Page 14 of Second Chance Husband

I had only gotten my master’s degree in chemistry and I hadn’t gone on for my PhD. While I had known that schools would have been able to give me stipends and pay for my degree because larger schools wanted those contracts from the government and other platforms, I hadn’t been able to take the time. I had needed to start my life, and frankly, working for industry, or even at a college level had never suited me.

I liked working for high school.

I liked the long hours and dealing with teenage angst. Because I liked providing the steppingstone for kids to realize that there was something beyond wanting to be what their parents thought they needed to be.

Yes, my course was required for the school, and they would also have to take the college equivalent if they wanted to be a doctor or a pharmacist or anything with a shiny label, but there were countless other things that they could do. And even if they didn’t go into chemistry or the sciences, maybe it could spark their creativity for the arts or something else.

That’s why STEM was no longer STEM, but STEAM. Because you needed the arts in order to appreciate and enhance the science behind the knowledge. And as I explained that to my students, a few rolled their eyes, but others smiled.

These were my junior levels, who would possibly take AP chemistry next year, and that also meant they were working on deciding their majors already, as well as looking at colleges, and taking their required tests.

It always surprised me that we as a society decided a fifteen-year-old or maybe even younger was the right age to decide what you wanted to be when you grew up. I had made that decision early because I enjoyed it.

But then again, I had thought I’d wanted to be an astronaut as well.

I hadn’t realized I wanted to be a teacher at this level until college, but I had wanted sciences. Just like Heath had gone into business, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t realized he wanted to own bars like he had in Oregon and now Colorado. Luca was a vet, and a damn child prodigy at the end. He had finished college before I had and was already in vet school by the time I was deciding what I wanted to do, even though he was younger.

But it didn’t bother me. I wasn’t jealous of him or how quickly he’d finished school. Luca had gone through his own aches and pains along the way, and so had I.

Of course, Heath had been through the worst of it. I ran my hand over my heart as I finished cleaning up at my desk and collected the papers I would need to grade all night so I could stay on top of things.

Heath was my twin. We were identical in looks, and sometimes in nature. I was mostly the growly asshole unless I was at work. Because being a growly asshole chemistry teacher meant that my kids weren’t going to like what they were doing. And it was a hard enough subject for some that me being that asshole would just hinder their progress.

So I had to fake it to make it.

But Heath? He was affable. He had always been that way, even when he had been a little kid, sick with the cancer rotting his body. My twin, the person I had literally shared a womb with had been sick, and I hadn’t been.

I had been perfectly fine, and I had watched my brother dwindle down to almost nothing, until he had gotten better.

And now he was far stronger than I was, with a lot more muscle, and a bigger beard. The guy just oozed health and vitality and was a great dad and husband to boot.

And I felt like the brother left behind, wondering why the hell I thought it would be a good idea to move out with all of them, and end up being next to my ex-wife.

I pinched the bridge of my nose as I made my way to the parking lot, annoyed with myself.

There was literally no reason for me to be wallowing in my own self-doubt and pity.

It had been years since I thought about my brother being sick, and the fact that I hadn’t, even though we had had the same genes. Such a weird thing to think, considering I had enough going on.

Like the fact that my ex-wife had slept at my house, and I hadn’t heard from her since.

How the hell was she divorced again?

Yes, she could be icy at times, a little brittle around the edges, but she had her reasons. I knew I was one of them, but I wasn’t going to fess up to that in the moment. However, I had never liked Jacob.

That asshole had consistently looked down on us. He’d only come to two functions at the Cassidys’, and while that made sense considering it was his wife’s ex-husband’s family, it was also his wife’s friendship circle.

But apparently, we Cassidys had never been enough for him.

Of course, the one time he had sneered down at my sister, let’s just say he was lucky he hadn’t walked away with a bloody nose.

It was only Paisley giving me a long look about my anger that had stopped me.

Because I knew Jacob had been a judgmental asshole about the fact that my sister had two husbands. She was in a committed relationship with two men who also loved each other, and it was a poly relationship that worked.

However, Jacob hadn’t seen that. But me punching out Jacob’s lights for protecting my sister would not have gone well with the rest of the family. Because then they would have thought I was just some jealous asshole when it came to Paisley.

And that couldn’t be further from the truth. I was not jealous when it came to her. She was just an acquaintance. Not even a friend. Because being a friend would mean that I would have to care about her more than I did.

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