“Dude,” Aidan shifts looking nervous, “please don’t rat me out. I haven’t done any of that in ages.” I give him a look that lets him know his life is his own. He knows I’d never betray his trust just as I know he wouldn’t betray mine. “So, you mentioned some stuff going on since Lia’s been home?”
I realize in that moment that Aidan and I haven’t had a chance to really talk in the last few weeks, which is unusual. He has been my confidant since we were boys, and there is very little of importance that goes on in my life that he doesn’t know. “Well, I know who Lia’s father is.”
He looks thoughtful for a moment before saying, “And this isn’t good news?”
Aidan, of course, isn’t surprised that I would look into Lia’s background. He doesn’t know that, unlike other women I’ve been involved with, it was almost an afterthought. I don’t think there could have been anything which would have kept me away from her. I was too far gone from the moment I met her. “You’ve heard of Lee Jacks?”
“Of course,” he answers before his mouth falls open. I seem to be surprising Aidan a lot today, which is hard to do. “You aren’t saying…” When I incline my head, he whistles. “Holy shit! How in the hell did that happen?” Before I can make a sarcastic comment, he waves me off. “I know how, smartass. I mean, how did Lia’s mother end up with Jacks? From what I’ve gathered, they wouldn’t exactly run in the same circles.”
“I believe that their circumstances were more similar at one time than they are now. It was just a brief thing, and he never knew about Lia. Actually, if I hadn’t tipped him off by checking into his personal life after finding out about the association with Lia’s mother, he would probably never have known.”
“Wow,” Aidan muses still looking shell-shocked. “Jacks is somewhat of a mystery man. But there are rumors and plenty of them. Does she know?”
“No,” I admit, “but I don’t know how long I can keep it from her. He’s pushing hard to tell her, but I think she needs some time to recover from everything she’s been through first. This will be a huge shock to her.”
“No kidding. If the guy has a single ounce of humanity in his body, then he’s got to be choking on guilt for all that Lia has endured.”
“Unless he’s a good actor, he’s feeling it. I don’t know if it’s driven by mere curiosity or something more, but he seems very drawn to her. Enough to crash our dinner last week to meet her.”
“This is like Jerry Springer shit,” Aidan marvels. “They write books about this kind of messed-up stuff. Wait; did he have anything to do with her mother turning herself in out of the blue?”
I had mentioned her mother’s arrest to Aidan over the phone but hadn’t gone into any details. “Yeah, and he’s looking for her stepfather.”
“Prison’s too good for that bastard,” Aidan snarls, echoing my sentiments exactly. It’s something Lee and I don’t see eye-to-eye on, but what am I supposed to do? Recommend he kill the sick fuck instead, or better yet, help me find him so I can have the pleasure? “Man, no wonder you’re stressed. That’s a lot to deal with.”
“It is what it is,” I say simply. I look him over, noticing again how tired he looks. “What’s going on with you? You look like shit.” Aidan and I are nothing if not blunt with each other.
“Thanks,” he says dryly as he runs a hand along his jaw. “I’m just not sleeping that well. You know I have problems with that at the best of times.” Aidan has always been somewhat of an insomniac, but it looks as if things have been worse than usual lately.
“I appreciate you stepping in and running things here while I was with Lia. I apologize for dumping that on you; I know it was a lot to ask.”
“You know I’ve always got your back. And that’s not the cause of my stress,” he adds quietly. Fuck, I know what’s coming, and I don’t want to hear it, but it’s so clear that he needs to talk right now. There is only one thing, or one person that can brings him this low.
“It’s Cassie,” I say as more of a statement than a question. Where Aidan is concerned, no matter how many women he screws, it’s always her. He has spent most of his adult life trying to fuck her out of his heart and his head.
“Luc, it’s finally happening. She’s coming out of it.” I look at his hopeful face and don’t know what to say. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this from him through the years and nothing ever changes. When she said his nickname a few weeks ago, it gave him hope. I admit that it’s something new, but there have been other things which seemed to indicate she had some awareness of her surroundings and nothing’s ever come of it. No matter how I feel about Cassie, it kills me to see him go through this kind of torture.
“Aidan…you shouldn’t read too much into her saying your name. She—”
“It’s more than that,” he interrupts me, looking almost excited now. “Her doctor says she’s been interacting some with her nurses and the other patients.”
“Interacting how exactly?” I ask, feeling a ripple of unease running through me.
“Saying thank you and answering questions from fellow patients.”
My ripple of unease is more like a fucking tidal wave now. Aidan is right; this is a new development. Cassie has spoken through the years, but generally words that have no place in the conversation at hand. The doctors have always believed she was talking to herself and not responding to whoever is present at the time. She also has a gut-wrenching habit of rubbing her stomach and humming as if she were still pregnant and singing to her unborn child…my fucking child. I can’t be around her and risk seeing it. I told her doctor to stop sending me reports after the last one, which included that bit of information. It’s a completely messed-up state of affairs that I’m her legal guardian and pay for her care, even though she killed my baby and tried to kill me. It’s pure fucking guilt on my part. I long ago instructed the facility to send their reports to Aidan and Max; I simply couldn’t handle it. “Aidan,” I say, trying to get back on track, but still reeling from his news. “She has spoken at times through the years.”