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“I’m just looking forward to some quality time with Hailee.”
“Ahhh, work getting in the way of—”
“Ash, for the love of God, that’s my sister you’re talking about,” Jase mumbled.
“And he’s been married to her for almost twenty years. They have two kids. You do know how babies are made, right?” Asher’s brows waggled.
“Asshole.” Jase flicked his beer mat at him.
“It’s just hard. Between Hailee’s installation at the gallery and my clients, it’s not easy to find time to just… be.”
“I hear you on that,” Jase said. “But now football season is over things should calm down.” His gaze lingered on me and I braced myself for the question I’d promised Peyton I wouldn’t answer, not yet.
“Where did the years go?” Asher provided the perfect distraction. “One second you’re eighteen and think you know everything. The next minute you’re raising seventeen-year-olds who definitely don’t know everything. Nobody prepared me for this.”
“Suck it up, buttercup,” Cam chuckled. “They fly the nest, and it still gets no easier. Hailee frets more over Avery now then she ever did when he lived at home.”
“Be thankful you don’t have kids yet, Xan.”
Our booth went silent, and Jase glared at Ash, who looked at me with sympathy, and maybe even a little pity. Cameron was watching me too, but I didn’t acknowledge him.
“Relax”, I said, laughing off the sudden awkwardness that had descended over us. “I don’t want kids.”
“Yet.” Asher frowned. “You don’t want kids yet.”
“Try ever,” I mumbled.
“Come on, Xander, you can’t know that. One day you’ll meet the right woman, she’ll knock you on your ass and you’ll see a life for yourself that you never dared to imagine.” Asher clapped me on the shoulder. “Trust us on that.”
“Nah, it’s not the life for me.” I could barely look after myself, let alone a kid. Yet, my mind went to Peyton. Did she want that? The big wedding, the white picket fence… a family.
Fuck. Hot all of a sudden, I shucked out of my jacket.
“You okay over there?” Jase studied me.
“Yeah, I’m warmed up now.”
He gave me a strange look but said no more about it. I didn’t want to talk about this. Not now. Not ever. But as the conversation turned to safer topics like the holidays and the NFL season, I couldn’t get my mind off Peyton. Of all the things we hadn’t talked about—all the things we needed to talk about.
I wanted her.
I wanted her in a way I’d never wanted anyone else.
But I hadn’t given much thought to the future. So I’d refuse Jason’s job offer and Peyton would graduate early. But then what? I was broke and she had nothing. Those weren’t the kind of things you were supposed to worry about in the beginning of a new relationship.
Unease coursed through me as I picked the label off my beer bottle. I knew what the right course of action was. I tried—and failed—to make it happen. But Peyton was the first thing in my life I wanted for me. Not for my brother, or my parents, or the people around me.
For me.
And I was too fucking selfish to give that up.
To give her up.
But I’d never been one to live for the future either… so, where did that leave us?
* * *
The next day,after working off a hangover thanks to Asher insisting we stay for another drink and then another, I begrudgingly braved downtown to get some last-minute gifts. It wasn’t like I could turn up at Jase’s empty-handed. But by the time I got back to my apartment with a trunk full of gift cards for the kids, bottles of wine and chocolates for the women, and an assortment of useless crap for my brother, Jase, and Asher, I needed a drink. I was just grateful most stores offered a gift wrap service because I drew the line at that.
