Chapter 22 #2
For the first time, Ty met my gaze. It was just for a second, and I felt that look punch through me. It gutted me. It was like he was looking right through me. Addressing Cady-Jo’s question, he gave her his full attention. “New York’s a lot worse than Atlanta.”
“Oh, Ty.” Olivia playfully swatted his arm, giggling so hard her breasts, which were barely contained in the silk shirt she wore, threatened to spill out with her exaggerated movements. “New York wasn’t so bad. You just didn’t stay long enough to see all it had to offer.”
“You’ve been to New York?” I asked without thinking. We’d talked about some of our travels over the last several weeks, and I couldn’t remember him ever mentioning the place.
He answered me with a nod, looking at his sister, Delilah, who just strolled in with a couple of her friends, taking a booth on the opposite side of the café.
Octavia, oblivious to the tension at the table, provided all the details I didn’t want. “He did. Even after they broke up, Ty still came to bring Olivia to the prom knowing she wouldn’t have a date. We moved a month before school ended, you see.”
Broke up.
They broke up. Because they were together.
My stomach twisted. Suddenly, I was acutely aware of the way they sat.
Olivia was practically in Ty’s lap, her hand touching his forearm often when he rested it on the table or her shoulder rubbing against his.
I also catalogued the way he looked at her, the way he would talk to her, and the small smile playing on lips that had kissed me and hadn’t smiled for me.
But they smiled for her. My coffee turned to acid in my stomach.
I dropped my hand, rubbing it, hoping the sudden nausea would fade.
I realized everyone at the table was waiting for me to say something. “That was really nice of him.” My voice sounded off, even to my ears. I hoped no one noticed.
Around us, the conversation flowed, and I listened with only half an ear. In my head, I started counting. There was a chip in my nail, and I focused on the jagged edge. My nails never really grew long, constantly washing my hands and typing were hell on them. Still, that jagged edge bothered me.
While I tried to smooth it out, I heard them all discuss the changes in Maplehurst since the Spencers had left. Cady-Jo suggested Ty help Olivia move her things from the Spencers’ home into the apartment Olivia rented. Right down the street from Ty’s.
I’d been quiet so long that, at one point, Helen nudged me, checking if I was alright.
“I’m just tired.” And feeling sicker and more tired each second, I watched Ty and Olivia, who was clearly flirting with him, together.
Calling myself every kind of fool, I tried to surreptitiously determine if Ty was flirting back.
It didn’t look like it. Or that’s just wishful thinking on your part.
Certainly, he was friendlier with her than he’d been with me.
“I heard you’re renovating Winterbourne Manor,” Octavia said with a wistful smile. “I loved that house as a girl. It must be such a huge project.”
Ty shrugged, sitting straighter. I felt something tap my foot, and given I wasn’t really paying attention, I pulled my foot back, figuring it was someone trying to adjust their legs and accidentally knocking mine.
“It’s a great house. It’ll be done in about eight more weeks,” he tacked on the answer to Olivia’s question.
“He’s done really amazing work. I’m so grateful he took my Murder Manor on when he did.” I delivered this with a genuine smile, resulting in confused looks from Olivia and Octavia. I forgot not everyone knew my pet name for my house. Without being asked, I explained, which resulted in laughs.
“I thought you were supposed to be taking time off?” Olivia looked quizzically at Ty.
“As Dad says, ‘Work is work.’ There will be time for a vacation later.” Ty’s voice held no emotion, and I nearly choked on my coffee.
Work is work. Even before Friday night, I wouldn’t have expected that answer from him.
Two more minutes. Just two more minutes.
“Oh!” Olivia looked crestfallen. “I was hoping we’d get to spend some time together now I’m back.”
I’d just bet she did.
“Aren’t you working with your dad this week?
” Cady-Jo brought up the scheduled break I’d forgotten about.
“You guys are at City Hall, right? Isn’t the insurance company you work for just down the street, Olivia?
” It was ridiculous she was phrasing it as a question when everyone knew she knew where everything in this town was.
Helen’s frown said she thought the same thing.
“Maybe you guys can grab lunch together? It’ll give you a chance to catch up before you take Olivia to the Spencers’ anniversary party. ”
And the hits just keep on coming. Ty was taking Olivia to a party. Of course he was.
“You should come, too, Phoebe.” Octavia extended the invitation with a genuine smile. Without missing a beat, she explained the black-tie theme and that it was a party for her parents, who had been married for sixty years.
Once again, I sought Ty out, and this time, he was looking right back at me, expression blank.
Something tapped my foot again and I shifted. Too many feet under a booth made for a lot of footsie I didn’t want to play. I tried to find an excuse not to come, but everyone was watching me. Peer pressure sucked. Seeing no way out, I agreed to go.
“That’s great!” Octavia beamed. “It’ll be nice to have some fresh blood there.”
I gave her a smile, feeling the first spark of something other than misery.
In my head, I figured my clock had run out and I turned to look at the clock I knew was on the wall when a person entering the café caught my attention.
“Aaron?”
The large man with dark hair in a military cut swung toward me. His piercing eyes that always were cold for everyone else warmed. “Hey, stargazer.” The sound of the nickname he’d given me when we were kids wrapped around me.
I scrambled out of my seat and all but threw myself into his arms without thinking about the attention we would draw.
His big arms closed around me, and I let the feelings of calm and safety surround me as they always did when I was with him.
To everyone who saw him, he was a big, mean military captain without a sense of humor.
To me, he was the big teddy bear who kept the bullies away when I was a kid, letting me sit and daydream about my stories without ever getting upset when I wouldn’t speak for hours.
“What are you doing here?” Peeling back, I smiled up at him. A smile that caught a few people’s attention. “I thought you were still deployed?”
Unlike my brother, Aaron was in the part of the military you weren’t allowed to talk about. The only thing anyone was ever allowed to know was when he was deployed and when he wasn’t. That was it.
“Things change,” he said cryptically, his eye crinkling.
I understood immediately, reading the code we’d established over a lifetime of friendship.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Helen poked me in the arm, leaning all the way forward in her seat.
“Oh, yeah.” I blushed, tucking closer to Aaron. He was huge, and his size was a very good shield against onlookers. “Everyone, this is my friend Captain Aaron Wyndham. Aaron, this is…” I introduced everyone.
They all greeted Aaron pleasantly, looks of curiosity and appreciation for his service flowing. Everyone except Ty. He gave Aaron a curt nod, and his welcome was anything but friendly.
Aaron raised an eyebrow at me and I shrugged. I was too exhausted to deal with any of this. Besides, Aaron was so rarely here, I wanted to focus on him and not the soap opera my life had become.
“So what brings you to Maplehurst, Captain?” Helen lifted the plate of cookies, offering it to Aaron.
“Just Aaron, ma’am. I heard a certain cookie maker”—Aaron snagged a cookie, holding it up—“put down roots in these parts and thought I’d come check it out.
” He threw an arm around my shoulders, pulling me to his side and slightly behind him.
I was surprised by the move, and suddenly very alert.
The only time Aaron ever did it was when his protective instincts were fully engaged.
For the next couple of minutes, the standard questions were asked: How long have you known each other? When did you meet? Yada. Yada. Yada.
I could feel the agitation flow off Aaron and wondered at it.
“I don’t mean to interrupt you all, but would you mind if I stole Phoebe for a bit?” Aaron asked this in the way he was asking but wasn’t, even as he remained polite.
They were all happy to let me go, which I tried not to take personally. Louise insisted on getting Aaron a coffee and a sandwich, which meant we couldn’t just leave.
Fortunately, a booth across the room became available, and Aaron pulled me into it. So whatever it was he needed wasn’t top secret.
While we waited for Louise to bring his coffee and food, I questioned him. “So…” Yes, I was aware nothing good ever started with that and I was being a hypocrite. “Why are you actually here?”
Aaron didn’t do random drop-ins.
“I need a favor.”