His confused expression turned to one of panic. “I can’t. I cannot give you what you want, Willa. I’m not interested in a relationship and I…I wasn’t thinking. I took one look at you, and you’re hot as fucking hell, and I was thinking with my cock and not my head.”
I flinched and took a step back.
Aiden closed his eyes for a second and then turned away from me. “It was good seeing you, Willa.”
“That’s it? You’re going to treat me like that and then just leave? I’m not asking you to be my boyfriend, Aiden. But don’t you dare walk away from me and pretend we’re not friends. If you never kiss me again, I’ll be okay with that, but I don’t want you to walk away from me like this.”
Aiden slowly turned and faced me once again. “Friends?”
I nodded. “Yes. Always.”
His hand came up to his mouth, and he honestly seemed to be struggling with something.
“Talk to me, Aiden. What’s wrong?”
With another shake of his head he walked back up to me. He cupped my face in his hands and stared into my eyes. “I’m sorry, Willa. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“You wish you could what? Aiden, you’re making no sense right now.”
He drew in a deep breath and then slowly let it out as he rested his forehead against mine. “You’re so beautiful, and one day some lucky bastard is going to marry you, you’ll have babies, and you’ll teach them all about apples.”
I searched his face before placing my hands on his arms.
“I’m sorry that person can’t be me.” He closed his eyes and whispered, “I want it to be me so fucking badly.”
I drew in a breath, but before I could say anything, he pressed his mouth to mine once more. The kiss was so sweet, yet full of an emotion I couldn’t pinpoint. I tried to get closer. If I could have crawled into his body, I would have.
He jerked his mouth from mine, and I fought for air.
“You’ll always have my heart, Aiden. I swear to you, it will always belong to you.”
He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut before he looked down at me. “Don’t wait for me, Willa.”
I lifted my chin, about to tell him I’d wait for eternity, when he kissed me once more and then whispered against my lips, “Friends, always.”
He drew back, wiped the tears away from my cheeks, and then took a step away.
With a shaky voice that didn’t even sound like my own, I replied, “Friends, always.”
Aiden
Two weeks later
“O’Hara, what’s on your mind?”
I turned to look at Master Chief Holden, the leader for my SEAL team, as the sound of the blades swirled around the inside of the chopper. I forced thoughts of Willa out of my head. “All good, sir.”
He gave me a knowing look. “Something is off, and don’t say you’re fine. I can tell when someone on the team isn’t in sync.”
My stomach jerked a little as I thought about kissing Willa. About how I almost told her I loved her. How I almost asked her to be mine. To wait for me, to come to Virginia Beach after she graduated college.
In that moment, I’d wanted to be a selfish bastard, because I knew if I had asked her to be with me that night in the barn, she’d have said yes. I saw it in her eyes. I felt it in her kiss. If I’d asked her to walk away from all of her dreams and come sit in an apartment in Dam Neck, Virginia, and worry every time I got deployed, she would have done it.
But there was no fucking way I could ever allow her to give up her dreams. I cared about her too much to ever ask her to do that. Yet, I had thought of asking. More than once.
“A girl, sir.”
He smiled and shook his head. “It’s always a girl. You went back home, correct?”
I nodded.
“First love from high school?”
With a grin, I shouted over the chopper blades, “Best friend’s little sister who’s all grown up now.”
He laughed. “Damn, son, don’t you know the code? You never go for your best friend’s little sister.” My smile faded some, and he placed his hand on my shoulder. “You together?”
“No,” I replied as I shook my head. “I wanted to ask her, but no.”
“You sleep with her?”
I felt my stomach twist into a knot. “No, sir, but I sure wanted to do that as well.”
He stared at me for a moment. “We’ve all been there, Aiden. Most of us end up always picking the team over the girl. Sad to say it, but it’s true. Some can make it work, some can’t. The only thing I need to know from you is if your head is gonna be on straight when we land and do this op. Will it?”
“Yes, sir. A hundred-and-ten percent, sir,” I replied.
He nodded and squeezed my shoulder. “Let her go, O’Hara. Trust me, she’s better off without you in her life. It’s tough for the women around us to live this type of life.”
I ignored the slight tightening in my chest. “I agree, sir.”
“Best thing for you to do is get her out of your head as quickly as possible. After the op, I suggest alcohol and a woman under you. Maybe even two.”
With a forced laugh, I replied, “Roger that.”
“Now, make sure your loadouts are ready. We jump in less than an hour.”
With a nod, I quickly cleared my head and stood. “Roger that, sir.”
Willa
Present day – Nine years later
“How does it feel to be a free woman?” Brighton, my oldest and dearest friend—who also happened to be my divorce lawyer—asked as we walked out of the courthouse.
“Amazing. Liberating. Exciting. Do you want me to keep going on?” I asked, drawing in a deep breath of the cool air. Late September in New Hampshire was one of my favorite times of the year. With the daytime temperatures in the mid-sixties, it felt like fall, yet we could still cling to summer a bit longer. “I’m also a bit worried.”
“I was on the same page until you said worried. About what?”
With a shrug, I started down the steps of the courthouse. “I don’t know. I have a feeling Brian isn’t going to be a part of Ben’s life, simply by how absent he’s been this past year. How do you explain to a child that his father doesn’t care about him?”
Brighton gave me a warm smile. “Okay, I’m going to take off my lawyer hat now. You’ve been through a lot in the last few months. It’s been a long battle, with Brian trying to get custody of Ben at first just to be spiteful. Just be thankful that we won, you got full custody, and he’s out of your life—because we both know when it comes down to it, he’ll never take advantage of the visitation rights the judge gave him. He wasn’t even at the hospital when Ben was born.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed lately, but Boggy Creek is a small town. He’s always going to be in my life.”
“Not because of the small town, Willa. Because you share a son with him,” she stated matter-of-factly.
I wrapped my arms around my body when a sudden chill raced through me. “Ugh. He’s hardly seen Ben since the day he was born. This whole marriage has been a joke from the get-go.”