Page 220 of The Compass Series

HAILEE

I ’d been counting down the hours for Aiden to make it home.

Mama and Dad had been slow dancing around the Walters’s living room with Laurie, laughing up a storm while Samuel kept to himself for the most part.

I still couldn’t stomach what I’d overheard the night before, and I was more than ready to tell Aiden if Samuel didn’t step up and handle the issues at hand.

It’d been eating at me since I’d heard Jake confess everything.

Aiden sent me his location as he was driving home from the airport, and I felt the same excitement I had when I was a kid whenever he’d come back home to me. I dashed outside the second I saw his car was pulling into the driveway, and I rocketed straight into his arms.

“Merry Christmas,” I whispered against the nape of his neck as he held me.

“Merry Christmas, babe.” He pulled back and kissed me. I could feel the tension against his lips.

“What is it?” I asked as we disconnected. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Come on. Let’s go inside.” He took my hand into his, and I followed. The second he was through the door, and laid his eyes on his father on the living room couch, his nostrils began to flare. He dropped my hand.

“Aiden, what is it…?” I asked, but he ignored me as he marched over to his father.

“Is it true?” he blurted out. The music on the record player kept playing, but Laurie and my parents stopped their movements. “About Catherine and you?”

Samuel stood from the couch with a look of shock in his eyes. Then his stare moved to me. “You told me you wouldn’t say a word.”

Oh no.

Aiden’s eyes met mine, and the look of hurt and betrayal that washed over him made me want to vomit. “You knew?” he asked as tears flooded his stare.

I shook my head and reached out to him. “No, Aiden, it’s not what you—” He shoved my hand away from him.

No, no, no…

“What’s going on?” Laurie asked.

“Now, listen, son…” Samuel started to step toward Aiden, but he was instantly stopped.

“Fuck you!” Aiden hissed at his father as he shoved him hard against the chest.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s going on?” Dad asked, stepping between the two men to make sure it didn’t escalate. “Aiden, what are you doing?”

“What am I doing? How about you ask what he’s been doing,” Aiden muttered. He flung his hands in irritation as he looked at Samuel. “How about you tell the crowd the truth, huh? How you aren’t the stand-up man you’ve always made yourself out to be.”

“Samuel, what is he talking about?” Laurie asked, walking over to her son.

“I, he…” Samuel shut his eyes, and when he opened them, he didn’t say anything.

He couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth. It sat tangled behind his tongue, a web of lies and deception. He was a coward because he still wouldn’t say it. He wouldn’t tell the truth even though it had already been revealed.

“He got Catherine pregnant all those years ago, not Jake,” Aiden said, airing all of Samuel’s dirty laundry.

“He made Jake pretend that he was the father after Catherine gave up her rights. He made it all up, so he wouldn’t have to face you, Mom, with the truth.

And ever since then, he’d been pretending to be something he’s not.

Is that why, Dad? Is that why you kept helping Jake?

Because you feared he would tell your little secret if he didn’t get money from you? ”

“Oh, my goodness,” Mama mumbled as she stood beside me.

Samuel’s eyes released tears as his voice cracked. He turned to his wife. “You don’t understand, Laurie. You and me… we never saw each other. There was no romance between us. I was struggling being in Los Angeles alone…”

“Ha!” Mama laughed sarcastically at Samuel’s pathetic attempt to explain.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen, Laurie, I swear, I didn’t.

I was just flying out to Los Angeles for an audition and ended up, well, it was a mistake, okay?

I fucked up. But, look at the miracle it brought us.

” He reached for her hand and squeezed it.

“We have our son because of my mistake. He’s our miracle baby. ”

What was wrong with that man?

Laurie ripped her hand away from her husband’s and held a hand up to him. “No,” she ordered. “Get out.”

Samuel shook his head. “No.”

“Get. Out,” Laurie hissed as she shoved him hard against the chest. “Get out, get out, get out!” she screamed as tears fell down her cheeks. Her heartbreak began to unleash from her vocals as she cried and slapped Samuel against his chest.

Dad had to remove Samuel from the house. He physically lifted the sobbing man and took him outside. When he came back, we were all still frozen in place. Laurie looked around and choked on her sobs.

“I’m fine,” she swore.

Mama went to step forward to comfort her best friend, but Aiden was already wrapping his arms around his mother.

“We should give these two some space for a little while,” Dad said, nodding to Mama and me.

I didn’t want to leave them, but I knew it was the right thing to do. That mother and son needed one another right then and there. Still, I wished I could’ve been there for Aiden the way he was for his mother.

I knew he needed the comfort, too.

Later that night, I saw Aiden’s bedroom light turn on. I instantly crawled out of my bedroom window and knocked on his.

He saw me and sighed before turning his back on me.

I knocked again.

And again.

And again.

I pounded on that window repeatedly until a grumpy Aiden appeared and pushed it open. “What, Hailee?” he snapped. “I need space right now.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

I climbed into the window and stood stern in front of him.

“I said no. You don’t get space right now because this whole situation is a mess.

And just to be clear, I was going to tell you.

I found out about the whole thing while you were gone and was waiting for you to come home, but he said he’d tell you first thing.

It turned out you already knew. It’s important for you to know that I have not been sitting on this big secret for a long time, Aiden. I didn’t know.”

“I hear you. I do, but?—”

“No buts. You don’t get to push me away right now, okay? Because, like it or not, you need me just as much as I need you, so I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here.”

“Hailee—”

“Be pissed off. Be pissed off at the world. Be pissed off at everything that exists. Heck, you can be pissed off at me, too, but you can’t push me away, Aiden. I refuse to be moved. We aren’t doing that.”

“Hailee—”

“No. I’ve read enough romance novels to know how this is supposed to go.

We are supposed to fight and break up at this point in our story, but I refuse to do that.

No third act breakup, okay?” I took his hands into mine.

“We are not going to have some dramatic fight between us and a breakup for a short period of time to just come back together to be happy. We already did that part, Aiden, okay? We are happy. You and me… we are good. It’s the rest of the world around us that sucks.

So we aren’t going to screw this up because of them.

I’ve already lost five years of you due to that man. I refuse to lose one more second.”

He shut his eyes and rested his forehead against mine as he pulled me against his chest. “I’m sorry. My emotions are jacked up.”

“It would be weird if they weren’t. But you don’t have to figure them out alone, right? I’m here.”

“I feel as if I’m too much for you right now. You’ve spent the past five years facing your shadows and growing. I’ve been running from them. Now, I have even more shit to face, and it’s not fair of me to ask you to stick around as I deal with my issues.”

“Hey, stop it.” I pulled back and placed my hands against his face, locking my eyes with his.

“You don’t have to be perfect to be loved by me.

That’s not how this love works. I don’t only love you on the good days.

I love you on the hard ones, too. Be broken, be raw, be damaged. And still, I’ll stay.”

“Hailee?” he whispered.

“Yes?”

His lips brushed against mine ever so gently. “You are the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.”