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Chapter 20
December 23rd, 2005

“Are you ready to go get some dinner?” AJ asked.
“Yeah, I suppose so. Can you promise me something?” Win asked, looking up at him.
“What Beautiful?”
“Never mind,” Win said, shaking her head.
“Really, what?” AJ pressed.
“No, nothing. It was silly.” She patted his chest and pulled out of his arms. She tried to walk away but he held her wrist in his grasp.
“Nothing’s silly Beautiful. Now what did you want me to promise you?” He saw the flicker of fear in her eyes and tried his best to comfort her with his gaze.
“Um, I wanted you to promise me, that you’ll, you’ll be the best father you can possibly be to Latecia. I mean, it’s not really my business, but, I see her, and in a way, I see me. The way I saw baby Winnie, and it’s, well, it’s hard to explain.”
“Come here, come on, I know, it’s okay, and you don’t have to worry if it’s your business or not,” AJ gathered her in his arms again and she let him do it.
“I just hope that people realize how special their children are. I saw so many kids thrown away. Kids that just needed one person, someone like you, to love them. To care about them.” AJ felt her tears dampening the shoulder of his shirt but he didn’t care.
“Hey, maybe we should just chill up here for a while, okay? We don’t have to do anything, just sit together, okay?” She nodded and agreed. She allowed him to steer her back to bed and crawl under the covers. She leaned into him and relaxed, listening to the sound of his heart beating. She felt safe and comfortable with him, but she had a nagging sense in the back of her mind about what had happened the day before, and she wasn’t quite sure she was comfortable with it.

Downstairs, Howie was sitting with Kevin and Nick, explaining what AJ had told him. He made it clear that this information was to go no farther than them, because he probably should not have been talking about it in the first place.
“Don’t bring this up, especially to Win, she may not want this getting around, okay?” Howie said earnestly.
“So does that mean you’re done persecuting her now?” Kevin asked as he crossed his arms.
“I wasn’t persecuting her,” Howie retorted.
“Right,” Nick scoffed.
“Hey, you’ve got no room to talk there buddy,” Howie pointed a finger in his direction.
“No?”
“Look, bottom line, Win’s going through a lot. We don’t need to be throwing anything else in her face, about anything, all right?” Kevin said, looking from one man to the other. They gave each other sidelong glances and then grudgingly agreed.
“So how are you and Jen getting on anyway?” Kevin asked.
“Good, I think that we’re gonna make it this time,” Nick replied.
“Oh? Not gonna fix her up with Daemon next?” Howie snapped.
“Hey, knock it off would you?” Kevin snapped.
“Yeah, sorry.” Howie mumbled, taking a gulp of coffee.
“You talk to Taylor yet?”
“No.”
“When are you going to?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have to talk to him Nick, explain, you know you have to,” Kevin continued. Nick felt like he was shrinking again.
“I know. I know, I really do. I don’t think he wants an explanation though. I mean, would you want something like that explained to you? Would you care the reasoning behind it as long as it happened?” Nick asked.
“Maybe the kinder thing to do would to be to just let him alone. Let the wound heal and not pick at it,” Howie said softly.
“You think so?” Kevin asked seriously, turning to him.
“Lets face facts here. Nick and Jen are together again, and well, if he tries to explain what happened, well, he’s not even going to get that far, now is he? Taylor never really was one for understanding things like that. Besides, he really did care about Jen, he’s not gonna want to know that they are doing okay.” Howie explained.
“You got a point there,” Kevin replied thoughtfully.
“I think what we need to focus on is getting things back to normal. As normal as they can be, but normal none the less.” Howie continued.
“You’re right on that count,” Kevin nodded, Nick didn’t look up from his hands.
“What are you knuckle heads up to?” AJ asked, making all of them jump.
“Damn man, when did you sneak down here?” Kevin asked, holding his hand to his chest, trying to regain a normal heart rate.
“Just now. I came to pick up Latecia and take her to bed. I feel really bad, poor kid, hasn’t had me for so long then I’m always leaving her with Brian and Brianna. ‘Sides, it’s not fair that I keep dumping her on them.” AJ replied as he stood between Kevin and Howie.
“They don’t mind. And really, if Brian knew what was going on with Win, he’d understand,” Kevin nodded.
“You told them, didn’t you?” AJ asked, crinkling his brows as he looked at Howie.
“Man, I’m sorry, but I swear, I only did it so that they would understand what was going on. I wasn’t the only one who had my misgivings about Win again, and it’s better if they at least know. But really and truly, this is as far as I’m spreading it.” Howie watched as the furrow in AJ’s brow softened.
“All right, okay, I know.” He let out a sigh.
“How is she doing, really?” Nick asked.
“It’s hard to say really,” he took a seat at the table, “One minute she’s fine, the next she’s worrying about finding them again. She wants to know about her past then she doesn’t want to be dependent on it. I just hope she can find some peace with all of this.”
“Would you mind if I went up and talked to her?” Nick asked timidly.
“What? No, actually, I think she might appreciate that. That’s a good idea Nick.” Relief washed through Nick and he finally smiled.
“Great. I’ll go up right now,” Nick was out of his seat in a flash and gone from the room.