4. Aaron
CHAPTER FOUR
AARON
There’s a very specific kind of chaos that happens when I hyper-fixate on a project. It’s like time ceases to exist, the world around me dissolves into static, and all that remains is the one thing I must finish.
For me, that thing has been fixing the back porch and steps at my grandfather’s house—my house now—all morning.
The man used more nails than a medieval blacksmith to hold pieces of wood together, and I’ve spent hours yanking them out, sanding down splinters, and muttering under my breath about “proper joint work” like some kind of wood-obsessed lunatic.
But oh, it’s worth it.
Because when the fresh coat of sealant dries, that deck is going to look perfect and be the pristine place to sip my sweet tea after I finish work at the hardware store.
No one will be able to tell it’s been through seventy years of wear and tear, not to mention the questionable design choices my granddad made in the seventies. Burnt orange wood stain, Grandpa? Really?
I’m running high on the satisfaction of a job well done when I get to the hardware store in the early afternoon. That high lasts exactly thirty seconds before the day decides to derail me completely.
“We got in the twelve-inch bits instead of the fourteen,” Fonda tells me the moment I walk in. She’s leaning over a magazine at the standing counter at the back of the store, and I’m still holding my dinner in my hand.
“Did you call Holy Holes?”
“I did not.”
“Why not?”
“They won’t take my calls.” She only moves her eyes over to me. “You have to do it.”
Fonda has a certain…way with people, and if things don’t go her way, she lights a match on fire and bridges get burned.
“Fine.” I glare at her as my phone vibrates in my pocket. I’m sure I have a million messages, because I usually do when I come down from a hyper-fixated high. A sense of being completely overwhelmed hits me, and I add, “Give me five minutes, and then connect me to Barry, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” she says, flipping a page in her magazine. It’s full of boxes, so it’s not like that can hold her attention for long. “And you have four consults this afternoon, starting in twenty minutes.”
“Thanks,” I say, knowing I laid out the folders for the consultations before I left early yesterday.
Ah, yesterday , I think as I duck into my tiny office. It smells like leather polish and candle wax, mixed with something metallic.
I ate lunch at home, so I tuck my dinner into the mini-fridge in the corner. It’s got an assortment of tools on the top of it, and I swear I’m going to clean up my office soon. Soon-ish. And hey, if I could just fixate on that, it would be done to perfection.
I flip open the top folder to remind myself of who’s coming in first—oh, boy. Jake Forrest, who insisted he could build a treehouse without looking at the instruction manual. Now he wants me to walk him through how to fix what he’s done, and he’s emailed in at least thirty pictures.
Honestly, it would be better if the whole structure got ripped down and rebuilt. Maybe I’ll suggest that, and I slip his folder under the others.
My second appointment is a couple who wants me to help them build an addition over their garage, and this type of project excites me. I start into the blueprints, and I become a racehorse with blinders on, galloping straight toward the finish line.
It’s why I’m good at what I do—why I can fix anything in a house, build anything with wood, and spot structural weaknesses in two seconds flat.
But it’s also why I completely miss Emma stomping into my office. “Aaron,” she barks.
I blink, the white and blue lines of the blueprint imprinted on the backs of my eyelids. When I see her, I jump to my feet. “Emma.”
“I’ve texted you a million times.” Her voice cuts through the lingering haze in my mind like a bright, unexpected ray of sunshine. Or, you know, a thunderclap. Because the moment I see her standing there in her honey-colored glory, her eyes doing that thing where they sparkle like the ocean on a clear day, I’m struck dumb.
I’m not even sure where my phone is at the moment, but I can’t admit that. “What are you doing here?”
Her eyebrows go up, and she holds up her phone like it’s a piece of evidence. “Margi told me to talk to you about the Spring Fling Festival. Apparently, you’re the committee chair?”
Ah, yes. The Spring Fling Festival. The singles mixer that Cider Cove thinks is the crown jewel of its community events calendar. Otherwise known as my personal nightmare.
I agreed to chair the committee because then I won’t have to do anything for the Summer Faire, and I won’t have to chair another committee for at least a year.
But now that Emma’s standing here, looking at me like I might actually have my life together, I’m regretting every decision I’ve ever made.
And the fact that I haven’t even tried to come in here with a garbage bag to clean up the empty Diet Mountain Dew bottles.
“I am.” I look down at the folders on my desk, but none of them are for the Spring Fling Festival. I’m not sure why I can’t look up at her. “I need to take a break.”
“Aaron.” She cocks one hip they way angry Southern mommas do when their children have disappointed them.
“Let’s go for a walk.” I squeeze past her and cast a covert look left and right, like no one can see the two of us exiting my office. It’s then that I remind myself that the bad boy wouldn’t care who saw him leaving his office with a gorgeous woman. So I hold my head high and head for the back door, marching right past Fonda, who does raise her eyebrows at me.
“You have eight minutes,” she says. “Before Jake will be here.”
“I’ll be back,” I say.
Outside, the wind has picked up, and I glance up into the sky to find foaming gray clouds. “Looks like rain,” I say.
“Aaron,” Emma says again, and she half-jogs to catch up to me.
“I only have a few minutes,” I say, making my voice hard and tight, like she’s irritating me. “The Spring Fling Festival is nearly done. We’re just working on refreshments and last-minute details now.” I can already see the glint in her eye that says she’s ready to spar, and I’m not sure I have the energy to keep up with her today.
The air is thick and humid, the kind of weather that promises a storm but doesn’t deliver right away. I shove my hands in my pockets, trying not to focus on how close she’s walking next to me—or how good she smells, like flowers and sunshine and a little bit of citrus.
“When are the meetings?” she asks. “I need to get everything in my calendar. You’re aware Liam and Hillary are getting married next week , right?”
“I’m aware,” I say crossly. “I’ll check my calendar right now.” I slow my step and pull out my phone. Of course I didn’t schedule a meeting over my best friend’s wedding. “I wasn’t aware we needed another committee member.”
“Margi said she needed me for the funding.”
“Just my luck,” I say. Total bad boy move.
“Hey.” She swats at my shoulder. “Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?”
Thunder rolls through the sky, and it echoes in Emma’s eyes.
I should just tell her. I want that kiss to be real. I don’t want to be “just friends” with you. Will you be my date to Liam’s wedding, because I still don’t have one, because I’ve been hoping against hope that I can take you.
The words are there, tickling the back of my throat. I don’t know why I can’t say them.
“Aaron,” she says. “You’re acting really weird.”
“Maybe this is how I am,” I say.
She tilts her head and studies me. “This is not how you are.”
“It’s a new me.” I shove my phone back into my pocket and start walking again. “We have a meeting on Thursday at three at the hardware store. And one Friday night before the event to finalize everything. That’s not for another couple of weeks. I’ll send you the info.”
“There’s no way I can make a middle-of-the-day meeting on Thursday—that’s tomorrow, Aaron.”
“I’m sure Gentry just wants you to do the roses for the men.” Besides, we’ve planned the whole thing without her, so what’s one more missed meeting?
The first raindrop hits my forearm. I take a deep breath. “Listen, Emma.” The rain quickens. “I don’t want that kiss to be fake.”
She squeals as the sky opens up, and I’m not sure if she heard me or not. I actually slow down and look up, and the sky has gone from hazy gray to full-on ominous in a matter of seconds. “Uh-oh.”
Emma takes off at a run. “Uh-oh? That’s all you’ve got?”
The heavens have opened, and water comes down in torrents. I’m drenched in seconds, the kind of wet that makes me think I’ve walked into a car wash. I start running too, grabbing her hand and yelling, “Over here!” over the pounding sound of the rain.
I haul her toward the gazebo at the edge of the park, though it needs to be rebuilt. By the time I reach it, there’s no point. We might as well stand out in the elements, because my clothes are stuck to my skin and my hair is plastered to my forehead. I fling my hands to get the water off, dripping from everywhere and trying to catch my breath.
Emma pants beside me as she wrings out her hair, muttering something about how she should’ve stayed in her flower shop, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Glad you’re finding this amusing.” She glares at me.
I grin at her, the kind that stretches my face so much it probably looks ridiculous. “Oh, come on. It’s just rain. You’re not gonna melt.”
She glares harder, but then her lips twitch, and I know I’m getting in there somehow. “I might,” she says. “I’m like a sugar cube of stress right now. One drop of water, and poof—I’m gone.”
I bark out a laugh. “That’s a new one.”
“I’m glad my unraveling is so entertaining for you,” she says, but now she’s fighting a smile too, and a little thrill of victory squirrels through me.
She huffs and crosses her arms, looking out at the rain. “This is your fault, you know.”
“My fault? How is this my fault?”
“You’re the one who wanted to talk outside.”
“I needed to breathe.”
She rolls her eyes. “Seriously, Aaron, why didn’t you answer my texts earlier? I thought we were friends.”
“You thought we were friends?” I lean against one of the wooden posts holding up the gazebo’s roof. Water drips steadily from the edge, splattering into the puddles that have formed on the ground. “Here’s the thing: I’d like to be something else entirely.”
Her brows knit together, and for a second, her eyes soften, like she’s trying to figure out what I mean. But then she shakes her head, brushing it off like she doesn’t have time to untangle whatever nonsense I just said. The rain is loud on the roof of the gazebo, despite the many leaks in it.
“Okay, well, friend or not, you’ve been acting weird since last night,” she practically yells, poking me in the chest before she retreats again. “First, you kiss me like—like that —and then you’re Mister Grumpy Pants in the parking garage, and now you’re avoiding my texts and acting like giving me calendar dates is akin to revealing a national secret.”
I scoff. “Mister Grumpy Pants?”
“Yes,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest and cocking that sexy hip. “You’ve been a total grump. And don’t even get me started on the whole ‘bad boy’ thing you’re trying. It’s weird—it’s—it’s like watching a golden retriever try to be a Doberman.”
I snort, irritated that she saw right through my bad boy act. “A golden retriever? You realize that’s a dog, right? You just called me a dog .”
“You’re the human equivalent of one,” she says. “All loyal and sweet and—” She cuts off, her cheeks turning pink as she realizes what she’s just said.
The rain only intensifies, and I wonder if I can cancel my whole afternoon. I certainly can’t sit in wet denim for four consultations.
“Anyway,” she continues, her tone sharper now. “You’re not fooling anyone with the bad-boy act.”
I don’t know whether to laugh, run, or kiss her again. Instead, I slide a hand through my rain-soaked hair and say, “Maybe I’m just trying to figure out how to be someone you’d actually notice.”
Her jaw drops, and for a second, she just stares at me, the rain dripping from her nose and chin. I can see the wheels turning in her head, but before she can respond, I push off the post and start pacing.
“Look, Emma,” I say, gesturing wildly with my hands. “I’m not good at this. The whole…feelings thing. Or the…what-do-you-call-it? Emotional vulnerability. Whatever. But I can’t keep pretending like that kiss was no big deal. Because it was. To me, at least.”
Her mouth fishes open and closed, and she looks like she’s trying to process what I’m saying. I don’t give her the chance. If I stop now, I’ll never get it all out.
“I’ve liked you for a long time,” I say, my voice rising over the sound of the rain. “Probably since the first time you walked into the hardware store and started talking to the potted plants in aisle three like they were your friends.”
She blinks, her expression unreadable, and my stomach twists into a knot. This is the moment where she either tells me she feels the same way or crushes my heart into a million tiny pieces.
The rain slows, the world holding its breath as I wait for her to say something—anything.