“Who’s that?” Cody asked, gesturing towards her.
“This,” Aidan said, smiling as he reached over and took her hand in his, “is my fiancée, Melanie.”
Before she could react at being called his fiancée, Cody was asking, “You’re having a baby?”
“A little boy,” Aidan said, smiling hugely only to frown when Cody worried his bottom lip. “What’s wrong, little man?”
“Did…did you keep your promise?” Cody asked, glancing at her belly. “Did you name him after me like you said you would? You told me in the hospital that if you ever had a son that you would-”
“Name him after you,” Aidan finished, closing his eyes in resignation and slowly exhaled before he said, “Cody, I-”
“He did,” Melanie said with a warm smile for the little boy, “Cody Drew Bradford.”
“Really?” Cody asked, smiling.
“Really,” Aidan murmured absently as he looked at her with something in his expression that had her swallowing hard and looking away before she did something that would give away just how much she loved him.
Chapter 34
He’d fucked up again, Aidan thought as they stood there in the long line that didn’t seem to be moving, waiting to buy their tickets while he tried to figure out how to fix this. He wasn’t sure what she was more pissed about, the fact that he’d called her his fiancée or the fact that she’d been cornered into changing their son’s name, but he knew that she was pissed. She hadn’t said a word to him in over two hours never mind looked at him and he had no fucking idea how to make this right. The only thing that he knew was that it was killing him knowing that he’d hurt her.
He opened his mouth to apologize only to find himself struggling not to smile when she suddenly said, “I switched out my brother’s bottle of lotion for glue because he pissed me off. I thought he would end up getting his hand stuck to his arm.”
“I see,” he murmured as they stepped up in line, “and I’m guessing that’s not what happened.”
“No, what happened was a lot of screaming at two in the morning and finding out that my brother knew how to get around the parental controls on his computer,” Melanie said with a sad shake of her head.
“Did he ever figure out that it was you?” Aidan asked, glancing at her.
There was a sad sigh and then, “For some reason, everyone thought that Caitlyn did it.”
“And why would they think that?” he asked, chuckling.
Blinking, she said, “Because I told them that it was her?”
“God, you were fucking devious,” Aidan said, unable to help but smile as she took his hand in hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze as she admitted, “Still am.”
“That’s good to know,” he said, glancing back at the line to find that it stopped again.
“I can see that it would be,” Melanie murmured in agreement before she asked, “Why didn’t you want children, Aidan?”
When he didn’t say anything because he had no idea what to say, she said, “Rebecca and I weren’t allowed to be in the same class, so I would just go to her class every morning and sit with her at her desk until the school got sick of trying to separate us and let us stay together.”
“My parents tried to enforce their rule of no sleepovers on a school night for a while, but then they met Rebecca’s parents and decided that those rules didn’t apply to us. They even put an extra bed in my room and pretty much adopted her by the time that she turned ten. She stayed mostly with us, spent holidays and vacations with us and her parents really didn’t care. I’m pretty sure that if my parents had asked to adopt her that they would have said yes, but Rebecca didn’t want that. I think she always thought that they’d come around one day.”
“Some people aren’t meant to be parents,” Aidan said quietly.
“No, they’re not,” she murmured in agreement before asking, “Is that why?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Then why?”
“Because I knew that I would never be as good as my parents and I couldn’t stomach the idea of giving my children anything less than what I had,” he explained only to frown when she said, “You’re an idiot.”
“What?” Aidan asked, glancing down at her.
Nodding, she said, “You’re definitely an idiot,” with a heavy sigh that had him narrowing his eyes.
“I’m just as surprised as you are,” Melanie said with a sad shake of her head before once again adding, “But you’re definitely an idiot.”
When he continued to glare, she said, “You’re going to be an incredible father,” shrugged, and then mumbled sadly, “I wish they had pie.”
That was followed by, “Or cake. God, I could really go for a slice of cake.”
When she worried her bottom lip and glanced at the line of stores on the other side of the street, no doubt looking for any signs that would indicate that they sold cake, he found himself saying something that he should have said a long time ago.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Melanie mumbled absently as she continued searching for that cake, looking really fucking hopeful.
“I never should have talked to you the way that I did. Even as I was saying it, I wished that I could stop and take it back. I have no fucking idea why I did it other than the fact that you scare me, Melanie. Have from the first moment that I met you and when I realized just how badly I’d fucked up, I panicked. There’s no excuse for it and if I could go back and take back every word that I said that morning, I would. I am so sor-” Aidan said, only to cut himself off with a groan when she grabbed hold of his shirt and pulled him down for a kiss that had him struggling to remember where they were.
Without a word, Melanie tightened her hold on his shirt as she stepped back, taking them out of line and leaving him with no other choice but to go with her, terrified that if he stopped kissing her that-
“Oh, my god! Look who it is!” a painfully familiar voice said, reluctantly drawing their attention.
As they broke off the kiss, Aidan kept his eyes locked with Melanie’s, letting her know that this was far from over. After a slight hesitation, they broke apart, but he didn’t let her go far. He took her hand in his and ran his thumb over the back of her hand as they faced her sister.
“Oh, my god! It is you! What are you guys doing here?” Caitlyn asked as she grabbed onto Adam’s arm with an excited smile while Adam stood there, glaring at Melanie and looking seriously pissed off for a man that was engaged to another woman.
“We were going to see a movie,” Melanie said, moving closer to him with a wince as she placed her hand on her belly and-
“Oh, thank god,” she mumbled a few seconds later when he placed his hand on her belly, instantly calming their son, who apparently wasn’t fond of his aunt. Not that he could blame him, Aidan thought even as he couldn’t help but notice that Adam’s glare had followed the move.
“You really should be back on bed rest, Melanie,” Caitlyn said, nodding.
“I’m fine,” Melanie said, placing her hand over his right around the time that the muscle in Adam’s jaw began to tick.