And I would be doing this all as technically a business transaction. It wasn’t that complicated because I understood what Aiden was doing and why he was doing it, for the most part.
I just didn’t completely understand why he insisted on trying to reel me back into his life.
Regardless of everything else though, a part of me was resentful that Aiden I-get-everything-I-want Graves, had his mind set on me to be the one to help him out. I guess I didn’t feel like he deserved my help or my loyalty when he’d never exactly done anything to deserve it.
But…
My student loan debt wasn’t just a paycheck; it wasn’t payable in five years like a car loan. Plus, if a house would also be a form of payment… We were talking a lot of money, a lot of heartache, and a lot of interest. Thirty years on a mortgage. It would be a massive relief.
Wouldn’t it?
Could I just forgive Aiden and do this?
I knew people made mistakes, and I understood that you didn’t always know what you had until you didn’t have it; I had learned that myself the hard way about small things I’d taken for granted. But I also knew how resentful I could be, how I held on to grudges sometimes.
I found myself driving to Aiden’s house, heart in my throat, risking my life and freedom for a freaking student loan that I couldn’t just forget about or disregard.
The security guard at the gate grinned at me when I pulled in to the community Aiden lived in. “I haven’t seen you in forever, Miss Vanessa,” he greeted me.
“I quit,” I explained after greeting him. “He shouldn’t be surprised I’m here.”
He gave me a look that said he was a little more than impressed. “He’s not. He’s been reminding me every week to let you in if you came by.”
He was either a little too confident or…
Well, there was no ‘or.’ He was a little too confident. I suddenly had the urge to turn my car around to teach him a lesson, but I wasn’t egotistical or dumb enough to do it. With a good-bye wave at the guard, I drove passed the gate and toward the home I’d been to too many times to count.
I knew he’d be home, so I didn’t worry about the absence of cars in the driveway as I parked on the street like I had every time in the past, and marched up to the front door, feeling incredibly awkward as I rang the doorbell.
I wanted to turn around, walk away, and tell myself I didn’t need his money. I really wanted to.
But I didn’t go anywhere.
It took a couple minutes for the sound of the lock getting tumbled to let me know he was there, but in no time, the door was swung open and Aiden stood there in his usual attire, his towering body blocking the light from inside the house. His expression was open and serious as he let me in, and led me over to where everything had begun—the big kitchen. It didn’t matter that his couch was incredibly comfortable; he always seemed to prefer to sit in the kitchen at the island or in one of the chairs of the nook to eat, read, or do a puzzle.
He took a seat on his favorite stool, and I took the one furthest away from him. It was weirder than it should have been considering what was at stake.
I was a person, and he wasn’t any more or any less special than I was, and regardless of what happened, I had to remember that point.
So I sucked in a breath through my nose, and just went for it. Honesty was the best policy and all that, wasn’t it? “Look, I’m scared,” I admitted in one breath, taking in his familiar features, the slants of his cheekbones, the thick, short beard that covered the lower half of his face, and that ragged white scar along his hairline.
For two years, I’d seen his face at least five times a week, and not once had we ever had a moment remotely close to this. I couldn’t forget that, because it mattered to me. It would be one thing to have a stranger ask me to marry him because he wanted to become a U.S. resident, but it was a totally different thing to have someone that I knew, who had never cared for me, ask.
Honestly, it was worse.
Aiden’s long lashes lowered for a moment, and the man who was as greedy with his attention and affections as I was with the red and pink Starbursts, lifted a rounded, hunk of a shoulder. “What are you worried about?” He commanded the words.
“I don’t want to go to jail.” I really didn’t want to go to jail; I’d looked up marriage fraud on the internet and it was a felony. A felony with up to a five-year prison sentence and a fine that made my student loans seem like chump change.
Apparently the male version of my best friend said, “You have to get caught to go to jail.”
“I’m a terrible liar,” I admitted because he had no idea how bad of one I was.
“You knew you were planning on quitting for months before you did. I think you might be okay with it,” he threw out suddenly in a slightly accusing tone.
That might have made me wince if I felt guilty about what I’d done, but I didn’t. It also didn’t occur to me right then that he somehow knew I’d been planning on quitting for a long time. It just sort of went in one ear and right out the other. “I didn’t lie to you. I only stayed because you had just gotten better, and I felt bad leaving you so soon afterward. I couldn’t talk myself into doing it, and I was only trying to be a nice person. There’s a difference.”
His thick eyebrows went up a millimeter but no other muscle in his face reacted to my comment. “You told Zac,” he pointed out like an accusation.
An accusation I wasn’t going to grab onto. “Yeah, I told Zac because he’s my friend.” I damn sure wasn’t going to apologize for it. “Please tell me when I was supposed to casually tell you, and expect a high five. Or were you going to give me a hug and congratulate me?” I might have nailed him with a look that said ‘are you fucking me?’
“When I did finally tell you, you didn’t care, Aiden. That’s what half of this comes down to. I’m still… I’m so mad at you, and I accept that I shouldn’t be. I just can’t help it. You’re not my friend; you’ve never tried to be my friend. You haven’t once given a shit about me until you needed something, and now for some strange reason, you’re making it seem like you can’t live without me. And we both know that’s bullshit.”
He stayed quiet for a moment, taking a sharp sniff, his eyes seemingly trying to pierce a hole straight through my head. “I’ve apologized to you. I meant it. You know I meant it,” he insisted, and I could grudgingly admit to myself that the logical part of my brain recognized that statement as a truth. Aiden didn’t apologize, and for all the things he was, he wasn’t a liar. That just wasn’t in his genes. For him to actually say the ‘A’ word? It wasn’t insignificant. “I don’t have time for friends, and if I did, I wouldn’t go out of my way to make them anyway. I’ve always been this way. And I really don’t have time for a relationship. You understand that. I’m not worried about getting caught—”
So he was changing the subject. “Because you won’t be the one going to jail,” I reminded him under my breath, frustrated at his tactics.
He raised one of his eyebrows another millimeter, but it was his flaring nostrils that gave away his irritation. “I’ve done a lot of research, and I consulted an immigration lawyer. We can pull it off. All you would have to do at first is file a petition for me.”
Aiden didn’t say I think we can pull it off, he said we could do it and I didn’t miss that nuance.