“Well, I’m no’ sure I should let ye in wi’ a face like thunder.” Roddy braced his arm across the doorway of Seonaid’s flat.
“A face like thunder?” I pointed to my face. “This is not thunder. This is … irritated confusion.”
“Either way, yer claws are oot and I like ma woman’s face the way it is, thank ye very much.”
“Roddy, get out of my way.”
“Who is it?” Seonaid’s voice sounded distant, suggesting she was in the sitting room.
Roddy frowned at me. “Whit has she done now?”
“Meddled.”
Sighing heavily, he stood aside and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “I couldnae settle doon wi’ a quiet wee lass wi’ nae pals.”
Ignoring his teasing, I brushed past him and wandered down the hallway to the sitting room. I found Seonaid sitting at the dining table using her laptop. She twisted in her seat and smiled at my appearance. “Hey, babe, this is a nice surprise.”
Ugh, she made it so hard to be pissed at her.
I dumped my bag on the floor and flopped down in an armchair. “You meddled.”
Her eyes grew round. “Did he come see you?”
“Did who come see whit?” Roddy asked, coming into the room.
Seonaid waved her hand dismissively. “Too long to explain. Why don’t you make us all a cuppa?”
“I’m watching the fitbaw.” He pointed to the TV where he had a soccer game on pause.
“It’ll be here when you’re done.”
He looked between us and rather than leaving, he sat down on the couch and waited expectantly for me to speak.
Seonaid, uncaring that Roddy was being nosy, hurried over to me, settling down on the couch at the end nearest to me. “Well?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think I should be a little angry that you went behind my back and told Aidan the truth?”
My friend shook her head. “Absolutely not. You no longer have dead eyes so I’m going to be able to live with my decision.”
“Meddler.”
“Well?”
“Well what? Thanks to you, I’ve got a sexy-ass Scotsman determined to pick things up where we left them.”
“Yay!” She clapped her hands in delight, and then sobered so quickly it was comical. “He was pretty shell-shocked after I told him and he didn’t want to believe it. But I guess he confronted that bampot and she fessed up?”
“Laine fessed up. And like I said, now he’s all about ‘starting over.’ Thanks, Seonaid. This is just what I need.”
“This is just what you need,” she argued. “I got to spend half an hour with that man and bloody hell, Nora he’s lethal! Why would you want to resist that?”
I glared at her. “I told you why!”
“You’re happy with your life the way it is and blah, blah, blah.”
“Nice.”
“Look, your life is good. I couldn’t be happier that you finally got over yourself and started giving yourself the life you deserve.”
“Again … nice.”
She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, in my eyes, deliberately not making an attempt to start over with Mr. I’m So Fucking Hot Eyes Burn Just Looking at Me is doing the opposite of giving yourself the life you deserve.”
“It’s not. I’m protecting the life I’ve built. Aidan makes me messy and confused and emotional and wrecked. Absolutely wrecked. I’m not going back there.”
“So you told him no and he’s gone?”
I thought of the determined expression on his face before he got out of the taxi. “No. He said, ‘This isn’t over.’”
A huge smile spread across her pretty face but I glared at it sullenly. She didn’t get it.
“Mr. I’m So Fucking Hot Eyes Burn Just Looking at Me?” Roddy queried.
His girlfriend took in his look of disgruntlement. “Oh, don’t worry, gorgeous, he’s her man.”
“He’s not my man. He’s not my anything.”
“Totally her bloke.”
“Seonaid—”
“But ye found him hot?” Roddy persisted.
“I have eyes.”
Used to them winding each other up but too tired to play referee, I stood and grabbed my bag. “Okay, I’m out. Bye, guys.”
Roddy gave me a chin nod, but Seonaid followed me into the hall. She pulled the front door open and stopped me. “You’re not really mad at me, are you?”
“You make it really hard to be mad at you.”
She hugged me tight. “I want you to have everything good in the world.”
“Which is why I’m not mad at you.”
When she finally let me go, she said, “I still think letting Aidan back into your life isn’t going to be the catastrophe to your well-being that you think. Things are different now.”
“I hear you and so noted. But I’ve made my decision and I really need you to support me.”
“I’ll always support you. Only… don’t be a daft bampot, Nora. When that man found out it was all a misunderstanding, that you were an injured party in all of this too, I saw the pain it caused him. Whatever you do … try not to cause him anymore pain.”
“Right, people, from the top!” Quentin called.
I sat in the audience, no schoolwork with me, and watched as Jack and Terence took to the stage to rehearse act one, scene one.
“‘If music be the food of love, play on,’” Aidan’s scrumptious, deep voice rumbled in my ear, making me jolt. I shivered at his hot breath on my skin as he continued, “Is it, Pixie?”
“Is it what?” I whispered.
He leaned further forward in the seat behind me and I felt his fingers in my hair. “Is music the food of love?”
“No,” I decided.
“Damn. That would’ve made things easier for me.”
I turned to look at him and whispered, “I thought you were leaving me alone?”
For the past week, it had certainly seemed that way. After he’d gotten out of the cab, I hadn’t heard a word from him. Seonaid tentatively asked about him when we were out at lunch, but I honestly had nothing to report. It was a relief to not have to deal with him, to not have to explain to a man I cared about that I was planning on being selfish; that when I said I didn’t want to start anything new with him, it was because I was protecting my future happiness.
Still, the fact that he had retreated altogether and had done nothing to pursue me was a little irritating. It had only emphasized to me that I was doing the right thing by keeping this man at bay.
“I said I was giving you time,” he whispered back. “I’ve done that.”
“Less than a week?”
“We both know I’m not a patient man when I want something, Pixie.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Your face gets soft every time I say it.” He reached out to run the back of his finger along my cheek. I jerked away from his touch. “Pixie …” He sounded sad.
My chest ached with guilt. “Aidan, please, don’t.”
“Not until you tell me you don’t love me.”
Suddenly, it wasn’t so easy to breathe. We had never used the L Word before. “What?”
“I said, not until you tell me—”
“Jesus Christ, Aidan, why are you disrupting my rehearsals now?” Quentin called over to us.
The entire theater went quiet and I glanced sheepishly at Quentin and then up on stage where Jack and Terence looked put out. No wonder. It was intolerably rude of us to whisper during their performance.
I opened my mouth to apologize but Aidan beat me to it.
“Apologies, Quentin, but Miss O’Brien and I have some unfinished business.”
“Like what?” My director crossed his arms over his chest and waited expectantly.
“Aidan—”
“Nothing I’d like to share with the room,” Aidan cut off my protest.
“Well, if that’s so, then perhaps you would be so kind as to shut the fuck up?”
I heard Aidan’s quiet chuckle. “Of course.”
He did shut up but I could feel him at my back, his eyes boring into me, and I was never so relieved as to get on that stage and away from him. My whole body thrummed with awareness of him, and I had excited, wild butterflies in my belly that I wished I could say were due to my upcoming performance. But they weren’t.
Those butterflies didn’t belong to the theater.
They all belonged to Aidan.
I forced him out and let Viola/Cesario in.
“‘How does he love me?’” Jane asked, playful, suspicious as Olivia.
“‘With adoration, fertile tears, with groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire,’” I replied.
“That was perfect, Pixie,” Aidan called from offstage.
“Pixie?” Quentin huffed. “Who the hell is Pixie?”
I glowered at Aidan. “I am. And that’s enough chatter from the peanut gallery.”
He laughed. “Merely giving you a compliment. You know how I love to give you compliments.”
“Oh, really? Flattery? Because lately there have only been insults.”
“You know why, Pixie. I’ve apologized. And it’s not flattery. It’s compliments. There’s a difference.”
I tried not to smile at his charm. “Well, I’m still stinging from the insults.”
“I can kiss those away.” He grinned unrepentantly up at me.
My lips twitched but I refused to give in. “Your lips are no good here.”
“Oh, Pixie …” His smile turned wicked. “We both know that’s a lie.”
Heat licked through me and my breath stuttered. “Asshole.”
Looking much too happy and smug for someone who had just been called an asshole, he replied, “Angel.”
“Prick.”
“Gorgeous.”
“Demented.”
“Addictive.”
“Aidan,” I snapped.
“Well, as entertaining as this is, I’m also completely flummoxed,” Quentin said. “Anyone else?”
There were murmurs around the room and I flushed, realizing I’d been carrying on a private encounter in front of absolutely everyone. Damn it! How did he make me forget myself?
“You know this is important to me. Stop interrupting.”
He studied me thoughtfully. “If I leave, Pixie, it’s not for good. You’ll see me again.”
“Make sure to bring your boom box blaring out Police’s ‘Every Breath You Take’ and I’ll know you’re coming.”
Aidan laughed. “Fuck, I’ve missed you.”
My insides got all squishy but I refused to let him see those feelings on my face.
He nodded. “I’ll go. But I’ll see you soon.”
I watched him stride down the aisle and out of the auditorium doors, and I hated how I wanted to jump off the stage and run after him.
Once I’d dragged my gaze from the doors, I faced the curious and very confused stares of my fellow company members. Then they volleyed their questions. How did Aidan and I go from him insulting and critiquing me constantly to us acting like we were flirty friends who knew each other?
I shrugged. “We’re old friends, okay?”
“Old friends?” Quentin asked.
“Yeah.”
“And why didn’t you say something before?”
“Because we were mad at each other about something and I didn’t want it to affect the play, but now we’re not mad. Well, not in the angry sense. I think he might be a little crazy.”
“Crazy in love with you,” Jane said quietly at my side.
I looked at her startled. “What?”
“Nora—” She laughed, looking at me incredulous, like she thought I might be a little insane myself. “I have never seen a man look at a woman the way he was looking at you. Now all that fiery anger with you before makes sense. Only love can make someone act that way. Trust me, I know. One minute, my wife adores me and the next, she wants to kill me while still wanting to make love to me.”
My heart raced. “Aidan doesn’t love me,” I denied.
“If that’s true, he’s certainly good at acting like a lovelorn idiot.”
I looked at him across the bar. “What are you doing here?”
He leaned across it, seemingly to hear me over the noise of the pub.
Not even twenty-four hours later and here he was, back again. To torment me. His look said it all.
“Aidan, this is my job.” I gestured around the pub. “I’m busy.”
“Then serve me.” He gave me a boyish, mischievous smile that melted my insides.
“Aidan—”
“I’m with some friends.” He glanced over at a table near one of the stained-glass windows. Three guys were sitting at the table, grinning at me. It was strange but in all the time I’d known Aidan, I’d never met any of his friends—except Laine.
We really had existed in a little bubble together.
I was more curious about his friends than I cared to admit. “What are you guys drinking?”
He ordered four pints of Guinness and I felt his eyes on me the entire time I pulled them. “Do you like it here?” he asked as he handed over money for the drinks.
“Yeah. Why?”
Aidan’s countenance grew so serious that I saw behind the cocky smiles and teasing to a sadness I detested seeing in him. “I want to make sure you’re happy.”
My hand closed around the twenty note he’d given me, clasping his fingers. “Are you happy, Aidan?”
“Do you still care, Pixie?”
“I want you to be happy,” I evaded.
“Oi, what’s the hold-up?” One of the guys from Aidan’s table appeared, clapping Aidan on the shoulder. I let go of Aidan’s hand and turned to the till to finish the sale.
“Nora, this is Colin. We’re old pals from school. Colin, this is Nora.”
After I handed Aidan his change (which he immediately put in the tip jar), I smiled politely at Colin. “Nice to meet you.”
“We’re all old school pals of Aidan.” Colin gestured behind him at the table. He was almost as tall as Aidan with broad shoulders and massive arms. He had a bit of a gut but there was no mistaking this guy was strong. I looked past him at the others and noted they were all pretty big.
“Huh. You weren’t on a rugby team together, were you?”
“Under 19s,” Colin said, grinning through his scraggly beard. He was dark like Aidan and he had flecks of gray in his hair. “How did you guess?”
I smirked at Aidan who was looking back at me, his feelings shining out of his eyes. I lost my smile as Jane’s words from yesterday came back to haunt me. Was Aidan in love with me?
He was looking at me like he was in love with me.
To my annoyance, I found myself getting turned on at the thought, tingles prickling in places they weren’t invited, while my bra began to feel too tight.
I turned to Colin to break the intense eye contact. “You’re all pretty big guys.”
“Do you like rugby?”
“Honestly, I can take it or leave it.”
Colin smiled. “We can work with that. I’m telling you, darlin’, by the time we’re through with you, you’ll be a rugby fan.”
“By the time you’re through with me?”
“Well, once Aidan’s convinced you to forgive him for being a pure bastard, we expect to see you around more.” He clapped Aidan supportively on the shoulders, deftly handled three of the pints, and walked them over to their friends.
I glowered at Aidan. “You told them?”
“They wanted to know why my friendship with Laine is over.”
Understanding that her betrayal was so much harder for him than it ever could be for me, I offered, “I’m sorry, Aidan. I know you were friends a long time.”
“Aye, well, no one can believe it.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to dwell on it. I want to move on.”
“So do I.”
“Nora!”
I squeezed my eyes closed for a moment and turned in the direction of the yell. Kieran glared at me from the other end of the bar.
“Want to stop flirting and help us out?”
Flushing, I pushed away from the counter. “Duty calls.”
“I’ll be over there.” Aidan grabbed his pint and pointed to the table.
Knowing there was little I could say to make him change his mind, I nodded and moved to serve a customer.
For the rest of the night, however, I felt him, even when he was engaged with his friends and not even looking over. I felt him. And I couldn’t get the look of sadness in his eyes out of my head.
Aidan had lost so much in such a short time, and back then we’d connected because I understood that like no one else had.
I was afraid of losing who I’d become—someone I liked, someone I respected—if I started a relationship with a man who had, unwittingly, made me question my self-worth with regard to his affection. But I was also afraid for Aidan. And I wondered if he needed someone to talk to.
I still cared too much.