I hate that I was right. And I wish I’d had more time with the people who raised Aiden. One season wasn’t enough, not with how loudly they loved. How joyously they celebrated.
The house feels cold compared to how I remember it, yet hopeful. Like it can warm back up, again.
My fingers brush over the lid of the box labeled“Recipes.”
I pull my hand back, then cross my arms. I shouldn’t be here.
Yet suddenly the attic smells like sugar cookies and pine needles and a life that loved him well.
“Aiden?” I try again, quieter this time, just to make sure I’m not leaving him here.
Footsteps sound on the stairs behind me.
When I spin around to face him, grief etches his face in ways I can’t comprehend. This is not the same man who almost kissed me under the glow of the lights.
My heart squeezes, then aches.
“I asked you not to come up here.”
Shouting would have less impact. His voice is rough with emotion, raw and aching. This is decidedly worse.
I press my lips together, swallowing the emotions that overwhelm me. “The door was open, and I was worried.” I swallow. “I’m sorry.”
His gaze skims everything before it pauses on the box of ornaments with a cracked glass bauble resting on top like a question. Then to a star that looks like it belongs in an antique store.
For a beat, his jaw tightens.
Then the fight drains out of his shoulders like it never belonged there in the first place.
“It’s where we keep the memories,” he says, barely above a whisper.
“I know.” My voice is soft. “I didn’t want you to face them alone.”
Silence stretches, full of all the things neither of us knows how to say.
I step sideways, fully planning to walk around him. But I pause beside him and press a hand to his shoulder.
“I smelled cinnamon,” I whisper, “Then sugar cookies. I remembered, and I want to sit with you when you remember, too. Don’t be too prideful to let me, okay? I’m here.”
I slip past him, back down into the warmer air.
This was a good reminder, though. He’s not ready for something real, and I can’t afford to be the one who pushes him there.
No matter how much attraction still exists.
If I start leaning on him, for Phoebe, for the studio, for my heart, and he walks away again, or if he stays closed off, I don’t just lose a boyfriend.
I lose this home we’re making, and my business.
The version of myself I fought tooth and nail to become.
Behind me, the bulb seems to glow a little steadier, stretching my shadow longer across the steps.
By the time I reach the hall again, the attic light clicks off.
twenty-one
AIDEN
