“Come on, Gem, she’s all yours. Let’s check her out,” he tells me softly as he approaches me, putting the fob in my hand despite my best protests. He nods his head toward the SUV and I actuallylookat it for the first time.Fuck, it’s gorgeous.
“What is this?”
“Brand new GLC,” he says a little proudly, like that combination of letters means a single thing to me.
My eyes tell me it’s a sleek, white, off-puttingly new-looking Mercedes SUV. Beyond that, I couldn’t tell you more.
“Black, imitation leather interior, all the upgrades you could want, Gem, it’s even got this interior ambient lighting for when you’re driving at night, it’s so freaking cool—” My gaze shoots to his and cuts him off mid-sentence.
“Why is ithere?” I clarify.
“It’s yours,” he says, like it’s obvious.
“I don’t need a car, Aaron. I have one.”
He scoffs in a way that somehow doesn’t make me want to claw his eyes out? His superpower (last few months excluded) has always been this kind of good-natured, boyish charm that lets him get away with more than most. Frustrating, really. I’m putting a lot of work into staying mad at him, or at least keeping him at an arm’s length away. The least he could do is to not make that so hard for me.
“Gem, your car is a joke. You’ve had it since you turned sixteen. You deserve a new one, so I got it for you. It doesn’t mean anything beyond that.”
I hate him for knowing why I wouldn’t want to accept it, and for making me okay with it in one breath. I double down. “I’m not driving it, Aaron. Call your new buddy and have it taken away again, I’m not accepting this from you.”
He rolls his eyes but can’t hide the little tug at the corner of his lips. “No one is taking your car away, Gem. It’s yours. Don’t think of it as a gift. Think of it as…a belated birthday not-gift.”
All he gets is two middle fingers to that. I’m not taking his fucking charity. Even if this is the first birthday of mine he’s missed since I turned thirteen.
He smirks at the birds I flip. “Okay, then. It’s an early birthday gift to myself.” A huge grin overtakes his face, he’s proud of that one.
My middle fingers stay raised. Aaron pauses and thinks for a second, and his eyes light up when an idea hits him. “All right, all right. Think of it as a long overdue bonus. You were my employee for five years, and I must’ve realized a dozen times a day these past few months how underappreciated you went. Surely that means you should’ve gotten some nice bonuses in those years, too?”
He’s leaned in so close to me as he’s been talking that I can see the flecks of green and gold within the deep blue of his eyes, and it’s unsettling me. I grab the key out of his hand just so I can get away from him.
“I’m not driving it,” I tell him resolutely.
“You can do whatever you want with it, baby. It’s yours.”
My stomach flips at the term—it’s not the first time he’s used it with me, but it feels entirely new still, and it shoots an unwelcome thrill through my core to hear it on his lips, directed at me.
“Great, I’ll have it towed. Have a good day, Stone,” I toss over my shoulder as I head back into the house and lock the door behind me.
It’s been almost a full week. I still haven’t invited him back into the house. It’s my only safe place right now. I need to keep it that way for now.
I don’t drivethe car. I mean, I had to drive it to park it on the street so it wouldn’t blockmycar in the driveway. If someone happens to hit the SUV while it’s in the street, maybe try to steal it, well, what a shame that would be if Aaron had to take it back.
I guess I should’ve said, I don’t drive it for the first two days it’s here. But on Tuesday? My Toyota won’t start. And more than a small part of me wonders if Aaron made that happen on purpose.
“Now what kind of psycho would I be to disable my best friend’s car so she had to drive the brand new luxury vehicle I bought for her instead?” He let the thought sit for just a minute before he smugly added, “But aren’t you glad you have a spare right here?” I still can’t tell if he was serious or not. Surely not, right?
Begrudgingly, I have to admit that it drives like a dream. Even for all fourteen feet I took it on Sunday. Fuck him for getting something I love so much, without having to consult me. He’s making it a little hard to stay as mad at him as I’d like. But it’s easy to remind myself that a fat charge on his credit card doesn’t make up for the way he dismissed me out of his life. The hurtful things he said to someone who had been by his side through every good, bad, and positively shitty thing that happened for a dozen years. And that he didn’tseethe best parts of me until he lost me.
So I managed to ice him out the entirety of the first week. Do I get a cookie?
It’s the following week—the one after the new fuckingcar—that I cave—just a little—and silently invite him over while I’m eating the lunch he brought me (some chicken and pasta dishthat’s actually quite good), kicking a chair out for him in the breakroom and looking at it meaningfully, before I continue to eat wordlessly that breaks the dam and ends the first phase of the cold war between us.
For the next three days, he proceeds to happily ramble to me while I eat whatever he brings me each day. Annoyingly, for someone who is trying to hold a grudge, he brings me something delicious from somewhere else I love each day, which is more thoughtful than I’d like to admit right about now. He tells me about innocuous things, anything and everything that comes to mind, but mostly, he talks to me about the books he’s reading. I try not to respond, but sometimes I can’t help myself. How invested he is in these plot twists, the couples, their efforts to save the world, it’s adorable.
“She picked the blonde one? Are you kidding me? Over that dark-haired fuckingstudthat showed up and saved her life? Like three times? What a joke!”
“Because you’resogood at picking the right people right off the bat?” I ask him icily. “Weren’t you just telling me how hot the blonde one sounded on Monday?”
