Chapter 3 #2
“Mom turned my old bedroom into a sewing room,” I announce with an overly dramatic shrug as if that explains everything. I tap my chin as if my next idea has just come to me. “What about your parents’ house?” There. Happily tossing the ball back into his court.
“I can’t stay there.” He snort-laughs and pulls the towel around his shoulders to tug on both ends. His chest flexes. And it is still bare. I checked. No status update there.
“I tried staying with them once, the summer after my first year of college. It’s pretty much an established fact that Dad and I will kill each other after one night under the same roof.”
I nod. I mean, fair enough. I get it. Aiden doesn’t have to explain to me how hard it is to go back home, let alone stay in the same living space as your parents as an adult.
I’m not sure if the Parkers own any dolls, but I made sure I had internships in the city every summer during college.
I had to stay in a fifth-floor walk-up in Queens with five other roommates once, but anything was better than the dolls.
I hook my thumb over my shoulder to point back toward the door.
“I guess I can go ask Charlotte if there are any free rooms or—” At this point, I’m fully being passive-aggressive.
If anyone should have to go ask Charlotte for a room, it’s Aiden.
And he should know it. And stop me from making such a selfless choice.
I’m waiting for him to interject when instead he says, “Look. There are two rooms up here. No reason we can’t share the common spaces.”
Share? I blink at him. Share? I’m an only child. We don’t share. Well, not unless we are trying to squeeze into a Queens walk-up, but that was a necessity. And I was nineteen. I’m twenty-nine now. But where can I go if I don’t stay here?
“I’ve got my stuff in the bigger room, but I can move to the smaller one,” Aiden adds, already turning toward the bedroom like it’s settled.
He really thinks we can share. Like it’s no big deal to him.
I cock my head to the side and watch him leave like I’m a confused puppy.
I mean, obviously I’ve been sharing with Geoff the last two years.
We have separate drawers in the bathroom for our toothbrushes and separate shelves for our other stuff, all pre-decided before I hired the movers.
But Geoff was my boyfriend. The only man I’ve ever lived with.
Staying here with Aiden feels strange. Intimate.
“Do you truly want to stay here with me?” I call after him because I can’t think of a better way to say what I’m thinking.
He stops and turns on his heel. “Why not, Ellie Belly?”
The shock of the nickname takes me back.
My mom gave it to me so long ago that I don’t even remember when it started, and no one calls me that.
Not even Mom anymore. It’s from a hundred years ago, and I never would have thought Aiden of all people would remember it.
Though he did used to call me that to tease me.
It started when we were out decorating the barn for the autumn season one year, after he heard my mother calling me the cutesy nickname.
He found it hilarious . I tried in vain to come up with equally embarrassing nicknames for him, but it was no contest. Despite the teasing, he redeemed himself by volunteering to hang all the stuff that needed to go up high so I wouldn’t have to climb up on the ladder, because I don’t like heights.
We must have been about twelve and thirteen then. Aiden hung the high decorations, and I placed the low ones. Teamwork, really. Quite efficient. We’d done it that way ever since.
Well, until I left.
“You remember my nickname?” I ask, feeling the tiniest little bit of wistfulness.
“Sure, I do.” His answering smile makes my belly swoop. “You were cute back then. You had freckles.” Aiden pads back over to me and leans down to study my face. “A few of them are still there, I see.” He taps the end of my nose with a finger.
I swat his hand away, an almost-too-familiar reflex, and my belly swoops again. This time it’s like a whole three-sixty. “Can we stay on topic, please?” I say.
I swallow and shake my head to clear it. What had he been saying before the subject of my freckles came up? Oh yeah. Aiden asked me “why not?” about the roommates thing.
“I mean, it’s kind of tight quarters, isn’t it?
” I ask the sentence like a question, but there isn’t really a doubt.
The entire apartment is pretty small. There’s a little galley kitchen; a dining space with a table and two chairs; a tiny living room with a tiny sofa and a tiny coffee table; one hall bathroom with the claw-foot tub, a sink, and a toilet; and two bedrooms. It’s not big.
I’m quite aware of the fact that, as a New Yorker, it is pretty ridiculous of me to question the tightness of any living quarters, but out here in Harvest Hollow, square feet do not have the significance they do in Brooklyn.
“It’s only temporary,” Aiden says, and shrugs, still obviously committed to the it’s-no-big-deal energy. “Unless your boyfriend would mind,” he adds in a sentence that comes from so far in left field my head swivels.
“What?” The word comes out like a croak. Super attractive. But Aiden knows I have a boyfriend ?
“Your mom told me you have a boyfriend. You live with him, right?”
“Right.” Oh God. The overly ambitious nodding has returned.
“Yep. That’s right.” I can’t tell him the truth and risk it getting back to Mom before I’m ready.
I need time to figure out how to frame my story in the best possible light.
Otherwise, she’ll worry about me. Yep, it’s about the worry.
Definitely not about the humiliation or the fact that the entire tale will be spread through town in minutes once Mom finds out.
Lucy Lawson doesn’t have a subtle nor secretive bone in her body.
“So, will your boyfriend have a problem with us rooming together for a couple of weeks?” Aiden asks, his brows both lifted.
“No! I mean, no.” I say the second no much more casually, rolling my wrist in the air as if my nonexistent boyfriend is super chill and would never be the jealous type.
But two can play this game.
“What about your girlfriend?” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear casually, as if I’m not low-key holding my breath waiting to hear his answer.
“I don’t have a girlfriend.” His grin is wide, and it occurs to me that of course he doesn’t have a girlfriend, or he’d be at her house while his pipe is burst. Either that, or she’d be here with him if they lived together. Which would be a hundred times more awkward.
“Got it,” I stammer. Okay, not a particularly eloquent reply, but it’s all I have at the moment. Because I am remembering him in the towel, and it has rendered me speechless. Or at least speech poor.
“It’s really no big deal, Ellie. I’ll move my stuff. It’ll just take a sec.” He turns and disappears into the bigger bedroom.
I briefly consider telling him not to bother switching rooms. It seems petty.
But the bigger bedroom is nicer. It has a cute little dormer window and a corner desk, and the big oak tree out back provides shade in the afternoon.
Plus, it’s sweet of Aiden to offer me the bigger room.
He always was a nice kid, I think as I hear him thumping around in the bedroom.
“Thank you.” I raise my voice, so he’ll hear me. “It’ll be nice to have the desk to use while I plan the Autumn Harvest Festival.”
The thumping stops, and seconds later he appears in the doorway, his suitcase half zipped and stuffed with clothes that are sticking out haphazardly. I can’t help but think that Geoff would die before he treated his clothing that way. “What’s that?” Aiden’s frowning.
“That’s why I’m here,” I tell him. “Mom asked me to plan the inn and orchard’s Autumn Harvest Festival to go along with the parade.
Didn’t your parents tell you about it?” I make my way over to the fridge, open it, and look in, hoping for a bottled water.
Mom and Dad usually leave some up here. Yes.
It’s there. Though I miss my tumbler that’s trapped in Manhattan.
“Uh, yeah. I know about it,” Aiden says. “It was my idea.” His voice is flat.
I grab the bottle of water and clutch it to my chest, then I spin on my sock-covered feet to look at him. “Oh, I... You do know that I’m an event planner, don’t you?” I give him the biggest smile I can muster. “It’s kinda my thing.”
“Yeah, I know.” His voice hasn’t changed. “But I’m a one-third owner of the orchard now. And unlike you, I never left. This place is kinda my thing.”
Uh. Ouch.
Our conversation has taken an unexpected turn.
Now I vaguely remember Mom telling me that Aiden had bought into the ownership of the orchard with his parents.
But that comment about him never leaving smarts more than I would’ve guessed it would.
It wiggles its way under my skin and lodges there like an apple seed in my teeth.
“So, what?” I plunk my free hand on my hip.
“I don’t have the right to come help when I’m asked, because I moved to the city? ”
I really want to hear his answer. He’s clearly got a problem with me being gone.
His brow lowers, and he blows out a long breath. “Your parents have missed you,” he tells me. “You couldn’t come home for Christmas?”
Okay, extra ouch. The guilt that’s been slowly rising through me all day is now about to drown me.
But I’m not going to admit to Aiden that my jerk of an ex-boyfriend never wanted to come to my parents’ house for Christmas.
I’m not even ready to admit he’s my ex yet.
Still, I could’ve come home without Geoff.
I know that. “I...” Ugh. I have no comeback.
And I get it. Family means a lot to Aiden.
He always planned to stay here and work with his parents.
I just never realized he thought worse of me for not making the same decision.
The agonized look on my face must be obvious, because Aiden’s features soften. “Look, you can help with the festival, but I already have plans.” He drags his suitcase across the living room toward the smaller bedroom.
This time my brows shoot up. He has plans? After the day I’ve had, the last thing I want to do is fight with another man about my event-planning credentials. Though this one at least appears to have his own ideas. He’s not trying to steal mine. An improvement from this morning.
“Understood,” I say out loud to keep the peace for the moment.
But in my mind, I’m thinking something more like, “we’ll see.
” Because there’s no way Mr. Apple Farmer’s event ideas are going to be better than mine .
I’d already sketched out a half dozen great plans on the train ride out here.
Scarecrow-dressing contest, anyone? With, like, super-cute clothes.
Aiden nods once as if he’s sure he’s won the argument. Poor man. He has no idea that that was merely the first shot across the bow.
And I’ve got a nuclear submarine in my arsenal.
“Good, then. Goodnight.” He steps into the smaller bedroom and closes the door behind him. “I’ll see you in the morning, and we can get started” comes floating out to me.
“Goodnight,” I call after him, shaking my head. I tip my suitcase and pull it toward the bigger bedroom. Thank God, this night is almost over. It’s been a total cluster today.
The minute the bedroom door closes behind me, I expel my breath.
First, Aiden has already changed the sheets on the bed.
(I worked in hospitality for eighteen years.
I know fresh sheets when I see them.) That was nice of him.
Second, I force myself to remember that there is no need to argue about the Autumn Harvest Festival with him tonight.
Because I’m done being walked over by men.
Mom asked me to plan this event with Aiden’s mom’s blessing.
And that’s what I’m going to do. Aiden’s hotness and his status as my temporary roommate have nothing to do with anything.
I am a professional. A professional who has just recently recommitted to the notion of never mixing business with pleasure again.
And while I look for a new job to get back to the city as fast as humanly possible, I intend to plan the best little event Harvest Hollow has ever seen.
Whether Mr. Apple Farmer likes it or not.