Page 117 of An Adventure For Aster

If he even thought for one second he was going to go back to work today, he knew better by her look.

It was three at this point anyway. Might as well leave for the day and not get a ton of questions from people. That was how she phrased it to him.

When Ivy texted her hours ago to call right away, she was lucky she could find another teacher to watch her room while she called her sister-in-law. At first she’d thought it might be something that happened to Brooks or her parents. She hadn’t expected it to be Aster.

They got to his place and, instead of going inside to talk, they walked down by the water.

“It’s so nice down here,” she said.

“It is,” he said. “Go ahead. Say what is on your mind.”

She sat and waited for him to do the same. “I’m really hurt.”

He sighed. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“I know,” she said. “You wanted to protect me. I don’t need to be protected from those things. I love you. I thought you loved me too, but maybe you don’t as much. If you did, you’d know how I’d feel.”

“I do love you,” he said.

“Then what do you think or how would you feel if it was me in the ER and I decided to call my parents or siblings over you and then said not to tell you?”

“I’d be pissed,” he said.

“Exactly. So put yourself in my shoes.”

“I didn’t do that,” he said. “And I’m sorry.”

“At least you can admit when you’re wrong,” she said. She held her hand up when he went to talk more. “And this has to have been going on for a while and you haven’t said a word to me. Right?”

“Yeah,” he said.

She sniffled a little. She wanted to be mad, but the hurt was overriding it. “Why? Did you not trust me? Did you think I’d freak out and not be able to handle it? I’m guessing Daphne doesn’t know either.”

“She doesn’t,” he said. “Nothing more than you. Maybe I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I didn’t want to think there was anything wrong. No man wants to have that weakness hanging over their head.”

“It’s not a weakness,” she argued. “You survived something that not many could. Didn’t I tell you to start living your life? That you survived it, but it wasn’t the same.”

“You did tell me those things,” he said. “And I think I’ve been doing a great job of it. Look at all the activities and adventures we’ve been on.”

She snorted. “Don’t be cute. I see you want to smile. It’s an adventure dating you, that is for sure. Or it feels it now.”

“Sorry for that,” he said. “I’m relieved. I really am. You know I go to the doctor. I take my health seriously. They never found anything major and I didn’t want to come off as a wuss that just had to deal with pain. Or struggled to deal with it.”

“I understand that. I’m sure my brothers would be the same way. But in this case, you have lived with the worry and pain for no reason. Maybe if you’d said something before, they could have looked into it more.”

“I have,” he said. “It’s always dismissed. Maybe I needed what happened today to come about and River to be the one to question things.”

“Then it worked out on that end,” she said. “We need to decide if it’s going to work out on our end.”

She didn’t want to be the one to put this out there, but she was going to be damned if she went into this blind again.

If she didn’t notice something wasn’t adding up or wasn’t right and waited to be blindsided.

Maybe looking back there were signs of things with Colton and she’d tried to pretend it wasn’t there.

Raine was sick of pretending now. She wanted the air cleared completely so she could feel as if they could move on.

“What are you saying?” he asked. “Did I mess up that badly by not calling you?”

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