“Same,” Brittany says as she walks past us toward her vehicle. “I had to start putting walking shoes in my car and changing after leaving the office. Thankfully, this is my last appointment of the day, so I don’t have to try and slip sweaty feet into high heels.”
Appointment?
“Brittany,” Keo damn near barks out her name through his teeth, releasing me in the process.
“Anyway…” She hurries her pace. “See you two at the bar.” She’s at her car in an instant, sliding into the driver’s seat and backing out within seconds.
“I swear…” he grumbles under his breath.
Keo turns from me and heads to the driver’s side, and after a moment of taking in a breath that isn’t consumed withhim, I move to the truck and settle into the passenger seat. The moment I’m clicking on the seatbelt, he’s got us moving and heading down the dark road.
There’s no light except for the headlights until we reach the entrance to Sapphire Valley, and I use the glow to study him. His expression is impassive as he waits for the gate to open.
Once it does, we are heading down the main road that leads into town—a drive of only about ten minutes—I clear my throat.
“So, your girlfriend has to make appointments to see you?”
Real subtle, Ayden. Fuck.
Keoni
“Girlfriend?” I ask incredulously.
Damn that woman. SheknowsI haven’t told Ayden about our sessions. It’s not that I’m embarrassed to tell him about needing therapy, I just know it will bring up thewhyI’ve required it.ThatI’m not particularly ready to discuss. Shit, I’m already having a hard time speaking withherabout it.
I met Britt my first time coming to Maple Falls to visit my mom and Grant—a sweetheart, really—along with her brother who has since moved to New York. We’d sat together in church, hating it as much as the other. That was just to appease my mom. She never met Alysa; that girl would’ve rather plucked her eyeballs out thansit through a service.
It wasn’t exactly ideal that my therapist was someone I knew, but I had no choice really.
At least Brittany is actually good at her job and does house calls. Being stuck in a small office wasn’t for me, and she was willing to make the drive to where I felt most comfortable talking.
Still, the fact that we know each other personally makes her bold enough to be sly.
“Brittany. She’s your girlfriend, right?”
I grip the steering wheel a bit. “Why do you assume that?”
“Isn’t that what she is?”
Him asking follow up questions to mine is irking me. Yet, that little voice in my head reminds me I’ve been doing the same thing to him. Still, his reluctance to answer me is… frustrating.
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
My head slightly turns,justenough to get a glimpse of him. He actually has his face away from me, and I’m irritated at that. Not that I should be looking for something in his expression… but a guy can hope.
“Then who?—”
“No one important,” I cut him off. “Do you still hate watching sports?”
After I graduated high school, Ayden cheered for half his junior year and then stopped. I could tell he didn’t particularly like it, but stayed for that girl, Ashley? Amber? Jessica? Shit, I don’t remember.
Anyway, he enjoyed swimming, so he did that for the rest of high school. He liked watching baseball—until a ball, traveling nearly a hundred miles per hour, was hit back into the pitcher’s face. After that, he never joined Grant and me at the games. I know it wasn’t squeamishness; I’d watched him dissect a frog, and because he did so well, he even joined my senior class when we dissected a sheep’s heart.
He can’t stand seeing people get hurt, and understanding he was… is? An ICU nurse, I get his aversion to watching anything where grown men and women willingly put themselves out there for entertainment with the possibility of them being injured.
“Not particularly.” He adjusts, turning back and facing forward.
I linger for only a second on him. His side profile is just… fuck me.
