28
Aidan
I wake up the next morning with sore cheeks and a hard-on. Charlotte and I made out multiple times last night on our way back to her apartment. It was nearly midnight when we finally parted with one final kiss, and she slipped into her apartment, leaving me grinning outside her door.
I wasn’t halfway home before she texted me, asking for a third date and inviting me to visit the store the next day.
After I take care of that hard-on in the shower, I float all through the morning. Even Xander notices my joy and grumbles into his Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but he smiles when he thinks I’m not looking.
It’s mid-morning when I get a text that crumbles it all down.
Dan: Can I see you today? I found something about our friend Gott.
Dread fills my stomach, and I must frown or scowl or something because Xander remarks, “You ok, man? You look like you might go punch a wall.”
“I want to.”
“Please don’t. I don’t know how to fix drywall.”
“I don’t want to break my hand.”
I show him the text on my phone. He reads and nods, his brow furrowing. I’ve kept him up to date on everything. “Well shit,” Xander says while tapping his fingers against the kitchen island. “I wonder what he found.”
I shrug. “I don’t know. It can’t be anything good if he wants to meet in person.”
He leans back in the chair and crosses his arms. “I had nothing planned today except yard work, which can wait. Want me to go with you? That way, if it’s something bad, then you’ll have backup.”
I nod. “I’d appreciate that.” My phone vibrates and I read my father’s message. “He can meet us at Triple C in thirty minutes.”
We find my father leaning against the railing of Triple C’s exterior stairs.
He’s wearing his typical weekend uniform consisting of tan khakis and a navy polo.
A leather satchel is draped over his shoulder.
I introduce him and Xander. He doesn’t give any indication of being annoyed or even surprised that my roommate has joined us. He only greets Xander warmly.
“Ah,” Dan remarks with a gleam in his eye. “You’re the three bean soup guy.”
My roommate snorts but doesn’t say anything.
“So,” I say, eager to know what my father wanted to share with us. “What’s up?”
“Let’s get some coffee. We might need it,” he remarks without any indication of what he found, and the anxiety builds in my stomach.
“That bad?” I ask. “Or is the coffee that good?”
Dan grips my shoulder. “I’ve been dreaming of that maple cinnamon latte all week.”
I can’t help but chuckle. One thing we have in common is our addiction to coffee.
Unfortunately, neither Liam or Nicole is working today.
The barista who takes our coffee order is an impatient dark-haired woman with a name badge that says, “Angie”.
She interrupts our order with outbursts towards the other barista.
My gaze keeps darting to Dan, expecting and hoping him to say something like, Miss, if you didn’t yell at Darren so much, we’d be drinking coffee by now.
But he seems preoccupied with something on his phone.
“Sorry,” he remarks with a somewhat sheepish tone. “I’ve got a client who’s a little anxious.” I study him as he frowns over whatever he’s reading.
We get our coffees and find a quiet four-chair corner table upstairs. Xander and I sit on one side, while Dan sits across from us, placing his satchel in the empty chair.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” I ask once we get settled, anxiety makes my stomach do somersaults.
Dan takes a sip from his coffee and smacks his lips together. “That is good coffee.” He sets the cup down. “How are you?”
I bite back a groan. “Anxious about what you found.”
He waves me off. “I think you’ll find what I found interesting.” He holds my gaze.
My jaw goes slack. “Really?” The knot in my stomach relaxes and the tension in my muscles eases.
He nods. “I wanted to meet here so I can explain everything fully.” A sly smile spreads across his face. “Also, I wanted to see you.” He takes another pull from his drink. “This is also really good coffee.”
Xander shrugs and lifts his own latte. “The coffee is better when my sister makes it.”
Dan removes a laptop from his satchel. “I did some digging in the public records, and I found the company that won the contract.” He opens the laptop and swings it around so Xander and I can both see it, where he has a PDF already prepped for us. “The company is called Ferdinand O’Connor, LLC.”
“And?” Xander asks, peering at the laptop screen. “What’s so fishy about this company?”
Dan clicks a few times to reveal the Maryland Case Search.
“The company itself has a whole laundry list of problems. They’re currently being sued by a former client for non-completion of work and owe money to a bunch of other parties.
They also just lost their Maryland contracting license.
Meaning they can’t do any permitted work, including for the county government.
But the contract is still active. They haven’t filed for Chapter 11, but depending on their current cash situation, they might.
” He sucks in air through his teeth in a whistle. “They’re hemorrhaging money.”
I press my lips together and adjust my glasses. “Why would the county accept the bid of a company that is currently in financial trouble?”
My father lifts a shoulder and leans back in his chair. “They probably underbid the other companies. It’s a big job and there’s some money to be made with this work.”
“Even though there’s not a lot of work to be done?” I ask. “The offices were just renovated.”
He shrugs again. “The amount of work that’s to be done might not be relevant.
They need to account for every penny spent, but there are ways to pad the cost of construction.
Materials and labor costs are rapidly increasing, and maybe there is something fishy going on, at least with the company, but that doesn’t mean that some sort of embezzlement is occurring.
” He studies us for a few seconds. “That we know of. For all we know, Mr. Ferdinand O’Connor might be connected to someone in the county offices.
Do either of you know of him or a connection he might have?
The business listed a Summerville address on their paperwork. ”
Xander shakes his head. “Never heard of him.”
I reply similarly. “We could look him up on social media?”
“Got it.” Xander whips out his phone and starts tapping away.
“Thank you, Dan,” I say with soft voice. “I really appreciate you going out of your way to help me, to help us, with this.”
Something fractures in my father’s composure.
He hesitates and then swallows hard. “I know I’ve been pretty awful to you, and I will be sorry for the rest of my life.
” He lifts his hand, and for a second, I think he’s going to rest it on mine.
“But I’m working on myself, and I just appreciate you keeping in touch. ”
My eyes well up, and I blink away the moisture. “I’m glad that we’re doing this.”
Dan smiles and we both sip our coffees. We sit there in silence for a few moments while Xander scrolls through his phone. Dan finally breaks the silence. “So, how was—or, er, yeah, how was your week?”
“It was pretty great, actually.” My cheeks flex as I can’t resist the smile blooming on my face.
Despite my feelings of anxiety and apprehension, I’m elated over the fact that something is brewing between Charlotte and I.
It’s more than just physical. She sees me and accepts me.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt judgment from her whenever I’ve peeled back a layer or shown her a different Aidan.
Anytime she’s come across a rough patch or a sharp edge in me, she just runs her metaphorical hand over it and praises its texture or its ability to cut.
But I can’t tell my father that. There’s still too much history that makes me worried he’s going to be critical of me, or of her.
I was nervous enough when we found ourselves in the same room last week during my coffee date with my father.
But I’m not ready to have him see her and all her goodness just yet.
Maybe someday I’ll be able to tell him about the joy and hope I’m feeling.
“How about you?” I ask, trying to keep some sort of conversation going while Xander is glued to his phone. “Good week at work?”
Dan shrugs a shoulder. “Ah, you know how it is. Taxes are still a thing, and people need my help to pay them. I had a great breakthrough in my yoga class though.”
“Oh?”
“I can do crow now,” he remarks. His eyes sparkle as he talks, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. “That’s the one where you rest your knees on your elbows and then balance on your hands. It’s pretty hard, and you have to do a lot of prep poses. But it’s fun.” He grins. “So much fun and relaxing.”
My head shakes, and I let out a sigh. “That sounds really cool.” I never expected him to be this into yoga.
Or any physical activity that didn’t involve sculpting his body to be the perfect superhuman.
“I will admit I don’t know much about yoga.
My exercise consists running, usually after students. ”
“He really should lift weights,” Xander grumbles.
“Oh, you should try it sometime,” Dan says, and he pulls up a website for a yoga studio in Columbia.
“This is the place I go to. I started it because my therapist thought it would be a healthier way to deal with stress. It’s worked pretty well, at least I think so.
I feel so centered or grounded, or whatever they say. You could come with me sometime?”
“Yeah, sure.” I blink. I am still not entirely sure I trust the version of my father sitting in front of me. I recall an incident when I was a child where he called a yoga class, “a bunch of weird-ass hippies.”
“I’m also reading,” he remarks, and my attention immediately snaps to focus.
“You’re reading? What have been reading?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even.
Dan taps his fingers against the table and points a finger in my direction.
“So, when my girlfriend broke up with me, she left a book, and I decided to read it.” He grimaces.
“I liked to read as a kid, and I don’t know, I just felt like picking it up and having a go.
” He fiddles with the strap on his satchel.
“I am sorry for all the times I got on your case about reading too much. It’s a part of my work with my therapist to acknowledge all the ways that I’ve been a dick to people. ”
“Did they actually use those words?” I inquire.
He snorts. “No, more like ‘be accountable for all the ways I have mistreated people’.”
“Mistreated does seem a little too clinical,” I remark, a flash of boldness streaking through me. Xander raises an eyebrow.
“That’s what I said. I have been a dick to people,” Dan remarks, and I let out a little huff.
At least Dan and I have the same self-deprecating sense of humor.
“Well, anyways, so it was one of those dragon rider books, Fourth Wing, and I really liked it. Then I read the rest of the Empryean Series, and then I read The Priory of the Orange Tree, and now I’m reading The Poppy War by RF Kuang. ”
I gawk at him for a long moment. “You’re reading fantasy? You read Fourth Wing? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you read anything other than law books.”
He shrugs. “Have you ever read those?”
“You made me read one when I was kid. They’re very boring.”
He points a finger at me. “Exactly. Watching paint dry is more entertaining. When I told my therapist about it, he said that reading helps with stress relief. And building empathy.” He pauses. “He encouraged it.”
I peer at him for a moment, utterly speechless. My father is reading fantasy books and enjoys them. He’s really diving into this whole changing his life thing, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Skeptical, yes, but also hopeful. I like this new version of Dan.
“You should have him visit Charlotte,” Xander remarks, peeking up over his phone. “Also, I can’t find anything on this Ferdinand O’Connor guy, other than what we know already. But she might. She knows everyone.”
I grit my teeth and grimace. Do I really want to introduce Charlotte and Dan right now? A few minutes ago, I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but then he started talking about books. “Really? She does?”
“Of course.” Xander claps me on the back. “She’s on five thousand committees, and if she doesn’t know, then she’ll steer us to someone who does.” He waggles his eyebrows and mouths, “she’ll be fine.”
Dan nods before rising from his chair. “Well, what are we waiting for? Shall we?”
“Give me a minute.” A grin forms on my face. “I need to order a London Fog.”
“A what?” Dan asks.
A corner of my mouth upturns. “Charlotte’s favorite drink.”