Everywhere, All At Once

Chapter 15 - Something to Lose

Good morning, sweetheart. That was the text Kenna had woken up to from Aaron that morning.

She'd lain in bed for an extra ten minutes that morning just smiling at her phone when she'd opened it. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about it, even as they chatted back and forth throughout the morning.

"What are you grinning about?" Jasleen asked, sitting across from Kenna for breakfast before they were supposed to go run wedding errands together.

Jasleen's sister, Asha, was with them, too, being Jasleen's maid of honor. Kenna didn't know Asha all that well to spill her whole life story, but she wasn't particularly shy either. The question was, how much did she want to tell Jasleen and allow Asha in on?

"Well..." Kenna began, with a sly smile etching across her lips.

"Oh, shit," Jasleen said, leaning forward. "It's a boy, isn't it?"

"A man," Kenna corrected, with a little head toss and a smug smile.

Jasleen rolled her eyes but Asha grinned at her.

"Knew it," Asha said.

"What's his name?" Jasleen sang.

"Aaron," Kenna sang back, her cheeks flushing a little bit.

"Ooh, Aaron," Jasleen said.

They sounded like a couple of teenage girls and giggled like it too.

"Tell me about him. Do you have a picture?"

Kenna didn't, but only because Aaron didn't have any social media accounts with pictures of him on them. Her phone buzzed again with another text from him before she could answer Jasleen.

What are you up to today?

She shot him back a quick response about her day with Jasleen then looked up to see the two sisters waiting patiently for more information.

"Okay, I'm gonna tell you something. But it's not public knowledge yet. You got me?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die," Jasleen said, nodding along with Asha.

"So he's a little older than me," Kenna began. Their eyes widened.

"Like how much older?" Asha asked.

"Like twelve years older?" Kenna supplied, wincing in anticipation of their reaction.

But their reactions didn't come. Their shoulders seemed to sag in disappointment that he wasn't like seventy or something.

"Oh, that's not that bad. It's not bad at all," Jasleen told her with a shrug.

"Really?"

"Yeah," Asha chimed in, waving off Kenna's concern. "I've dated a couple of older guys. It's so much nicer than dating guys my own age. And twelve years is seriously like nothing these days."

Kenna nodded in agreement. Asha was twenty-two. She couldn't even remember what it was like to be twenty-wo and she was only six years old than her. How did Aaron feel being around her then with a twelve-year age gap?

"Oh, but this one guy, I dated for like three months last year. He was almost twenty years older. He was separated from his super bitter wife and had like five kids. God, that was awful. I don't know if it was because he was older or because of his circumstances, but he was screwing anything with legs, honestly, and throwing the "L" word around like M&M's. He was the one older guy I dated who was not actually more mature like most older men are supposed to be."