Secret Heart: Other Realm, Frost Family Series, Book 3

Lock 24

Ten minutes later, Aiden was sitting down at the dinning room table, staring down at a hand of five cards. "Um...is this really happening?"

"Okay, I dealt the cards so I'll get the number in my head. Everyone, pick a number from one to ten," Kazuo instructed.

"Six?" Aiden mumbled.

"Two?" Felix tried.

"Eight," Bren sighed heavily, shoulders already slumped in defeat.

"Ten!" Jack declared.

"Well, Felix was the closest with a two to my three." Kazuo pointed to the younger man. "He gets to go first and then we'll go clockwise from there."

"Um...okay," Felix nodded his head slowly.

And just like that, Aiden found himself participating in a game of Go Fish...

At some point, Aiden realized he was honestly having a lot of fun with it. Between the five of them, the conversation never died. They all caught up with one another on what had been going on over the past month and a half.

A short hiccup in Aiden's day came in the appearance of Andrew. He showed up, glancing around, making the other men pause their game. "Anything we can help you with?" Kazuo asked the man evenly.

"Yeah. Is Willow here?" he wondered. "I need to talk to her...Something's come up. It's important," he insisted in a tight voice.

Kazuo glanced behind him to the clock hanging up on the wall, seeing it was only eleven o'clock. "Uh, no. I don't expect the girls will be back until nearly two or three in the afternoon," he explained.

Andrew's face darkened, jaw clenching. "Yeah, right, of course."

Aiden eyed the other man. "Is there a problem?"

The black man blinked, looking at Aiden as if he'd just realized he existed. "What? No...There's no problem. I just forgot all about the little thing she had going on today," he explained. "Well, damn. Can you let her know I dropped by? Like I said, it's important. Oh," he paused, raising a finger to his brow in thought. "I might also not make it to the kid's thing tomorrow. Or, if I do, I'll most likely be late." Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked right back out of the dojo.

Felix watched him leave, brow raised. "Wow. I have to say-and this is bad, coming from me-that that dude is...a douche. 'Where's my woman? Huh? Not here? Well, fuck all of you!'" Felix pretended to have a snippy, stuck up voice. "Aiden, you sure it's okay to not just go ahead and punch his lights out? Shouldn't you be, you know, beating the shit out of him?"

Sighing, Aiden shook his head, picking his hand back up from the top of the table. "No, I shouldn't. Would I like to? Yes, I'd love to. But will I right now? No. I told Willow I'd try to reign in my feelings for her so that it doesn't mess up her life. And if she feels like this guy is worth her time and effort, then I'm not going to stop her. I am, at the very least, letting her know what I think about him though," he admitted.

Felix stared at his older brother in shock. "You know, I'm not sure if that's insanely amazing, or just insanely stupid..."

"Why not both?" Bren offered.

"Yeah, definitely both," Kazuo nodded in agreement. "You should just kick the other guy to the curb. Willow's stubborn, pig-headed, and makes stupid choices because of it. Don't get me wrong. I love my daughter. But, even I'm able to admit she isn't the wisest person out there. She's not stupid...she just...lacks a sense of worth, I suppose you could say?" he murmured uncertainly. "As far as she's concerned, most of the time, she's worth about as much as a plastic fork. I've tried, for so long, to convince her that her ideas are untrue. But it's only helped a little over the years," he sighed in regret.