Terms of Agreement

43. Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Charlotte

Aiden:

cupcake emoji

I stood slack-jawed in the middle of the kitchen, a can of unopened cat food in one hand and my phone in the other. Oscar wove his way between my staggered feet in an intricate figure eight, the soft fur of his back brushing against me in an attempt to encourage me towards his food bowl. But my gaze and my attention had frozen on the phone in my hand.

With a long, shaky exhale, I unlocked the screen, swiped away from the notifications and to my call log.

‘Hey! I’m at work. Can I call you—’

‘What’s happening?’ I squeaked, my throat constricting as I clutched the tin of Purina to my chest. Oscar meowed impatiently from somewhere out of my line of sight, evidently wondering the same thing.

I hadn’t expected to hear from him again. In fact, Becky and I had been certain that I wouldn’t hear from him again—contract or no. Sure, I hadn’t run out of the apartment screaming on Sunday morning. But I had walked really, really quickly. I think I might even have bowed at some point. Honestly, after my debrief with Becky, I’d spent the rest of my weekend and Monday morning just trying to block the whole thing out. There was no recovering from the way I’d tucked tail and ran—no, walked out of that door.

‘So why is he messaging me?’ I tilted my head back in a whine.

‘Hmmm,’ Becky mused, the background noise fading to the distance as she moved away from the bar. ‘Could it have been a mistake? Wrong person?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I frowned. I didn’t know what was worse, the idea of Aiden messaging me or the idea of him messaging someone else. ‘He didn’t follow up with an “oops, wrong number” or anything.’

‘Okay…’ Becky said, dragging the word out. ‘Then what does it mean?’

‘I don’t know!’ I threw up my hand, my eyes catching on the tin. With a shake of my head, I crossed the kitchen and set it down on the counter a little more forcefully than I’d intended. ‘I fell behind in emoji-speak when the skull replaced the laughing-slash-crying face.’

‘What? It did?’ Becky’s voice lifted. ‘When?’

‘Does it matter? It’s out. Can we get back to the matter at hand?’ I huffed, sinking my hip back to lean against the counter.

‘Sorry! Sorry!’ Becky hurried. ‘But wow. Okay. Laughing-crying out. Got it.’ I could practically see her nodding to herself as she filed away that bit of information. ‘So… what could a cupcake mean?’

‘I don’t know? Maybe he’s hungry?’

Becky snorted. ‘Yeah, I’m sure he is.’

‘What?’ I straightened, intrigue pulling me from a slouch.

‘Nothing,’ Becky said, a little too quickly. ‘We could Google it?’

Google proved useless. And, after falling down the Reddit rabbit-hole for a couple of minutes, a gruff voice had called Becky back to the bar.

‘You could always ask Louise?’ she suggested as the noises of the pub grew louder. ‘She’s young and probably emoji literate.’

My nose crinkled at the idea. There was no chance of that happening. Not only because she’d born witness to my stilted road-runner escape, but what if it was a sex thing? Louise was my friend, at least I hoped she was, but I don’t think either of us wanted any kind of conversation around my sex life, or sex night, with her brother. No. Much better to just assume it was a mistake and ignore it.

An hour later, a soft knock at the door pulled me from the pages of one of my comfort reads. Assuming that it was Ms Au coming to drop something off, I pushed Oscar off my lap, shuffled into my slippers and made my way towards the front door.

‘Hello, Cupcake.’

Aiden

‘Aiden,’ Charlotte startled, and I arched a brow. I’d spent the past hour wondering whether to come up. But in all the scenarios that played out in my mind, not once had she been surprised to see me.

‘You didn’t respond to my text,’ I said, taking a step forward and across the threshold.

‘I—uh,’ Charlotte stammered, taking a step back. ‘I thought it may have been a mistake, so I just…’ I nodded absently, my eyes perusing her body, lingering on the soft swell of her breasts beneath her tank top. We’d been interrupted on Sunday morning, and I’d spent the past forty-eight hours remembering and reimagining our night together.

‘Not a mistake,’ I murmured, stepping out of my trainers as the door swung closed behind me.

‘Oh.’ Charlotte blinked, pulling the edges of her oversized cardigan closed around her waist. ‘But then…’ her forehead furrowed as she tilted her head back to look up at me, ‘what did it mean?’

‘Bat-signal,’ I answered, closing the distance between us and swallowing her gasp of realisation.