“And you can’t stay there,” he reminded her, already knowing that this was her best option.
“Well, not since a certain doctor put me back on bed rest,” she added dryly with a long, drawn-out sigh as she stepped around a box that he wasn’t sure was his.
“That and my brother is having the building renovated and you have to move out anyway,” Aidan said as he brought her into the kitchen and then immediately wished that he’d skipped this portion of the tour.
“Umm, there’s no stove.”
“I know.”
“And the fridge?”
“The door’s missing,” Aidan said, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he discreetly looked around the kitchen, noting all the damage to the walls and cabinets and started rethinking this plan only to wave it off because this could still work.
“You can use my kitchen until this one is fixed,” he said, deciding that it would probably be for the best if he got her out of this room before she noticed that some of the outlets had been ripped out of the wall.
“Why don’t we take a look at the bedroom?” Aidan suggested, steering her back towards the living room.
“Does it look like this?” Melanie asked, gesturing towards all the boxes and bags he’d thrown in here when he’d bought the place.
“It might,” Aidan hedged, wondering if he should have put this off until he had a chance to fix this apartment, but immediately decided against it since that would have only given her a chance to talk herself out of this.
“Then I think I’m good,” Melanie said with a thoughtful nod as she turned around and waddled, and really there was no other way that he could describe it, towards the door.
“Melanie,” Aidan said, shaking his head with a sigh as he followed her into the foyer and managed to steer her towards his apartment.
“This isn’t going to work,” she grumbled pathetically as she allowed him to steer her towards the mess in the middle of his living room, pretty sure that there was a couch beneath all that crap somewhere.
Mumbling an apology, Aidan made quick work of throwing all his shit aside and shot her a smile when it took a little longer than expected. Once the couch was free of dirty clothes, books, old medical journals, junk food wrappers, and an unopened Twinkie that was going to help make this really fucked up day better, Aidan gestured for her to sit down only to rethink the suggestion when he realized that she was going to have a hell of a time stepping over all the shit now covering the living room floor in order to get to the couch.
New plan.
“Why don’t we have a seat in the kitchen?” Aidan suggested with a smile as he kicked the shit out of his way, wrapped his arm around her and led her towards the kitchen before she could argue.
Once he had her in the kitchen, he-
“Shit!”
-realized that the kitchen was worse than the living room.
“Aidan-”
“One second,” he said, releasing her so that he could shove everything off the kitchen table, knock the stack of medical magazines that he’d been re-reading off a chair before pulling it out for her. “Here we are,” Aidan said, smiling as he gestured for her to sit down.
After a slight hesitation, Melanie sat down while she glanced around the kitchen that he was still in the process of unpacking and cleared her throat. “So, have you lived here long?” she asked, looking a little unsure where to begin as she glanced back at him and moved to place her hands on the table, but seemed to rethink it, and placed her hands on the large swell of her belly, reminding him that he couldn’t fuck this up, again.
“Not long,” Aidan said, deciding that five and a half months wasn’t long enough to unpack all his shit.
“It’s, um, nice,” Melanie said, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she looked around, taking in the half-empty boxes, discarded grocery bags, magazines scattered everywhere, empty water bottles and soda cans covering the counter and filling the sink along with-
Well, it wasn’t important what was in his sinks. What was important was that they had a baby on the way, which was why he’d dragged her back here after announcing that she was back on bed rest. That, and he had absolutely no plans of letting her walk away this time.
*-*-*-*
“I really don’t think this is going to work,” Melanie said, although she was touched by his offer, she honestly couldn’t see how this was going to work.
“Why?” Aidan asked when it should have been painfully obvious why this was a bad idea.
“We don’t even know each other,” she said, shifting to get comfortable even as she couldn’t help but wonder if there were any Swiss Rolls left in that Little Debbie’s box on the counter.
“I don’t think that matters, do you?” he said with a pointed look at the reason why she was here.
He had a point.
So, she moved on.
“There are stairs,” Melanie said, deciding to use the top reason that he’d used against her earlier to convince her that she couldn’t stay above the Fire & Brimstone anymore.
“Where?” he asked with a frown.
“The front step,” she answered lamely, making his eyes narrow suspiciously.
“There’s only one step,” Aidan said with a smug look that definitely reminded her of his brother.
“Fine, how about the fact that it should probably be condemned?” Melanie pointed out, wondering if he’d thought this through.
“Easily fixed,” Aidan said, still looking a little too smug for her liking.
“Overnight?”
“Probably not,” he admitted with a sigh before adding, “but definitely within a few days.”
“And until then?” Melanie asked, wondering if he had an answer for everything.
As it turned out
, he did.
Chapter 6
“This is it,” Aidan said with flourish as he opened his bedroom door only to have the damn thing get stuck on the disturbing towel that he’d used this morning.
Throwing her another one of those reassuring smiles that was starting to make him feel like a jackass, Aidan discreetly shoved the door harder as he tried to kick the towel out of the way until the door finally flew open and-
“Shit!”
Slammed into the wall, breaking the doorstopper in half and allowing the doorknob to embed itself in the wall and officially making the very long list of things that he needed to do, which he couldn’t help but notice had tripled since this morning. Hoping that she hadn’t noticed, Aidan gestured for her to go inside.
He wasn’t exactly surprised when Melanie leaned in, took a good look at his bedroom and shook her head before turning around and making her way back to the front door. Since letting her leave would only be counterproductive to his plans, he quickly caught up to her, wrapped his arm around her shoulders and turned her around.
“I think you’re going to like this,” Aidan murmured as he kicked the towel out of the way and brought her inside the room that would be hers until he finished fixing the other apartment. For a moment, Aidan considered giving her this apartment and moving in upstairs with his brother, but quickly dismissed the idea since it would only make things more difficult than they needed to be.
“And why would you think that?” Melanie asked, sounding genuinely curious as she took in his bedroom.
“Because it’s spacious?” Aidan suggested, taking in the room filled with half-empty boxes, dirty laundry, discarded food wrappers, the messy bed, and wondered if she’d be willing to step into the hallway for a minute so that he could clean this up.
But he knew that if he gave her even half a chance that she would leave and since that would only make things more difficult, Aidan led her to the bed. “Why don’t you have a seat?” he suggested, giving her an encouraging smile.