoying myself far more than I could have expected.
Ace smiled down at me as well, his arm brushing against mine as we walked home.
“Thanks,” he said seriously. “For agreeing to meet up with me again.”
“This was fun,” I said honestly.
We walked the rest of the way to my house in companionable silence, both lost in our thoughts. I couldn’t help thinking about how I wanted this night to end. There was definitely a part of me that wanted to say fuck it and invite him in. But I knew that would lead to so many complications.
I still didn’t know what he was thinking with regards to Ava. Her name had hardly come up at all over the course of the evening, and even though I wanted to think that if he was here, maybe he was okay with the idea of having children, someday. There was still a difference between that and letting him know he already had a child, the most perfect three-year-old that you could ever meet.