Page 53 of Done with You

His life had been peachy from the day his father cut the cord.

Russell was just a bad seed. And that was her professional diagnosis.

He was just a crap human who took pleasure in hurting her and other people.

Teal had suggested on more than one occasion that Russell could be a sociopath, and possibly suffer from borderline personality disorder. But Oona still wasn’t convinced her mentor was right. Sometimes people didn’t have a mental health diagnosis, they were simply just shit humans.

The world was full of shit humans who woke up every day and chose to be shitty. Their brains were fine. Their pasts were fine. There was no chemical imbalance or repressed memories of abuse. They were just plain shit. And even though a part of her hoped that Russell did have a diagnosis to explain his behavior, her gut told her he was just one of those people that woke up every day and made the conscious choice to be terrible.

Aiden, on the other hand, was a wounded soul. But he had goodness inside of him. He wasn’t a bad seed. He didn’t wake up in the morning and choose to be awful. He was just an angry, confused, and emotionally stunted man who needed help. A lot of help.

She’d met him when he was Caden and not letting his anger rule his choices. And she’d witnessed glimmers of that same goodness when he was with his brother.

Something haunted him. Deeply.

And although it was no excuse for his behavior, it did help her understand him more. It helped her have empathy for him, and hold on to hope that he would see Astrid and get the help he needed.

Aiden wasn’t back by the time Pasha picked her up, and thank God for that. It only briefly registered with Oona that it was pouring rain and windy as a hurricane and Aiden was out running in it, when she ran from Rayma’s front door to Pasha’s SUV. Whatever. He deserved all the rain in his face and she hoped it felt like tiny bullets against his skin.

“Doctor,” Pasha greeted her with a cheeky smile and a slight bow of the head.

Oona bowed her head, as well, and returned the grin. “Doctor.” This was always how they greeted each other. It was wildly pretentious and they knew it. They mostly just did it for the eye rolls that accompanied it from the peanut gallery. And in this case, the peanut gallery was Mieka and Triss in the backseat.

“Not a pretentious doctor,” Triss said, bowing her head at Mieka.

“Not a pretentious doctor,” Mieka echoed, bowing her head, as well.

“Your tea, madame.” Pasha tilted her head to a Starbucks to-go cup in the cupholder for the front seat. “It’s not Stash, but I got you two teabags and oat milk.”

“I’m sure it’ll be delicious,” Oona said, grabbing it and taking a sip. “Thank you.” She blew her sister a quick kiss.

“So, we need decorations and all things penis-shaped, right?” Mieka asked. Oona craned around in her seat just as Pasha drove away from the curb.

“Is that really what Rayma wants?” Triss asked, making a cringy face. “Because I was adamant that nothing would be phallic-shaped at my bachelorette party.”

“We remember,” Oona and Pasha both said, making exaggerated eye rolls and sarcastic tones.

Oona grabbed her phone and brought up the list of specifics that Rayma said she wanted for her bachelorette party. “Penis-shaped everything. Then she even said in the notes section that she wants this to be obnoxious and tacky.”

They all snorted and shook their heads.

“All right then, obnoxious and tacky it is. To the party store for penis-shaped everything!” Pasha announced, pointing her index finger up and forward like she was a cowboy on the open range.

“Speaking of penises, heard you walked in on Jordan’s brother tugging it last night,” Mieka said from the backseat. She wasn’t quite as filterless as Rayma, but she was close.

“Nothing is sacred, apparently,” Oona murmured. “And I can’t be for certain that was what he was doing.”

Her sisters scoffed.

“We know you’re not a virgin, Oons. We all know what a dude looks like when he’s rubbing one out, and it doesn’t look like he’s peeing. The penis is very differently shaped for each of those activities,” Pasha said, stopping at a red light. “He was jerking it, wasn’t he?”

Oona shut her eyes and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Awkward,” Mieka sung.

Yeah, it’d been awkward all right.

Awkward, wrong, and hot.

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