5
Carter
Aiden wasn’tanythinglike I expected. I’d first had that thought in his apartment, but I couldn’t stop thinking it now as I watched him drive, sipping a terrible gas station coffee from time to time, wincing, and then waiting just long enough to forget about the taste before sipping it again.
He was so easy to be around I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. There wasn’t an awkward bone in his body,morassof self-doubt or not.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was smarter than he let on. Kieran was the same. Always downplaying his grades, happy to seem to be the cheerful dumb jock who was everyone’s friend and no one’s better.
I didn’t really know Devin—he was only a year younger than Aiden, but that’d meant I’d left high school by the time he started, so we’d hardly crossed paths except around the dinner table when Mrs. Goode had invited me to stay.
Sometimes she’d get a look on her face like she wished I was her son, too. Especially right before I went home.
Especially if we’d been able to hear an argument going on next door while we were eating.
Aiden had heard that too, hadn’t he? I’d never thought about it before, but he’d been right there, sitting between his brothers, listening to everything that was going on. Andseeing, too. If he could tell I thought a waitress was cute just by looking at me…
“Do I have something on my face?” Aiden asked, wiping at his mouth as though he’d already decided he must have.
Oops. I’d been staring at him.
“Uh, no,” I said, a pang of guilt making my stomach twinge. “Sorry, I wasn’t looking at you, exactly. Just… staring into the middle distance.”
“Thinking?” Aiden asked.
“I do that sometimes,” I agreed. “Can’t recommend it.”
Aiden laughed. It’d been so long since someone had laughed,genuinely, at one of my jokes that I didn’t know how to handle it.
“Wanna share?” Aiden asked.
Everything about him screamedI’m listening, the same way a bartender or a barber seemed like a good person to agonize too.
That made sense, didn’t it? People sat for tattoos for hours. His bedside—chair-side?—manner would have had to be pretty good by now, or repeat clients would be thin on the ground.
“Just thinking about the past,” I said. “Family wedding, y’know? Hard not to.”
“What’s the groom like?” Aiden asked.
“Honestly? He seems nice. Hallie deserves someone like him. Successful and kind and I think he’s probably fairly attractive. You can tell me when you meet him.”
Aiden snorted. “Straight guys love to pretend they don’t know what’s attractive in a man, huh?”
The way he said it made it sound like a joke, but he was right. What the hell was I trying to protect, here? I was about to pretend to my whole family that I was attracted to men, the least I could do was stop acting like I couldn’t tell what made a man attractive.
“He’s definitely not my type,” I said. “He’s a lawyer.”
Aiden wrinkled his nose.
“In his defense, he’s a human rights lawyer,” I added. “But he’s, y’know…”
“I donotknow, and you’re gonna have to spell it out.” Aiden grinned, eyes focused on the road ahead, but every ounce of attention he didn’t need for driving resting squarely on me.
“He’s a suit,” I said, as though I didn’t wear a button-down everywhere, including to the grocery store. “He’s got the jawline of a mid-century poster boy for government bonds and I think he shaves his sideburns with a ruler. I’ve been accused of being a little…”
“Neat?” Aiden offered.
“Neat is probably the nicest way it’s ever been put.” I smiled wryly. “So thank you. I was gonna go with something along the lines ofanal. But he’s… different. I like to think when it’s me it’s charmingly quirky, but he seems… a little plastic. Nice, though. Smart. Successful. Does genuinely care about his work. So much hair product.”
