His gaze drops to my mouth then lands back on my eyes. My eyes mimic his, dropping to his lips. He leans in. I feel the air in the car shift.
Holy shit, he’s leaning in.
Do I lean in too?
Do I want to?
“Aiden?”
His eyes widen.
He jerks back to his seat, adjusting himself and the rearview mirror as if that had been his intention all along. “I um. Yeah, I wasn’t... I’m just, um ... tired,” he whispers. “Long day.”
My heart is still hammering.
He wasn’t trying to kiss me.
Relax.
But . . . did he almost?
Aiden drags a hand through his hair, his eyes darting around. “I didn’t mean... I just. After everything... and you and I... You know what? I’m going to stop talking.”
“For the best it seems.” He shoots me a glare, and I can’t help the laugh that slips out. Nerves still buzz under my skin, and a tiny smile grows on his face.
“Thank you for the ride.” I grab the door handle and push it open. The cool night air is a relief, but somehow everything feels tighter. “I’ll see you next week, alright?”
His lips twitch into the smallest smile. “Okay.”
I watch him for a moment. Tension presses against my ribs. It doesn’t fade. It only settles, low and heavy somewhere deep inside me.
Hours later, in my bed, I can’t stop thinking about it.
I can’t stop smiling about it.
It takes me a minute to realize just what I’m feeling, and once I place it, I need to forget it.
Aiden is my employee.
He hasn’t even started working for me yet. I need to get a grip and stop seeing shit that doesn’t exist.
But . . .
It’s exactly what I’ve been missing.
CHAPTER SIX
AIDEN
“I hopeI’m not overwhelming you. I’m not a good teacher, and I’m not used to explaining things. If you have questions, please?—”
“Ask you.” This man is a ball of nerves. “I know, you said.”
He moves around the kitchen in restless loops, hands fluttering like he doesn’t know what to do with them. He keeps rambling about shit I’m pretending to care about, and while he talks, I take in the space. The kitchen is empty. Functional, but nothing special. No real place to hide anything.
Which means it might be upstairs. If he even has it.
I watch the nervous way he moves around me, and a knot of tension lingers in my chest like a weighted blanket I can’t lift. Was I going to kiss him? No, right? I didn’t even think about it. I didn’t even realize I’d leaned into him. I wasn’t even thinking about it.
