He took the apple from me and reclined into his seat just as the teams’ centers approached the middle of the court for tip-off. How the hell had I missed the players getting on the court? I took off my jacket, rolled back my shoulders, and prepared to cheer on my brother.
“Which one is he?”
I pointed at the six-foot-three, pale-skinned idiot who I used to put on dresses for fun when we were younger. “Number thirty.”
“He’s taller than I thought he’d be,” Aiden noted absently.
“I think his dad was tall.”
Aiden glanced at me briefly. “You don’t have the same one?”
“No. At least, I’m pretty sure we don’t. I’ve never met mine as far as I know.” And by that I meant, I’d never had any man pick me up and tell me I was his as a kid. My little brother’s dad hadn’t paid much attention to me when he’d been around. When I saw Aiden out of the corner of my eye, I noticed his face was tight. His jaw jutting. “What is it?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “You’ve never met your father?”
My neck went a little hot and for some reason I got embarrassed. “No.”
“Do you look like your mom?”
I reached up to mess with the leg of my glasses. “No.” My mom was a blonde, somewhat pale and she was only five-five. I was more peach-skinned, my hair a natural brown with a little red, and taller than the rest of the women in my family. “My friend Diana’s mom used to tell me she thought my dad must have been Hispanic or maybe Mediterranean or something, but I don’t know for sure.”
“Have you always been tall?”
If I really strained and stood up straight, I was almost, almost five eight. “My sisters used to call me The Blind Giraffe.” Where’s The Blind Giraffe at? Bitches. “I was all legs and glasses—ooh look. They’re about to play.”
From the first time I jumped to my feet to cheer on my brother, I could tell Aiden wasn’t prepared for what kind of fan I was. At least, what kind of fan I was for my little brother. By the beginning of the second half, he had started leaning away from me, fussing and whispering, “You’re scaring me,” after I got to my feet and started yelling at the ref for a shitty call made against Oscar, my little brother.
But it was the way he made his eyes go wide during halftime and pretend to shrink even further away from me that made me laugh.
“Who are you?” he deadpanned, which made me snicker.
“What? I was the same way at your game yesterday.”
Those black eyelashes hung low over his eyes. “Zac’s seen you?”
I nodded.
Aiden blinked. “I think I want my jersey back.”
I blinked back. “Tough shit, sunshine. It’s mine now.”
The corners of his mouth had barely started to pull up when someone yelled, “The Three Hundreds suck! You suck, Toronto!”
What in the hell?
Just as I started to glance around to see what idiot was yelling, Aiden’s index finger touched my chin. I stopped. “Don’t bother.”
“Why?” I tried turning my head, but apparently his finger had Hulk-like strength because it didn’t go anywhere.
“Because I don’t care what he thinks,” he said in a tone so serious I quit trying to look elsewhere and focused in on that handsome, grave face.
“But it’s rude.” His hand moved from my chin around to the back of my head, that big palm cupping my neck. His thumb to the tip of his middle finger seemed to stretch nearly all the way around my throat.
“Do you think I suck?” he asked me, seriously, in a voice low enough for only me to hear.
I snorted, about to open my mouth and say something really smart-ass, but his thumb dug deep, the pressure making me groan out a hoarse noise of holy shit, do it again. But somehow I managed to say, “No,” instead.
“Then why would I care what someone else thinks?” he murmured, steady and confident.
I didn’t lower my face as I told him the truth. “I can’t help it. I didn’t like people talking about you when I worked for you, and I like it even less now.”
Those dark brown eyes bore into mine. “Even when you used to flip me off?”
“Just because you’ve made me mad doesn’t mean I ever stopped caring about you, dummy,” I whispered in a frown, totally conscious of the guys sitting behind us. “I would have done just about anything for you back then, even when you got on my nerves. I might have just waited until the last minute to push you out of oncoming traffic, but I’d still push you out of the way.”
I tipped my head in the direction of where the idiot had yelled from a minute ago. “Now it’s definitely going to bother me that you’re just minding your own business, living your life, and someone you don’t know is yelling that kind of stuff. That guy doesn’t know you. Who is he to talk shit to you?”
Damn it, just thinking about it had me craning my neck to try and turn around, but the hand on my neck kept me in place. All that intense Aiden-focus burned through the flesh of my skin, through the calcium of my bones, and straight into the very root of me. His nostrils flared at the same time as his thumb did that circle-massage thing that made my leg go numb.
“The only people in the world who can hurt you are those you let have that ability, Van. You said it—that guy doesn’t know me. In my entire life, I’ve only cared what four people thought about me. I’m not worried about that nobody back there, understand me?” His hand moved, one finger slipping behind my ear to rub around the shell where it met my head. Dry and callused, it was probably the most intimate thing anyone had ever done to me.
Words—breathing—life seemed to catch in my throat as I took in those incredibly long lashes framing such potent eyes. The line of his shoulders was imposing and endless. His face was so severe and thoughtful, it plucked at my heart, but somehow, somehow I got myself to nod, the world in my throat. “I get it.”
I did. I got it.
Did he care what I thought? He explained himself, his decisions and his thoughts. But what did it mean?
He’d said he had four people in his life, and I now figured those had been his grandparents and Leslie. Who was the other person whose opinion mattered to him, I wondered?
I bit the inside of my cheek and let out a shaky breath. “I know you don’t care what that asshole thinks, but that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to pretend he punched me in the arm. You’d just have to be my ‘witness.’” I smiled weakly at my joke. “Team Graves, right?”
Aiden didn’t smile back.
His forehead tipped forward, and before I could react, before he said another word to me, he leaned forward, forward, forward and pressed his mouth just to the side of my mouth. A peck. A shot better than tequila, made up of friendship and affection and organic sugar.
When he pulled back, just a few inches, just enough for our eyes to meet, my heart pounded this crazy rhythm that might have been a borderline heart attack. I couldn’t help but smile. Nervous and confused and overwhelmed and completely caught off guard, I had to gulp.
“GO BACK TO DALLAS!” the man sitting somewhere behind us yelled again, and the hold Aiden still had on the back of my neck tightened imperceptibly.
“Don’t bother, Van,” he demanded, pokerfaced.
“I’m not going to say anything,” I said, even as I reached up with the hand furthest away from him and put it behind my head, extending my middle finger in hopes that the idiot yelling would see it.
Those brown eyes blinked. “You just flipped him off, didn’t you?”
Yeah, my mouth dropped open. “How do you know when I do that?” My tone was just as astonished as it should be.
“I know everything.” He said it like he really believed it.
I groaned and cast him a long look. “You really want to play this game?”
“I play games for a living, Van.”
I couldn’t stand him sometimes. My eyes crossed in annoyance. “When is my birthday?”
He stared at me.
“See?”
“March third, Muffin.”
What in the hell?
“See?” he mocked me.
Who was this man and where was the Aiden I knew?
“How old am I?” I kept going hesitantly.
“Twenty-six.”
“How do you know this?” I asked him slowly.
“I pay attention,” The Wall of Winnipeg stated.