Aiden lowers his head again, says something sharp I don’t catch, but Ahmed clearly does, straightening away from me and exchanging friendly introductions with Kit and Greer, who seem to be enjoying themselves far more than is appropriate, given that I have the kind of flop sweat that should be documented for science.
“It’s Charlie’s birthday tomorrow,” Aiden says to me. “She wantedto come here.”
“Yeah, sure. I mean, you don’t have to explain. I don’town the place.”
Charlie returns, holding two bottles and handing one to Aiden. “Sorry, Med,” she says to the new member of this strange, cobbled-together group. “You’ll have to get your own. The bartender here is gorgeous.” She tips her chin to where Betty pulls a Guinness.
“You’re a married woman, Charlie,” says Ahmed before heading toward Betty, and my shoulders slouch briefly in relief, but not so briefly that Aiden doesn’t see it, his lips quirkingat the corners.
Charlie heaves out a sigh. “I’m noticing for you, jerk,” she calls after him before turning back to us. “But it has been a whole month since I’veseen my wife.”
“Oh, are you doing long distance too?” Kit asks, patting the stool beside her, and Charlie settles in, Kit completely ignoring the death-ray look that I am sending, which is meant to say,Stop this please; we need to separate from these people and get the fuck out of this bar.
“Charlie’s wife is in med school up in D.C.,” Aiden says. “They don’t see each other much lately.” Like me, he seems to be trying to telegraph a message of his own, but Charlie is oblivious, dimpling all over Kit and Greer, and I know for a fact Kit has a weakness for dimples. Pretty soon the three of them are laughing like old friends, while Aiden and I stand awkwardly apart.
“So. Someone’s got a crush on you?” I try, knowing that at least Charlie got a reaction out of Aiden with this topic.
“She’s eighty.” He shrugs, looking down at the floor, a little embarrassed, I’d bet. “Just lonely, I think.”
“Ah.” And that’s the sum total of all my conversation ideas. I don’t know who to be around Aiden when I’m not playing the roles he’s cast me in: as a villain in the story surrounding his brother’s death, or as his too-enthusiastic, “Miss America” fake fiancée.
“Boss says no tables for a while,” Ahmed says when he returns, hooking a thumb over his shoulder toward Betty.
“You could probably have our stools.” I’m eager to get out of here, but Kit’s been listening enough to say, “Wejustgot here.” I’m starting to wonder whether Kenneth did, in fact, suck out her soul.
“It’s all right,” Aiden offers. “Med, let’s go play agame of darts.”
“I play darts,” I say, without thinking. It was awkward before; now I’ve made it excruciating, because Aiden seems to stiffen, clearly expecting the darts idea to be his way out of being around me.
Somehow, though, his rising discomfort emboldens me. I’m suddenly indignant that I have to feel out of place in my favorite bar, with my best friends, all because of this weekend-only farce I’m enduring for Aiden. I flick my hair over my shoulder, feel my feathered earrings tickle the sides of my neck.
“301 up?” I say, and head to the dartboard, ignoring the way Ahmed’s eyebrows have raised in surprise, and the way Aiden’s have lowered in what I can only assume is annoyance. On my way, I toss a look back where my friends sit at the bar, and Greer gives me an encouraging thumbs-up.
I may have to eat humble pie at camp with this guy, but here,I’m in charge.
* * * *
Ahmed sucks at darts, mostly because he’s too talkative, unfocused and easily distracted. He asks me what my favorite item on the menu is, how long I’ve lived here, if I think lawyer jokes are funny. Aiden, though—he’s decent, surprising because I generally think players as tall as him are at a disadvantage. Betty takes darts pretty seriously, and the board she has up is exactly regulation, the bullseye 5′8″ off the ground. When I’m wearing a couple inches of heel, like I am tonight, I’m 5′11″, nearly eye level with the board from where I stand at the oche. Aiden, when he aims, has to curve down slightly to accommodate his height, and while he’s by no means a natural—his movements too forceful to be an outstanding player—he’s got all the focus and determination Ahmed lacks. When our game is interrupted by the arrival of several plates of food that Charlie ordered from the bar, Ahmed happily quits, but Aiden wavesthe food away.
He’s at 167, and if he were better he could end this on the next turn—t20, t19, bull. But he’s not that good—at this point, he’s more likely to bust. Me, though? I’m sitting pretty, a nice 160, and I can check out in my next turn, no problem. I expect, given how intense his focus has been, that Aiden won’t like losing, but when he picks the darts from the board and brings them to me, he looks at me and says, “Don’t be holding out on me, now,” like he relishes the opportunity to get beat by a good player. That slight drawl in his voice—I’ve heard it from a hundred different guys, living around here, but it’s never made me weak in the knees like when it comes from Aiden.
“I wouldn’t do that to you.” And I don’t. My next three darts hit their targets: t20, t20, d20, and that’s the game, which I signal with awhoopof victory and a cocky smile sent in Aiden’s direction. He tips his beer to me, not quite smiling but not his usual barely maintained tolerance. Over the course of the game, our friends had wandered over, settling in at the nearest table that opened up during our game, and they offer loud applause, Charlie ribbing Aiden for getting beat by a girl, Kit and Greer standing to clap while I take a bow.
“Where’d you learn to play like that?” Aiden asks, staying put rather than heading toward the table.
I feel myself blanch a little at the question—simple, but with a complicated answer. That summer, the one I lost my way, the one where I’d met a bar owner named Christopher who taught me to waste time with beer and a dartboard. “Oh, youknow. Around.”
“If only this camp thing came down to darts,” hesays, deadpan.
“Was that—not a joke, exactly, butalmosta joke?” I’m teasing, alittle hopeful.
But Aiden just shrugs.
“Wishful thinking, I guess.”
“I’m sorry I don’t have your sparkling personality.”
“At this point, I’d settle forapersonality,” I snipe back, before I can think better of it. What am Idoing? I’ve got half a weekend in this thing and I’m not making it any easier on either of us. “Hey, I’m—” I begin, ready to apologize, but Aiden speaks at the same time: “You want to get something to eat with me?”
