As gorgeous as the new cabinets were, she’d rather have lived with a torn-up kitchen for longer if it meant that she’d be able to hang around and hand Aiden tools when he finally had the time to do the work. But her own disappointment fled as stress brackets appeared around his mouth.
“I know we’re not actually a couple, but I’m here if you need me.” Then she quirked a brow to lighten the mood. “And furthermore, fuck Trip. You’re extremely nice.”
He snorted. “Okay, let’s not rehab my imagetoomuch. I like a little mystery.”
She laughed along with him, although her heart still hurt at his disappearance this week.
“So what brings you by the office?”
“Oh right.” She’d almost forgotten she actually did have a reason to be there. “Danny told me he’d leave a can of paint for me to do some touchups in the kitchen, so I was swinging by to grab it.”
He looked toward the door. “I can get it and bring it over. If not tonight, then—”
“Hey. Don’t worry about it,” she said firmly. No need to turn herself into one of his volunteer charity projects. “I’ll do it when I get a chance. I can paint.”
He leaned his elbow on the back of his chair and rested his head on his fist. “Did I miss your job as painter somewhere down the line?”
“Believe it or not, I touched up my share of exhibits at the zoo. All my skills come from somewhere, baby.”
He laughed and walked with her to the front desk, where sure enough, Danny had left a can of paint with her name taped to the top. Trip handed it over with a glare and nothing else, and Thea was glad to escape out the door with Aiden.
As he stood with her outside her car, he still didn’t touch her, which she couldn’t help but notice. In fact, he was radiatingkeep your distancein a way she wasn’t used to from him. Even when they’d been casual friends, he’d always been approachable, but this was a whole damn wall he’d put up. It made her check her instinct to offer to ride along with him to Chicago, just so he’d have somebody in his corner. If he wanted her along on this family trip, he would’ve asked. And he definitely hadn’t done that.
Their goodbyes were subdued, with Aiden barely brushing a kiss on her cheek before he headed back into his office. She drove home wondering if the problem was that he’d gotten her out of his system and was ready to move on to the next woman. It was inevitable; she just hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. The thought hurt more than she’d expected, which was ridiculous. She’d always been the one to end things in the past; Aiden was just saving her the trouble.
So why did she have to blink away tears as she headed toward home?
Twenty
The hollow shell of Aiden Murdoch sat in his truck outside his brother’s house early on Saturday morning, waiting to get started on what was shaping up to be the worst day of the week. And that was saying something.
Everything had been off since he’d said goodbye to Thea on Sunday and returned home. What used to be his meticulously renovated haven now felt as inviting as a tomb; it simply didn’t glow with the warmth and energy of Thea’s princess house. Even in the middle of the chaos, with furniture and boxes stacked in whatever room wasn’t being sanded or painted or improved in some way, her Tudor house with the round-topped door was bright and vital and welcoming. Not returning to it this week had been almost physically painful.
But he’d forced himself to stay away for one simple reason: he liked it too much. Liked being in her bed. Liked being included in her circle of friends. Liked being the one she shared secret smiles with and draped her hot little body across when she was worn out at the end of the day. And he had no idea how to deal with any of that. He’d never been a boyfriend, had never felt that confusing mix of affection and lust and tenderness that Thea sparked in him.
Responsibility too. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back against his seat. He wanted to make things better for her. He wanted to be the one making her smile. Instead, she’d been as nervous at his office on Thursday as she’d been when they started this whole thing. It made him feel like shit. He’d wanted to pull her down on his lap and kiss the strain off her face, but that instinct had no place in their relationship, such as it was. He was only good for one thing, and that wasn’t what Thea deserved. The whole damn town knew it. Hell, even his brother wasn’t afraid to say it to his face: Thea should be with someone who could give her more than one weekend of sex that had no promise for the future.
That’s why he’d thrown himself even more frantically into work this past week, combing through notes on their completed projects over the past six months and finding countless little tasks that his father had left unfinished. Small things that made the difference in a job done and a job well done. And his insistence that they go back and finish those stray jobs had led to blowup after blowup with his fucking brother, who argued that done was done.
“’Sup.”
Ah, there was his fucking brother now, slamming the passenger door of the truck and yanking his seat belt across his chest.
“Morning,” Aiden said. “I grabbed coffee.” He gestured to the two take-out cups in the well between the seats, and Trip grunted and grabbed one. Aiden put the truck in drive but didn’t pull away from the curb. “Ashley not coming?”
His brother’s frowning face frowned even harder. “Nope.”
“Okay then.” Aiden had always thought Ashley got along great with her in-laws, but maybe not. He turned up the radio and pointed the truck north, bracing himself for an awkward drive with only the radio for company. They probably should’ve driven separately, but they’d reluctantly agreed on Friday that it didn’t make sense to have two vehicles headed to the same place. So here they were, sipping their coffee and listening to the Brick and pointedly not speaking.
As one mostly silent hour turned to two and edged into three, traffic started to pick up, and the pockets of businesses and office buildings flanking the interstate grew thicker. By the time Aiden had found his exit to the UChicago Medicine neighborhood where his mom had rented an apartment and was weaving through the city’s Saturday-morning traffic, looking for parking, his shoulders ached from tension. He should’ve asked Thea to come along. She’d have kept up a running conversation for the whole drive that had them all laughing.
“Looks like this is as close as we can get.” He’d finally found an open on-street spot, and he and Trip left the truck to walk the handful of blocks to his parents’ new building.
“God, that’s depressing.”
It was the first full sentence Trip had spoken in miles, and Aiden heard the sadness in his voice as they studied the tall, blocky building. So he made himself a little vulnerable too. “I’m dreading this. I don’t want to see how much worse Dad’s gotten.”
Trip’s eyes cut over to him, his broad face radiating nothing but apprehension. “Yeah. I fucking hate it.” Then he laughed once, a pale echo of the uproarious guffaws Aiden remembered from their childhood. “But we’d better get in there. I bet Mom’s pulling something out of the oven right now.”
