Aiden offered his hand right away, all sweetness and light. “Current boyfriend,” he said.
Mandi shook his hand, a tiny smirk turning up one corner of her lips. I didn’t know what it meant, but I didn’t like it.
“Ex-girlfriend,” she said. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Aiden’s a tattoo artist,” Dad chirped from beside me, clearly excited to impart that particular detail to corporate career-woman Mandi.
Not that there was anythingwrongwith a corporate career. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought Aiden had the right idea.
The blazer I’d thought he looked incredible in had come from a thrift store, as had most of the rest of the things he owned, but he didn’t care. Why should I? Why shouldanyone?
He had something none of the rest of us did—a life he didn’t hate.
“That’s… adorable,” Mandi said, turning an unpleasant, patronizing smile on Aiden.
Aiden shuffled closer to me and rested his head on my shoulder, fingers curling around my hand. “Thank you,” he said, as though it was a genuine compliment. “I do try to be adorable.”
“Is anyone else freezing?” I asked, trying my hand at the same kind of tactful diplomacy Aiden had been practicing all night.
“I’m freezingandexhausted,” Aiden said beside me. “Come on. Take me to bed.”
Clearly, Aiden was all out of tact and diplomacy. The look on Mandi’s face, though, waspriceless. I’d never seen her so affronted.
A tiny, unkind part of me did a little happy dance. Like my mom, she’d always run roughshod over me. And everyone else.
But not Aiden. No one ever got the better of Aiden.
“Sorry,” he said, yawning theatrically. “Tired. Totally meant to phrase that differently.”
“You’re young,” Dad said. “No point in pretending you’re not having more fun than the rest of us.”
Aiden beamed at him.
I got the feeling they were somehow conspiring, though they hadn’t been alone together the whole time we’d been here.
“Either way,” I said. “It’s late. And, uh. Good to see you, Mandi, but…”
“But you’re coming back to the cabin with me,” Aiden said, grabbing my hand and tugging me toward the car.
I couldn’t remember being more grateful to anyone in my life than I was to Aiden right now.
8
Aiden
Stupid.
Stupid, stupid,stupid.
Carter didn’t want me to kiss him. Carter had never wanted me to kiss him in his entire life, and I definitely shouldn’t have done it in front of his entire family.
This whole thing wasstupid.
The drive back to the cabin had only took a few minutes, but Carter had been silent the entire time, looking out the passenger-side window and definitelynottalking to me.
It’d only taken me a handful of hours to screw this up.
My stomach was in knots by the time I pulled the keys out of the ignition, worry over Carter and what he thought of me and howhefelt about all this gnawing at my insides.
