- Lucy -
e was looking out the front window, but hadn’t started the car.
“I guess it was good weird,” I said softly.
“Better than good,” he said, turning to look at me. “Don’t you think?”
I nodded.
“So how about I won’t be weird if you won’t be weird?”
“Does that work any better than I won’t think dirty thoughts if you won’t?”
A mischievous glint flashed in his eyes as he started the car. “Were you thinking saucy thoughts about me while you were working?”
“Maybe,” I said, looking out the window.
“Tell me something you were thinking about,” he said, pulling out onto the road.
I shook my head.
“Oh come on,” he said. “Prove you’re not an unimaginative prude.”
My jaw dropped. “I am not a prude.”
He leaned on his console and fixed his eyes on me. “Go ahead. Try and shock me. I dare you.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to play this game.”
“That’s a shame,” he said, stopping at a red light. “I think you would’ve really liked to hear what I was thinking about you.”
I swallowed.
“But if you don’t want to know then-”
“No,” I lied. “I don’t.”
He shook his head. “I guess I’ll just have to show you then.”
Was he crazy? I couldn’t talk like this with him. He was my friend. It was too awkward, too embarrassing, especially since I had no idea where his boundaries were.
I rested my elbow on the center console. “Well, you better show me that ice cream place first cause I’m getting hangry.”
“Hangry?”
“Yeah, hungry and angry. Hangry. Like Brad and Angelina. Brangelina."
“Oh,” he said, his brows coming together. “I think I get that sometimes.”
“You think?”
"I bet the Brangelina's don't get hangry."
"Probably not. What do they have to be hungry or angry about?"
“Say no more,” he said, laying his foot on the gas. “You’ll need energy for what I have in mind anyway.”
I rolled my eyes. “Have you always been this filthy or are you turning it up a notch now that I let you have your way with me?”
“I think I’ve always been bad, but being with you certainly hasn’t mitigated anything.”
I shook my head and smiled out the window. If a guy as hot as Aiden hit on me in real life, I wouldn’t even be able to make conversation. Then again, this wasn’t my real life. I didn’t know what it was. “So where are we headed?”
“I was thinking The Gelateria,” he said.
“But we’ve been there a thousand times.”
“For good reason.”
“You don’t want to try something new?”
“Nope.”
I leaned my head against the seat.
“I’m hankering for their double chocolate. I need something slightly bitter after all the sweetness I had on Saturday night.”
I felt my cheeks go rosy. “Give it a rest, loverboy.”
“Careful now, I could get used to that.”
He parked the car at a meter and had already put some coins in by the time I joined him on the sidewalk.
“What flavor are you going to get?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, walking through the ice cream shop’s open door. “I’m thinking either stracciatella or pistachio, but I’m feeling a bit torn.”
“Get both.”
“No. That’s madness, and you know it. Neither of those flavors can share the spotlight.”
“What did you get last time?”
“Lemon.”
He grimaced. “That doesn’t really help.”
I pursed my lips. I rarely made a bad choice, but there was nothing as dissatisfying as ordering the wrong flavor and wishing it were something else.
“The stracciatella will probably taste better mixed with my chocolate.”
“Why would it be mixed with- oh- I see what you did there.”
He smiled, obviously pleased with himself.
“For your information, I won’t be sharing my ice cream with you in any way so you have nothing to worry about.”
“As if you’ll be able to help yourself.”
We ordered our ice cream and carried our cones to the little patio out front, taking seats across from each other on the little metal chairs.
“So, now that you’re not hangry anymore,” Aiden said. “I have something I need to ask you.”
“Shoot,” I said, crunching a piece of dark chocolate.
“I was wondering if you would be my date for Claire’s wedding?”
I stopped licking my cone. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” he said, taking a large bite out of the side of his chocolate ice cream. “And if it makes you feel better, it was actually her idea.”
“What?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I wish I thought of it myself, but she realized I didn’t have a date before I did. Anyway, she said she’d love you to come.”
“Wow.”
“In fact, she said you were the only woman in my life that she actually likes.”
I laughed.
“And she seemed to think I’d behave better if you were there.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“So will you come?”
I filled my mouth with ice cream to buy myself time.
“It would mean a lot to me,” he said.
I would never turn him down, but I relished the semblance of control that being hesitant seemed to give me.
“Well?”
While the pathetic little girl in me did a cartwheel, I shrugged. “Sure. If it means that much to you.”
“Thanks, Lucy. It does.”
I licked around the base of my cone and got the weird inkling that Aiden was transfixed by it. “What?”
“Nothing.”
I lowered my cone and looked around. Everyone else was minding their own business from the people in suits having ice cream cones as their one reward all day to the kids hanging out with their skateboards, staring at their phones while they ate in silence.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked.
“Of course,” Aiden said, sitting up straight with chocolate lips.
“As a friend.”
“Sure.”
“And I want you to be honest with me, no matter what.”
“Always.”
I sighed. “I’m not some kind of rebound for you, am I?”
“What?”
I shrugged. “I don’t mean to be lame, but the thought crossed my mind and-”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No it’s not. It’s a real thing, and I don’t know if you’ve thought about it, but I just wanted to know if you’re just- I don’t want to say using me but-”
“That’s a really fucked up thing to ask me, Lucy.”
“I think it’s a fair question.”
“I don’t. Not at all.”
“I’m not trying to offend you or anything. I’m just trying to figure out if this thing or- that thing we did on Saturday- if that was all just for fun or if it was-”
“More?”
I nodded.
Aiden sighed. “Have I done anything to make you think it’s not?”
I pursed my lips. “No, but-”
“Lucy, I care about you. I always have. You know that.”
“Of course I know that, but you haven’t always cared about me the way you-” I swallowed. “Cared about me on Saturday.”
“I know,” he said, licking his lips so the chocolate disappeared. “But that doesn’t mean my feelings aren’t genuine.”
I took a deep breath.
“I like you a lot,” he said. “And I’m attracted to you.”
I pursed my lips.
“And I’m not done trying to convince you that we’ve got something here, something we’ve been sitting on for too long.”
“I guess I just want to know why now? After all this time?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. But isn’t it better late than never?”
“Maybe,” I said. “I just don’t want to lose you as a friend.”
“Don’t look at it as losing a friend,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Look at it as gaining a skilled lover.”
I rolled my eyes.
He leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “You do want to have another night like that, right? Please tell me I’m not sitting here making a total ass of myself.”
I smiled. “You’re not.”
“Thank god,” he said. “Cause I really need more of that side of you in my life.”
“Well, if you play your cards right, maybe that can be arranged.”
“Good,” he said. “I would be devastated if we couldn’t do that again.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, Luce. I don’t think you get what you do to me.”
“No,” I said. “I guess I don’t.”
“Well, I’m going to show you as many times as you’ll let me,” he said. “And don’t even get me started on what I’m going to do to you.”