Page 132 of First-Time Caller
Before the bar?
I force my shoulders to relax. No. I won’t jump to conclusions. Aiden has never given me reason not to trust him. I’m not going to start making assumptions from a fragment of a conversation I wasn’t supposed to hear.
“You could just ask her,” I say as I step into view. Aiden’s head snaps in my direction. I give him a tight smile. “I heard she can be very reasonable.”
Aiden’s throat bobs with a heavy swallow. “Lucie,” he says. I wait for him to say something else, but he doesn’t. He just stares at me, a faintly panicked look on his face.
Maggie stands from behind her desk. “I’m going to go make some coffee.”
She slips out of her office with a squeeze of my arm, her heels clicking down the hall. Aiden and I hold eye contact, his face guarded like he was just caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“She doesn’t drink coffee,” I finally say, hoping it cracks this weird tension between us.
He nods and stays silent. I can’t get a read on him. We’ve been texting and talking since I saw him two days ago, and everything felt fine, but maybe it’s not. Maybe I did something wrong.
I push off the doorframe and collapse in the bean bag in the corner of the room. It makes a light wheezing sound, and Aiden’s face shifts into something soft and amused.
“You want me off the show?” I ask.
He shakes his head, keeping his eyes on me. “No.”
“Then why did Maggie say—”
“Because.” He rubs his neck again, his thumb digging into the hollow beneath his ear. He blows out a breath and drops his hand. He looks exhausted. His whole body is a ruffled, rumpled slouch in Maggie’s chair. I think his shirt is on inside out. “This was always supposed to be temporary, Lucie. And I’m having trouble with that.”
My forehead scrunches. “You’re having trouble with temporary?”
He nods.
“Maggie said you want me out of the booth,” I say slowly. “That’s what I heard.”
He keeps his eyes steady on me. “She’s mistaken.”
“Oh.”
He leans forward and drops his elbows on his knees, his fingers knit between them. “Maybe in the beginning, that’s how it was. But that’s not how it is anymore.”
Relief is swift and sudden in the middle of my chest. “I hope not.”
He shakes his head. His foot shifts forward until the sides of our boots are pressed together. His eyes are bright like gemstones in the dim light of Maggie’s office, his dark hair messy from the constant press of his fingers. “I’m having trouble letting you go.”
“That’s okay,” I say, my voice a rasp. “I don’t want you to let me go.”
“I should, though.” He looks down at his hands, our boots still pressed together. I want to scratch my fingers through his hair. Ease whatever it is that’s making him so weary. “I should,” he says again, softer this time, like he’s trying to convince himself of the fact.
“We knew the show would be temporary, but other things don’t have to be. I’m leavingHeartstrings, Aiden. I’m not leaving—”You, I almost say. But a sudden burst of shyness wraps its fingers around my neck and squeezes. I swallow around it. “You’re stuck with me,” I try to joke.
He still doesn’t look at me. Somewhere in the hallway, a door slams. “What do you think?” he asks our feet. “Next week?”
I tap the side of his shoe with mine. “For what?”
He finally meets my eyes and it’s . . . smoke and mirrors again. He’s holding himself away from me, exactly the way we started, and I have no idea why. “Your last show,” he explains.
“Oh.” I rub my lips together. “Yeah. Sure, yeah. That’s fine with me.”
“All right.”
“Okay.”
