Aiden had his hands on his lap, his face was as remote as it was before a game; even his shoulders were as tight as ever, his spine eternally straight. I didn’t think, even when he was at home, that I’d ever really seen him at ease. His hair was freshly buzzed, and he looked fine and healthy. Like he always had. As if a month hadn’t passed since the last time we’d been in each other’s presence.
He leveled his dark gaze on me and said, “I want you to come back.”
I was dreaming. That probably wasn’t the best word to use. Nightmaring? Delusional, maybe?
“Excuse me?” I breathed as I took in the whites around his eyes to make sure they weren’t bloodshot. Then I took a brief sniff to make sure he didn’t smell like a skunk. He didn’t, but apparently anything was possible. “Are you… are you on drugs right now?”
Aiden gave me one hard, slow blink. His short but incredibly thick lashes went to rest for a brief second. “Excuse me?” His tone was subdued, guarded.
“Are you on drugs?” I repeated myself because there was no way he’d be here asking me this sober.
Right?
He stared at me with his unflinching eyes and hard, no-nonsense mouth. “I’m not on drugs,” he said, clearly insulted.
I eyed him like I didn’t believe him, because I didn’t. What the hell would give him the idea that I’d go back to work for him?
Drugs.
Drugs would make him think that wasting his time by coming here was a good idea. Hadn’t the parting comment I’d asked Trevor to deliver for me been enough?
What I was thinking must have been apparent on my face because he shook his head and repeated himself. “I’m not on drugs, Vanessa.”
I’d grown up with an addict, and I was well aware they denied they had a problem even if the signs they were out of control were right smack in front of their face. I narrowed my eyes and searched his features again, trying to find a sign he was on something.
“Stop looking at me like that. I’m not on anything,” he insisted, faint lines crossed his tan forehead—the children of the time he spent in the sun and a marker that he was thirty years old and not twenty-two.
I glanced at his arms to make sure there weren’t any weird bruises on them and came up with nothing. Then I glanced at his hands, trying to peer at the delicate flesh between his fingers to see if there were any track marks on there. Still, nothing.
“I’m not on anything.” He paused. “Since when have you ever known me to want to take a painkiller?”
It was my turn to pause, to meet his eyes in the safety of my apartment, and slowly say, “Never.” I swallowed. “But then I also didn’t know you to be an asshole either,” I replied before I could stop myself.
For one second, he reared back. The motion was minute, tinier than tiny, but I’d seen it. It had been there. His nostrils flared wide, the gesture so exaggerated I couldn’t help but take it in. “Vanessa—”
“I don’t need you to apologize.” My hands fiddled at my lap as that small hint of betrayal scourged its way right between my breasts, reminding me that maybe I hadn’t completely gotten over what had happened. Maybe. But I made myself tell him, “I don’t need anything from you.”
He opened his mouth, and I would swear on my life the muscles high up on his cheeks twitched. He made a small sound, the beginning of a stutter, like he wanted to say something substantial to me for the first time since we’d known each other, but didn’t know how to go about it.
The thing was, I wasn’t in the mood for it.
Whatever he might have contemplated saying was a month too late. A year too late. Two years too late.
I had lied to my loved ones about why I’d suddenly quit. Adding up another lie to add to the list of things I’d refrained from telling them over the years because I didn’t want them to worry or be angry over something so dumb and insignificant.
It didn’t matter though. I didn’t work for him anymore, and I’d honestly expected never to see him again. What was the point in getting all bent out of shape? I tried to tell myself that leaving the way I had, had been the best way to go about it. Otherwise, who knew how much longer I would have hung around waiting for my replacement? Maybe they would have tried to get rid of me quickly, but I would never know.
We were as even as we possibly could be. I didn’t feel anything except the barest hum of recognition for someone I’d seen hundreds of times. This guy who I had admired, that I had once respected, who had slightly broken my heart and disillusioned me.
I have moved on with my life though, I thought, forcing my hands still. “I just want to know why you’re here. I really do have things to do,” I said in a calm voice.
The man who had earned his nickname in high school, because even back then he’d been a big son of a gun, cocked his head to the side, his tongue sweeping over his upper teeth. The big knot of his Adam’s apple bobbed before he finally aimed his gaze back at me, accusingly. “I kept expecting you to come back after a few days, but you never did.”
Had I been that much of a pushover? “You honestly thought I would do that?” I gave him my best ‘are you serious’ look.
His eyes slid to the side briefly, but he didn’t admit or deny anything. “I want you to come back.”
No matter what, he wasn’t going to guilt-trip me. I didn’t even have to think about my response. “No.”