CHAPTER 18
Aiden
Grrrrr
Scratch
Scratch scratch scratch
Bloody hell.
“Stuart. No. Sit.” I call out from the kitchen. I was one step away from the garage door. Good thing I hadn’t put in my headphones yet, he’d’ve busted the front door down.
I walk through the house and let in my furry friend.
“You’ve bested that latch again, eh?” I ask as I scratch his ears. “Come, let’s run around out back and get you tired out before I take you home. Won’t keep your mum up all night, yeah? How’s that sound?”
The dog releases a happy bark.
I release a sigh at myself and the fact that I think a bark is particularly happy. And that this mutt’s supposed happiness is bringing me an embarrassing amount of joy. Turns out I’m a dog person. Weird.
I do as I said, training him, tossing a tennis ball and just generally wearing the beast out. A tiny bit. He must still be very young to be this energetic. I think? What do I know about puppies.
“Nothing,” I answer myself as I get the dog his water bowl. “Let’s go home, Stu.”
I get out my phone.
Aiden: Apparently I need to come
fix your garage again.
Harper: You fixed my garage?
Aiden: The latch. Stuart is in my yard.
Harper: Oh
Aiden: You’re welcome
Harper: Right. Thank you.
Aiden: So I’m heading over?
Harper: I’m not home
Not home? It’s almost nine at night.
Aiden: Where are you?
Harper: Out
Out where? OUT WHERE?!
I don’t let myself respond. I shouldn’t care where this woman is. Honestly, what has gotten into me? I almost had a panic attack in that van. That hasn’t happened in ages. Then I almost kissed her. She knows it. I know it. Steven, and thus probably the whole town, knows it.
Absurd. I don’t kiss women. I don’t even date women, not really. I go to galas and benefits and if I can find someone to keep me company for the event…and the evening afterward…great.
But there’s not much kissing.
Or talking about my childhood.
Or asking them prodding questions.
Bark!
Or watching other people’s bloody dogs!
I grab his collar and march him back across the street. I quickly take care of the latch again, sort Stu’s water and food bowl in Harper’s garage, then lock up. I head back to my garage and put my headphones in.
So she’s out.
None of my concern.
Except is she out on that damn bicycle? At night?
None of your concern, wanker!
I pull out my phone to load my workout playlist. But my thumb taps on Instagram instead. Unruly thing. It also navigates to Steven’s profile. If there’s anything going on at any time, anywhere, in the whole world, really, you can count on the local realtors to know about it.
Sure enough, one tap on his very animated face and I find he’s posting stories from…Nog’s. I roll my eyes at the name of James’s bar. Do they serve Eggnog year round, then? Probably. Tonight is some sort of trivia night.
My feet, like my thumb, start moving of their own accord. I’m finding my keys, getting in my rental Mercedes. Before my brain catches up with my body, I’m sitting in Nog’s very full parking lot. I didn’t even change clothes.
Oh, well. Not like the locals have much of a fashion sense anyway. I kill the engine and make my way to the…front? Back? The building is a lone brick structure that I’d have thought was abandoned if it weren’t for one neon Open sign near this wooden door.
Heavy wooden door.
I open it and feel like I’ve immediately gone back in time. Smoke billows out from actual cigarettes being smoked indoors. And cigars, probably. And some marijuana, definitely.
I cough and wave the fumes from my face but it’s not so bad, really. There are a few garage style windows up high on one side. They’re open and fans are running overhead near dangling Christmas lights and garlands. Of course.
I scan the room for her. Just to make sure she isn’t riding her bike home in the dark. That’s all. It’s the neighborly thing to do. Friendly thing. We’re…friends?
She’s basically standing in the way, on the land you need to bulldoze to finally beat the Rockfords, man, get it together!
Still, if she dies in a bicycle accident it will throw the town into a tailspin and could affect my construction timelines. Taking an interest in her is self interest. Right. Sure. Yes.
“Steven,” I say, ignoring my annoying self.
“Glory to God, he’s wearing a t-shirt!” Someone yells.
“Wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it myself!” Maxine, I think, cries out.
“I see it, alright!” Some other elderly woman adds.
What is it with women past a certain age and the unabashed ogling?
And it’s not just them. The entirety of the town, all here in this bar at this moment, turns to look at me. There is whistling and cat calling. Steven is standing and clapping. Everyone, buzzed and seeing a moment to seize, piles on.
“Where’s your tie?”
“Do you feel naked?”
“You have calves!”
“How much did that shirt cost?”
“Alright, alright, point taken,” I say, trying to wave them off. Still, my eyes scan. She’s not at any of these tables. Tyrone is here, Ron, Carl, Shelley…is she…on a date somewhere?
My chest constricts under my now-famous t-shirt. I rub at the odd sensation. Perhaps I need a drink. I find the bar through the haze, along the side of the room.
Harper?
“Unbelievable,” I say as I storm across the space. “You tend bar, too? When do you sleep? If it’s about money, we can—”
“I’m just helping!” She says as she pours a beer from one of the taps in front of her. The room is rowdy. Men are calling out drink orders, leering, slurring their speech as they call her name.
“Helping?”
She shrugs, “Angela got the stomach bog. Bug! Stomach bug.”
“And no one else in town can help? It has to be you, every single time? You’re still in your uniform, did you even eat dinner?”
“She only hadss a couplea chicky fingerss!” Someone who should be cut off answers me.
Because people are turning to watch. I guess I am making a spectacle, almost yelling. Harper frowns at me, confused at my anger. She’s not the only one. I feel all the eyes on us, even while James spouts off trivia questions on a mic in the corner.
I try to calm myself and say, “Your dog keeps getting out.”
Your dog keeps getting out? You’ve negotiated with some of the best lawyers in the Northern Hemisphere and this is the best excuse you’ve got?
Harper doesn’t respond out loud. Her face tells me maybe it’s me who needs to get more sleep.
She turns and starts taking drink orders.
I want to watch over her in this wild room.
Really, I just want to stare. Watch her true, wide smile break out for others, if not for me.
Watch her twist and turn her set of perfect curves to wordlessly take cash, pour beer, and nod at James. But I’m interrupted.
“Hey, aren’t you the rich asshole who’s come to ruin this place?” A young guy says to me. I can’t place his face from around town but I do recognize that he’s drunk.
“That’s me,” I say, turning to face him. “And you are?”
“Not someone who’s afraid of you and your money. You’re not welcome here,” he inches closer, swaying a bit.
“Hey, now,” James says calmly behind the counter.
“You heard me, man,” the guy reaches to shove me.
And is pummeled.
By ice water.
An entire bucket of it.
“THE HELL?” The guy turns to face his assailant. The silent, sweet, sexy little baker is holding the pitcher proudly and telling him to get lost with her expressive face.
“He’s our rich asshole,” she says quietly right as Carl and some other big men arrive to escort the drunk tourist out of Nog’s.
I’m frozen, I think, slack-jawed that that woman just stood up to a drunk, belligerent, not-small man. For me.
“I really do love having you in town, Aid,” Steven says as he shoves a beer in my hand. He yammers on about the local drama as he leads me by the arm to his table where Miles and a few others are gathered for trivia.
But I don’t hear what he’s saying. I don’t greet the table. I just stare back at her.
“Hey, HEY! Earth to Aiden,” Steven snaps in front of my eyes.
“Hm?”
“I thought I told you to go easy on her,” Steven says.
Annoyed, I exhale, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“She’s fiercely loyal, as you just saw, but she’s…she’s not available, Aid,” he says.
“So I’ve been told, though I did not ask,” I grumble.
“Uh huh, and you’re here barking at her about whether or not she ate dinner becauuuuse…?”
“Because Stuart keeps getting out.”
Steven snorts at that and shifts his attention from me back to the trivia games at hand. Apparently Miles is the mastermind of the table because Steven isn’t saying much. Unusual for him.
“Whose is he?” I ask, annoyed with myself that I can’t let any of this go.
“Huh?”
“Stuart. Whose dog is he? Was he?”
The realtor’s happy demeanor visibly shifts to an expression that’s somehow both sad and angry. “Lewis. Total asshole.”
“Her ex boyfriend?”
“Yes, and he got her that dog to show her he was going to stay around!”
I blink to process what he’s saying, “And then he left?” I finish the thought.
“And then he freaking left her too.”
“Whatd’you mean too? Who else left her?”
Steven gives me a sad smile, “I may be the town gossip but I love that girl like a sister. You want to know her whole story you’re going to have to ask her to tell you herself.
” I scoff at the idea. He goes on, “I know, it’s not easy.
Took me years to become her friend. And let’s be honest, Aid, you’re not going to be here for years.
Maybe just help her with the business stuff you’re good at, don’t flatten our town, and then, you know, leave her be? ”
“Hmm,” is all I say.
Maybe it took him years to get through to her but she and I had a moment in that truck the other night. She smiles now when I come in for coffee. It’s small and subtle but it’s genuine.
She just attacked a man with a water pitcher for me, more or less.
And, frankly, Steven is not a Vanderwell. If you have a goal, son, let nothing stop you. I suppose the true question is what, exactly is my goal?
Hell if I know.