9. Chapter 9
Chapter 9
Charlotte
A knock at my front door had me jerking from my armchair, heart hammering against my chest. I’d been in the middle of one of the spicier scenes in my latest read, so whether my flushed-faced, heart-racing state of being was the result of the person at my door or the fact that the childhood best friends were now doing very grown-up things to one another was anyone’s guess.
Lifting my phone from its spot on the side table, I lit up the home screen and checked the display. I wasn’t expecting anyone. It was Sunday evening and, as Nan had gone to great lengths to point out, I had no life.
The knock sounded again, the sound of the three sharp taps against the wooden door echoing through the apartment and to where I sat in the study. With a sigh, I set my Kindle to one side and pushed myself up and out of the comfort of my chair. I hadn’t ordered anything recently, so it couldn’t be that… They must have the wrong flat. Either that or it’s a delivery for someone else on the floor and they’re not in to receive it. Reaching the door, I hinged forward to peer through the peephole.
What the hell? I jerked away. Why was Aiden Walsh knocking on my door?
My head whipped from side to side as if I were some Loony Toon in search of a good hiding space.
‘There’s a literal door between the two of you!’ I stomped my foot in irritation, the sound muffled by the soft grey carpets. ‘He can’t even see you!’
‘I can hear you,’ Aiden’s gruff voice came through the door, ringing out clear as a bell.
I jumped. I did. I squeaked like a mortified little mouse and clapped my hands across my mouth, even though it was too late for any of that. Neither of us said anything, but based on the fact that I hadn’t heard him leave, I’d guess he wasn’t going anywhere.
Open the door, Charlotte! My fingers reached out before they curled around the open air and my hand dropped to my side, a small whine of frustration escaping me as I glared at the door. What does he want anyway?
Well, you’ll never know if you don’t open the door , my internal narrator whispered like the snide, snarky bitch she was. I chewed on my lip. She was right. I knew she was. But still. My mind whirred as I tried to reason what he could possibly want.
Maybe he needed help with something? Like moving a sofa! My mind drifted back to that evening in the elevator and the thick corded muscles of his forearms. Not likely. It couldn’t be a tech thing, surely—he worked with data.
I couldn’t think of any reason he could be here. My subconscious was right—I’d have to open the door.
With an unladylike grunt of determination, I balled my hands into loose fists at my side and opened the door to an irritated looking Aiden. He was glaring down at me, shooting eye-daggers at the space between my eyes and with his lips pressed into the flattest line I’d ever seen.
How could he be pissed off already? He only just got here!
I studied his facial features, looking for some kind of crack in his marble mask, and found nothing. The sound of my blood rushing through my veins quickly drowned any other noise, and I wiped my palms down the fabric of my faded denim jeans. Neither of us blinked. Maybe because it felt like whoever blinked first lost. So, I didn’t blink. And neither did he. For what felt like a very long time.
Eventually Aiden’s mouth relaxed into a hard smile and my full-bodied flinch away from him was enough to break our staring match. I looked away, blinking furiously in an attempt to lubricate my dry, and possibly scarred, eyeballs. Sneaking a quick look in his direction, I saw he was still standing there, and he was still wearing that… could you call it a smile?
‘Hi, Aiden.’ My voice sounded surprisingly normal as I turned to squint up at him. ‘How are you?’ All I got in return for my pleasantries was a pointed look and an unamused arch of the eyebrow. Which, of course, was perfectly full and shaped, not an errant hair in sight. Not even his body hair would dare to go against Aiden Walsh.
‘Charlotte,’ he said in a measured tone. ‘I need a favour.’
Straight to the point then. I nodded, ducking behind the door to retrieve a pair of shoes, hoping to get whatever this was over as soon as possible.
‘I need you to be my girlfriend.’
I froze, trainer in hand. My left foot wasn’t even on the ground.
‘I’m sorry, what?’
Aiden blew out a breath of frustration, crossing his arms in front of him and shifting his weight from one leg to the other.
‘I’m attending a wedding and I need you to come with me,’ Aiden said.
‘As your girlfriend?’ I frowned, letting my shoe fall to the side. He nodded. ‘Me?’ I pointed to myself, my mind slowing to a crawl as I struggled to process what was happening. My gaze travelled over the man in front of me, from his rigid stance to his clenched jaw and forced smile. I couldn’t help it. A laugh bubbled up from my chest and slipped out before I had a chance to stop it.
‘I’m sorry.’ I shook my head, convinced I’d misheard him. ‘I don’t understand.’ Aiden closed his eyes and released his breath in a short exhale.
‘I don’t see how I could be any clearer.’ His eyes snapped back open and onto my face and the disbelieving smile melting under the intensity of his gaze. I stepped to the side and gestured into the apartment.
‘You’d better come in.’
Aiden’s gaze travelled from my face to the open doorway and back before stepping into my apartment with a resigned sigh. He toed off his shoes and marched off in the direction of the living room before the front door had even had time to swing shut. I followed at a slower pace, trying to make sense of what had happened.
He wanted me to go to a wedding with him.
As his girlfriend.
That couldn’t be right.
Could it?
I gestured for him to take a seat on the sofa, lowering myself into an armchair. Aiden didn’t sit. He stood near the door that led to the small balcony, in front of the window that overlooked the building’s parking lot. The same window that I’d been caught looking out of that morning that he’d first moved in.
I’d been alerted to his arrival by a loud thunk that echoed through the building’s parking lot. The whole building had been informed that there’d be a new tenant moving into 2C, and as I followed the sounds of the carefree babble of the moving men towards the frosted glass of my living room window, I’d wondered what sort of person 2C would prove to be.
My mind had flitted through the possibilities. Maybe it was a family? Or a young couple? Or even students? It was only when Oscar had brushed up against my bare shins that I’d been pulled from my imaginings. Blinking away the daydreams and into the eyes of someone standing in the parking lot. And just like a few moments ago, I hadn’t been able to break the weird staring competition I’d unwittingly entered.
I grimaced at the memory.
From this angle, I had to tilt my head up to see his face. I didn’t like it, this exaggerated height difference. Couldn’t he just sit down? I could do without the crick in my neck. I squared my shoulders and schooled my features into a neutral expression. I’d be damned if I let Aiden Buttface Walsh make me feel small in my own home.
‘You said you needed a girlfriend for a wedding?’ I even sounded unaffected. If we were friends—which we weren’t—and Aiden could feel emotions like pride, he’d have been proud of me in this moment.
‘Yes.’
‘Why me?’
‘Pardon?’ Aiden blinked, cocking his head to the side and staring down at me like he’d only just realised that I was there.
‘Why me?’ I repeated.
‘You owe me one,’ he said, using his fingers to quote me as he threw my own words back at me.
‘But… you don’t even like me.’
‘I don’t,’ Aiden confirmed bluntly.
I dug my nails into my palms to hold back a flinch at his words. Any of the premature butterflies my romantic heart had conjured at his mention of girlfriends withering to dust somewhere on the carpet beneath my feet.
‘Exactly.’ I bit the inside of my mouth, fighting to maintain a mask of unaffected neutrality. ‘So why me?’
Scowling, Aiden strode over to the sofa and lowered himself onto it.
‘You said you owed me one,’ Aiden reminded me. ‘You said “whatever I need.”’ He finger-quoted again. ‘This is what I need.’ With that, he leaned back into the sofa, folding his arms across his chest.
‘But…’ I started, my eyes searching the room as if the answers were hidden behind a picture frame or beneath a throw cushion. ‘But I thought you’d ask me to pick up your mail. Water your plants. Help you bury a body. That sort of thing.’
‘I don’t need that sort of thing,’ he said simply.
‘You need me to be your girlfriend?’ I was so confused.
‘Fake girlfriend.’
Well, that makes more sense. Was I hurt by that? I shook my head, eyes focused on the patch of carpet in front of Aiden’s socks. Black. Of course.
‘Can’t you take someone you already know? A friend maybe?’ If he had one.
‘No.’
‘Who’s wedding is it?’ Why was I asking? It’s not like I was going through with this.
‘A friend’s.’
‘Okay?’ I waited for him to elaborate.
He didn’t.
‘Look, Aiden,’ I folded my hands in my lap, squeezing my palms between my knees. ‘I know I said that I owed you one, but I’m going to need a bit more here.’
‘I just…’ I tilted my head back, looking at the ceiling as I tried to find the words. ‘I don’t understand why it has to be this. Why would you even take me to a wedding, a friend’s wedding, when you have said yourself that you don’t like me? Surely there’s someone else that you could take? Someone you actually enjoy spending time with?’
‘There isn’t.’
‘Why isn’t there?’ I pushed. His head dropped back onto the sofa. I waited. Typically, I hated awkward silences. They felt cloying and suffocating and I’d always try to break them if I could. But I wouldn’t do it this time. Manners be damned. I owed him one, yes, but I wasn’t about to make an ass of myself for someone who didn’t even like me.
Eventually, Aiden let out a long and tired sigh before speaking to the ceiling.
‘They believe that I will be coming to the wedding with my girlfriend.’
‘“They” being the happy couple,’ I assumed. Aiden nodded, his gaze still on the ceiling. ‘Why would they assume you have a girlfriend when you don’t? You don’t do you?’
Aiden shook his head and my breath whooshed out of me in a puff of relief. I frowned, tilting my head to one side. What did I care if he had a girlfriend? I crossed my arms across my chest and leaned back against the sofa. It didn’t matter to me.
‘My little sister can be very protective of me,’ Aiden began, straightening in his seat, the movement pulling me from my thoughts. ‘The “happy couple” as you called them, are old family friends from back home. We grew up together and our families remain very close, even though most of us have moved away from home.’
‘It seems that my sister overheard some offhanded comment from someone else at a party. Essentially, they said it was a shame that I hadn’t found someone and how lonely I must be and… Well, you get the picture.’
I winced. I did get the picture. My mind filled with the anecdotes that I could share of my nan worrying about my lack of partner and diminishing prospect of providing great-grandbabies.
‘Anyway,’ he continued in a bored tone, ‘Louise took it upon herself to come to my defence, telling everyone there how there must have been a mistake because, of course, I’d be bringing my girlfriend.’ Aiden rolled his eyes.
‘And revealing that your sister had lied would make you seem even more pathetic than if you’d just gone on your own as you’d planned…’
‘Exactly.’
I leaned back in my seat, tapping my index finger against my lips as I put the various pieces together. Eventually, I let out a long sigh, my eyes moving to his.
‘There’s no one else?’
‘There’s no one else.’
‘Can I think about it?’