When I come out, my phone’s ringing, muffled by the sound of my purse, which Aiden’s holding out to me. “Didn’t wanting to go rustlingthrough there.”
“Thanks,” I say, reaching a hand in and peeking at the screen before I even have it all the way out, my stomach fluttering when I seethe name there.
I answer before I have time to think better of it, before I register that now I’m going to have this conversation infront of Aiden.
“Zoe?” comes Marisela’s voice on the other end, so wholly cheerful that I already know what she’s going to say.
“This is Zoe,” I reply, holding up a finger to Aiden while I back slowly toward the kitchen, putting some distance between this and him.
“I’m sorry it’s taken me a few days to get back to you. I practically wanted to put you on calls on Monday, but you know how it is.”
“Oh,” I say first, but correct with a quick, “oh, sure. I know how it is. Paperworkand all that.”
“Exactly!” And then she’s off to the races. She’d love to have me join the team; I could start next week, maybe six hours a week or so at first; if I sign on I’ll need to bring a copy of my driver’s license, my diploma; if I don’t mind she’ll send over some documents I can look overwhile I decide.
I’m nodding, the occasionaluh-huhthrown in, so aware of warring impulses: first to shake my fist in the sky in victory and tell her I’ll be there Monday, second to drop this phone like a hot potato and run like hell from everything she’s offering. But I do neither. I stay careful. I don’t commit to anything. I tell her to send the documents, tell her I’m excited to look them over. I tell her I’ll be in touch assoon as I can.
When we hang up, Marisela’s finalI really hope I can convince youringing in my ear, Aiden’s leaning against the doorway, looking at me. “You got it,” he says, his voice even, but his eyes light, a hitch at one side of his mouth that feels about ten times more exciting than the damn phone call. I am in all kinds of trouble with him,and I know it.
“I did.”
“Get your sweatshirt on,” he says. “We’ll go to your friend Betty’s placeand celebrate.”
What.
I look after him, slack jawed, while he moves back into the living room, grabs his jacket off a peg on the wall. “I didn’t say Iwas taking it.”
He shrugs into his jacket. “Didn’t say you were. Still, you got a gig. Worth a beer, at least.”
I think back to that night at Betty’s, Kit telling me about Aiden not going out with his crew for months, and now he’s basically—I don’t know what. Taking me on a date? What are we going to do, make a pro/con list about me taking a potential first step back into my legal career? I don’t even want to do that with Kit and Greer, let alone Aiden. In my mind is a picture of my condo—all its clean, white-gray stillness. I should feel something like longing, thinking about all the quiet, careful ruminating I could be doing there while I turn Marisela’s offer over in my mind.
Aiden turns to look back at me, his eyes scanning my face while I’m juststuck, stuck again, stuck forever. “Zo,” he says, his voice half-weary, half-amused. “I just fucked you against this door and came so hard that I’m pretty sure I saw stars. I’m running on about half as much sleep as usual, and that’s down to what we’ve been doing too. Let’s get some food and play a game of darts. We don’t even have to talk aboutyour new job.”
“It’s not a job,” I say, moodily, but everything he’s said is what I need to get unstuck, to start me moving toward the door, to my sweatshirt. It doesn’t have tomeananything, that I don’t so much want to go back home now. We’re still keeping our distance, whether we go to Betty’s together or not. “I’ll take my own car,” I tell him,as I zip it up.
“Whatever you say.”
* * * *
“No,” I say, and then repeat it for good measure. “No, this is not what I agreed to.”
Aiden’s answer is a low grunt as he tightens the straps of the harness around my thighs, stepping back to look me over. He nods to himself, as if this is all perfectly normal, A-OK, another regularSunday morning.
It is none of those things, even aside from the fact that I’m strappedinto a harness.
I might’ve known an ambush was coming, might’ve known there was a reason this weekend’s been so easy and pleasant. On the way here on Saturday morning, Aiden had pulled over in Coleville—So you’ll stop making calf eyes every time we drive through, he’d said—and walked us to a cafe with gingham curtains and the best hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted. We’d drank it while we’d walked down Coleville’s main street, aimless, unpressured conversation and the kind of taut, fun arguing that frames almost all our interactions, the only thing other than sex that had taken my mind off Marisela’s offer.
At the campground that afternoon, he was as loose as I’d ever seen him, his body moving in some new, relaxed way as he’d helped fold up chairs from the wedding. Later, I’d watched him work with Paul to remove a temporary dance floor that had been snapped together over the flat clearing on the lodge’s east side, and he’d been all easy calm, laughing once so loud that I’d heard it from where I stood on the porch of the lodge, uncoiling strands of tiny lights from the railings. He’d caught my eye and smiled, as though we had a hundred secrets between us.
It’s all the sex,I’d told myself.I’ve uncoiled him.
But no. No, he’d been uncoilingme, on purpose, so much so that last night, after pizza delivery to the lodge and a late, laugh-filled game of euchre with Paul, Lorraine, Sheree, Tom, and Val—Hammond having taken over putting the girls to bed—I’d barely noticed when Paul had tipped his chin to Aiden and said, “Still nine thirty tomorrow morning, then?” Aiden had nodded, and now that I think of it, Sheree had hidden a smile behind one of her hands.
Now I realize they’re great betrayers, every one of them, because here I am, strapped into a harness and about three seconds away from a profanity-filled diatribe about howshitthe entire concept of team building is, anyway.
It’s different here at the farthest edge of the camp, the trees more sparse and the ground red-clay dusty and flat. We’d only skirted along it during our tour a few weeks back, and then, Paul and Lorraine had told us that a lot of the more advanced team-building exercises took place over here. The only thing I’d noticed at the time was what looked like a couple of shorter than usual telephone poles and wires. Now—nowI’m finding out Aiden wants me to climbup one of them.
I swallow a lump of dread, staring up at it. This isn’t like the zip line, which wasn’t even all that high off the ground and which only required horizontal movement. Thisis so—vertical.
