Chapter 18
I immediately urge Aubrey to come into the living room. As soon as we enter the space, I wonder if I should talk somewhere else. This room will always remind me of how we gave in to each other. The memories are too fresh. Combining the hit of them with my anger, I’m not in a good disposition to be my usual self and listen first.
I let loose, pacing and clenching my teeth. I don’t care if she sees how angry I am. “Don’t use that teacher voice on me and tell me I need to calm down.”
She opens and closes her mouth, then furrows her brow. “I…I wasn’t going to say that.”
“Bullshit.”
“Fine. You need to calm down!”
“The hell I do. If you heard the shit he was saying…” I growl, pacing faster and almost losing my temper to kick at the blanket I’d left folded up near the chair.
“So what?” She shrugs.
I glower at her as I turn and stalk back again. “So what? How can you say that?”
“Because.”
“How can you stand there and act like this is okay?”
She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t say this was okay. I’m going to guess he was being pervy and crude.”
“And that’s okay?” I fling my arm out. “You want me to calm down after hearing that?”
“Yes. Because he’s not the first man who’s spouted that kind of crap. He won’t be the last, either.”
“Sure. And that excuses it all.”
“I didn’t say that. I’m not making excuses for anyone.” She crosses her arms. “But I am telling you to cool it. You’re here representing Marian’s business. You can’t react like you want to. You need to be professional.”
“I fucking know that.”
She stomps her foot. “Then act like it.”
I stop pacing and stare her down. “You can make all the excuses you want. I’m not going to stand there and let him talk about you like that.”
Again, she rolls her eyes. I can’t tell if she’s doing it to be flippant about something she’s so used to and expecting from men, or if she’s really this irritated at my close call with fighting the contractor Caleb hired. A contractor he could easily replace with another.
“Hayes is just being a jerk. He’s trying to rile you up for whatever reason.”
Whatever reason. I scoff, looking away. I know why. The asshole sees me as competition, as a threat to him being able to get a “piece of ass” for his own fun.
He taunted me, asking if I’d staked a claim on her. I loathe that kind of possessive shit, but honestly, I wondered. What am I to Aubrey, after all? Am I making a fool out of myself in thinking I’m her knight in shining armor? Of course, I wouldn’t stand for this kind of treatment toward a woman, no matter who she might be and regardless of who the man is.
Am I getting this pissed off because it’s her? Because I do see her as mine to protect and want to be the one to see to her happiness?
I face her, licking my lips as I scramble to think fast enough and word this the way I need to in order to make my point clear.
“What?” she asks cautiously.
“What is this between us?”
I catch the slight wince she isn’t quick enough to completely hide. Yeah, I’m putting her on the spot with that challenging, tricky question, but after last night, she should have some kind of an answer for me. She spent all day avoiding me, and I’d bet my entire fortune she’s been thinking, rethinking, and analyzing having sex with me. She has to have considered this by now if she hasn’t been taxing her mind and heart to figure out how to accept what we shared here in this room last night.
I grow impatient waiting for her answer. I’m so used to listening and hearing out another person first, but I can’t stand by with this topic.
“I like you.”
She blinks, gazing at me so intently I wonder what she’s searching for in my eyes.
“I like you more than I should,” I admit.
Her face screws up and scrunches in a scowl.
Shit. Obviously that didn’t come out as well as it should have. Instead of professing my heartfelt feelings for her, I sound like I’m regretting any connection.
But it’s too late, as usual, to take it back. I can’t undo my words. They’re out there, hanging awkwardly between us, so I may as well continue and roll with this.
Think!
I clear my throat and try to keep my cool. “I enjoyed hooking up with you.”
That’s not bad. It’s true.
“And I’d like to do it again,” I add slowly as though I need to test out the words as they leave my mouth.
No. That isn’t good either. I’m making it sound like I expect more. Or she owes me. Or some other power play I’m not even sure I’ve started. My words feel off and jumbled. I’m totally off my game, and I know it’s because this matters too damn much. She has come to matter so much that I’m scared of screwing up.
As I freak out about my blunt and poorly planned words, Aubrey stares at me. She doesn’t move, she doesn’t flinch. With an almost blank expression, she locks her eyes on me without a hint of what she’s thinking. I can only imagine, and my eagerness to hear her reply feels more and more urgent with every second of quiet that passes.
Finally, she gives me the barest movement, a slight nod. “Fine.”
My hackles raise. I don’t like that word from her, especially in that whatever tone. “Fine?” I retort.
“Yeah. This hookup was just for fun. That’s all.” She ends it with a shrug, suggesting her indifference, but I can tell she’s hiding behind that canned answer.
She’s not arguing, though, simply parroting back my words, and I’m lost and so confused about what to say now.
“Right.” I nod, agreeing but not at all feeling the same. Admitting we just hooked up for fun sounds too much like we participated in a pastime to kill the hours we were stuck here in the storm. Agreeing with her doesn’t sit well with me. Deep down, that statement contradicts what I feel, but I can’t figure out a quick and clear way to express what I’m hung up about.
I don’t have ample time to present my case. I don’t even know how to explain what I feel or what I want, and by the time I bumble through an attempt of voicing it, she’ll talk faster. She’s used to negotiating with terrorists like entitled children and their parents, and I’ll be intimidated even more into the easy route of being quiet instead of speaking up.
This standoff feels monumental. I’m facing the woman I’m sure I could fall in love with. I’m that close to committing to her or wanting to suggest we deepen this connection. I could easily give Aubrey my heart, and with that, I would let her hurt me just like Johanna did.
Letting Aubrey in at all feels too risky. I’m still exposed and raw, wounded from the way Johanna treated me, and I’m not sure if the scar tissue from all of that has completely healed over to make me strong enough. I can’t tell if I’m there yet, safe from a second burn of heartache. I know I will be one day, but I’m not confident it’s today, with Aubrey, despite how badly I wish I could be whole and “normal” to do this with her.
“Fine.” With all the chaotic thoughts and worries filling my mind, that one word she likes to abuse is the only thing I can say.
She arches her brows, perhaps surprised that I was mimicking her. “Are you mocking me?”
“No. It’s fine.” I shrug, deepening my lie. “Just a hookup. That was it.”
I can’t face her anymore after those hard, false words. I storm off, furious that she’s rendered me a confused, clumsy mess who can’t handle a conversation like that. Before Johanna, I was alright with accepting rejections. It never happened often, in the name of business or love, but over the years, I learned how to handle negatives and uncooperative answers.
I cannot stomach the fact that Aubrey doesn’t want me. That she views me as nothing but a way to relieve a physical or hormonal itch to get laid. It cheapens my memories of last night, and I only hope that walking away will give me a clearer sense of figuring this—and her—out.
“Just a hookup,” I mumble as I head up to my room.
“It was more than that, and you know it,” I tell my empty bedroom. Saying that would have been smarter. If I’d relayed that specific message to her, she at least would have known where I stood on this matter.
Right now, I’m too mad. Anger lingers from the way Hayes talked about Aubrey like she was an object. Pain creeps in, filling me up as I think back to her and how she dismissed me as a hookup, a fling.
I’m sick of pacing, and I don’t want to go outside and be near Hayes yet. If he tries to give me any more shit or start more trouble by commenting about something about her, I will lose it and punch him. I won’t admit it to her, but Aubrey has a good point. I can’t lash out right now because I’m supposed to be “working” here until the owners return.
And blessedly, they do. Caleb told me they’d be back tomorrow morning, but by the time I step out of the shower and get dressed, I can see through the window that my truck Caleb borrowed is parked at the side of the house.
They’re back, and I’m excited to have a buffer from dealing with Aubrey again.
I hurry down the stairs and catch sight of Marian. She’s frantic, talking a mile a minute and bombarding Aubrey with questions. The woman who’s slowly and unwittingly stealing my heart sets her hands on Marian’s shoulders.
“Listen, it’s going to be okay,” she tells her.
“How?” Marian wails. “I saw the contractor out there with chainsaws. Neighbors called me to ask if the house was still standing.”
I nod a hello at Caleb as he enters with Lauren.
“Of course, it’s still standing,” he says, lugging their bags in. “Dalt said they’d hold down the fort.”
Yeah, and I feel like Aubrey and I did. We also had sex about five feet thataway and wedged a huge drift between us when she suggested we only had a “fun” hookup, and that was that.
Actually, it was my blooper first, saying that I enjoyed hooking up with her. That didn’t mean it was a “hookup” in my mind. I was merely applying the term as a verb.
I’m such a mess.
“Dalton and I cleaned up most of the debris,” Aubrey calmly tells Marian. “Hayes is out there cutting up the tree. Fortunately, it missed the house.”
“Oh, my goodness,” Marian says feebly in gratitude and awe, pressing her hand to her breastbone. “Thank goodness it did.”
“And like I told Lauren,” Aubrey says, “the plants will need to be replaced.”
“And that’s doable,” Lauren chimes in.
“But the house is fine. The whole property is fine,” Aubrey says.
“I even walked around and checked the two cottages,” I add, speaking up for the first time. “Nothing hit them.” Marian is living in one while Caleb and Lauren occupy the other. They’re both intact.
“You mean the BB is fine?” Marian asks, smiling at me over Aubrey’s shoulder. “Thanks to the two of you?”
I nod.
“See, if Dalton says he’ll hold down the fort, you can believe him,” Caleb says. “He’s too professional to let a property suffer.”
Professional? Ha. Not according to Aubrey, I’m not.
“You make good partners,” Lauren praises, smiling at us both.
About that. No, it turns out we don’t. And we won’t try to pair up again.
Bitterness controls me, and I hate it.
“From the drive up here, I could tell it was going to be okay,” Caleb says as he sets the bags on the small table in the foyer. “They managed to clear the road closure sooner than expected, and I knew that was a good first sign.” He grins, then pecks a kiss on Lauren’s temple. “In fact, we should celebrate the good fortune that the storm spared us.”
I could use a good drink.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Lauren says. “We should all go out tomorrow night.”
Caleb nods. “I like the way you think, sweetheart. We can head out and let loose.”
Aubrey rubs the back of her neck, not replying.
“It’ll be like old times,” Caleb tells me.
I’m still reeling from my fight with Aubrey and understanding she’s not feeling the same connection that I do for her.
The old times? What is he suggesting? We party hard like were na?ve twentysomethings? My more recent “old times” included Johanna, and I don’t want to think about her at all.
Going out might be a decent way to avoid thinking about my last heartache. It might be a smart idea to avoid dwelling on the woman who’s trying to bash apart my heart that’s still piecing itself back together.
I shrug. “Sure, why not?”
Aubrey glances at me, then looks away.
“Aubrey?” Lauren asks.
She lifts one shoulder and lets it drop. “Yeah. I could do that.”
Jeez. Don’t blow me away with your enthusiasm.
I leave the room, wondering if she would’ve been more eager to go if I had told them I wasn’t interested.
Just how much does she loathe me this soon after clinging to me in a moment of passion?
And when will I ever learn and remember that no woman can be trusted with my affection?
Not anytime soon.