I was starting to think he was right.
Then, as if to really seal the deal I didn’t know was resting between us, he said, “You like waffles, root beer, and Dr. Pepper. You only drink light beer. You put cinnamon in your coffee. You eat too much cheese. Your left knee always aches. You have three sisters I hope I never meet and one brother. You were born in El Paso. You’re obsessed with your work. You start picking at the corner of your eye when you feel uncomfortable or fool around with your glasses. You can’t see things up close, and you’re terrified of the dark.” He raised those thick eyebrows. “Anything else?”
Yeah, I only managed to say one word. “No.” How did he know all this stuff? How? Unsure of how I was feeling, I coughed and started to reach up to mess with my glasses before I realized what I was doing and snuck my hand under my thigh, ignoring the knowing look on Aiden’s dumb face. “I know a lot about you too. Don’t think you’re cool or special.”
“I know, Van.” His thumb massaged me again for all of about three seconds. “You know more about me than anyone else does.”
A sudden memory of the night in my bed where he’d admitted his fear as a kid pecked at my brain, relaxing me, making me smile. “I really do, don’t I?”
The expression on his face was like he was torn between being okay with the idea and being completely against it.
Leaning in close to him again, I winked. “I’m taking your love of MILF porn to the grave with me, don’t worry.”
He stared at me, unblinking, unflinching. And then: “I’ll cut the power at the house when you’re in the shower,” he said so evenly, so crisply, it took me a second to realize he was threatening me…
And when it finally did hit me, I burst out laughing, smacking his inner thigh without thinking twice about it. “Who does that?”
Aiden Graves, husband of mine, said it, “Me.”
Then the words were out of my mouth before I could control them. “And you know what I’ll do? I’ll go sneak into bed with you, so ha.”
What the hell had I just said? What in the ever-loving hell had I just said?
“If you think I’m supposed to be scared…” He leaned forward so our faces were only a couple of inches away. The hand on my neck and the finger pads lining the back of my ear stayed where they were. “I’m not.”
As if the peck he’d given me hadn’t done enough damage, the way he said that sent my heart pounding again. My chest flushing hot. Everything I thought I knew seemed to spiral out of control.
He was messing with me. Flirting with me. Aiden Graves. What was this?
It didn’t help that, before I managed to get my heart back in shape or get my head on straight, my phone started vibrating. When I saw the incoming message as a picture from Diana, I didn’t think much of it.
But when I unlocked the screen and saw the picture, it only sent me reeling all over again.
She had attached a shot of her television. On the screen was a picture of Aiden and me sitting in the stands just minutes before, his face so close to mine, his arm around my back. It looked… well, I didn’t know what exactly it looked like, but Aiden and I were laughing. I could see what it didn’t look like.
It didn’t look like this thing between us was fake.
But then it got me thinking. Had Aiden just been extra friendly and flirty because he suspected this would happen?
* * *
“Look, he’s right there.” I smacked Aiden with the back of my hand before pointing at the brown-haired booger standing just outside surrounded by teammates and other people not affiliated with the university. “Oscar!”
My brother didn’t turn around.
“Oscar Meyer Weiner!” I yelled again.
That had him swinging his head around with a big grin on his face. Raising one hand, I waved and tugged on Aiden’s hand briefly with the other, urging him forward. After away games, he usually didn’t have much time to hang around, so I wanted to take advantage of the few minutes we had together.
As we walked closer, I spotted my brother cutting a path through the crowd, only to stop abruptly for a second and look back and forth between Aiden and me, before he continued walking toward us. Behind Oscar, more than a few of the crowd were looking in our direction too.
My brother was smiling, but his gaze kept trailing to Aiden in confusion. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” he demanded as I took a step forward and let my brother give me a big hug, pulling me up off my feet. He’d been taller than me for nearly the last ten years and never let me forget it.
“I texted you on the way here, but I figured your phone was off when you didn’t write me back,” I said as he lowered me. I grinned at him, putting my hands on each side of his face to squish his cheeks together. We weren’t super close anymore, but I loved the hell out of him. He’d been the only one in my family to never disappoint me.
He stuck his tongue out and tried to lick my hand.
I gave his cheek a pinch before I dropped my hands and took a step back so that my shoulder brushed the side of Aiden’s arm. “Oscar, Aiden. Aiden, Oscar.”
It was Aiden who extended his hand first.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Oscar said, his tone a little surprised as he shook Aiden’s hand.
“Same.” The big guy pulled back. “You played a good game.”
I eyed him a little out of the corner of my eye. Had he just paid him a compliment?
My brother’s face turned a little pink as he nodded. The big idiot was like a younger version of me—words weren’t our strength in life. “Oh, ah, thanks. Everybody’s been talking about how you were at our game,” he stammered before his gaze swung over to me as his face kept that nice rosy shade. “I didn’t think you’d be here together.”
I shrugged, not knowing how to respond. “How was your Thanksgiving?”
Oscar shot me that face that said it meant about as much to him as it meant to me. “We had practice, most of us went to the coach’s house for dinner. You?”
“I worked and then went to his game afterward.” I elbowed Aiden’s forearm.
“Hey…” His eyes darted behind me for a second; an uncomfortable look crawled over his long face. Oscar blew out a long, shaky breath. “Damn it, Vanny. I’m sorry, okay? You caught me off guard and I forgot…”
I didn’t like where this was going. We never apologized to each other. If anything, Oscar and I had always understood what we needed to do to survive. He’d given me his blessing to go to school far away from him, and I never gave him shit for going weeks between contacting me.
But I had this terrible feeling…
“Susie is here. At least, she said she was going to be here.”
Motherfucker. Motherfucking fucker. My teeth clenched down, one row aligned on top of the other, and I had to will my face from reacting. It took nearly everything in me to play off the anger filling me up. Of all the times to come see Oscar, Susie had to come now? Since when had she given a shit about him? While they’d always been nicer to him than they’d been to me, none of my sisters had ever really paid that much attention to him.
“I came to see you. It’s fine,” I lied. It wasn’t fine. I didn’t want to see my sister, and I didn’t want him to feel bad either. As if I wasn’t about three seconds away from screaming, I asked, “Are you heading back to Shreveport now?”
He nodded, the discomfort brutally apparent on his face. I guess he did know me well enough to not be fooled. “Yeah.” Oscar stopped talking, his eyes going pained in a way that said ‘I’m so sorry’ and raised his hand up to wave at someone behind me. “Vanny, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. If I knew you were coming, I would have told her…”