Page 59 of His to Cherish
Thank goodness.
David winked at me before heading toward the sliding doors. “You’ll be all right. Remember what I said before.”
We both watched David walk away. My head screamed at me to follow, my heart urged me to stay.
David might have been right, Aidan wouldn’t hurt me, at least not physically.
But when I looked back up at him, I watched his lips twist like he had more bile to spew in the form of words wrapped with daggers, and I knew I was completely wrong.
This man had the power to destroy me, and he looked ready for battle.
“Sit down.”
The lounge chair he had flipped over was now right side up with the cushion in place. If it hadn’t been broken before, it was now. I struggled trying to get it into an upright position and gave up after I realized it would only lay completely flat.
When Aidan arched a brow, shooting me one of the many chilling glares I’d received in the last few minutes, I figured to hell with it
Half of me still didn’t know why I didn’t leave.
The other part totally understood when Aidan quietly demanded, “Anything I need.”
I sat. When I couldn’t get comfortable, I lay down on my side and propped my head in my hand, elbow on the thick mattress pad.
Aidan took a long drink from the whiskey sitting next to him and stared into the backyard.
We sat, the unfathomable space between us thick with a rolling tension that was different. My pulse drummed in my ears as I watched him.
When I couldn’t stand the silence any longer, I decided to go to the kitchen for a drink.
As I sat up, Aidan’s eyes shot to me and narrowed.
“I’m just getting some water,” I told him, and scuttled into the house before he could argue with me.
Once I’d filled a glass, careful not to step on the sticky food remnants on the floor or the counter, I noticed his coffeemaker sitting on the counter.
While I waited for a cup to brew, I dug through the cabinets until I found a bottle of ibuprofen and dumped three pills into my palm.
Armed with sobriety-inducing drugs, I headed back to the patio, ignoring the mess all over his house. It would take him hours, if not days, to clean up what he’d wrecked.
Based on his volatile mood, I suspected most of the damage had been done earlier today.
My shoulders fell with a wrongly placed sense of guilt. This wasn’t my fault, yet it felt like it was. Had I agreed to spend the day with him like he’d asked, he might not have ended up wasted and destroying his house.
“Here,” I whispered, getting his attention as I reached him. He stared at the coffee mug in my hand. “Take the coffee and the pills.”
His lips twisted like he wanted to argue, but eventually he reached out, took the mug from my hand and set it on the table next to him. Then he took the pills and glass from my other hand, tossed the pills into his mouth and chugged the water. When he set the empty glass on the table, he took my hand in his and tugged me gently but with intention.
“Sit with me?”
His pleading eyes, sad green sludge, stared up at me, drunk and desperate.
“Of course.” I forced a small smile that matched his mood and he shifted while I moved into the chair sitting in front of him.
I trembled slightly when his arm wrapped around my shoulders with my back to his chest, his legs on the outside of mine.
“I’m so damn tired.” For a moment I thought he meant he was ready to pass out into a drunken coma, but then he inhaled a shaky breath. “So damn tired of all of this. How am I supposed to move past this? Get over losing my kid when I fought tooth and nail to keep him in the first place?”
My brow furrowed in confusion, but he kept talking, not giving me time to ask.
