Stay With Me (She's With Me #2) - Jessica Cunsolo Page 0,64

moved from when we left them. I knock on Aiden’s door and wait for him to hopefully answer and talk to me, instead of closing off like he used to do. When he opens the door, he doesn’t seem surprised at all. He opens it wider and steps aside to let me in.

“Took you longer than I thought it would.”

“How did you know I would come?” I ask.

He smirks at me but I can tell he’s resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “It’s kind of our thing. One of us running after the other after something dramatic happens to talk about it or figure it out. We may just be really nosy people,” he ends with a joke, making me smile.

“Oh, we have another ‘thing.’ Don’t let Noah find out. Yesterday, we each got stung by a wasp and he said ‘Hey, maybe being stung by wasps can be our thing? Or even any other type of insect that can bite or sting?’” I laugh, recalling the incident and his hopefulness at finally having found a potential “thing.” “Poor guy will not give up.”

Sitting down on the bed, I cross my legs. “Back to the subject at hand, what happened back there?”

He sits down across from me. “I punched the mayor.”

Thank you, Mr. I-State-the-Obvious. “Yes, I know that. Why?”

He’s about to say something when I quickly interrupt him. “And don’t say because he deserved it.”

He gives me a look with a raised brow, as if to say, Really?

“He did deserve it,” he mumbles before looking me straight in the eye. “Andrew Kessler is my biological father.”

It takes me three full Mississippis to process exactly what he just said.

“Your biological father?” I repeat dumbly back to him.

“Yeah.”

“The mayor of this city is the man who left you when you were a kid, while your mom had cancer and was pregnant with twins, because he didn’t want to pay for all the expenses?! That man is the mayor? Who’s running for governor?!”

I don’t think I can wrap my brain around this. The man Aiden described was a deadbeat. He walked out on his family because he didn’t want to deal with the bills. He left a son and a sick, pregnant wife at home to fend for themselves. But he’s the mayor?

Oh my God. This whole time Aiden’s been seeing commercials and posters and hearing about how Andrew Kessler is campaigning about being a family man, about fighting for low income families, about loving kids and caring for single parents, knowing full well that he’s the biggest phony and hypocrite?

“That’s him,” he replies to my mostly rhetorical question.

“Are you—are you positive that’s him?” I ask, not because I doubt Aiden, but just because I feel like that’s something that should be asked.

Aiden’s face hardens, his jaw sets with determination, and his fists clench in his lap.

“Of course I’m sure. That pathetic excuse for a man’s face is engraved in my memory. He put my mom through hell. Everything I went through with Greg was because of him. He can change his last name to disguise his past, but he’ll always be the same disgusting deadbeat.”

Poor Aiden. I try to mask my facial expression so he doesn’t see the slight pity I feel. I scoot over and wrap my arms around him, resting my head on his shoulder in what I hope is a supportive embrace. Aiden leans into me, allowing himself a rare moment to be vulnerable and comforted, his hand mindlessly rubbing small, slow circles on my back.

“What makes it worse is that he’s fucking loaded now,” Aiden says. “Does he not wonder about us? About my mom? About his kids, who he’s never met?”

“I—I don’t know, Aiden. What did you say to him when you went up to him? What did he say to you? Did you always plan on punching him?”

Aiden’s head tilts to the side, contemplating my questions. “To be honest, I don’t really know what I was planning on doing when I walked up to him. I was just really angry. When I walked up to him, I called his name, and he looked at me, studied me. I’m not sure if he recognized me or not. But he replied ‘How can I help you, son?’ And then my body just took over.”

I pull him even closer to me, not really knowing what to say, but before I can even think of a reply, we hear a loud crash and a bang from upstairs. We look