Chapter 26
W e pull up in front of a tiny row home with a cobalt blue front door and a stained-glass window above it. A ship with its sails unfurled billowing across the water. Three golden numbers painted across to note his address: 612.
“Didn’t there used to be an Italian bakery around here?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Right next door.”
I smile. “I remember. I was obsessed with their cannoli.”
“They moved to a new location a couple of blocks over. Probably the best decision they could have made for my wallet.” He turns to look at me again, his gaze drifting over my face. “I wonder if—”
“We ever ran into each other?”
“Yeah,” he says, eyes searching mine, then shifting to look out the window instead. It’s a romantic thought. The two of us drifting past each other without ever realizing it. But I’m starting to define a difference between romance and reality, and I think I like this better. Aiden crammed in the front seat of my Subaru with his knees almost tucked to his chest, a pizza box on his lap. “I’m going to need a second before you come in,” he says.
“A second?”
“More like seven minutes.” Aiden climbs out of the passenger seat.
“That’s oddly specific. Do you need to hide your doll collection?”
He braces one hand against the passenger side door and ducks down. I get a glimpse of gold against the tan skin of his neck, dark hair falling over his left eye.
He smiles at me, more than a little rueful. “I’m going to attempt to shove all of my dirty laundry under the couch and hope you don’t notice.” He taps the top of the car. “Seven minutes,” he says again.
He jogs his way up his front steps and disappears through the front door, a wreath with dried magnolia leaves swinging back and forth with his enthusiasm. The wreath doesn’t seem like something Aiden would put up. Maybe his dad gave it to him. He said he liked plants—the pilgrimage for mushrooms—but I don’t know much about Aiden outside the radio station.
I hope to know, though. I hope I get to learn more about Aiden.
Like what’s on the end of that necklace I’m always getting glimpses of. Why he gets a faraway look on his face when he plays certain songs at the station. If he still thinks I’m naive for wanting the things I want or if maybe—if maybe he could want them too.
I’m still thinking about it six minutes and twenty-three seconds later when I’m standing on his small front porch, my hand raised to knock. The door swings open before I can, and Aiden appears, hair sticking up in every direction, one of the sleeves of his hunter green T-shirt twisted up. He’s slightly out of breath and I watch the rise and fall of his broad chest beneath his T-shirt with enthusiastic interest.
“Hi,” I tell his chest, and I suddenly sympathize with the version of Aiden I got earlier.
“Uh-oh,” he says. He curls his fingers around my elbow and gently tugs me inside, shutting the door behind me. “That’s not a good look. Do you not want the pizza?”
“No. I want the pizza,” I murmur, distracted. I unwind my scarf from around my neck and toss it over the hook where his jacket is. I look at our things tangled together for a second too long. “I was just thinking.”
“About the dog commercial again? I told you I’d reach out. See if they can record something different.”
The other night at the station, I quietly teared up over an ad for the Maryland Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I sniffled into my coffee cup for ten minutes. Aiden couldn’t handle it.
“I don’t want you to ask them to record something new. That was very effective. And no. That’s not what I was thinking about.”
He helps me out of my coat and folds it carefully over the wooden banister. His house is like most other row homes in Baltimore. A small foyer with a staircase to the left. A narrow hallway that leads to a living room. I expect the kitchen is at the back of the house, just like mine. Aiden tucks a knuckle beneath my chin and guides my face to his until I’m looking at him. His eyes are soft. Patient. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. I can give you your pizza to go.”
I shake my head and grip his wrist. “I want to stay. I’m just—” I chew on my bottom lip, considering. I’ve given Aiden so many of my secrets, and he’s hardly handed me any of his. I nod toward his chest. “Your necklace. You always wear it.”
He glances down at himself.
I trace over the gold chain at the back of his neck with a single fingertip.
“Oh. Yeah,” he says. “I don’t like to take it off.”
“What is it?”
“It’s, ah—” Twin spots of color appear on his sharp cheekbones. “It’s a good-luck charm.”
I arch an eyebrow. “That’s very sentimental for a man who doesn’t believe in luck.”
“I never said I don’t believe in luck.”
“You implied it.”
“When?”
“Every time we’ve ever had a conversation.” I lower my voice in a pale imitation of his rough register. “ Fate and magic are things we’ve constructed in our minds so we can feel better about ourselves. The only truth is what we can see, blah, blah, blah. ”
He crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the wall. I am distracted by the stretch of his T-shirt over his bare arms. It really is a crime he wears so many sweatshirts. I haven’t spent nearly enough time with his biceps.
A little line appears on the side of his mouth. He’s trying to fight his grin and doing a poor job of it. “Is that what I sound like?”
I nod. “Yes.” I poke him once in the chest and he quickly grabs my hand before I can pull it away. I crawl my fingers up and slip one beneath his gold chain. It’s warm from his skin, the charm at the bottom hidden beneath his shirt. My eyes flick to his and hold. “Can I?”
He nods and I tug at it carefully, my other hand against his ribs. It’s almost as close as when we were in the closet, but my mouth isn’t on his and his hands are passive at his sides. I frown when I see the empty circle at the bottom of the chain. “It’s a key ring.”
“Yep.”
I was expecting some sort of charm. Maybe a medallion. Grayson’s mom had all sorts of saintly pendants around the house when we were growing up. She’d hang them from everything. Picture frames. The pull on the ceiling fan. The sink in the guest bathroom.
But Aiden doesn’t have a pendant or a locket. He just has a thin empty key ring looped on a gold chain. The kind you find on a backpack or a house key. Something that holds something else together.
“Not what you expected?” he asks.
I shake my head, examining the small worn-down ring. Some of the metal is faded in spots. Silver instead of gold.
“My mom got it for me at a—at a hospital gift shop,” he tells me, tripping over his words. He plucks the ring out of my fingers and looks at it, thumb smoothing over one of the curves. “It used to have a compass on it, I think? Maybe a boat? I forget. It was something cheap and it fell off fast. Within a day or two.”
“But you kept it?”
“Yeah, I kept it.” He tucks it beneath his shirt again and pats it once. “It’s good luck. When the charm fell off, I shoved it in my jeans pocket and left it there for a . . . long time.”
“Define a long time.”
“Three weeks? I think?”
“Did you forget about it?” He nods. “Were you . . . not doing laundry at this point in your life?”
“I was a teenager. Of course not.”
He was a teenager and his mom was in the hospital with cancer, probably not for the first time. I think of a tall, lanky boy with messy hair, thumb rubbing over a cheap key chain.
I grip his hand with mine and Aiden smiles, something tentative in his face.
“When I had the key ring with me, there was good news. When I didn’t, it was—it was bad news. I left it at home once, and she didn’t—” He shakes his head and looks down at the floor. He swallows twice. I don’t know if he even realizes how hard he’s squeezing my hand. “So I started wearing it around my neck,” he continues. “Haven’t taken it off since.”
I study him carefully. What was the good news? I want to ask. What was the bad news? I’ve peeled back one corner of the paper Aiden keeps himself wrapped in and I want to tear the rest off. I spread my fingers wide against his side, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breath.
“That’s really sweet.”
His smile tilts to the left, one side of his mouth hitching higher than the other. “You sound surprised.”
“I’m not. You’re a sweet guy.”
He immediately scowls. “Am not.”
I pinch his side and he grips my wrist, tugging me tighter against him. I don’t know if he wants me closer or he wants to keep me from pinching him again. Either way, I like it, and I relax in his grip. Something dark and hungry flashes in his eyes before he tucks it away, somewhere in that filing cabinet mind of his with the rest of his secrets and subdued reactions.
I might not know a lot of the details about Aiden, but I know the broad strokes. The parts that shine the brightest through the armor he wraps himself in. Despite his protests to the contrary, he is kind. He’s thoughtful and disarmingly funny. In a dry, gruff way. He wouldn’t have started a romance hotline if he didn’t want to hand out hope and comfort. He’s rough at the edges sometimes, but he cares. He cares deeply.
He just doesn’t know how to share it.
“I’m onto you,” I tell him. “You can’t hide from me.”
His lips quirk up. “I really can’t, can I?”
I shake my head. “Nope.” I loop both arms around him and squeeze. I rest my chin in the middle of his chest, staring up at him. “What did you do with your seven minutes?”
Aiden’s eyes are stuck on my mouth. “What?”
My belly flips. I’ve always liked the way Aiden looks at me, but it’s like the closet unlocked a different part of him. Or gave him permission for something else, I don’t know. He’s been looking at me like he’s at the very edge of his control. Like he’d like nothing more than to press me up against the nearest flat surface.
Sex for me has always been . . . fine. A few fumbling, awkward encounters through the years have convinced me that maybe it’s just not something I enjoy. And that’s okay. I know what I like and what I don’t and I’ve been able to meet the needs of my body. I manage just fine.
But then I spent fifteen frenzied minutes in a broom closet with Aiden and apparently it’s not fine. Because he made me feel things I’ve only heard about secondhand from Patty during our wine and cookie nights. I’ve never come that quickly in my life, all without removing a single stitch of clothing.
I haven’t stopped thinking about it.
I want to see what else Aiden can make me feel. I want more fun.
A bolt of heat sizzles up my spine. I try to find the thread of our conversation. “Your seven minutes,” I repeat, watching with interest as he licks at his bottom lip. “What were you doing in here?”
“Oh, ah.” The color on his cheeks burns deeper. He scratches once at his jaw. “It’s—well. It feels sort of ridiculous now.”
Curiosity has me pressing up on my toes, searching over his shoulder. The only thing I can see from the hallway is the corner of a slate gray couch, his sweatshirt tossed over the arm. “What do you mean?”
He tips his head back and mutters something at the ceiling. I fall back to the flats of my feet and search his face. It’s the same look as the one he had in the tow truck, when he reluctantly confessed to ordering a pineapple pizza. A touch of bewilderment at his own actions.
“Now I have to know.”
He releases a sigh. “I’ll show you.”
“If it’s in your basement, I’m not interested.”
Aiden doesn’t move a muscle.
“That was a joke,” I offer. He’s holding himself so still, I need to glance at his chest to make sure he’s still breathing. “Aiden?”
“I’ll show you,” he says again, slower this time, dragging out each word, his voice resigned. He grabs my hand with his and takes two gigantic steps backward. I follow, tapping my fingers across his knuckles. I’m so busy studying the way our hands fit together that I miss it when he stops at the entrance of his living room, my front colliding with his.
He holds me steady with his hand squeezed against mine as we stare at his . . . project.
“I figured we could eat the pizza here,” he says carefully, eyes flicking toward me and away again. He’s acting like he’s just presented me with a pipe bomb, not a . . . poorly constructed fort in the middle of his living room. He nods toward the mess of cushions and haphazardly thrown blankets.
Now I know what he was doing with his seven minutes. He was collecting every spare blanket and a beach towel—if the blue sea turtles are any indication—to create a makeshift tent.
“Like a picnic,” I breathe. I look up at him and grin. “You remember what I said.”
A dark room. Headphones over my ears. A mug of coffee in my hands. Aiden, right next to me, his knee pressed to mine.
I like thinking that I’d be worth the trouble of something like that.
“I remember all the things you’ve said,” he grumbles, voice low, and I’m not sure I was supposed to hear it because he rubs his free hand over his mouth and continues to stare at the fort. Meanwhile I’m practically bursting next to him, champagne bubbles of happiness rising in the center of my chest. I feel like I’m Charlie in the chocolate factory, right after he drinks that bubble juice. I’m about to float through the ceiling.
“It’s a nice fort,” I say, rolling my lips against my smile.
It’s the worst fort I’ve ever seen. One of the cushion walls collapses as we stand in the doorway, the white sheet stretched over the top of it fluttering to the ground.
Aiden sighs. “Don’t lie.”
“No, no. It’s very nice.” I inspect it like I’m standing in the Louvre, both of my hands behind my back. This couch cushion is the Mona Lisa . “Is that a fitted sheet?”
“I only had seven minutes. Tone down the judgment.”
“There’s no judgment.” Another cushion falls over. “You were the one who said seven minutes. You could have asked for—I don’t know—fifteen.”
“I’m not sure fifteen minutes would have salvaged the situation.”
I tip my head back and laugh. It bursts out of me in a cackle. With anyone else, I’d probably be self-conscious, but this is Aiden.
I finally manage to gather control of myself, wiping at the tears on my cheeks. Aiden is leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, a fond look on his handsome face. Now he’s the curator, and I’m the priceless piece on the wall.
“Want some pizza?” he asks.
I drop my hands from my cheeks and smile at him. “I really, really do.”
Aiden rips down the rest of the sheets and we sit in the middle of the cushions, a lukewarm pizza box in the space between us. He says it’s disgusting, but I think Aiden is probably full of shit, because he goes back for seconds and then thirds, plucking a piece of pineapple from the corner of the cardboard box to drop into his mouth. I stare at the flex of his fingers on his plate and the long line of his neck while he drinks from his glass, and I’m very proud of myself when I wait until the end of the meal to voice the thought that’s been circling since I hopped out of a tow truck and saw him waiting.
“I think you should kiss me,” I tell him, my legs folded under me. He pauses where he’s been scrolling through the TV channels, his body in one long line against the cushions. He angles his head where it’s propped against his fist to get a good look at me.
“Yeah?” he asks.
I nod.
His eyes narrow slightly, but he turns the TV off, tossing the remote to the same corner where all the sheets now reside in a tangled clump on the floor. He pushes himself up with a flex of his left arm and my mouth goes dry.
“We did say later,” he muses conversationally.
“We did,” I agree. I feel myself nodding, doing my best to reduce my smile to something manageable. It’s getting harder and harder to do that with Aiden, and I’m not sure why I keep trying.
I turn the thought over, examine it. I’m so used to reducing myself to feeling things halfway that it’s become second nature. I watch Aiden shift in front of me to better close the space between us and let myself sink into the warm, soft, gooey feeling in the middle of my chest. I don’t need to restrict myself with Aiden.
Because with Aiden, I’m safe. He told me so, the very first night we talked to each other.
I let my smile tumble across my face. Aiden blinks.
“That excited, huh?”
I try to pinch him again, but he grabs my hand and drags it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to my palm. My breath hitches and both of his dark eyebrows arch up.
“Ooh, she’s very excited.”
“Shut up,” I breathe. His mouth is warm and his body feels so big next to mine, the smell of his cologne or body wash or whatever it is that makes his skin smell like coffee and wintergreen stronger in his house and on his couch cushions. I feel like I’m a puddle of hot melty wax in the middle of an Aiden candle.
He presses another slow kiss at the base of my thumb and a shiver rolls its way over my shoulders. He grins into my hand and I imagine myself curling my fingers around the shape of it. Holding on to the rare proof of his happiness.
“You like my mouth on you, Lucie?”
He doesn’t wait for me to answer before he drags his mouth to the inside of my wrist, sucking a wet kiss to my pulse point that has my knees knocking together.
“I guess it’s—” I have to swallow down my groan when he drags his teeth along the inside of my elbow. “I guess it’s good.”
Aiden hums and squeezes my hand with his before tugging on it, encouraging me to wrap my arm around his neck. But I don’t need much in the way of encouragement, my fingers tangling in his hair while his mouth drops kisses against my neck.
“We can do better than good.” Aiden presses his forehead to my shoulder and rocks it there once. One of his hands finds the small of my back, fingers slipping beneath the material of my shirt. His thumb presses into the soft skin at the curve of my hip and my body lurches into his. “You’ve gotta tell me what you want, okay? I don’t want to push you.”
“Not pushing me,” I mumble, tilting my head to the side, giving him more room to nuzzle. The scruff along his jaw feels fantastic against the hollow of my throat. I hope it leaves a mark. I hope I’ll be able to look in the mirror tomorrow and see the shadows of his affection.
Still he lingers in the space of almost and maybe , half touches instead of the mindless passion of the closet. I curl my fingers in his hair and tug until I can see his face. His eyes are dark and he looks like he wants more, but there’s still so much I’m unsure about when it comes to the intricacies of this . Wanting someone and wanting them to want me back.
I don’t want there to be any confusion. I don’t want him to hesitate.
“Aiden. I’d like to clarify something.”
He blinks at me sleepily, like he’s coming out of a haze or a very good dream. I scratch through his hair and his fingers flex against my back.
“Okay,” he says, voice pitched low.
“About what I want.”
A sound catches in his throat. I watch his Adam’s apple bob once. “All right.”
I lick at my bottom lip. “I want you to kiss me until I can’t breathe.” I hesitate and then decide to be fully transparent. Honest. Just like he’s always encouraged. “And then I want you to press me down into this very nice couch fort and make me come. More than once, if possible. That’s never happened for me before, and I’d like to give it a go.”
His eyes are impossibly dark. “Give it a go?”
I nod. “If you don’t mind.”
LUCIE STONE: Could you hand me that?
AIDEN VALENTINE: What?
LUCIE STONE: The cookie. Just there. Yes, exactly.
AIDEN VALENTINE: Sure.
LUCIE STONE: And some more coffee too, please. [laughter]
AIDEN VALENTINE: No problem.
AIDEN VALENTINE: You’ve got a whole list of demands tonight, don’t you?
LUCIE STONE: I’ve always been good at asking for what I want.
AIDEN VALENTINE: [throat clearing]
AIDEN VALENTINE: That’s, uh. That’s important.
LUCIE STONE: I mean. Sometimes. Not always.
AIDEN VALENTINE: Right.
LUCIE STONE: I feel like we should move on to something else.
AIDEN VALENTINE: I think so.