Chapter 30
COFFEE DATES AREN’T ALWAYS DATES
“Come on, Alice, Aiden is going to be meeting me at the coffee shop in about fifteen minutes, so you need to hurry.” Liv poked her head into my bedroom and clapped her hands to rouse me.
“I just woke up.” I stretched and groaned as I stared at Liv. “And I can’t just show up by myself.”
“Tell him that I told you to meet me there as well.” She grinned. “And then I’ll text and say I couldn’t make it.”
“Liv,” I whined, not wanting to go but still jumping out of bed and opening my closet quickly to find something to wear. “I’m not going by myself,” I said and looked at her. “He invited you to coffee, not me. And after last night, there is no way in hell that I’m putting myself out there again.”
“Just hurry, Alice.” She sighed, but she didn’t try and change my mind. I had told Liv all about the previous evening when she’d gotten home and even she was wondering what Aiden was up to. “I tried to wake you up earlier and you didn’t respond.”
“I was sleeping,” I groaned and pulled a T-shirt on over my tank top. “How do I look?” I glanced at Liv and she glanced back at me quickly.
“Great, now brush your teeth quickly. You don’t want morning breath.”
“Argh, I hate morning breath.” I ran to the bathroom and grabbed my toothbrush and quickly filled it with a generous dollop of Aquafresh.
“And wash your face, too. You have booboo in your eyes.”
“That’s because I was sleeping just three minutes ago.” I yawned dramatically.
“What do you care about more? Sleep or love?”
“At this moment, sleep,” I groaned and yelped as I felt Liv brushing the knots out of my hair. “Liv!” I whimpered as I spat my toothpaste into the sink. “That hurts.”
“Do you want to go to meet Aiden and show him how beautiful you look in the morning or would you rather look like you were just drooling into your pillow?”
“Can I choose drooling into my pillow?” I splashed my face with water and stared sadly at my lackluster appearance. “And you’re a liar, I don’t look beautiful.”
“Yes, you do, and Aiden will think so as well.”
“Yeah, right.” I wrinkled my nose. “He didn’t think I was beautiful last night.”
“Of course he did. He kissed you, remember?”
“And then he left when I invited him to come and check out my room.” I groaned as I remembered the rejection of the night before. “And when I say left, I mean, he ran out faster than a cheetah on crack.”
“Cheetah’s don’t do crack,” Liv said as if I were being serious.
“Maybe they do, maybe they don’t,” I said and put some moisturizer on my face. “Who knows what they do? All I can say is that Aiden left fast. As fast as the fastest animal on earth.”
“Alice, stop being goofy. I’m sure he just realized he had to be at work early or something.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I sighed. “It’s not like his job is all that important, though, that he would just have to leave.”
“He’s an attorney for a top law firm, Alice.” Liv rolled her eyes. “He’s not like us; he can’t just call in whenever he wants and pretend to be sick and just watch movies all day.”
“I guess.” I sighed. “I just can’t believe he has any interest in me if he left last night.”
“He did kiss you.”
“I know, but what’s a kiss when you’ve been offered more? Maybe he only kissed me to be polite.” My stomach churned as I thought about that prospect. Would he really have grabbed my waist and held me tight if he was just trying to be polite?
“Aiden doesn’t do anything to be polite,” Liv reminded me, and she was correct.
I could remember a few different occasions where we’d asked Aiden to take us somewhere or do something with us when we were younger and he’d told us no, pretty point-blank.
He hadn’t cared that Liv had even been faking tears one time we’d asked him to take us to the zoo.
He’d told us to go into the bathroom and look into the mirror and we’d see a rhino and a giraffe.
And then he’d burst out laughing. I smiled to myself as I recalled how rude Aiden had always been.
Liv was right. There was no way Aiden would have kissed me if he wasn’t into it, even a little bit.
“I guess I’ll come.” I pouted my lips and applied my new pink lipstick and then some lipgloss. “But I’m not going to flirt with him or ask him out or make him jealous.”
“Good. Just be sweet and casual.” Liv nodded. “Let him think that you couldn’t care less about seeing him or about that fact that he just left last night.”
“I couldn’t care less,” I said and fluffed out my hair. “He’s a jerk.”
“Yeah, he is,” Liv said emphatically.
“Oh, Liv.” I giggled. “You’re just saying that because I’m sad.”
“I don’t want you to be upset over stupid Aiden.” She looked at me with large brown eyes.
“I know. It’s awkward that I’ve fallen for your brother.” I groaned. “Who does that?”
“I think it’s quite common.” Liv laughed. “Many women fall for their best friend’s brother. I mean, it will be awesome if you guys end up together. We’d be sisters.”
“See.” I said with a sad face and pointed at her. “You have doubts, too.”
“Doubts about what?”
“You just said if we end up together, not when we end up together.”
“Oh.” She bit her lower lip and looked to the side. “I didn’t realize.”
“It’s fine,” I said with a groan. “I mean, let’s be realistic.
You meet a guy and let him know you’re interested and he’s got you on the floor with his head between your legs.
And I meet a man and let him know I’m interested and he gives me a quick snog and then darts off before I can even get him to the floor or the bed. ”
“A quick snog?” Liv giggled.
“I’ve been watching British TV shows again.” I laughed. “I think snog sounds better than just saying kiss.”
“At least you’re not saying pash anymore.” She laughed.
“What’s wrong with pash?” I said indignantly. “I want to pash Aiden all night long.”
“It just sounds weird.”
“Tell that to an Australian,” I said with a smirk. “They will most probably throw a kangaroo in your face.”
“Yeah, let them try. I’ll throw a koala bear back at them.” She laughed. “I mean, who calls kissing pashing? It just doesn’t even make sense to me.”
“Pashing is a sexy term,” I said, though I didn’t really think it was that sexy. It was different, and to me different was cool.
“Are you still watching that show?”
“What show?”
“Dating in the Dark Australia?”
“Oh yeah.” I nodded. “I thought you were talking about Home and Away.”
“I thought you weren’t able to watch it anymore?”
“Yeah, I’m not. The guy that was uploading it onto YouTube got deleted or something.” I sighed. “That was a good show.”
“It looked like too much drama to me. And all the characters seemed so young and annoying.”
“Like I said, it was good.” I laughed. “It was full of drama and angst and half the girls had worse love lives than me.” I smiled happily, remembering all the drama from one of my favorite Australian soap operas. “Plus Australian men are so sexy.”
“Oh, Alice, you and your English and Australian guys.” Liv shook her head.
“I might end up marrying one if it doesn’t work out with Aiden. Foreign guys are hotter.”
“But then you’ll have to move.” Liv pouted.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I’ll move to Oxfordshire or Sydney.”
“Why Oxfordshire or Sydney?” Liv looked confused.
“Oh, they just sound like good places to live, if I have to leave the States.”
“Uh, okay.” I could see that Liv was trying not to laugh. “What about Nigeria?”
“What about Nigeria?” I frowned. What did Nigeria have to do with anything?
“Didn’t a Nigerian prince ask you to marry him and send him ten thousand dollars?”
“Hahaha.” I laughed slightly as I remembered the scam email I’d gotten and almost fallen for. “Very funny.”
“Wouldn’t you like to live in Nigeria as well?” she asked with a grin. “Seeing as you want to live abroad and all.”
“I don’t know about Nigeria.” I made a face. “I’ve heard the Ivory Coast is beautiful, though.”
“I guess you just have to meet a guy from there, then.”
“Actually, there is a guy from there who’s trying to buy a house right now.
He has this sexy French accent as well.” I thought about the tall African guy who always smiled at me when he came to see Mike, one of the agents at the real estate office I worked at.
“I would definitely date him if he was younger than fifty.” I giggled.
“He’s cute, but a bit old. But imagine if I lived in Africa, I’d be tan year round. ”
“You just want to leave me.” Liv pouted again, and I laughed.
“Don’t be silly. I want Aiden. I just need him to want me, too.” I sighed and grabbed my handbag. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah, let’s go.” Liv linked arms with me. “I seriously need to make sure my brother doesn’t mess this up.”
“Yes, you do,” I said expressively, with a small smile on my face. “Because if you don’t, who knows where I’ll end up?”
“You’ll end up in Timbuktu, that’s where.” She laughed as we walked out of the door.
Liv and I walked into the coffee shop, and I almost groaned when I saw Scott sitting there with Aiden. Why oh why did Scott have to be there? As if everything wasn’t already slightly awkward between Aiden and me, Scott was just going to make an already complicated situation more complicated.
“Look who’s here,” Scott said with a grin as he jumped up and walked towards us. “Big ears and little ears.”
“Look who’s here,” Liv retorted back. “Dumb and Dumber.”
“I call Dumber,” Scott said and then winked at me as he gave me a quick hug.
“I guess that leaves me as just Dumb?” Aiden said with a smile as he stood up and hugged Liv.
“Well, duh,” Liv said as she pulled away from him. “We all knew you were dumb a long time ago.”
“Touché,” Aiden said as he walked towards me and gave me a quick hug, too. “Good to see you, Alice.” His body felt warm next to me and I didn’t want to let go as he stepped back. I know, I’m pathetic.
“Hi,” I said and then a thought suddenly hit me. “I guess you didn’t have to work early this morning?”