And he felt like a first-class asshole. “What’s wrong?” he asked her quietly.
“Other than my tire’s flat and not one person has responded to any of my resumes and I’ve gained five pounds in a few days?” she asked on a mirthless laugh. “Nothing at all is wrong.”
“I’m going to fix your tire,” he said. “And you’ll find the right job soon, you will. And you look …”
She glanced up when he trailed off.
“Amazing,” he said.
She blushed and then remained quiet so long he was sure she had no intention of speaking to him again. Then, so softly he had to move closer to hear her, she said, “Today’s her birthday.”
Aw, hell. He didn’t need to ask whose. Ashley’s, of course.
Chapter 11
Lily didn’t fall apart often. She’d made it through the public humiliation of being fired and having to come back to her hometown a big failure without losing her collective shit.
Well, mostly.
But after seeing everyone at The Slippery Slope tonight, so close and comfortable with each other, she realized that their lives had gone on without her, almost like she didn’t even exist.
That’s when she’d realized she was … lost. Lost and unsure where she belonged. Especially right now standing next to the hottest guy she knew in a light mist staring down a flat tire and another endless, sleepless night in front of her.
“I’m sorry it’s so hard for you to be here,” Aidan said quietly.
She closed her eyes. “It’s not that.” Although it’d be a lot easier if she had any job—or life—prospects. Or an umbrella. She swallowed past the football-size lump in her throat. “It’s that I miss her. I miss her so much.”
“Aw, Lily,” he breathed and when he held out his arms she was just wrecked enough to walk into them. He opened his jacket for her to get closer and she snuggled inside, finding him dry and warm and smelling like heaven.
A sigh escaped her as those strong arms closed around her. And she pressed her face into his chest, letting him hold her up for a moment. For just a moment … “I feel so alone,” she whispered, hating that the words escaped, though they were the utter truth and she was tired of holding on to them.
Because she did feel alone. Alone and sad and restless, like maybe she was missing the boat that was her life.
“But you’re not alone?” Aidan said, stroking a big hand down her back. “There are people here in Cedar Ridge who care about you.”
She didn’t say anything to this. Mostly because she was remembering how she’d felt like such an outsider at The Slippery Slope. Maybe he was talking about himself caring about her. That would be nice. Yes, she was crazy. She blamed the fact that he smelled delicious and had to tell her hopeful body that she was not going to kiss him again. She couldn’t. Not and live with herself. “You want to hear something stupid?”
“Always,” Aidan said, voice low, a little rough and a whole lot sexy.
“I pictured Cedar Ridge as standing still the whole time I was gone.” She shook her head and leaned back to see his face. “I expected it to be the same, but it’s not. Everything’s different, everyone’s changed.”
As if adding an exclamation point to this sentence, Mother Nature chose that moment to turn the mist into rain. Lily let out another mirthless laugh.
Aidan tugged off his jacket and wrapped her up in it. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
“Is Shelly your ex-girlfriend?” Not the question she’d meant to ask, not even close, but she hugged his jacket close and bit her tongue, not willing to take it back.
If Aidan was surprised by the question, he didn’t show it. “We saw each other on and off, mostly off, but she was never a girlfriend,” he said.
“So there’s no … relationship?”
“I haven’t had time to be in a relationship,” he said. “Now let’s go. I’ll come back to fix your tire and get the car to you.”
That all sounded good, but there was more sympathy in his gaze than she was comfortable with. “Why?” she asked.
He looked confused at the question, like it didn’t compute. And for a guy whose job was, literally, to help people, to save them from whatever situation they’d found themselves in, it probably didn’t compute. He was programmed to help people, to save their asses, no matter how pathetic the situation.
“Why would I help you?” he repeated slowly, obviously still baffled by her. “Because I can. Because I want to.”
But she didn’t want to need saving. Not by him, not by anyone. She did her own saving, thank you very much. And if she could’ve budged those lug nuts, she’d have changed her own stupid tire. “But I don’t need saving.”
“I hear you,” he said, calm and quiet, like maybe he was talking her off a ledge, and in some ways she supposed he was. “But it’s raining,” he reminded her. “And you’re wearing a pretty dress, which you’d get dirty changing your own tire.”