“That didn’t mean he had to listen. If there’s one thing we know about Aiden it’s what? He does what he wants. He says what he means. If he wanted to stay, he would have. If he wanted me to go with him, he would’ve asked!”
“Fair point,” she says before taking a swig.
“What else did he tell you?” I finally get brave enough to ask.
She hitches one shoulder, “That you told him to go and take Stuart with him and that he’d better do just that.” I squeeze my eyes shut because it’s nothing. He basically said nothing, then fled. “That’s what, like, ten words? Why don’t you tell me what he saidto you.”
“Ughhhhh” I say, throwing my face in my hands. “It’s so embarrassing, Janie. I asked him to choose me.”
“You what?”
“You heard me. We talked about it, how his parents never chose him, they always chose the better offer. Like didn’t go to his polo games, graduation.” I throw my hands down. “Janie. At one point they didn’t call him for over 400 days!”
“Okay, disturbing, but I feel we’re getting off topic. Back to exactly what he said to you?”
“Yeah, right. So, after his big grand announcement I said, ‘Tell me this means that you’re staying and youchoose me.’ And,” my voice cracks. I was doing so well. I finish, “And he told me to choose myself.”
“Wow,” she says grabbing a bag of pretzels off the sofa table behind my head.
“Yip,” I say. She doesn’t correct me. I don’t bother correcting myself. “Pathetic. I’m pathetic.”
“No,” she scolds me. She opens the pretzel bag and offers it to me, I take a few, then she says, “It’s never pathetic to be authentic and vulnerable. That takes guts. Go on, what’d he say after that?”
“He said all this stuff about me not knowing what I truly want, where I want to be. That I don’t really want to be in Juniper Falls.”
“So then why didn’t he ask you to go with him?”
I point at her, “Exactly! He pushed back on that too. He asked if I really wanted to just up and move away from Juniper Falls with him right then and there, which obviously I wasn’t ready for. It was like he was forcing a break up.”
“Were you together?”
I shrug, “Not really? I mean I was still freaking married. Still raising a man’s dogchild left behind, still stuck at the bakery. So I tried to resist him, I really did.”
“But the grumpy bull in a china shop thing does it for you, huh?”
I slump back on the couch, “It does, it really does.”
“So you’re in love with him?”
I throw an arm over my face, “I thought so! But, what if I was just so grateful to have someone helping, someone paying attention to me again?”
“Lewis wasn’t that long ago, babe.”
“True. Lewis felt like a rebound. Aiden didn’t. I fought my feelings for him right from the start but when I finally just gavein and let myself be with him…it was amazing. I already miss him so much.”
She goes on, “How does he feel about you?”
I sit right back up, “He never said! I mean, he said sweet things, and he did sweet things, beyond the gifts, he did a lot of thoughtful, caring things. But we never talked about a future and when it came down to it, when I flat out asked him to choose me and stay, he left.”
“Well,” she holds up a pretzel. “You didn’t do that though. You asked him if he was choosing you. You didn’t say how you felt or ask for what you wanted, did you?”
I open my mouth, then shut it. Because no, I guess I didn’t.
“And, not to side with Bridgerton because I barely like him, like, at all, but could it be you don’t actually know how you feel or what you want?”
I glare at her. She throws her hands in the air and chomps another pretzel.
“Right now, I want to plan my next step.”
