I had never heard anything about a boyfriend. Was she seeing someone? Was she even more upset with me because I had assumed that she wasn’t with anyone? Shit.
Eventually, I dozed off, waking with a cramp in my neck and stiff back. Barely daylight, I assumed she was asleep with this guy or had left, so I started home.
Two minutes into my drive, I caught a glimpse of her sitting on a bus stop bench eating and steam rising from her cup. With her eyes closed, she didn't notice me pulling up to the curb until I rolled down the window and ordered her in.
Her eyes widened and her face reddened. She was pissed. "No!" she shouted. "Stay away from me!"
"I’m not leaving until you get in the car."
"Fine!" I gave a victory smirk as she stood up but when I didn’t hear the door open I looked over and saw her back as she retreated from the bus stop down the sidewalk.
I quickly found a place to park and got out of my car.
"Lilli, wait!" I caught up and stood in front of her.
"What, Aidan? What?" she crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes.
"I’m sorry. Lilli, I never meant to imply that you were for sale or a whore. I know you aren’t, honestly, I didn’t mean that in any way. It came out wrong when I was talking with you."
She furrowed her brow but didn’t say anything.
Before I could stop myself I blurted, "Are you dating someone?"
"Am I...?" She paused. Her faced filled with hate. "Did you follow me?"
I didn’t answer.
"You did! Oh. My. God. You followed me!" She moved to walk around me and I grabbed her arm quickly.
"Let go!" Her hand connected with my face. I knew she'd hit me but I didn’t feel it until the slow sting crept over my cheek.
"Lilli, please, I just…I wanted to talk with you after you got off work. To apologize and to hopefully explain myself but I saw you drive off with someone else and I just couldn’t help it. I figured that maybe you were insulted that I assumed you were single or that—"
"Go to hell, Aidan," she slammed her palms against my chest. "You don’t know anything about me! Leave me alone. You can’t own me, go find someone else to proposition." She stalked away down the sidewalk and I didn’t follow.
Shoulders slouched and my hands in my pockets I headed back to my car. When I climbed in, I took a deep breath, realizing what I needed to do. Pulling out my cell phone, I quickly made a call.
"What the fuck do you want?" he answered with great irritation.
"Well, hello to you too, Dixon."
"Whatever," Dixon spit out and before he could say another word, I launched into my apology and what had happened since last night.
"You did what?" He yelled. "I can’t believe you are such a selfish fucking asshole. Stay away from her."
"Dixon, I don’t want to lose our friendship over this and I am sorry for what happened. I didn’t mean for it to be this way…I just—"
"You are just lucky that she didn’t kick you in the balls. I would have. You deserve it."
I sighed as he continued to rant.
"Dixon, can we please talk. I need to clear this all up." I spit out at him before he could get another rant started.
"Fine, come by tomorrow, after seven, so Lilli isn’t home."
I was about to thank him but he stopped me.
"You’ll be lucky if I don’t kick you in the balls when you get here." He hung up.
Oscar was next, to see if he would also come along.
I should have expected it but was caught off guard when Dixon opened the door and his fist connected with my cheek. Pain blossomed in my cheekbone, spreading to my eye and the side of my nose.
"Fuck!"
Oscar grabbed my shoulders to help steady me.
"You're just lucky I don’t do worse." Dixon shouted before motioning us inside.
I flinched as we walked past Dixon, his hand twitched towards my presence.
"So what do you want?" He sneered as he sat down across from Oscar and me.
"I want to apologize for everything," I said. "I truly didn’t mean for this to get this way."
"Well, it did!" Dixon snapped. "I just don’t understand what happened to you?"
"What?" I wrinkled my forehead in confusion of his question.
"Aidan, when we were in college you totally knew how to talk and charm a girl. What made you think that propositioning a girl like she was a whore would work?" Dixon sat with his eyebrows raised.
"I-I don’t know. I guess I was trying to be businesslike," I answered.
"Idiot," he mumbled.
"Asshole," Dixon corrected.
"Okay, I get it!" I groaned out. "Did you guys ever think about my side of this? I know that you all laugh at the ‘conditions’ that I have and think that I could just randomly select some girl to marry and all that, but it’s much more difficult than that." I ran a hand threw my hair.
"I only have a little over 6 months to get married, which means that, essentially, I need to be planning marriage arrangements in no less than four months." I groaned out loud and threw myself back onto the couch.
"Damn it!" I slapped Oscar’s hand as he placed a towel full of ice on my cheek.
"Use it to keep the swelling and bruising down."