by Sara Whitney
They straightened their clothes and headed into the kitchen, where she whistled for Blue to follow her into the backyard while he threw together a stack of sandwiches. They carried them upstairs to eat on the balcony after a quick trip through the shower. He stopped short when he saw that she’d added a second lounge chair.
“Expecting lots of company in the bedroom?” Of course what he was really asking was, Is this for me?
But she just laughed and said, “Blue needs someplace to sleep too.”
As if on cue, the little dog hopped up onto the far lounger and curled into a ball. She’d filled out in the month and a half since Thea had taken her in, and her round little belly quivered as she exhaled once and immediately started snoring.
“Guess I’ll just have to share yours,” he said.
They snuggled side by side and fed each other bites of sandwich while they watched the fireflies start their flickering dance in the blue-black that had fallen over her yard. Her head was a heavy weight against his shoulder, and her eyes drooped lower and lower as he combed his fingers through the damp strands of her hair.
He thought she’d succumbed to sleep as easily as her dog had, but she surprised him by shifting closer to him and murmuring, “Promise that we’ll actually stay friends after this ends.”
His hand stilled. “Who says this is ending?”
“Mmm,” she said sleepily, burrowing further into his chest. “The arrangement. The work on the house is all done.”
His alarm from earlier in the day rushed back sharper than ever, but he forced his fingers back into motion. “And what if I want to change the arrangement?”
She drowsily rubbed her cheek against his chest. “Nah. You’re the guy who doesn’t do relationships, and I’m the girl who runs when things get serious. This was always just temporary.”
“That’s awfully pessimistic.” The words barely escaped the tightness in his throat.
“Optimism’s too scary. Better to be realistic.” She tipped her head back to study him, her eyes heavy lidded. “I mean, do you love me?”
He jerked as if her words had electrified him, but before he could muster an answer, she relaxed back against him.
“Exactly. Neither of us is built for the long-term stuff.” She yawned, her voice a tiny bit slurred as sleep pulled her under. “And that’s why we’ve got an end date. Avoid the emotional fallout.”
Those were the last words she spoke before her breathing evened out into the deep heaviness of sleep. Aiden, meanwhile, lay underneath her, unable to do more than wrap his arms around her and lose himself in the now-familiar scent of her hair.
What she’d said made sense. It’s how he’d always lived. In any other circumstance, he’d be relieved to have exactly this kind of out. But as her warm breath feathered his neck, all he could do was stare into the darkness and think about how not panicked he was by her question of whether he loved her.
Twenty-Four
Thea woke up in bed.
Normally that wasn’t unusual, but she was almost entirely sure she’d fallen asleep on the balcony last night.
She stretched, luxuriating in the knowledge that a big strong man had apparently carried her inside and tucked her in and that this had happened at the end of one of the best days she could remember. Sailing was actually pretty great. Maybe her next job should be on a boat.
She pulled herself upright, squinting at the morning light assaulting her senses and crossing her fingers that Aiden had stayed the night and was in the kitchen getting the coffee started.
“I love you.”
“Ahh!” She started at the words and swung her head to see him sitting on the chair adjacent to the bed, elbows on his knees and serious eyes fixed on her. “Sorry, what?”
“Thea, I love you.” He said it again more forcefully, and her eyes darted around the room. Was this a dream? Had she not made it in from the lounge chair after all? But no, why would her dream include a pile of bras and shoes tangled in the corner of her bedroom?
She scooted backward on the mattress until her back hit the headboard. “I don’t get it.”
He stood abruptly and paced in a tight circle around her bedroom. He wore only his boxer briefs, and the sight of his long, lean body was almost enough to distract her from whatever he was trying to say.
“Last night,” he said. “You asked if I loved you. And I do. I love you, Thea.”
She blinked as her sleep-groggy brain struggled to catch up. “Okay, you need to stop saying that for a second.”
She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, halfway expecting to wake herself up and find him gone. But when she pulled her hands away, he was still watching her with that laser-like focus.
“I want to be the guy on the second lounger with you.” He moved to sit on the edge of the bed and gripped her hands.
“Sorry, I think I need coffee for this. Are you saying—”
“No more agreement. Be my girlfriend for real.”
The words started pouring from his mouth faster and faster, and all she could do was press herself tighter against the headboard in an attempt to avoid the dizzying onslaught.
“Let’s not end things. Come and work for us. You’d be the heart of the company. You’d keep us running the way you keep me running. I need you, killer.”
“What? No.” She blurted it out over the pounding of her heart in her chest, jerking away from his grip.
He frowned. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean,” she said, groping on the nightstand for an elastic to secure her tangled hair into a bun, “that I’ve been awake for five seconds and you’ve just dumped all this on me and I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes.” He reached for her hands again, but she dodged him and folded her arms over her chest.
“Say yes. Just like that.” Her words dripped with skepticism.
“Yes. Just like that.”
He smiled that confident Aiden smile that she usually adored, but today it felt like a trap. That smile was a snare, pulled taut and ready to tangle her up until she couldn’t run away. “What am I saying yes to exactly?”
“To me.” His smile dimmed as he started to notice that she wasn’t falling in line with her new marching orders.
“To… what? Loving you? Working with you? Maybe even marrying you someday?” Her voice rose with each question, getting sharper and higher with each ludicrous suggestion.
“Yes! All of that!” He launched into motion again, and Blue trotted at his heels as he paced, her tongue lolling happily with every mincing step of her little paws. At least one woman in the room was excited by this surprise attack. “It’s so simple when you think about it.”
She laughed a little wildly. “You think all that is simple?”
“Okay, you’re right.” He stopped in his tracks, pressing his thumb to his temple. “I’m not a ‘marry me’ guy, or I didn’t think I was. But”—he moved back to the edge of the bed—“that was before you.”
Her brain was finally lurching fully to life, and with each passing moment, the weight of what he was saying settled heavy on her heart. What was he doing? Why was he doing this?
“No.” She shook her head, wishing she could shake off his words as easily. “This was supposed to be safe. Easy.”
“Easy.” He repeated the word in a flat tone.
Now she was the one up and moving, pacing from the bed to the closet and back again. “This wasn’t supposed to be about feelings, remember? You’re the guy who doesn’t do love. You’re…”
“Easy.” His voice hardened.
Was he taking this personally? “Come on, I don’t mean it like that.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and she watched the hopeful expression on his face fade. “You’re no different than the rest of them. I’m just the guy you fuck.”
That last word, dripping with curdled bitterness, seemed to hang in the air between them for a moment before he bent to collect his clothes from where he’d shed
them the night before, and she scrambled to set him straight.
“You’re obviously not just the guy I fuck. You’re…” God, how to explain it? “You’ve been this unobtainable idea for so long, so you were safe for me to fantasize about. But you weren’t supposed to… to love me.”
“And you want me to apologize for that?” He was shouting now, startling her with such an out-of-character outburst.
“Yes!” she sputtered.
“Right. Because I’m easy.”
She watched him jam his legs into his shorts and yank his shirt over his head, getting madder the whole time. He was changing the rules and expecting her to jump in with no questions asked when he knew—he knew—about her commitment issues and exactly why she had them.
“Come on, you weren’t being choosy. I was just the person standing closest to you when you needed a fake girlfriend, and you tossed me into the middle of your life. We’ve never even gone on a date! This isn’t love—it’s convenience.”
His face reddened, but he didn’t contradict her, and if anyone asked, she’d blame her frustration and embarrassment for what she said next.
“I don’t know why you’re getting so upset. I mean, we’ve joked about it before, but this all started because you’re the guy who fucks and leaves.”
His chest rose and fell before he spoke again. “And I can’t change?”
“I didn’t ask you to!” She was yelling now too, but he’d hit her with all this when she was unprepared for it. Straight out of sleep, and he was proposing some kind of lockstep future where she’d work with him and live with him and lose herself into his life and his family and his personality, and she wouldn’t do it. She would not, no matter how precious he’d become to her. “This whole agreement was supposed to be easy because you’re the guy who doesn’t fall in love, and you especially don’t fall in love with someone like me.”
“Except I did!”
“Then stop it! Because I can’t be in a relationship like that. I can’t hand my whole life over to some guy just because he asks me to. I was counting on you to be the one to walk away!”
She thought he’d understood that. He’d known her dad, had memories with him that she didn’t share, but he would never fully understand the way her mom’s gradual disappearance into Peter’s shadow had shaped her childhood. Had shaped her adulthood too. And now things were spinning wildly out of control, and she wasn’t sure she could call it all back.
In the end, he was the one who calmed down first, lifting his chin to look down at her with something close to pity. “Bad news, honey bunny, but we’re already in a relationship. That may not be how it started, but it’s sure as hell what’s happening now no matter how much you try to deny it.”
“Well, sure. It’s like you’ve said all along, we’re friends.” Even as she said it, she was aware of just how short that fell of describing what he actually was to her. But any other name for him was too terrifying to contemplate. And it didn’t matter anyway because he was clearly confusing lust with other feelings. “Come on, you don’t love me. You just like having sex with me.”
He shook his head angrily. “How can you say that after yesterday? That was us being together because we wanted to be together. We didn’t do that for some bullshit fake relationship. There is no fake relationship anymore. It’s real.”
She opened her mouth to correct him, but her throat locked up and prevented her from turning into a liar. They’d blown way past “doing it for public consumption” weeks ago, and he was right. Yesterday on the boat hadn’t been about anything other than spending time with the man she…
No. She didn’t love him. Love was the quicksand she’d avoided her whole life. But her resolve wavered when he stepped close and curled his hands loosely around her shoulders. “I didn’t expect any of this either, but here we are. I love you.”
Her heart and her head might be in turmoil, but her body still responded to all that damn magnetism. He cupped her jaw, and she let herself imagine what it would be like. Making it real, really real, with Aiden. Loving him. Working with him. Being with him forever.
Forever. The word expanded in her head and pushed out all other thoughts.
“No. I’m sorry, but I can’t.” She shrugged off his hands while her heart threw itself against her ribs over and over. She was working so damn hard to clamp down on the surge of emotions threatening to choke her that her next words emerged unguarded. “Look at it this way: I’m saving you from having to let me down easy when you’re ready to get back to your Adonis ways.”
He reeled back as if she’d struck him, the animation draining from his face. “You know what? You’re right. This was…” He swallowed convulsively, his jaw bunching. “It was a mistake to bring this up.”
His voice was wooden, and a cold wave of horror moved through her. But it was too late now; he was yanking on his shoes and moving toward the door. “The work on your house is done. Things are coming together at the office. It’s as good a time as any to call it quits.”
His voice betrayed no emotion, and neither did his eyes, and Thea had to choke back a sob. God, what was wrong with her? She was protecting herself like she always did, but this time it fucking hurt. Their mutually beneficial arrangement had spun wildly out of control, and her insides felt scooped out and hollow.
But it was done. She’d said what she had to, and he was leaving.
“At least let me give you the number for my temp agency.” She barely recognized her own voice, ragged and small, but she could be his friend one last time. “They can send you someone to fill in until you can find a permanent hire.”
His quiet laugh was deeply unamused. “Thanks.”
He bent and stroked his hand down Blue’s little back, then straightened and looked at her once more. She held her breath, terrified that he’d say something perfect. Something that would blow through the walls she’d tossed up for both of their sakes.
Instead, he shook his head. “See ya round, killer.”
And he walked out of her room.
As his steps echoed down the stairs, she sank to the floor and wrapped her arms around her knees. Blue scampered over to climb into her lap and nuzzled her face with her cold little nose. She wrapped her arms around the dog’s tiny body, grateful for her warmth.
She was right about this. She knew she was. Aiden would eventually be grateful for his narrow escape from domesticity. In fact, she bet business was about to get good again for the stacked blondes of Beaucoeur. And she’d just saved herself from the pain of being trapped in a relationship that had the potential to warp her into someone she didn’t want to be. It was for the best for both of them.
So why did she burst into tears when she heard the slam of the hobbit door as Aiden walked out of her life?
Twenty-Five
“Remember what I told you? Find the most unpleasant man in the group and direct all your pee at him. You’ll know the one.”
Blue yipped once and looked up with naked adoration on her little monkey face, her frantically wagging tail whacking Thea’s ankle.
“Okay,” she told the dog. “Here we go.” With a big exhale, she pushed through the gate of her mom and Peter’s backyard and headed straight for the lady of the hour, who was holding court in the center of the partygoers.
“Happy graduation, Belly!” She hugged her half sister, who squealed and hugged her back.
Belly glanced curiously over Thea’s shoulder, and of course there was no Moo Daddies drummer to be found. But Thea was. Not. Thinking. About. That. Today. Today was about Belly, and the wretched state of her heart would just have to wait. She just needed to fake her way through the next hour or so and then fall apart at home. Brave face on, big smile activated. Nobody would be the wiser.
Bless her heart, Annabelle didn’t say a word about Aiden’s absence, instead crouching to scratch Blue’s ears. “Hello, pretty girl! Don’t you look fetching today?”
Blue wriggled in delight, setting her rhinestone collar ji
ngling. “She really is the best dog,” Thea said. “So how does it feel to say buh-bye to Beaucoeur High?”
“Amazing.” Annabelle, taller than Thea by a head and a half, slung an arm around her shoulder as they cased the backyard. “Okay, here’s the lay of the land. My high school peeps are at the food table—don’t worry, Mom had it catered—and Dad and his gross coworkers are hanging out by the grill.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s not even on! I will never understand what it is with men and grills.”
Thea’s smile vanished. She had a brand-new grill sitting in her yard, and the guy who’d bought it for her wasn’t going to be coming around anymore. “Yeah. Heh. Men and meat,” she said weakly.
The new graduate didn’t even notice her strained tone. “Anyway, the gift table’s there, Mom’s gossiping with the aunts inside, and most importantly, there’s the drink station.” She concluded by pointing one black-and-red manicured nail at a little bar cart tucked against the side of the house.
“Then that’s where I shall be.” Drink to forget, right? If so, she’d better start right now. “By the way, please tell me you’re gonna ditch this shindig and spend at least part of tonight doing something outrageous with your friends.”
“Pssht, of course. When I give the signal, execute Operation Distract Mom.”
They exchanged the complicated fist-bump handshake they’d perfected when Belly was still using training wheels, and Thea couldn’t help but smile as she crossed the yard to pour herself a glass of merlot. Peter was a pain in the ass, but she did love his daughter with all her heart.
Wine in one hand and Blue’s leash in the other, she began making the rounds. Her eyes still throbbed from the tears she’d shed that morning, but she’d compensated with dramatic eyeliner and bright red lips. Hopefully nobody would notice the misery following her like a shadow. She stopped first at the gift table to deposit a wrapped box containing the high-end backpack Belly’d been coveting for months.
Then she moved on to greet Annabelle’s teachers over the cheese tray, followed by the pack of tall girls her sister had played varsity volleyball with as they devoured a mound of pigs in a blanket. Every single one of the lanky eighteen-year-olds had uniformly straight, glossy hair and healthy, glowing skin. She had a decade more life experience than all of them, and she was being thoroughly shown up in the beauty department. If Aiden were here, he’d tease her about her inferiority complex—
