I shrug. “That too.”
She shakes her head with a curled lip. “This is only the second time I’ve been around you again, and I can alreadytell anger seems to be your default. You weren’t like this when we were younger.”
“Yes, I was.”I just never let you see it.
She was too innocent, too naive when she arrived at Gina and Patrick’s. She had those big blue eyes filled with tears that first night. I don’t know how I didn’t recognize her the other week when I saw her again. They still look the same, minus the tears. There’s a hardness behind them that didn’t used to be there, and it bothers me to think what might’ve stolen that innocence.
She picks up a bite of steak and looks me over while she chews. The assessing look in her eye puts me on edge.
“If you’re trying to read me, it’s not going to work.”
“Why?” she presses. “You think you’re so aloof and guarded that I couldn’t possibly figure you out?”
“I think I only let people see what I want them to see. And you’re no different.”
She rears back the smallest bit, like my last sentence physically hit her, and she quickly turns her attention back to her food. Silence descends over our table as I watch her cut another few bites of meat.
She gathers up another bite but frowns at it and sets it back down before looking at me again. “I think I might actually be one of the only people that can read you, and the others are your friends who, from the sounds of it online, don’t seem to like you all that much anymore. So now, you’re trying to put up some sort of front with me, probably like you did with them, and trying to distract me with little jabs and arguments so that way we don’t talk about anythingreal. So that way, you can focus on all that anger you’ve got inside of you instead of feeling anything else, because other feelings are too uncomfortable.”
It takes everything in me not to move a single muscle, not to show a single sign of anything as she continues.
“And I think ever since you saw me, you’ve been feeling a lot of things you don’t like, just like I have since seeing you.” She huffs out a breath. “And if you’re not willing to admit that, to actually be an adult and try to get to know each other for who we are now and not for who we were as kids, then there’s no use in us saying anything at all.”
And with that, we eat the rest of our dinner in silence. When the check comes, I pay it while Aspen runs to the bathroom. I meet her at the front and we walk to the car in continued silence.
When we pull up outside her apartment, she grabs her purse and I wordlessly pop the trunk for her to grab her guitar. But once she’s out the door, I roll the window down to catch her.
“Do you work tomorrow night?”
She leans down, giving me a look at her cleavage that I try to ignore. “Yeah,” she says hesitantly. “Please don’t come in again, I still need to talk to Kevin and smooth everything out from tonight.”
I grit my teeth. “There shouldn’t be anything to smooth out.” She opens her mouth to interrupt but I keep on. “But whatever. I was asking because I’ll pick you up again after work and drive you home.”
Her nails drum against the windowsill. “That’s not necessary.”
“So you have a ride?”
“I walk, as you know,” she quips.
“That won’t be happening anymore.”
Her lips part in surprise as insolence flares in her eyes. “You can’t tell me?—”
“I either give you a ride, or you let me get you a car. And since you seem to have such a problem accepting help, I’m going to assume you’re not going to let me buy you one. So just tell me what time you get off, and don’t think about lying to me, or else I’ll just come and hang out all night until you’re done. And you don’t seem to want that, now do you?”
I’d be melted on the spot right now if looks could kill. Her entire body is stiff as I watch all the words she wants to spit at me being forced back down her throat. I wish she’d say them. Wish she’d pick another fight with me.
But her shoulders droop in surrender as she sighs like the weight of the world is on her shoulders. “Fine,” she says through clenched teeth. “I close tomorrow night, so I won’t be done until midnight. Is that too late for you, old man?” She arches a brow in condescension that matches the way I just spoke to her.
There it is.
“Not too late. As you said before, I’m unemployed. I have nothing but time on my hands.” Needing to get the final word, I start to roll the window up. Aspen’s eyes flare and she quickly pulls back before it shuts. I wouldn’t actually have pinched her fingers in it, but the look on her face is priceless.
With that, I wait for her to walk into her building before heading home. Looks like I finally have plans tomorrow.
8
Reid
