The Teacher

CH 40: SKYLAR

One Year Later

"Look who is finally allowed to have some guy time." Aaron jokes as I near the bar. "Wren has finally let you see the outside world."

"More like she forced me to come tonight," I admit.

Since Wren and I've been dating, I've been glued to her every second of the day. After our fourth month of dating, she decided to move into my mansion and quit teaching. Now, she's a stay-at-home mom.

It wasn't a tough decision for her to make either. She fully immersed herself in the mom role once she found out Summer was back to her old antics. Summer left the country when she found out Wren moved in with me. I knew Summer was full of shit the same day she signed the agreement, and her facade of being understanding lasted longer than expected.

But it's been smooth sailing with me, Wren, and our daughters.

A smug smile stretches across Aaron's face as he watches me order a drink, a heavy, rich scotch that burns just right going down. "So," he leans in, "what's it like? Living in the domestic bliss bubble?"

I take a sip, letting the warmth spread before answering. "It's different, you know? Peaceful, mostly. Wren's incredible with the girls. But man, when she gets into her books..." I chuckle, shaking my head. Ever since she swapped teaching for motherhood and those books, our nights are... let's just say, magical. She likes to go to Gibbs more than I do—we are at the Gibbs three times a week.

Aaron laughs, clapping me on the back. "Like steamy novels?"

"You have no idea," I say. "They're like fuel for her fire. So, I heard you've been cozying up with Yiyi," I say, changing the topic. He isn't going to grill me about Wren, and don't think I'm not going to bring up the fact he is fucking her best friend.

Wren and I are still surprised they hit it off so well at one of our dinner parties. I was a little more horrified than surprised because I remember Aaron mentioned one time that Yiyi was his cousin. Cousin don't fuck each other. Then, Aaron and Yiyi let me know they weren't blood cousins but grew up together and just called each other cousins. Still feels gross to me, but they've never called each other cousins again.

"She's definitely girlfriend material, but she doesn't want to be tied down to one guy. So, I've been playing the field in hopes she comes around." Aaron sighs.

I glance at him, his hopeful gaze pinned on some distant thought of Yiyi, then back to my scotch. "You've always liked a challenge."

He snorts lightly. "And you seem to have settled into your challenge quite well." He is deflecting, but I get it. He doesn't want to talk about possibly wanting a woman who doesn't want him in the way he wants her to.

"Not settled," I correct him. "Engaged. Every single day with her is engaging."

That pulls a knowing grin from Aaron. "Engaged, huh? I guess that explains why every time I call to hang out, you're busy 'engaging' with your fiery librarian."

"You always call at the wrong time."

"No matter what time I call, it's the wrong time," he waves off. "Listen, have you two talked about maybe expanding this... how did you call it? Engagement?"

Wren and I have discussed many things, from which day to host dinner parties to who gets to pick out bedtime stories for our girls at night, but expanding our family, we haven't discussed that in over a year.

"It's on the table," I admit. "We're taking it one step at a time. She's just wrapping her head around motherhood with the twins and..." My mind flicks back to last evening when Wren read aloud from one of her novels as we lay intertwined beneath our sheets, her voice dipping low with each sensual passage until the book was all but forgotten.