Page 118 of First-Time Caller
A bolt of heat sizzles up my spine. I try to find the thread of our conversation. “Your seven minutes,” I repeat, watching with interest as he licks at his bottom lip. “What were you doing in here?”
“Oh, ah.” The color on his cheeks burns deeper. He scratches once at his jaw. “It’s—well. It feels sort of ridiculous now.”
Curiosity has me pressing up on my toes, searching over his shoulder. The only thing I can see from the hallway is the corner of a slate gray couch, his sweatshirt tossed over the arm. “What do you mean?”
He tips his head back and mutters something at the ceiling. I fall back to the flats of my feet and search his face. It’s the same look as the one he had in the tow truck, when he reluctantly confessed to ordering a pineapple pizza. A touch of bewilderment at his own actions.
“Now I have to know.”
He releases a sigh. “I’ll show you.”
“If it’s in your basement, I’m not interested.”
Aiden doesn’t move a muscle.
“That was a joke,” I offer. He’s holding himself so still, I need to glance at his chest to make sure he’s still breathing. “Aiden?”
“I’ll show you,” he says again, slower this time, dragging out each word, his voice resigned. He grabs my hand with his and takes two gigantic steps backward. I follow, tapping my fingers across his knuckles. I’m so busy studying the way our hands fit together that I miss it when he stops at the entrance of his living room, my front colliding with his.
He holds me steady with his hand squeezed against mine as we stare at his . . . project.
“I figured we could eat the pizza here,” he says carefully, eyes flicking toward me and away again. He’s acting like he’s just presented me with a pipe bomb, not a . . . poorly constructed fort in the middle of his living room. He nods toward the mess of cushions and haphazardly thrown blankets.
Now I know what he was doing with his seven minutes. He was collecting every spare blanket and a beach towel—if the blue sea turtles are any indication—to create a makeshift tent.
“Like a picnic,” I breathe. I look up at him and grin. “You remember what I said.”
A dark room. Headphones over my ears. A mug of coffee in my hands. Aiden, right next to me, his knee pressed to mine.
I like thinking that I’d be worth the trouble of something like that.
“I remember all the things you’ve said,” he grumbles, voice low, and I’m not sure I was supposed to hear it because he rubs his free hand over his mouth and continues to stare at the fort. Meanwhile I’m practically bursting next to him, champagne bubbles of happiness rising in the center of my chest. I feel like I’m Charlie in the chocolate factory, right after he drinks that bubble juice. I’m about to float through the ceiling.
“It’s a nice fort,” I say, rolling my lips against my smile.
It’s the worst fort I’ve ever seen. One of the cushion walls collapses as we stand in the doorway, the white sheet stretched over the top of it fluttering to the ground.
Aiden sighs. “Don’t lie.”
“No, no. It’s very nice.” I inspect it like I’m standing in the Louvre, both of my hands behind my back. This couch cushion is theMona Lisa. “Is that a fitted sheet?”
“I only had seven minutes. Tone down the judgment.”
“There’s no judgment.” Another cushion falls over. “You were the one who said seven minutes. You could have asked for—I don’t know—fifteen.”
“I’m not sure fifteen minutes would have salvaged the situation.”
I tip my head back and laugh. It bursts out of me in a cackle. With anyone else, I’d probably be self-conscious, but this is Aiden.
I finally manage to gather control of myself, wiping at the tears on my cheeks. Aiden is leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, a fond look on his handsome face. Now he’s the curator, and I’m the priceless piece on the wall.
“Want some pizza?” he asks.
I drop my hands from my cheeks and smile at him. “I really, really do.”
Aiden rips down the rest of the sheets and we sit in the middle of the cushions, a lukewarm pizza box in the space between us. He says it’s disgusting, but I think Aiden is probably full of shit, because he goes back for seconds and then thirds, plucking a piece of pineapple from the corner of the cardboard box to drop into his mouth. I stare at the flex of his fingers on his plate and the long line of his neck while he drinks from his glass, and I’m very proud of myself when I wait until the end of the meal to voice the thought that’s been circling since I hopped out of a tow truck and saw him waiting.
“I think you should kiss me,” I tell him, my legs folded under me. He pauses where he’s been scrolling through the TV channels, his body in one long line against the cushions. He angles his head where it’s propped against his fist to get a good look at me.
