“You’re here early.” Aidan sinks into a seat beside me. He reaches out, running a hand over my brown wavy hair and messing it up on purpose.
I bat his hand away and ask if he’s washed his hands recently. Instead of answering, he rolls his eyes.
“I want brunch,” I say, shifting in my seat so I can look at him. The corners of his eyes are red, and in the left one, a little bit of sleep is crusted in the corner. His hair, nearly the same shade as mine, is rumpled.
Aidan yawns, nodding at the same time. “Where?”
I give him a look.
His eyes widen and it’s probably the first time since he woke up they’ve been so open. “Really?”
I nod. I want grease. I want sugar. I want the things I never allow myself to have. The ultra healthy diet I adopted after college is not invited to brunch.
Worry cinches Aidan’s eyebrows. “Should I be happy or terrified?”
“Neither,” I say, trying to tune out the sound of Rob slurping milk from his bowl. “I’m not sick. Nobody died.”
Relief settles onto Aidan’s face, pushing his eyebrows to their normal spot. “Give me ten minutes to shower and we’ll go.” He knocks on the table with two knuckles and stands.
Rob goes to the couch and turns on the TV while Aidan showers. I check my email and daydream about red velvet pancakes. And bacon. And a spicy Bloody Mary.
* * *
“Thank you,”Aidan tells our server, smiling at her. Flustered, she backs into another server, nearly upsetting his tray. Her cheeks pink and she hurries away.
“Way to go,” I say, pulling the celery stalk from my drink and taking a loud bite. “I hope she doesn’t forget our order now.”
Aidan shrugs. “Can’t help it. I didn’t ask her to get twitterpated.”
“Twitterpated? Seriously?”
“Technical term. As a writer, you really should already know that.” Aidan removes everything from his Bloody Mary, including the straw, and lays it out on a napkin.
“Unnecessary,” he explains, motioning at the discarded vegetables before taking a drink.
I don’t agree. I leave everything in.
“So,” he says, setting the drink down and pushing it away. “Are you going to tell me you stayed up all night writing hot sex scenes?”
Heat creeps through me at the thought.
Aidan sits back against his side of the booth, his lips twitching with the laughter he’s keeping contained. “Come on. Confess.”
“You know I didn’t.” I grab my own drink and take a long pull through the straw. The heat of it makes me cough, and I reach for my ice water, thankful I thought to ask our twitterpated server for a glass of water alongside my drink.
Aidan watches me, his thumb running across his bottom lip. “Don’t you think it might be time you got over that?”
“Says the guy who had meaningless sex last night.”
He shakes his head. “Says the guy who had meaningless sex last nightandthis morning.”
I feign shock. “A two-fer?”
Aidan’s shoulders shake as he laughs. When his laughter subsides, he grows serious. “I think I’ve figured it out. You wrote a book for two people who don’t love each other. And no matter how many happy endings you write, they will never have one.”
Ouch.Aidan always knows how to get to the heart of a matter. If there were an arrow lodged in a tree trunk, Aidan’s words could be the arrow to split the existing arrow in half. His words are simple and honest. Painful to hear, and his accuracy even more painful to admit.
He continues. “If you weren’t writing for them, what kind of book would you write?”
