Terms of Agreement

54. Chapter 54

Chapter 54

Aiden

T he sound of a key twisting in the lock had me turning from my position in front of the sink and towards the door.

‘Aiden?’ an out of breath voice called from the entryway.

‘Louise?’ I blinked, confused.

‘What are you—’ we asked, our shared question seeming to bounce off the kitchen tiles.

‘Dishes,’ I said with a half-smile, holding my rubber-gloved hands up for inspection. ‘Obviously.’

Louise smiled, shaking her head as her gaze drifted past me.

‘Shit,’ she exclaimed as she sprang forward, reaching past me to turn off the tap that I’d left running. I turned, my gaze lowering to the bubbles that had seeped across the countertop from the overfull sink.

‘Thanks,’ I grimaced, and, with a sigh, plunged my hand into the sink and pulled at the plug to release some of the warm, soapy water.

‘No problem,’ Louise said from her spot beside me as we watched the water slosh and swirl in front of us. At least, that’s what I thought we’d been doing. But when I refitted the plug, satisfied that the water was no longer a flood hazard, I turned to find my sister’s gaze on me. Those eyes that were so similar to my own were locked on my face, studying it as a question formed in her mind and creased the typically smooth skin of her forehead.

‘What?’ I asked, shifting uncomfortably and ducking my chin.

‘What do you mean “what?”’

I sighed and turned my attention back to the sink. ‘Why are you here, Louise?’

‘I heard about Charlotte.’

My chest spasmed at the sound of her name, and I froze. Memories of a pair of eyes shadowed with pain flashed before me, but I pushed them aside, forcing myself to take a breath and fighting to appear unaffected even as my shoulders tensed.

‘What did she tell you?’ I asked, frowning at the soapy water. This was what I’d been trying to avoid by keeping the lines clear. This moment, right here, where my sister had to take sides between her brother and her new friend. Not that I’d done a good job of it, obviously, because here the fuck we were.

‘Nothing.’

‘What?’ My head jerked to the side, my gaze snapping to Louise.

‘Becky called me,’ Louise shrugged and turned away, crossing the kitchen to the stove. I watched as Louise stretched across the countertop to pluck a dishtowel off its hook next to the fridge before making her way back to the sink. ‘She called Charlotte this afternoon and found out you guys broke up.’

‘We didn’t break up,’ I huffed.

‘Yeah?’ I could hear her hopefulness, that happy, na?ve lilt to her voice.

‘We were never together, Lou,’ I whispered, hoping to lessen the blow and dispel any of her fairytale notions. I brought the sponge across the plate in my hands, watching as the soap suds slid across the surface. I was no prince, and there were no happily ever afters.

‘Aiden…’ the exasperated sound of her voice burst the bubble of my thoughts.

‘What?’ I asked, setting the plate on the drying rack and shifting to pick up the next one. It was true. I ignored the tightness in my chest as I repeated the words in my head in an attempt to drive them home. Charlotte and I weren’t together. We had an agreement and running into Bridget had served as the wake-up call that I—no, that we —needed. To remind us of the lines we’d allowed to blur.

‘I thought you liked Charlotte.’ From the corner of my eye, I watched as Louise pulled the plate from the rack and set to drying it.

‘I do like Charlotte,’ I said.

‘Then why would you end things?’

‘Why do you think I’m the one that ended things?’ I asked, my tone defensive.

‘Lucky guess,’ she answered sullenly.

We slipped into silence. The only sound in the kitchen was the quiet clink of the plates as Louise stacked them on the countertop.

‘Look, Aiden,’ Louise started as I set the last dish on the rack. ‘I know that what happened with Bridget—’

‘Don’t,’ I warned.

‘I know it messed you up,’ she continued heedlessly.

‘You don’t know anything, Lou,’ I murmured, my eyes darting to her just in time to see the flash of guilt across her soft features. I turned away, swallowing down the guilt, and pulled the plug to let the water drain from the sink.

‘I may not know exactly how you felt, Aiden,’ she pressed on. ‘But I do know that before Bridget did what she did—’

‘Two years later and people are still so careful to tiptoe around it—’ I interrupted, muttering beneath my breath as I used the sponge to push the remaining soap suds to the plug.

‘You know what, Aiden?’ Louise said, her voice quivering with her frustration. ‘Fine!’ She threw down the dishtowel she’d been using, the edge of it snapping against the counter. ‘Bridget cheated on you.’ The words echoed and hung in the air and Louise’s eyes widened as if she couldn’t quite believe she’d said it out loud before she continued more softly. ‘She cheated on you,’ she repeated, ‘and you lost her, but we all lost you.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I turned towards her, resting a hip against the countertop and folding my arms across my chest.

‘Aiden,’ she sighed, ‘it took you almost a year to finally unpack this place.’

‘I was—’

‘Busy,’ Louise finished for me. ‘I know. But you have no idea how worried we were about you.’

‘You didn’t need to be,’ I said gruffly, and, needing something to do, I reached past her and picked up the dishtowel to finish drying off the last of the dishes.

‘Didn’t we?’ Louise asked, ducking her head and forcing herself into my line of sight. Guilt and shame swirled beneath my skin as she pinned me with her gaze. ‘I missed you,’ Louise continued in a whisper, bumping my thigh with her hip playfully, even as her words flayed my insides.

‘I’m sorry, Lou.’ I knew that I’d retreated into myself after the breakup, but I guess, until this moment, I hadn’t realised just how far I’d retreated into myself. How I’d allowed my world to get smaller, to the point where I’d almost lost so much more than what I’d shared with Bridget.

‘I know,’ she said, offering me a watery smile. Taking a deep breath, she continued, ‘It’s just that ever since the wedding, it’s felt like I was getting my brother back.’ I frowned in confusion, and she jumped at the chance to clarify. ‘You text more, you laugh, you smile like you used to—’

‘I smiled,’ I objected.

‘Yeah,’ she acknowledged, nodding her head, ‘but it wasn’t the same. Your eyes didn’t crinkle.’

‘And now they do?’

She gave me a single sharp nod before loading her arms up with the stack of dry dishes and moving to pack them away. Leaving me to chew on what she’d just said. She was right in that annoying way that she often was. Things had been different since I’d entered into this agreement with Charlotte. I’d been different—lighter. But that could have been for any number of reasons. Everyone had said that it would get better over time, and it had been two years. This thing with Charlotte—that was just coincidence. It had to be.

‘Look,’ I said, watching as Louise closed the cupboard door on the last of the dishes, ‘I know you like Charlotte. But we were just helping each other out, Lou. That’s all this ever was.’ I had to force myself not to look away even as the lie burned my tongue.

Louise stopped a few feet in front of me, studying me for a moment before she heaved a sigh. ‘I’ve admired you all my life, Aiden,’ she said after a while, a sad smile tugging at her mouth. ‘Growing up, I wanted to be just like you.’

‘I know I trailed along after you when we were kids—following you around and cramping any kind of cool you pretended to have.’ I huffed out a laugh. ‘But I couldn’t help it,’ she continued. ‘I wanted to be just like you.’

‘But this—’ Louise waved a frustrated hand in my direction, gesturing towards me as if the simple motion of her hand could convey the weight of her disappointment. ‘You’re cutting yourself off from a chance at your own happiness. And if that’s what you’re choosing to do—if that’s who you’re going to be,’ she paused, her voice thick with emotion, ‘well, then I guess I don’t want to be like you anymore.’ Her confession ended in a whisper as her eyes locked on my face, desperately searching for something.

Whatever it was, she can’t have found it. Because after dealing that deathblow, she turned and left me in the weight of her disappointment. The soft snick of the front door signalling her exit.