by Kyle Autumn
And that is all the reminder I need to stay the hell away from Mason and Nic until they figure their shit out.
Chapter 7
Aidan
As soon as I get to work, Matt finds me and gives me that look. The one that says You know exactly what I expect tonight after work and don’t even try to get out of it. I wave him off. I don’t have the energy or the desire to get into it all now, especially after what happened after he left the bakery. And, when I get to my truck, I get the same shit from Jeremy, who looks exhausted. Three more days of this double-shift thing and he’s done, but he looks ready to throw the towel in now.
“You know where I’ll be when you’re done with work,” he says around a yawn. “I better see your ugly mug there, because we need that story, man.”
“Yeah, well…” I help him close the back of my truck. “More happened last night and I’m even more confused, so we’ll see.”
“Confused about what?” he asks. “She’s your brother’s girlfriend. I think you need to leave it alone.”
I raise one eyebrow at him. “Would you have left Amelia alone if she’d been Matt’s girlfriend?”
He opens his mouth to answer, but nothing comes out.
So I keep going. “In fact, she thought you were engaged and she didn’t really leave you alone, so…”
With his hands up in the air, he says, “Okay, okay. But fuck, dude.” He sighs. “That’s your brother. It’s gonna mess shit up.”
“I think he did that on his own,” I mumble to myself as I make my way to the driver’s side.
“He what?” Jeremy questions, following behind me.
I lean back against the side of the truck. “I don’t know.” Shrugging, I say, “Last night, she said they’re not really together because of something he did.”
His head reels back as if he’s in shock. “That asshole didn’t hit her, did he?”
Smirking, I shake my head. “No, but I had that same reaction. Looked her over head to toe, but I didn’t see anything.”
Now, he squints at me. “Wait, what do you mean you looked her over head to toe?” Then he takes a looming step toward me and raises an eyebrow. “Exactly how much of her did you see last night?”
“A lot.” I wave a hand at him. “But not like that. She said they’re not together but some shit about how he doesn’t know that yet, so I left.”
Jeremy puts his hands on his hips and whistles. “You walked away after seeing ‘a lot’ of her?” He uses air quotes. “Man.” Shaking his head, he stares at the ground. Then he flicks his gaze back to me. “You’re stronger than I am.”
I scoff at him and get into the driver’s seat. There’s no way he’d say that if he knew what kind of thoughts I had in the shower last night. But I’m not telling him that. I’m not telling anyone about that.
So all I say is, “It’s not strength, Jeremy. Believe me, I nearly lost control with her. I said some things I…” Those exact things float across my brain, shame and lust hitting me equally as I remember how she reacted to my provoking words. “I shouldn’t have said those things to her, but I’m not the runner up here. I’m not the consolation prize.”
I won’t be the man she runs to because the man she’s with isn’t working out. I won’t be who she’s with next because I’m available and willing. I want her to be with me because she wants to be with me. Not because she doesn’t want to be with Mason or because she needs help getting out of a relationship. I’m not an excuse.
And I won’t be made one.
“I know what you mean,” Jeremy tells me, running a hand through his hair. “But does she know that?”
I fill my lungs with as much air as I can. Doesn’t feel like much after the night I had, but it’ll have to do. “Honestly, I have no idea anymore.”
~~~
Unlike yesterday, the workday dragged ass. Today, I actually want to talk this out. I’ve never been one to unload my problems on other people. In fact, I’ve never been one to talk much period. But it’s like I can’t seem to stop myself now. Shit’s so fucked up that words want to spill right out of me. I almost wanted to someone on my route what happened last night when he thanked me for delivering his package. So I’ve patiently had to wait for this day to end so I can meet up with Matt and Jeremy at Amelia’s bakery.
But then I remember that Nic was there yesterday when we tried to meet up. So I decide we need to go somewhere she definitely won’t be.
When I get to Matt’s house, Cadence answers the door. “Hi! Matthew’s going to be a little late,” she says as he hugs me. “He went to pick up Dani before he realized Jeremy could just bring her here, so they’ll all be here soon.”
When she lets me go, I take in the boxes stacked in their living room. She catches me looking at them and sighs.
“Only a week and a half before these boxes will be gone!” she tells me.
I point to them. “Stuff for the wedding?”
“Favors, decorations…” She trails off as she walks to the kitchen. “It’s all so much!”
“But it’ll all be worth it, right?” I ask as I follow her.
With her hand on the refrigerator handle, she spins to face me. “Oh my gosh, yes.” She pulls two water bottles out of the fridge. “This is going to be everything my first wedding wasn’t. Especially since the man I’m marrying is a much better partner for me.”
She smiles as she hands me a bottle, and I smile back, but it’s an absentminded gesture. Something about her words isn’t sitting right. They strike a nerve with me, but I can’t put a finger on why.
“Well,” I start, trying to let it go, “Matt’s never been happier, so I’m glad you gave him a shot.”
After pulling a barstool out from under the breakfast bar, she sits and sighs happily. “He makes me feel the same way. And I realized I never felt that with my ex, you know? I was excited to get married, build a life with someone I could rely on, and live the dream.” Her thumb absently picks at the label on the bottle. “But I wasn’t excited to marry him. And that’s how I know this is different with Matthew. I get to be with him but be myself too. That’s important to me, and I didn’t get that with my ex-husband.”
While she untwists the cap to her water bottle, a realization hits me like a wave. I noticed how un-Nic Nic is now. Yeah, we all change, but she’s nothing like the woman she wanted to be when I first got to know her. And I wonder if she’s the woman she wants to be now.
Mason was always more willing to take risks and put himself out on the line. Whereas I was calculated, way more careful. I thought things through before I did them. Which meant Mason got more done, accomplished more, and had more to show for his life. More, seemingly, to offer Nic. By the time I’d thought it all out and planned my next move, he’d already made his and she’d accepted his offer.
But what if she’d thought about changing her mind and decided not to so she could take the safer bet of being with Mason, the man with more to offer? What if I’ve had a shot this whole time if I’d just taken a bigger risk?
Cadence’s phone buzzes on the counter, and when she looks at it, she says, “That’s Matthew. He’s five minutes away.” Then she picks it up. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”
“Actually,” I tell her, leaving my water bottle untouched, “I have to go. Thanks for the chat. See you next weekend.”
Then I get back in my Jeep and drive off before I even realize where I’m going.
***
Nic
“You sure it’s okay if I stay here?” I ask Amelia for the third time. “I really don’t want to put you guys out. I know you’re Aidan’s friends. I just…”
Amelia touches my arm as I trail off. “It’s really no trouble at all. We promise.”
“Thank you. So much.” I set my bag near the couch and take a careful seat. “I just don’t want to be alone. Mason has so much work to do while he’s here, and I don’t know anyone else here besides Aidan, and…” And I trail off again.
Everyt
hing circles back to him. Always.
She heads to the kitchen, which has a few boxes stacked in the corner. “Want some coffee? We can chat if you want.”
I click my tongue and meet her by the coffee pot. “You serve people coffee all day. I’m not letting you do that for me in your own home.”
Giving up easily, she pushes herself up onto the counter to sit. “Can’t argue with that, I guess.” She smiles at me while I get to work.
Once the coffee is brewing, I look for mugs. She directs me to the right place, and I take two of them down.
“These are really cute,” I tell her, inspecting both of them carefully. “Where’d you get them?”
She cocks her head and raises an eyebrow. “You really want to talk about coffee mugs right now?”
Okay, she got me. No, of course I don’t. Maybe I did ask to go home with her from the shop because I’m desperate to talk to someone who has no stake in this and won’t feel like they need to fix me. I never really made any friends when I moved to Aidan’s hometown. Well, besides Aidan, and we all know how that turned out.
Still, I’m so hesitant to finally say the words out loud. So I point to the boxes instead and give her a halfhearted grin. “Moving out?”
She swings her head toward them, and her grin is anything but halfhearted. It’s a mile wide and nearly splitting her face in two. “Nope,” she says, popping the P at the end of the word. “Jeremy’s moving in.”
“Oh, congratulations!” I smirk at her. “I knew that guy loved you something fierce.” Then I chew my lip. I’m not so nosy as to ask the question on the tip of my tongue.
But it’s apparently written all over my face, because she says, “Yeah, he’s a little younger. Like fresh-out-of-college younger and I’m almost thirty. But we make it work.” She starts to blush a little, and I assume that means they make it work pretty well.
To take the awkward out of the situation, I say, “So, he’s finishing his job at Nat Ex”—I manage not to say with Aidan—“working at the bakery, and packing to move here? Damn.”
“I know!” She hops off the counter when the coffeemaker beeps. Then she pours two mugs. “The poor guy barely lets me help, but all he says is how worth it it’ll be in the end. Cream? Sugar?”
“Black is fine.” Mostly it’s fine because I told her she didn’t have to serve me in her home, but it’s also fine because coffee is the last thing I care about right now.
Hearing her words makes me yearn for something I’ve never had. Something I possibly could have had if I’d made the riskier choice. Something I may never have based on how badly I screwed things up last night.
She hands me a cup and snaps me out of my thoughts. Then she gestures with her head for me to follow her back to the living room. “Okay, enough about me. I can see it all over your face that something’s going on. Spill.”
After a deep breath on her couch, I do—from the beginning. “Seven years ago, I met Aidan,” I start, staring at my coffee. “He was such a good friend to me. Helped me get a job when I was new in town, showed me around. He was just what I needed right after college. A friend, you know?”
She nods, taking a sip from her own mug in her chair across from me.
“But then I met his brother, Mason. And he showed actual interest in me. Aidan had hinted a few times, but he never came out and said it. And I was too shy back then romantically to ever make a move. Plus, my dad never would have approved.” I curl my legs under me and get comfortable as I tell Amelia about this uncomfortable part of my life. “Mason was established. He had a job, an apartment—a real, solid life. He took risks and came out a winner more times than he lost, so he had something to show for himself.”
“But Aidan?” Amelia asks quietly.
I exhale a long breath out through my nose. “But Aidan was a risk, and I didn’t take those. I didn’t think I could afford to, no matter how dreamy and perfect his plans sounded. Not with the way my father was breathing down my neck. Aidan wanted to scrape by on his art while he waited tables and did odd jobs here and there. He didn’t think that was a risk because he’d planned it out, but to me, it sounded unstable and downright terrifying.”
She purses her lips to the left side of her mouth. “Art? Are you sure you’re talking about the Aidan we both know?”
My face falls. “Is he not painting anymore?”
Shrugging, she says, “I mean, I haven’t known him for very long, but that’s not something I can even imagine him doing.”
I sigh, my body sagging forward. “That’s sad to hear. He was really good at it.” Then I chew my lip, begging myself not to feel responsible for his change of plans.
“Maybe he still does. Maybe he keeps it to himself.” She takes another sip of her coffee and then sets her mug on the table beside her. “If there’s one thing I do know about that man, it’s that he’s very, very private.”
That elicits a giggle from me. “You know, I don’t know if it’s private as much as he thinks too much. He’s so in his head about things, weighing the pros and cons, instead of getting out there and living. That’s the Aidan I know.”
Amelia kicks her feet up onto the right side of her chair and leans to the left, propping herself up with her arm. “Okay, so you chose Mason. Then what?”
“Then,” I say reluctantly, tracing the rim of my mug with a finger, “Aidan finally told me how he felt. With a kiss, no less.” A small smile curves my lips before I can stop it, so I bring a hand up to my mouth to cover it.
Her gasp hits my ears. “But it was too late,” she finishes for me.
I nod. “You can say that. I’d already said yes to Mason. I didn’t think I could take it back and then choose his brother. It felt…” As I search for the right word, I sip my coffee. Then I set it on the table next to me. I’m still thinking about what to say when she speaks up.
“Wrong. You had to make an impossible choice.” She puts a hand over her heart. “I can’t imagine being in those shoes, coming between brothers.”
I put a hand out, palm up. “Exactly.”
“So you stayed with Mason.”
“I did,” I answer, nodding again. “And it’s cost me everything.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “What do you mean?”
I pick at my pants, smoothing out the creases in the denim. “I’m nothing like the person I thought I’d be. I’m rigid and in a fucking knitting club for heaven’s sake.” I slap my leg as I laugh a little about that. It’s a mirthless laugh that fits the mood. “I’m basically a kept woman. In my quest to be safe and please my father, I’ve lost all the fun of life.”
“Fun maybe Aidan could have given you?” she questions carefully.
As I think about it, I sigh and shrug. “I don’t know. He looks like he’s done well for himself, so maybe he’s not the guy he used to be, either. Maybe we wouldn’t even be compatible, even though he…” I let the words die on my tongue as I think about what he said to me last night. Even though he compares every woman he sleeps with to me.
Ugh. I don’t want to think about how many women he’s been with. Or about how I’ve only been with one man for the last seven years and that hasn’t exactly sharpened my bedroom skills.
“Even though he still thinks he loves you?” Amelia quietly asks. “Because, from the limited stuff I’ve heard, the man is one hundred percent hung up on you.”
“But we’re different now,” I protest, lifting my shoulders. “He’s a different guy, and I’m damaged goods. I can’t imagine—”
“Wait. You’re what?” she asks, straightening her spine. “I couldn’t have heard you right.”
I shake my head sadly. “No, you did.”
She mimics the head shake, but it’s not in a sad way. “No way. Not even close.” Then she scoffs. “What does that mean? I don’t even know, but I don’t agree.”
After a big inhale, my lungs feeling ready to burst, I finally free the words I’ve been wanting to say since I found out three months ago. “I’m da
maged goods. Mason must have thought so. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have cheated on me.”
Chapter 8
Aidan
I pound on the door, not sure if I’m hoping for Nic or Mason. I had Nic on my mind when I left Cadence’s house—though when don’t I have Nic on my mind? But I also want to strangle Mason for whatever the hell he did to her. Because I’m sure she didn’t deserve it and he obviously hurt her. And because he messed up the best thing that’ll ever happen to him.
When the door swings open, I’m only partially shocked to see Mason on the other side. He’s still in a suit, all dressed for business. And a quick peek around the place doesn’t reveal Nic, but I don’t know where she could be.
“Where’s Nic?” I ask so I don’t say anything I shouldn’t around her.
“She sent me a text saying she’s staying at Amelia’s house. That’s the woman from the bakery you sent us to, right?” He rubs his eyes and stifles a yawn. “I can barely remember even going there yesterday.”
Now that he’s done talking, I push the door open and breeze past him. Whatever happened between them is coming out now. I’m done being in the dark.
“Did you want to get dinner?” Mason asks, awkwardly pointing at the door. “I just got back from the office and figured I’d order room service and go to sleep, but if you want—”
“Why don’t you care that Nic’s not here with you?” I throw at him. “You’re both in a city you’re unfamiliar with and she’s spending time with a woman you don’t know. How does that not bother you?”
His head jerks back as his brow creases. “It’s not that it doesn’t bother me, but there isn’t much I can do about it, Aidan. I don’t control her.”
“You’ve done something to her,” I spit out. “When I brought her back here last night, she cried but told me she couldn’t give me details, so I’m here to get them from you.” Then I cross my arms over my chest, hoping the stance proves to be intimidating enough to get the truth from him.