Chapter 1. Author's note - The first chapter of the sequel! To those of you who may not know, this is the sequel to the story "The Child's Father". Anyway, I'd love to hear some feedback from you for the very first chapter of this story!

Aaron wondered with a detached, apathetic curiosity how many more times his boss would yell at him before he kicked his ass all the way to the curb. As he stared up at the portly, red-faced man, currently apoplectic with rage, he realized for about the five thousandth time that he didn't much care.

Come to think of it, back in the days when he wasn't a massive screw up, Aaron would have fired himself, given the chance. So he couldn't really blame the man. After all, what kind of employee showed up to work on average an hour and half late, surly, and usually either still slightly drunk or hungover?

"Mr. Harrington?" he heard someone asking him.

He looked up blearily to see a man standing next to his desk. Aaron was pleased to see that he looked nervous. Aaron had lost most of his self-esteem when his wife had dumped him for her doctor, but it did what was left of his ego good to see people cower before him. Perhaps it was because they respected his cleverness. Or maybe it was because he was an utter tyrant, reducing full-grown men to tears when he felt like it.

Aaron was inclined to go with the latter as he yawned and asked, "What is it, Brian?"

"Mr. Harrington, you have a-"

And that was when Aaron stopped listening. His attention, now flightier than a startled sparrow, quickly darted from whatever Brian was saying to the woman standing with her back to him. Her hair, a delicate shade of brown, was pulled back in a severe braid.

Her hair looks just like An- he began to think, but then the woman turned around. As soon as he took in the woman's dark brown eyes, he slumped. It wasn't who he had hoped - prayed, really - it was.

"Um, Mr. Harrington?" said Brian.

Aaron yawned again. "Yeah?"

"You have a meeting in the boardroom. You're late for it," said Brian.

Aaron hauled himself out of his chair, his face scrunching up as it made a squeak that, because of his headache, seemed to drive nails into his skull. As they were walking - Aaron loping, Brian bounding - towards the boardroom, Brian hesitated.

"What is it?" groaned Aaron.

"Ms. Hardwick called again," he said, looking up warily at Aaron.

"Who?" grunted Aaron.

"Ms. Marta Hardwick," said Brian. Then he flinched back, as though worried Aaron was about to hit him. It was a valid concern. If it were legal, Aaron would probably pound the living daylights out of his employees.

"Tell her to fuck off," said Aaron. He turned around to the see the assembled men and women in the boardroom looking at him expectantly. "Use those exact words."

Brian nodded and walked away.

"Alright," said Aaron, throwing open the door. "Let's keep this short. I'm in a shitty mood and if anyone says anything stupid, so help me, they're fired."

There were nervous murmurings as Aaron tossed his lanky frame into a chair at the head of the table. It wasn't his sharp landing on the ergonomically-correct chair that made him wince with pain, but the memory of who he'd acquired the expression "so help me" from.

He didn't pay much attention to the meeting. He divided his mental faculties between contemplating that he would really like a drink, going so far as to wonder if the boss would notice if he swapped the water in his bottle for vodka, and wondering why the fuck Marta had called.

It was true that they had slept together a few times - three to be exact, as Marta had once informed him - but that was where it ended for Aaron. He wondered what Marta wanted in an emotionally broken, alcoholic loser like him. Not to mention the fact that the last time they'd slept together over six months ago had ended in disaster.

Not only had Marta seduced him while he was drunk, which was already a mistake despite the fact that he was drunk most evenings, he had accidentally called her by the wrong name. And not just any wrong name, but the name of her best friend and his ex-wife.

"Oh, God, Anne," he'd moaned.

Marta hadn't been happy. Not at all. Maybe she was able to chalk it up to an accidental slip on Aaron's part, but he suspected that they both knew it was because Aaron had been fantasizing about Anne and not the woman he was actually fucking.

And yet she still called him to check up on him. Well, that was the definition of persistence, he supposed.

Aaron yawned his way through the rest of the meeting, not really caring what anyone was talking about. His underlings' mouths moved, and they gestured wildly, but he heard nothing. But that didn't particularly bother him. Based on their smug, self-satisfied expressions, he assumed that they all either had massively good ideas, or that their ideas were so colossally stupid that the boss would actually fall for them.

When the meeting was over, Aaron slouched his way back to his office and slammed the door. He'd just gotten out a giant stack of memos and was actually doing some work, aided in part by the strengthening sip of bourbon he'd taken, when the door slammed open.

The boss strutted in and Aaron was out of his chair and jabbering on and on about what he thought the meeting had been about before the man had even a chance to sit down.

But the boss didn't speak, let alone shout. After Aaron had finished blithering on about something that didn't even make sense to him, the boss nodded, miraculously.

"Okay. Sounds like you made progress, Harrington. That's good, considering your recent conduct," he said.

Aaron wanted to punch the egotistical, oh-so-high-and-mighty man right in the throat and yell something to the effect of, "How's this for conduct, asshole?" but he refrained. He didn't know why, as he didn't really care if he got fired.

Aaron simply nodded and smiled wanly. "Glad to hear you think so, sir."

The boss grunted and left Aaron to checking the memos, sitting alone and drowning in misery and bourbon.

And so Aaron passed another work day. At seven pm, he got into his car, a three-year-old Mercedes that was the only thing left in his life he still loved, and drove home. Even with the bourbon coursing through his body, he was a good driver. Perhaps it was because he was used to driving while slightly intoxicated.

When Marta had heard this, her eyes had widened.

"Jesus," he'd said, rolling his eyes. "I don't drive completely drunk."

It appeared to have done little to comfort her. Not that Aaron had cared, really.

When Aaron got home, he cracked open what looked like an industrial-sized bottle of scotch and took a swig directly from the bottle. He'd given up on tumblers a long time ago for what he thought were two perfectly good reasons. Not only did they serve to show him how much he had drunk and Aaron was not so far gone as to be worried by the number of times he filled the same tumbler, but the tumblers needed to be washed and dishes were not Aaron's strong point. Hell, he found it difficult enough mustering the strength to take the garbage to the curb on garbage day.

He flicked on the TV, changing the channel until he found a mindless show about people coming to terms with their ruined lives. Aaron enjoyed those shows. As much as his life was ruined, it was nothing compared to them. It wasn't like he was a wife beater, or a hoarder, or shouted in terrible rages at innocent people.

Okay, he conceded. I do that last thing. But I would never lay a hand on Anne and I don't hoard, with the exception of my rather fabulous collection of liquor bottles.

He contemplated, as the couple on the screen shouted themselves hoarse at each other, that his alcoholism really was a shame. Not because it was probably going to kill him one of these days, but because it left so many empty bottles around the place he and ex-wife had decorated with so much care.

Aaron fell into a light doze, his head lolling to the side as the sounds of anger emanating from the TV lulled him into slumber. It was the way he usually slept, booze in hand, the TV on, and sprawled on the chesterfield.

He liked to say that that was because he was far too lazy to go up to bed, but that was a lie. It was because he found it difficult enough going up to the bedroom to get his clothes in the morning, let alone lie down in the bed and try to sleep.

Aaron knew the reason for that. He found it difficult to sleep where she had once slept, difficult to sleep where he wondered if she had ever fucked Jack, that wife-stealing son of a bitch.

"Fucking asshole!" he shouted, jolting out of his doze and hollering at the TV.

The bottle of scotch flew from his hand and then fell to the floor with an ominous-sounding thud. Aaron looked down, wondering if it had broken. As he picked it up, he lauded the bottle's high-quality craftsmanship. There was not even a crack in its smooth sides.

After a moment, Aaron's stomach began to twist itself into a multitude of knots. He was able to ingore it for a while, but the moment he felt a sharp pang just under his ribcage, he got up. Assuming it was hunger and not the beginnings of cirrhosis, he opened his fridge. It took him a moment before he realized there was absolutely nothing in there except a half-empty jar of mayonnaise.

As little as he cared for his personal health - the profusion of empty liquor bottles that were perched around his house like so many malevolent crows were a testament to that - he was still hungry.

"Should I order a pizza or buy one from the store?" he wondered aloud.

After a moment, he nodded in agreement with himself.

"Store," he said. He was sick of the pizza deliverers staring in mute, horrified judgement at what little of his superb collection of bottles they could see through the doorway.

That decision proved to be either a huge mistake or a giant blessing, Aaron would come to realize later.

But at the time all he cared about was whether or not he was sober enough to drive. He stared down at his hands, which were steady. Then he touched his nose and recited the alphabet backwards. Though he had never understood why that was a good test of sobriety - he could recite the alphabet backwards far better drunk than he could sober.

Yeah, I'm fine, he thought. As much he didn't give a flying toss about his own life, he didn't want to be the person to maim or kill someone else in a car accident.

So he stumbled his way to his car. It was a testament to his superb driving skills that he did not kill anyone as he made his way down the streets. He got a few honks and more than a few fingers flipped his way, but no one died in his short trip to the grocery store.

Of course, he had no way of knowing that even setting foot in that store would become one of the most important moments of his life. His only thought as he walked briskly to cover up the fact that he was tottering a little was that it would do him well to buy some gum for the trip back.

After all, there's no faking it when your breath smells like booze, he said. I could recite the alphabet backwards and forwards a million times and it wouldn't make up for the scotch stench pouring out of my mouth.

So he snagged a packet of gum and then made his way to the frozen foods section.

And that's where Aaron saw her. He saw her and wondered if he could ever see anything else again. She was standing in the dairy section, weighing two containers of yogurt in her hands, a shopping basket over her arm and her eyes lowered.

She looked just as beautiful as the day she had left him, though she was three years older. There seemed to be nothing different about her - from the cut of her hair to the way she did her lipstick, she was the same.

The only change he saw was in the massive curve of her belly. The spot where, no doubt, a child was straining at her delicate skin fixated him. He blinked, and it was suddenly gone. In his jealous horror, he had imagined the baby he had thought she would have by now, the baby that had been denied to him by his own infertility and her betrayal. But her stomach was flat and her profile slender, as always.

He had no idea what else to do, and so he stumbled towards her. But as he made his way to her, he tripped over his feet and slammed into her.

She whirled around. "Excuse me-" she began, deliciously affronted, but then she saw his face.

Her jaw dropped and she gaped in what looked like fright or shock. "Aaron," she breathed.

"Anne," he whispered.

Anne's eyes - her blue eyes, the ones he'd always loved for their sparkle - widened as she took in his appearance. Just staring at her, Aaron felt great. She was better than the booze, she made him feel better than it did. It was astounding that just one word out of her mouth could make him feel better than three years' worth of alcohol.

"Hey," he said, slurring it a little. He wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or just her presence that made him feel suddenly intoxicated. But he was inclined to think it was her. Her pretty face, her slender frame and, above all, those sparkling eyes, left him dizzy.

After a moment of staring at each other, Aaron with sappy affection and Anne with what he thought looked like incredulity - and fear.

"Oh my God," she said, her lips parted with concern. "What the hell happened to you?"

Aaron began to laugh.