Heat Exchange

by Shannon Stacey

  He knew that, but he also knew he’d been sitting at the bar talking to her while counting the minutes until he could have her in his bed, which was the problem. “Yeah. Did Ashley see Danny?”

  “She’s out back. I’ll let her know he’s here, though, so it’s not a surprise.”

  “Hunt!” Scotty slapped him on the back and then hopped onto the stool next to him. Danny leaned against the bar on the other side, and Lydia set two beers in front of them. “What the hell, dude? You don’t call and invite us anymore?”

  “I was driving by and stopped spur-of-the-moment. Thought you might be here.” The lies came so easily now. Finding the balance between watching Lydia like a man anticipating having sex with her and not looking at her so deliberately it was awkward wasn’t as easy as lying, though.

  Before Lydia could go out back, Ashley emerged from the hallway to the kitchen and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Danny. “What are you doing here?”

  “Thought I’d have a beer. It’s what I usually do here.”

  He said the words calmly, like he said every damn thing, but Aidan saw the flush of anger across Ashley’s cheeks and thought maybe droll smart-ass wasn’t the way he should have gone. “You don’t think you should find another bar out of respect for me?”

  “I like this bar. It’s where I proposed to you.”

  The bar had fallen quiet, so everybody heard her quiet, sad words. “You say that like it means something.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Danny stopped slouching against the bar, and Aidan looked at Lydia, wondering if they should intercede somehow. Neither Danny nor Ashley would want to play this out with an audience, even if they were currently caught up in the heat of the moment. They’d be embarrassed later. “You think it doesn’t matter to me where I met my wife?”

  “I don’t think it matters to you whether or not I’m your wife.”

  “You told me you didn’t want to be married anymore. You said you needed space. So I gave you space and now I’m an asshole.”

  “I wanted you to care. I wanted you to be upset that I thought our marriage was in trouble and show me that you were willing to fight for it.”

  “You think I wasn’t upset? Is there some Kincaid standard of showing emotion? Do I have to yell? Break things? Is that how I show I care?” He threw the glass against the lower part of the bar and it smashed. “Is that what you want, Ash? You want me to lose control?”

  “Yes! I want you to care enough to get pissed off and throw a goddamn glass.”

  Danny shook his head, crossing to the wall with a few long, angry strides. After kissing his fingertips, he slapped Bobby Orr’s picture so hard, Aidan was afraid the glass protecting it would shatter. He wasn’t sure what would happen, jinx-wise, if that glass broke. Maybe that’s how the apocalypse would start.

  “Is that upset enough for you?” Danny wasn’t finished yelling, and Aidan had no clue what to do. He glanced sideways at Scotty, who just gave him an I don’t know, either shrug. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Danny yell before. “Or do I need to cry? Do you need to see me cry, because I can do that, Ashley. I usually do it in the shower so nobody knows, but if me in tears in front of everybody is what it takes, I’ll do that.”

  “No.” Ashley’s voice was hoarse and choked. “That’s not what I want.”

  “I love you. I’m sorry I don’t always express things the same way you do, or the way I guess you want me to. But I do love you.”

  Tears were running down Ashley’s face, and Aidan watched Lydia untie her sister’s apron strings and take it off her. “You guys need to go somewhere and talk. Like right now while it’s all out there in the open.”

  “I drove,” Danny said, looking at Scotty, who then looked at him.

  “I’ll bring this guy home,” Aidan said, recognizing his cue. “You and Ashley should go talk.”

  Once they’d left, Aidan moved out of the way so Lydia could clean up the broken glass and beer. “You want some help with that?”

  “No thanks. I’ve had a lot of practice, and it’s totally worth the cost of the glass if it breaks through whatever’s been between Ashley and Danny.”

  “Yeah. Hopefully they’ll keep talking until they get it all sorted out.”

  He and Scotty watched the sports news scrolling across the bottom of the television screen, occasionally making a comment on a trade or an injury. It was stilted, though—at least it seemed so to Aidan—and he could feel the tension in his shoulders.

  When Scotty was finally ready to leave, and had paid for Aidan’s beer in exchange for the ride, Aidan caught Lydia’s gaze and gave her a regretful smile. She shrugged slightly, like what are you gonna do? and he knew he wouldn’t be seeing her tonight. It was for the best since, even if she did stop by, he was currently being overwhelmed by guilt.

  It just got worse when Scotty slapped him on the back as they headed for the door. “Married people sure do have a lot of drama. Thank God I still have you, though. You never have female drama.”

  If only he knew, Aidan thought, casting a quick glance back at Lydia before he went out the door.

  Danny pulled into Ashley’s—into his—driveway and put the truck in Park, but he didn’t open his door. “I should go.”

  “No, you should not go. We’re finally getting somewhere and now you want to shut me out again?”

  “Losing my shit and smashing a glass is getting somewhere?” His chest felt tight when he thought about how much he must have looked and sounded like his father at that moment.

  “You told me you love me.” Her voice was so quiet, he could barely hear her over the truck’s engine.

  “I tell you I love you all the time. If it only counts when I’m yelling and smashing things, then...I don’t know what’s happening here, Ashley. I can’t keep doing this.”

  The color drained from her face and he watched her rub at the narrow white strip on the finger where her damn wedding rings were supposed to be. “I can’t, either.”

  Before he could say anything else, she got out of the truck. He said her name, not wanting her to go, but she slammed the door and walked toward the house. Anger and desperation and confusion and love were still churning inside of him, and he almost let her go. He was too worked up to have a conversation.

  But Danny had a gut feeling if he drove away right now, his marriage was over.

  He killed the engine and got out. Ashley had closed the door, but she probably wouldn’t lock it since Lydia wasn’t home yet. And if she had, he’d use the key that was still on his ring.

  This time he didn’t knock. It was still his house and she was still his wife until she looked him in the eye and said it was over.

  When he closed the door behind him, Ashley stopped. She’d been on her way into the kitchen, and he could tell by the way her shoulders shook that she’d started crying. But he watched her take a deep breath, swiping at her cheeks, and she lifted her chin before turning to face him.

  “I’m not leaving yet,” he said. “It’s not ending like this.”

  “Is it ending?” she asked, the look in her eyes tearing at his heart.

  “I don’t want it to. I don’t want a divorce, Ashley. God, that’s the last thing I’ve ever wanted.”

  “Then why did you leave?”

  “I thought we had a good thing going. You’d even stopped taking your birth control pills, so I was looking forward to starting a family. And then, bam, just like that, you told me you didn’t want to be married to me anymore.”

  “I said I wasn’t sure.”

  “You said you needed space. All I knew was that our marriage might be over and it was like this...freezing cold nor’easter swirling inside me and I didn’t know what to do with that. I was afraid I’d explode with it if I tried to change your mind, so I gave you the spa
ce.”

  “And that’s the problem! You shut down. It’s like you don’t even care. If you cared, you’d at least say something. I wanted you to fight for me. I wanted you to look the way you do right now.”

  “That’s when people say bad stuff, Ashley,” he said, hating the way his voice was getting loud, but he was running out of chances to make her understand. “When people lose their cool, that’s when they say stuff they can never take back. Hurtful stuff. Name-calling. Words designed to cut to the bone. I don’t ever want to hurt somebody I love because I said something awful and hurtful in the heat of the moment.”

  She stared at him for what felt like years, and then her face softened. “I’m not your mother, Danny. And you are most certainly not your father. We would never say things like that to each other.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do know that. We love each other. And you know my family, Danny. You’ve seen us go off on each other. Sometimes we even call each other names and it gets loud and crazy, but we’re not mean. There’s a difference.”

  “People say things when they lose control of their emotions.” Shame made his face feel hot when he realized his voice was choking up. “Great. Now I’m going to cry like a girl because I’m weak. I guess you’re going to get all those emotions you want.”

  “Bullshit. You’re allowed to cry when your life’s coming undone, Danny. It’s not weak.” He was surprised when she wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him close. “God, I hate your parents. I’m sorry, but I really hate them.”

  All Danny knew was the feel of his wife in his arms and he held her as tight as he could without hurting her. He pressed his face into her hair and fought to control his raging emotions. Not because he didn’t want to express them, but because he wanted to talk and he couldn’t right now.

  Ashley was trembling, her fingernails pressing into his lower back, and he kissed the top of her head. “I’ll go to counseling.”

  “Do you mean it?”

  Even muffled against his shirt, he could hear the tears and the hope in her voice. “I do. I’ll go with you and maybe I’ll go alone, too. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy. To make us happy.”

  She squeezed his waist and he closed his eyes, letting himself believe everything would be okay. He wouldn’t stay tonight, no matter how much he wanted to. They were both too raw and the night had been far too emotionally exhausting. He needed to think about the fact that, in his effort to not be his parents, he’d gone too far and suppressed too much. They were, in that way, still affecting his marriage despite his vow long ago their relationship would never touch his. It was a lot to process, and he knew she’d finally understood why he’d built that wall she hated. There were still a lot of deep, personal conversations in their near future.

  But the important thing was there was a future. Ashley was his again and that was the only thing that mattered to him. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Danny. I always have and that’s never going to change.”

  * * *

  LYDIA HAD BEEN at work for only half an hour the next day when Scotty walked through the door. He looked agitated, but she didn’t think anything of it because it wasn’t an usual look for her brother.

  He sat at the end of the bar, rather than down where their father was loitering, which was unusual. Lydia set a coaster in front of him. “You want a soda? It’s a little early for a beer.”

  “Day off, so I can have a beer if I want.”

  She raised her eyebrow, not caring for his tone. “A beer it is, then.”

  After she set it in front of him, she started to walk away, intending to get the order sheet so she could start figuring out what they needed from their distributors in the near future. While Danny and Ashley had had a good talk, according to her sister, they still had a ways to go in the communication department. But at least they both knew now that neither of them wanted a divorce.

  “I wanna know what’s going on between you and Hunt.”

  Lydia jerked her head around, eyebrows arched. He’d said it quietly, so maybe she’d heard him wrong. “Excuse me?”

  “You and Aidan. What’s going on with that?”

  “You seem to have me confused with somebody who answers to you.”

  “It was bugging me last night, but I couldn’t figure out why. Then, this morning, it hit me. Aidan’s been acting weird for a while, like there was something wrong. I haven’t seen as much of him. I haven’t seen a lot of you. And there were some looks between you last night.”

  It was something of a crossroads, she thought. She could tell him he was crazy and, if she tried hard enough, she could make him believe that. Then they’d laugh at how stupid he was and she’d give him another beer.

  But this was a head-on confrontation, right here, and she knew that in this situation, Aidan wouldn’t lie to Scotty. He would see a distinction between lies of omission and lying straight to her brother’s face, and it would matter to him.

  “It’s not really any of your business,” she said, because that wasn’t a lie, either.

  “Like hell it’s not.”

  She leaned across the bar so their faces were level. “Leave this alone, Scott.”

  “How long has he been screwing you behind my back?”

  The fuse lit and she jabbed her finger at his chest. “If you don’t watch your mouth, I’ll slap you so freakin’ hard, you’ll fold like a cheap paper napkin.”

  He glared back at her. “You’re sleeping with my best friend. My best friend, Lydia. You’re not supposed to do that. And he sure as hell knows better. How long has it been going on?”

  “Since shortly after I came back.”

  “Are you serious?” He dropped his head into his hands, then looked up at her again. “Did you have the flu? When Aidan was at his parents’ doing whatever, which made no sense because his family just pays people to do that kind of shit.”

  “I wasn’t sick. I had to go back to Concord to babysit my roommate’s cat for the weekend and Aidan went with me so we could be away from nosy-ass people who can’t mind their own business.”

  “So Ashley’s lying to me, too. I can’t fucking believe you two.”

  “What are you two carrying on about?” their dad called from the other end of the bar. “I heard what happened with Danny and Ashley last night and, I swear, the next member of my family to raise a ruckus in this bar is getting my boot up the ass.”

  “It’s Hunt who needs a boot up the ass,” Scotty said before Lydia could say anything. She would have preferred keeping their father out of it.

  “What does he have to do with it?” he asked, scowling at Aidan.

  “Maybe you should ask Lydia.”

  When he turned to look at her, she wondered if her dad might actually be happy to hear she and Aidan had been seeing each other. In his mind, it would bring her back into the fold and—more importantly—back into the bar for good. But since that probably wasn’t going to happen, he was going to end up having a problem with it one way or another.

  “It’s none of anybody’s business what Aidan and I do,” she said firmly, looking him in the eye.

  It took a few seconds and then she saw the understanding dawn in his eyes. “Ah, damn. That kid.”

  So much for being happy about it. He shook his head and looked at Scotty. “You just find this out?”

  “Yeah. You think I’d have bought him a beer last night if I knew?”

  “Why shouldn’t you buy him a beer?” Lydia demanded. “Your friendship with him is no different now than it was yesterday. This has nothing to do with you.”

  She could see that he wanted to say more, but then he shook his head and got off the stool. After knocking back a long swallow of beer, he started toward the door.

  “Where are you goin
g?” she called after him.

  “I’m going home.” He stopped to turn and glare at her for a second. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to go kick the shit outta your boyfriend.”

  “He’s—” She sighed and waved a hand at him, not wanting to get into the semantics of whether or not Aidan was her boyfriend. “Just leave him alone until you’ve cooled off.”

  Lydia watched him leave, wincing when he opened the door by slapping his hand on the glass and shoving so hard, she was surprised it didn’t break. She hoped like hell he was telling the truth when he said he was going home.

  “I really hate to butt in here,” a guy at the counter said, “but can I get another beer?”

  “Yeah, sorry about that.” She got him a beer and looked around to see if she could sneak a few minutes more out back, but she really needed to take care of the customers. They’d probably finished their drinks while watching her family’s circus sideshow performance.

  She pulled out her phone to send Aidan a text. A phone call would be better, but she’d have to go out back to have any privacy and it would take too long. She’d be lucky if anybody tipped her as it was. And she didn’t want to wait until after the customers were taken care of just in case Scotty changed his mind about going home. She couldn’t leave Aidan to be blindsided.

  Scott & Dad know about us. Not thrilled.

  It was a bit of an understatement, but she knew he’d get the picture.

  Should I lock my door?

  He said he was going home. Wanted you to know in case he changes his mind.

  Thanks for the heads-up.

  There was a lot more she wanted to say, but she could almost feel the impatient stares drilling into her back.

  Busy now. Talk to you later.

  Coming over?

  She hesitated, but somehow it didn’t feel right tonight.

  Not tonight. But I’ll text you.

  Good night.

  As she put her phone away and plastered a smile on her face, Lydia wondered how upset Aidan would be that their secret was out. And she wondered if, like her, he’d feel a good amount of relief along with everything else. She had no idea how this was going to turn out for any of them, but at least the lying was over.