13. Chapter 13
Chapter 13
Aiden
‘ S o…’
I’d forgotten just how awkward this kind of thing was. No. Not that kind of thing. This was not that kind of thing.
‘So?’ she asked, lifting her mug to her lips and hiding what I was sure was a smile.
‘You mentioned an exchange?’
I’d spent all week trying to think of what she could possibly want in exchange for this. Oscar duty for a week? I grimaced and took a sip of my coffee. After the last time, where I’d basically had to pin him to the floor to give him his injection, I got the distinct feeling that Oscar didn’t like me much.
‘Oh, uhm. Don’t worry about it.’ Charlotte’s cheeks warmed to a soft pink and her gaze dropped to the coffee in her hands. Interesting. ‘I’ll still help you,’ she spoke to the cup. ‘I’ll go to the wedding.’ I felt my chest expand on a relieved inhale. ‘But I don’t need you for my thing.’ My breath of relief transformed into a huff of annoyance. She didn’t need me? I straightened in my seat and leaned towards her, laying an arm casually across the table.
‘What thing?’
‘An office Christmas party,’ she mumbled, her gaze shifting from her coffee to my forearm. I hated holiday parties. In fact, one of the perks of working in a smaller company was that there we didn’t host holiday parties or summer parties or whatever else larger corporations insisted on throwing biannually. Instead, we were sent home with a thirteenth check and a pat on the back. Infinitely better than dry canapes and “networking.”
‘You go to those?’
‘Seems that way.’ She sighed, retreating into the cushions of the armchair.
‘And why would you need me?’
‘I don’t.’
‘Okay…’ I nodded. ‘But let’s say you did. Why?’
Charlotte let out a puff of annoyance that blew an errant curl out of her face. She had her hair up in a loose bun today and the few curls that had escaped framed her face, softening her features and muting the severity of the glare she aimed at me.
‘I may or may not have used the boyfriend card to get out of attending post-work-related activities,’ she admitted, crossing her arms. I nodded in understanding.
‘You could just say you broke up?’
‘So could you,’ she fired across the table.
‘Touché.’ I tilted my head towards her. ‘So, they’re expecting your boyfriend to show up?’ She nodded. Leaning back in my seat, my eyes drifted over to the surrounding tables. They were all full. This place really was too small for this many people.
‘When is it?’ I drummed my fingers against the tabletop. I could go with her—No. Why the hell would I do that? I didn’t owe her this, and even if I did, she said she didn’t need me. No. I wouldn’t go. We weren’t dating. We weren’t friends. Besides, she’d already said she didn’t need me to go with her. I ignored the way my skin had prickled at her dismissal.
‘Second week of December.’ I watched as her delicate fingers twisted at the ring on her finger. Spinning the gold band in circles as she spoke.
‘Okay.’ Okay?
‘Okay what?’ Yes. Exactly. Okay, what?
‘Okay… I’ll do it.’ Charlotte’s wide eyes rose to meet mine. And mine darted to the side, searching for the person who had actually just agreed to this. Because it couldn’t have been me. I scowled at the dregs that swirled in the bottom of my mug. What the fuck had I just agreed to? Better yet, why the fuck had I just agreed to it?
‘You don’t have to—’
‘I will.’
‘You’ve already helped Oscar,’ she pointed out after a moment’s awkward silence.
‘Equal exchange. Remember?’ I smirked, ignoring the alarm bells going off in my head and throwing her own words back at her. ‘It’s in the fine print.’
***
‘So…’ Charlotte had been staring, unblinkingly, at me for nearly a whole minute. Her lips twisted to the side as she studied me, a small frown forming a slight crease between her brows. I looked down and brushed a hand across my chest. There was nothing there, but being caught in her unblinking gaze had made me uncomfortable. Thankfully, the movement was enough to bring her out of whatever thoughts she’d been lost in. Her eyelids fluttered in rapid succession as if they were making up for the lost time. ‘You wanted to discuss terms?’
‘Yes,’ she said, jolting upright. ‘Yes. Right. Sorry.’ Leaning to one side, she extracted a leather bag that I hadn’t noticed stashed beneath her seat.
‘What sort of terms did you have in mind?’ I watched as she withdrew a pen and a small paperback notebook before setting it down on the table in front of her.
‘Hmmm,’ she mused, raising the pen and tapping it against her mouth. The movement drew my gaze, and I found myself focused on the soft mauve colour of her lips. ‘I suppose,’ she continued, moving the pen away from her mouth and my attention with it, ‘we should probably cover what each of us expects of the other, whether the other would be okay with it, and then some basic logistics?’
Charlotte lifted the pen to her mouth once more, only this time she opened her mouth and, holding the pen between her teeth, she removed the cap, spun the pen around and secured the cap to the back of the pen. I froze. Mesmerised by how her lips had moulded around the pen, only to bounce back into their pillowy natural shape when she was done. Forcing my mind away from images of what else those lips would look good wrapped around, I glanced up to find Charlotte staring at me, pen poised above the paper and her eyebrows raised in a questioning look.
‘Right.’ I swallowed hard. ‘By all means.’ I gestured towards her. ‘You first.’
‘Okay.’ She perked up, leaning forward in her seat. ‘How about something like this?’
‘I, Charlotte Hall, hereafter known as Party A, do hereby agree to attend one wedding with Aiden—any second names?’ She paused. My lips tugged up in a smile as I shook my head “no.” ‘Right.’ She nodded, all business, as she dropped her gaze to the page in front of her. ‘Aiden Walsh, hereafter known as Party B. In return, Party B will accompany Party A to one Christmas party. At each of the aforementioned events, Parties A and B will pretend to be each other’s significant other—’
‘Seems a bit formal,’ I interjected.
‘It feels weird to write lovers on a legal document,’ Charlotte continued, undeterred. The heat flaring in my chest enough to douse any of the humour I’d felt up to that point.
‘Good?’ she asked expectantly.
‘Yes?’ The word came across as more of a question than an agreement.
‘Okay,’ she said, turning her notebook and holding the pen towards me. ‘Sign here.’ That little furrow between her brows had reappeared while she was writing the contract, and I couldn’t conceal the smile that stretched across my face. Thankfully, Charlotte was too preoccupied with ensuring I’d signed in the right place to notice.
‘So,’ I started, watching as she added her own signature. ‘What have I just signed?’
Charlotte looked at me in wide-eyed horror. ‘You shouldn’t sign anything you don’t understand.’ I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Her features relaxed into a smile, even as a faint pink spread across her nose. ‘You’re joking,’ she said, shaking her head and, after folding the contract in two, slipping it between the pages of the notebook. She was just about to pack away her things when her she froze, eyes darting to mine. ‘Did you want a copy?’ Fuck, she was cute.
‘No.’ I held out a hand and shook my head. ‘I’m good.’
Chewing on her lower lip, she eyed the notebook in her hand. ‘You really should have your own copy.’
‘I trust you,’ I said, surprised to find that I meant it.
‘Okay.’
‘Is that it?’ I asked, lowering my palm to the table and readying myself to stand, needing to put some distance between myself and Charlotte.
‘No!’ A small hand encircled my wrist to stop me before vanishing just as quickly. I looked up, wondering if that touch had burned Charlotte’s skin as well as my own, or if the life of a recluse was finally catching up to me.
‘I’m supposed to be your girlfriend,’ Charlotte whispered across the table, eyes darting around the room.
‘Fake girlfriend,’ I gritted out, past the panic that squeezed my throat in a vice-like grip.
Charlotte rolled her eyes. ‘Fake or not…’ she said, her whisper turning into a frustrated hiss. ‘I should probably know something about you.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like…’ she drew out, looking around the room for inspiration, ‘how you take your coffee!’ Her triumphant smile drooped as I looked pointedly from her to the empty mug in front of me. ‘Okay then.’ Her smile returned as she leaned back in her chair, arms folded across her chest. ‘How long are we supposed to have been dating?’
‘Why does that matter?’
‘Well, I need to know how well I should know you,’ she said. ‘If we’ve only been dating for a few weeks…’ Charlotte continued slowly, as if she questioned my intelligence. ‘Well then it’s okay for me not to know much about who you were as a kid beyond your basic family structure kind of thing. You know?’
I didn’t know.
‘But if we’re supposed to have been dating for a while, say… a year or more. Well. Then I should know more nuanced things about who you are as a person.’
‘I hadn’t thought about that,’ I admitted quietly, as a loud buzzing filled my ears.
‘Yes well,’ Charlotte faltered, ‘you can do that now, I guess. Just… pick a length of time and we’ll figure it out.’
‘More than six months, less than a year,’ I said after a while. ‘Long enough to be serious, but not long enough that it’d be weird that I haven’t mentioned or introduced you to anyone.’
‘Sounds good.’ Charlotte nodded.
After that, things got easier. Largely because Charlotte was the one asking all of the questions. I told her about where I grew up, my mum and dad, and Louise. She asked about my hobbies, arching an eyebrow in surprise when I told her that I cooked a little and frowning when I refused to elaborate on what qualified as ‘a little.’
So it went back and forth. She asked, and I answered, and then she asked again until I gave an answer with some semblance of information that she could work with. Charlotte nodded with every new bit of information, as if she were committing the facts to memory. She almost always asked follow-up questions and in the face of her genuine interest, something warm unfurled in my chest.
It was nearly one o’clock when a low grumble resonated from Charlotte’s side of the table. A sound that, had it not been for the way that her fingers had fluttered, I would have attributed to the large man who’d just folded himself into the booth behind us. She was still looking at her lap, muttering something under her breath, when I pushed the plate with the double chocolate chip cookie towards her.
Charlotte’s tongue darted across her lip, but she didn’t move, her eyes lifting to my face as if waiting for permission. I gestured towards the cookie as if to say “have at it,” and after only a moment’s hesitation, she reached forward, breaking the cookie into halves and then quarters with her slender fingers. Placing two of the cookie quarters onto a napkin in front of her, she pushed the rest of the cookie back to me.
‘Cheers,’ she said with a shy smile, holding up a piece of the cookie. I nodded in my own silent response, and watched, transfixed, as she took a small bite and let out a soft hum of appreciation, the sound rippling outwards in vibrations that went straight to my cock. Fuck. I shifted in my seat, forcing my mind away from the images that the sound conjured.
With a forceful shove, I pushed the plate with my half of the cookie back towards her. Her mouth opened in protest, but I cut her off, rushing to speak first.
‘I need to go,’ I ground out.
Charlotte blinked up at me, her head tilting back as I stood from my seat. I watched the smooth lines of her throat contract as she swallowed. ‘You seem to be enjoying it more than I could anyway,’ I continued. Her mouth fell open, her soft lips parted in a perfect ‘o.’ She had a crumb caught on the corner of her lip. One that I wanted desperately to reach over and kiss away. Fuck. That was not happening. Scrubbing a hand across my jaw, I dropped my head back and stared at the ceiling, willing the blood back to my brain.
‘Do you have enough?’ I asked, forcing my questions about chocolate flavoured kisses into one of the deepest recesses of my mind.
‘Enough of what?’ The sound of her confusion drawing my gaze once more. ‘The cookie?’ Her eyes drifted downward, and she grimaced at its mangled remains.
‘No,’ I rasped, shaking my head as amusement dampened the sound of the blood rushing through my ears. ‘Enough information for the wedding.’
‘Oh!’ Charlotte laughed awkwardly. ‘Uhm , yes. I suppose I do.’
‘Good.’ I nodded as I turned to leave, more than ready to escape the warmth of the coffee shop.
‘Wait,’ Charlotte called out, her voice a little too loud in the quiet coffee shop. Several heads turned to look at her, including mine.
‘You know nothing about me,’ Charlotte said in a quieter voice, her green eyes locked with mine, ignoring everyone else.
‘I know enough.’