“I have to take care of some stuff back home,” Aiden clarifies, choosing to ignore Noah. “Can you take the twins? I’m going to go back and Amelia volunteered to keep me company. We’ll be there later tonight, don’t worry.”
He’s covering for me so I don’t need to explain or lie about why I need sleeping pills in the first place. Also, he’s saving me from looking like a complete dumbass for forgetting something so important to me.
“Aiden, I—” He quiets me with one look and I stop my protests.
Noah and Julian exchange glances.
“Sure, they can ride with me,” Noah says, eyebrows drawn together. “But can’t whatever it is you have to do wait until after the trip?”
“No,” Aiden replies, his body relaxed, as if he has nothing to hide, but his broad shoulders are set as if daring anyone to challenge him. “Some stupid police release forms or something, I don’t know. I just got a call, it needs to be settled now.”
“Okay, then, but you’re forfeiting your right to have first dibs on a room, you know that, right? Once we get there it’s an every-person-for-themself race to pick a room,” Noah adds, only half joking; I’ve seen the guy push a twelve-year-old out of the way for the best seat in a movie theater.
He opens the door to his truck so the twins can get in beside Charlotte.
“I trust Char to beat you all up in order to get the best room for us,” I say loudly enough for her to hear.
“Already got my elbow pads out and itching to use them!” she yells out the window, even though I know she has zero intention of racing for a room.
Noah closes the door once the twins are in and comes back over to us.
“Make sure they help you bring all the stuff inside, not just go straight to playing,” Aiden tells Noah and Julian, gesturing to the twins with a nod.
“You got it.”
“Guess we’ll see you in a few hours,” Julian says, and they start to turn back to their cars.
“Wait!” I say, remembering something at the last minute.
Aiden glares at me, thinking I’m going to undo all his work, but instead I run back to the passenger side of Aiden’s car and pull an envelope from my purse.
“This is some of the money from the race. You’re going to be hungry and we probably won’t be back in time to go grocery shopping with you, so here. Just get whatever.”
Noah holds out his hand to take the envelope and I’m about to hand it to him when I think better of it and hand it to Julian.
Noah scowls adorably and Julian laughs. “No problem. Text the group chat when you’re on your way back.”
“We will,” I say, and we all head back to our respective cars.
Once we get in the car, I put my seat belt on and then turn to very obviously glare at Aiden. He puts his seat belt on, starts the car, and executes a smooth U-turn, all while ignoring my heated glare, which I know he can feel.
He sighs in defeat. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because this is so unnecessary! I didn’t want you to turn all the way back just for me. I’m a big girl, I can deal with my own consequences.”
“Thea, I know why you need pills to help you sleep. I’m not going to sit back and watch you torture yourself over memories and worries when there’s something I can do about it.”
My heart pounds in my chest with the weight of his words. “But it’s still so out of the way. We’re going to be in the car for another seven hours. I feel bad.”
“Don’t,” he says, looking back at me, his steely gray eyes set with determination. “I want to do this for you. Let me.”
He wants to do this for me. For me.
“Plus,” he adds, a flirty smile spreading across his handsome face, “I get an extra four hours alone with you. I don’t think I pulled the short straw here.”
Again and again I’m reminded why it’s Aiden that I fell for. He’s not frustrated, bothered, or annoyed at all about having to turn around for me. He does things for me all the time without even being asked. Like the incident with Ethan Moore or when my car was vandalized—he just takes care of the people he cares about, no complaints or holding it over anyone’s head. And I am so, so blessed to be one of those people.
I reach out and squeeze the hand that’s on the shifter, before quickly letting go. “Thanks.”
He looks at me, his eyes dancing with unsaid emotion. “Anything for you.”
10
The neighborhood is quiet, lazy even, by the time we get back to my house around two o’clock. The drive was nice, just some quiet, uninterrupted alone time with Aiden. We got to talk about the trivial things that we’ve never really had time for before because of all the drama. Like I learned his favorite color is navy blue. Who would’ve thought? Totally thought it would’ve been black or slate or some variation of black. But I guess navy blue is kind of close.
I also learned that he sticks to a strict workout regimen and never misses a day. Like Monday is apparently international chest day or something, so he does chest and abs. Then Tuesday he does back and abs, and it continues throughout the week until all body parts are taken care of. That explains why he looks so good. Boy works hard for it.
When Aiden pulls into my driveway, I hop out of the car and promise I’ll be back real quick. As soon as I unlock and open the door, my ears are overwhelmed with superloud, romantic Spanish music. I imagine my mom singing into inanimate objects or dancing around doing some barely passable salsa moves. I really don’t want to know what she does during her alone time.
Closing the door, I freeze when I hear a distinctly male laugh. Please, no. Tell me he hasn’t found me. He’s got my mom tied up somewhere and ready to use as bait. Not today, buddy. Not on my watch.
With my heart pounding in my ears and adrenaline coursing through my veins, I carefully open the closet door. Reaching slowly and quietly for the baseball bat we keep there, I’m about to grab it when my mom laughs like a thirteen-year-old girl at her crush’s first house party.
The tension leaves my muscles as I realize how dumb I am. It’s just her new boyfriend. Geez, Amelia. Freak out much?
Not wanting to interrupt them and have an awkward meet the family moment, I quietly make my way up the stairs, careful to avoid being seen from the kitchen. I’m glad my mom has someone new to make her happy in the midst of all this drama. She’s never given me any details about him, but I can tell he makes her happy, which is all I really care about.
I’m almost up the stairs when the radio is lowered a bit, and I freeze as I make out the voices. There’s something eerily familiar about that voice. I know it from somewhere. A commercial? Maybe he’s a lawyer or real estate agent with ads on TV?
With the gnawing feeling in my stomach feeding my need to figure out who this mystery man is, I make it to the top of the stairs and hide in the dark shadows, peering down at the front foyer.
“I’m so glad we have the house to ourselves these next few days before our flight to Hawaii for the week,” my mom says giddily.
Right then, my mom and the mystery man come into view in the front foyer. No. it can’t be. I stop myself from gasping out loud and giving away my hiding spot. How can this be? Does she even know who he truly is? Even I feel betrayed in a sense.
My mom laughs and I zone back in on their conversation. Oh shit, they’re heading for the stairs! I scramble soundlessly into my room, the music from the kitchen obscuring the creaky floor.
I make it into my room and shuffle quietly into my en suite bathroom. I stand frozen in there, practically holding my breath, waiting as I hear my mother’s ecstatic giggles and some gross kissing sounds make their way through the hallway. Her bedroom door closes and I breathe again.
Before Aiden comes looking to see what’s taking so long, I grab the pills from my nightstand and quickly head back downstairs, grateful that the music is still playing and hides my steps. Locking the door again once I’m outside, I practically fly to Aiden’s car, ready to get the hell
away from here.
“Got them,” I say, buckling up, only relieved once we turn the corner and my house is out of sight.
I’m a bit shaken, but I think I’ve managed to hide it from Aiden’s intuitiveness. I always thought my mom wasn’t telling me details about her new boyfriend because she didn’t know how I’d react to her being with someone other than my dad. I thought she was trying to protect my feelings, or was possibly just embarrassed by me.
Aiden asks me something but I’m not paying attention, so I just mumble back a generic response. I thought my mom let me go away this week because she was finally starting to understand me. Did she just want to get rid of me?
Aiden says something else. I reply with a generic “Yeah, sure.”
“Thea!” Aiden demands my attention.
“Hmm?” I reply, looking at him for the first time since I got back in the car.
“Are you okay?” he asks, genuinely concerned.
“Yeah,” I answer, my voice coming out a little too high. I clear my throat. “Why?”
“Because I asked you whose car was parked in front of your house, and you replied ‘Pizza’s fine with me.’”
I close my eyes and do a mental facepalm. Really, Amelia? That was your idea of a generic response?
“Sorry. Just tired from the drive, I guess. And apparently hungry,” I reason, hoping he buys it. I am kind of hungry.
“We’ll stop for pizza. But first tell me what’s wrong,” Aiden gently demands.
“My mother is a homewrecker.”
Aiden brakes a little too hard at the stop sign. “Of all the things I expected you to say, that definitely did not top my list.”
The car moves smoothly forward again, and I turn in my seat to face Aiden. “Believe me, I never thought that was a statement I’d ever utter.”
“What are you talking about? You were only in there a minute or two. What happened?”
I explain briefly, telling him everything from the gross kissing noises and schoolgirl giggling, all the way to my escape, purposely leaving out any names.
“How do you know he’s married?” he asks me, trying to make sense of it.
“Because I know this man, Aiden.”
“Who was it?” he asks, not to be prying and nosy, but to try and help me work through and wrap my head around what’s happening.
I can’t tell him, can I?
“Thea, what are you not telling me?” Aiden responds to my silence.
“She was with Brian Evans,” I whisper. “As in Mason’s dad.”
To Aiden’s credit, he doesn’t jerk the car into oncoming traffic when hearing this new revelation, but his head does whip over to look at me briefly, eyes wide.
“Brian Evans. Our friend Mason’s dad?” he repeats.
“The very same.”
“Oh fuck.”
“Does he have an identical twin brother?” I ask hopefully, already knowing the answer before Aiden shakes his head.
“Do you think he suggested this trip so it’ll be easier for him to sneak around on Natalia?”
Aiden’s fingers shift on the steering wheel. I don’t even know how he’s processing this, especially after all Brian’s done for him these last few days. Plus, Brian is one of the father figures in his life; does this change how he sees him?
“I don’t know. I hope not,” Aiden says. “That wasn’t his car outside your house. He told us he was going on a business trip this week anyway, which from the sounds of it, is really a trip to Hawaii with your mom.”
Everything Mason said about his father working extra hard and taking business trips was bullshit. He was here. Figuratively screwing his wife and literally screwing my mom. Oh God, poor Natalia. And poor Mason. Should I tell him? Does he know? I don’t want to destroy his family or his view of his father.
I can’t believe it. My mind’s running a mile a minute with this new information. My mom and Mason’s dad. I know the Evans men know how to charm the pants (literally) off a girl, but that particular Evans is married. Does my mom even know that Brian is married? She must know. Why else would she have kept him a secret from me? No. She was just hiding the fact that she’s messing around with a married man, who happens to be the father of one of my best friends, and that she’s the other woman in this situation.
Was she cheating on my dad when he was alive? I knew their marriage wasn’t the best at the end, but did she cheat on him before it was even over? Was one of the reasons they were fighting in the first place because she was cheating on him? It’s like I don’t even know my own mother.
“Do I tell Mason? Do I confront my mom? What do I do, Aiden?”
I honestly don’t know what the right thing to do here is. I don’t want to have to deal with this kind of drama; I wish someone would just give me the right answer.
“I think Mason would want to know,” he says, eyes focused on the road, but I can tell he’s thinking through all the options.
“But he’ll hate me. He’ll hate my mom. It’ll ruin his family.” I frown.
I don’t want to hurt Mason and I can’t stand the thought of him hating me. He would be learning that everything he’s been told is a lie; that there weren’t any long nights or business trips. He’d learn that his father chose not to spend Christmas with his family because he’d rather spend it in Hawaii with his mistress.
Aiden looks at me thoughtfully. “Would you want to know, if you were him? Would you be mad if you found out some other way, and then found out your best friend knew the whole time, and didn’t tell you?”
Why does he have to present logical facts? Why can’t he just say, I’m sure it’ll go away by itself, Thea, no need to worry, like I want him to?
“I’m already keeping a bunch of other secrets from him and lying to all my friends, one more can’t hurt, right?” I ask hopelessly, because I already know the answer.
“It’s not the same and you know it.”
I sigh heavily. “Of all days for me to screw up, it had to be today? I just had to go back to get my sleeping pills and walk in on an affair. Typical, Amelia.”
The corner of Aiden’s mouth turns up in amusement. “Oh, don’t place all the blame on Amelia. Thea seems to like drama just as much, keeps her life interesting.”
I playfully hit him with the back of my good hand, but he still manages to make me smile. I know that Mason has the right to know, but what if I’m not the one who tells him?
“Technically, this is all your fault. I didn’t want to come back, but you just had to play the knight in shining armor. I could’ve been blissfully sitting on the patio sipping some fruity cocktail, ignorant to the problems of the world, but noooo, you wanted to turn back.” I cross my arms.
He raises an amused eyebrow. “Are you honestly blaming me right now?”
“Yes,” I say confidently. “And the only way you can make it up to me is if you tell Mason for me?” The statement ends up coming out as a hopeful question, a silent prayer that he’ll take the responsibility for me. I just can’t stand to see Mason’s reaction. Will he be angry? Sad? Heartbroken? Will he even believe me?
“Thea,” he starts softly. “You know if I could take your pain and problems from you, I would. In a heartbeat.”
He runs his hand through his hair, and despite the sincerity and sweetness of his statement, I can feel a big fat “but” coming.
“But,” he continues, “I think you should be the one to tell him. I’ll sit there with you when you do it and support you any way I can, but it’ll mean more coming from you. I didn’t even see anything, Thea. You need to tell him what you saw with your own eyes.”
Damn him. He makes perfect sense. I don’t even know how I could logically argue with him.
I sigh for what must be the twentieth time in the last ten minutes. “Fine, I’ll tell him. But if he doesn’t believe me or throws a table at me, it’s not my fault.”
“Mason wouldn’t throw a table at you. He might try, but he’s not nearly strong enough. I mean
, maybe Julian, but then again—”
“Aiden!” I exclaim. Why is he making light of this situation and trying to make me laugh? Why is it working?
“Relax, Thea. Mason trusts you—he’ll believe you and won’t throw a table at you. Plus, you know I’d never let that table get close enough to hurt you.”
A smile creeps onto my face, my heart a permanent pile of mush whenever he’s around. “Okay, I’ll tell him. But after we get back home. I don’t want to ruin the vacation for him.”
“That seems reasonable to me,” Aiden agrees.
I might possibly be hurling Mason into a messed up, stressful, complicated family life. A couple of weeks having fun with friends with no worries or problems won’t kill him.
“How are you doing with this new information?” Aiden asks.
“I’m fine. It’s not my family that’s going to be torn apart. I guess I just feel bad for Mason.”
I really am fine. I should be mad at my mom for sending me away not because she understands me but because she wanted more alone time with her married boyfriend. I should be mad at her for knowingly being a mistress, but she’s supposed to be the adult here. She should know what’s right and wrong and not rely on her teenage daughter to teach her how not to be a scheming bitch.
Okay, maybe I’m a little mad at my mom, but that’s probably normal. I did just find out she’s a homewrecker.
11
We pull into the driveway of the beach house a bit after seven o’clock since we stopped a couple of times to eat. My first impression of the house is that it’s beautiful. Not so big that we’ll never see each other, but not so small that we’ll invade each other’s personal space. Aiden grabs our bags from the trunk and we walk onto the porch, waiting for someone to open the door for us.
“Finally, you’re here!” Noah says when he opens the door. “We figured you guys decided to pull over and f—Ow!”
Aiden cuts Noah off when he shoves my duffel bag into his chest, forcing him to grab it.
We step into the small foyer and close the door behind us, and I’m greeted by a spacious, brightly lit open area, with couches and a television, where the twins and Julian are playing a video game. Just to the side of the living area is the kitchen and an eating area right beside it. A porch runs from one side of the living room all the way to the end of the eating area, visible through all the windows and clear sliding doors.
Stay With Me (A Wattpad Novel) Page 11
