Play On (Play On 1)

I jutted my chin in the air. “It would be inappropriate, that’s all.”

“Aye, sure.” He disappeared back into the dressing room and returned wearing a T-shirt, holding another in his hand. He tossed it to me. “Put that on.”

“You don’t seriously want me to go out there with you?”

“I seriously do. Now.”

“Why?”

“Because I have to go out there and make perfectly clear what I already thought I’d made perfectly clear, and that is that I don’t forgive Laine for what she did. I don’t want her in my life.”

I studied him thoughtfully. I too would never forgive Laine. However, I also hadn’t known Laine that long. She and Aidan had been friends since they were schoolchildren. My worry was that his decision to withhold forgiveness was based on what he thought I wanted.

“Don’t throw her out of your life for me, Aidan. Especially when I can’t offer anything …” I said. He knew what I was trying to say.

Taking a step closer to me, I saw the slash of pain across his features and heard it in his words. “Laine took away the one thing holding my world together when Cal took Sylvie. She did it selfishly and without thought, excusing her actions under the guise of caring for me too much.” He shook his head, and I saw the anger alongside the pain. “The only person Laine cared about in that moment of deception was herself. And now I finally have you, and I don’t actually have you, do I, Nora? As far as you’re concerned, you’re already a ghost in my bed. I’m so fucked in the head over you, I’m willing to be haunted.”

He gestured behind him to the door. “But I can’t even be haunted in peace without her interrupting us. She has a fucking key to my apartment. I want it back.”

“You need to change your locks.” I winced as soon as I said it. Aidan bared his soul, and I couldn’t even take the time to explain myself better to him?

His lips pinched together for a moment. “Are you coming out there with me or not?”

“Why do you really want me out there? To humiliate her? Because I think walking in on the man she loves having sex with another woman might have already done that.”

Aidan appeared to process that and his face softened. “How many women in your position would give a damn? Fuck, you drive me crazy, and I don’t understand you half the time, but I’ve never met anyone who cares like you care. Where did you come from, Pixie?”

“Up there. In the sky,” I whispered sadly, pointing upward. “Second star to the right and straight on till morning.”

Recognizing the quote, he braced a hand on the bed and reached out to cup my face. His thumb whispered over my lips. “You’re still that lass who dressed up as a storybook character to make sick children’s days brighter. Stronger, more together, but still her.”

“No, I’m not.” I was afraid of her.

“No one changes that much.” He brushed a kiss across my lips. “And why would you want to? That woman was just as bloody magnificent as the woman you’ve become.”

“Magnificent?” I gave him a teary-eyed smile, remembering.

He remembered too. “Magnificent.”

But I wasn’t her—I forced myself to remember that too. I jerked back from his touch and shook my head. “I’m not her, Aidan. You’ll see that soon enough.”

He blew out a breath of frustration but got up off the bed. “I’ll speak to Laine. You can stay here if you want.”

I did.

Kind of.

I got out of bed and put on Aidan’s T-shirt and tried not to shiver at how good it felt to wear it, to feel like I really was his in it. Standing in the doorway of his bedroom, I eavesdropped.

Not cool.

I know that.

But I wanted to be able to go to Aidan if he needed me.

“I didn’t mean to barge in like that,” I heard Laine say. “I stopped by the studio and Guy told me you weren’t coming in this morning so I thought I’d …”

“Use a key you’re not welcome to have anymore.”

“Aidan, you won’t return my calls. I had to see you.”

“Which part of I don’t want to see you don’t you get?”

“But I need you to forgive me. For us to be friends again. Please, Aidan, I miss you.”

He was silent a moment. And then he replied, his tone gentle but his words not so much, “All I heard in your words was ‘me’ and ‘I,’ just as that was all I heard in your explanation for lying to Nora and for letting me think she’d abandoned me. Doesn’t it compute, Laine, that you chased off the person I needed the most after my niece was taken from me? Don’t you understand how fucking awful and selfish you had to have been to have done that to me? And even now, all you care about is what you want and what you need. You don’t care about me.”

“I do, Aidan, I love you,” she sobbed.

I closed my eyes, hearing so much pain in the confession. It wasn’t easy to hear that kind of pain, no matter her misdeeds.

“Then you love selfishly.”

She cried harder.

“Maybe over time, I’ll learn to forgive you but I’ll never forget. And I’ll never trust you. But even if I could forgive you, that time is not now. I want you to leave. I need you to stay out of my life.”

“Aidan—”

“And I’ll be changing the locks to the flat and to the building.”

Another sob. “Aidan, I’m so sorry.”

“Aye, I know. I can see that. But I still believe you’re only sorry you got caught. You’re not sorry you did what you did, Laine, and until you are, our friendship ceases to exist.”

There was silence, followed by the soft sounds of footsteps, then the door to the flat opened and closed.

Feeling sick for Aidan that he’d had to have such a confrontation, I hurried out to find him sitting on the couch, staring out the window. I took the couch opposite him. “Are you okay? Can I get you anything?”

He looked at me, his handsome face bathed in the glow of the morning sun, his green eyes so bright with the sunlight dancing in them. My breath caught. Not at how attracted to him I was because I knew I might never get used to that.

No, I gasped at his expression. It was open, bare, like he wore his soul upon his face for me to see. And all I saw was love and anguish.

“Tell me. Explain to me exactly why we can’t have a proper relationship. Explain it again. Make me understand.”

My chest felt heavy, like something was pressing down on it, and I could hear my shallow breaths. I knew that something was happening here. Something that was going to decide our fate together in that very moment. Moreover, after hearing Laine and Aidan’s brief encounter, I knew this man was owed honesty.

“I don’t know how to explain without seeming as selfish as Laine.”

“I want the truth, no matter how it sounds.”

“It’s like I told you before. The truth is that I like my life now, Aidan. I’m in school, and I have the play, and it’s everything I dreamed of having. You and I are messy and complicated, and we hurt. It’s all too much with us, and I don’t want to go back to the girl who was afraid of losing you. She wasn’t strong. She was in pain. And that was mostly because I didn’t like her very much. But I like myself now. I’m not the girl who used to think she wasn’t good enough for you. I don’t need you to bolster my self-esteem. I like myself,” I repeated.

He frowned. “I’m glad, Pixie. I really am. But did you ever think that maybe I’m the one who doesn’t like themselves very much?”

No. I hadn’t. “Why wouldn’t you like yourself?”

“Because I resented my sister for dying. And just when I thought maybe I wasn’t such a bad guy, the kid I loved was ripped out of my arms and I couldn’t do a fucking thing to stop it.” His voice broke. “She doesn’t look at me the same way, Pixie. Ever since … I’m not her hero anymore.”

Tears filled my eyes, remembering the way Sylvie loved him. I hadn’t asked him about her enough. I hadn’t wanted to cause him pain, but maybe he needed to talk about it. “I don’t believe that for a second.”