“What’s all this?”
“I wanted to make you breakfast. Go ahead and sit down. Can I make you a cup of coffee?”
“I can make it. Do you want one?”
“I already have one.”
Aiden made himself coffee and went to sit down. I put the rest of the food on the table, then went back for dishes and silverware. I sat down, and he looked over the spread.
“This looks amazing. Thank you,” he said.
We filled up our plates and ate for a couple of moments in silence before I let out a breath.
“I want to apologize for how I acted yesterday,” I said.
He shook his head. “You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do. You’ve done nothing but help me and be there for me, and I shouldn’t have been such a bitch to you. I’m just frustrated and scared.”
Aiden stood up and walked over to me. He offered his hands out and pulled me to my feet when I put mine in them. Guiding me into his arms, he wrapped himself around me and held me close.
“I understand,” he said. “I know what you’re going through is hard, and I can’t imagine how you’re feeling. I don’t blame you for reacting the way you did and I’m not holding it against you.”
I sighed and cuddled closer to him. After a few seconds, I pulled back and looked at him.
“I need to get out of the cabin,” I said.
He gave me a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”
We pulled apart, and I went to sit back down at the table. “I need to get out of here. Just for a little bit. I’m going a little stir-crazy being cooped up in here all day, every day. I’m not used to it, and it’s really starting to get to me.”
Aiden took a sip of his coffee, and I could tell by the look in his eyes over the rim of the mug he was thinking about it. He didn’t look convinced.
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” he said as he put the mug down. “I don’t want you to be seen.”
“That guy didn’t follow us,” I said. “And they wouldn’t think to scour the woods up on the mountain for me. I just need some different surroundings for a bit. Even if it’s just going outside. Maybe we can go for a walk close to the cabin. You’ll be there with me, and we won’t go far.”
He thought about it for a few moments before he relented.
“Alright. Let’s finish breakfast, then we can get bundled up and go out for a walk. The fresh air will probably do both of us some good. But we can’t go far,” he said.
I grinned. “Thank you.”
We finished breakfast, and I hurried to get dressed. As soon as we were ready, he brought me outside and led me onto a path that wove through the trees. It was so nice to be out and seeing something different than the inside of the cabin, I spent the first couple of minutes just looking around and breathing in the wonderful clean air around me.
“Tell me about yourself,” I finally said.
Aiden glanced down at me with an uncertain look on his face. “What do you mean?”
I laughed. “I didn’t realize that was so much of a stumper. Just tell me more about yourself. I feel like I don’t know a lot about you.”
He shrugged and looked back ahead of himself. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, and it looked like he was closing in on himself. It wasn’t all that new of a reaction. In the weeks we’d known each other, I’d watched several times as he disappeared inside of himself, and I wondered what was happening inside his mind when he did that.
“What do you want to know?”
I wanted to know everything, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to jump into his life story right then. I decided to settle for something easier and possibly ease him into revealing more.
“Did you have any pets growing up?” I asked.
He glanced over at me like he thought the question was ridiculous. It probably was, but I wasn’t going to back down from it.
“I had a few,” he said. “The first was a hamster named Cookie. He was the meanest hamster who ever lived.”
I laughed. “That sounds like my first pet. I had a cat named Patches. She would hide behind doors and jump out when people walked by just to bite and claw them.”
“My father was allergic to cats, so I was never able to have one. We had a dog when I got a little older. Biscuit.”
“Did she look like the little dog in the children’s books?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. She was a big black lab.”
“You named a black lab Biscuit?” I asked.
He nodded. “Well, I’m not the one who named her. That was my mother. She was a great cook most of the time, but for some reason was completely incapable of baking biscuits. No matter how many times she tried, which recipe she used, anything, she burned them. Even when she tried to use those cans that pop when you peel the paper away from the outside of them. She always burned them.