“Why is that, do you think?” Aidan asked from behind the wheel as they drove away. His profile was lit up by the passing streetlights, jaw strong and sharp, and Stella realized all over again just how handsome this man was.
She felt a reckless impulse stirring behind her ribcage; that quicksilver pulse of temptation. The one she’d felt in the moment before she’d kissed him. The one she’d felt on the beach all those years ago, with the bottle spinning between them, full of possibilities.
Dangerous.
“I don’t know,” she said, struggling to remember the question. “I guess I got too busy. My friends say I’ve forgotten to be a person,” she added ruefully. “Apparently, I’m so focused on the boring, practical things in life that it’s made me a boring, practical person.”
Aidan chuckled warmly. “You? You’re the least boring woman I’ve ever met.”
Stella blinked. “Thank you?” she said, hesitantly.
Aidan’s smile grew. “You’re welcome. So, what are we going to do about it?” he asked, turning down the bumpy dirt lane towards her house.
“About what?” she asked, confused.
He brought the car to a stop outside her house and turned to her, his smile as sweet and dark as molasses in the moonlight. “About you feeling so boring.”
Stella’s heart skittered in her chest. She could think of one thing. Taking hold of Aidan’s crumpled collar, pulling him across the stick shift, and kissing him senseless certainly wouldn’t be boring, or the last bit practical.
She cleared her throat, hoping he wouldn’t see her blushing in the dark. “Umm…” she mumbled, her mind blank – aside from extremely inappropriate fantasies, that was.
“Think about it like this,” Aidan said. “What’s the one thing you always wanted to try, but never got around to?”
Stella blinked. “Dance lessons,” she blurted suddenly.
“Really?” Aidan looked interested.
She nodded. That much was true, at least. “I always loved dance movies,” she confided. “Singin’ in the Rain, Step Up, Strictly Ballroom…” she remembered the hours she’d spent watching them, nursing Matty through a bad bout of colic. “I always wanted to be able to dance like that. It looked so much fun.”
“Well then,” Aidan said. “Why don’t you learn now?”
Stella paused. “I don’t know, isn’t it kind of late for that? Where would I even start?” she began to say, as Aidan whipped out his phone.
“Easy,” he said, tapping the screen. “It says here, there’s a class in Provincetown. Monday nights. Broadway, that’s what you want to do, right?”
“Ummm…” Stella fumbled for an excuse.
“Too late, you’re signed up.” Aidan said, tapping again. “Done. Now there’s no getting out of it.”
“That’s not fair!” Stella protested. “What if I have work, or plans, or—”
“Do you?” Aidan challenged her.
“Well… No,” she admitted.
“So, you do now. Problem solved.” Aidan looked smug.
Stella narrowed her eyes at him. “You really are…” She paused, searching for the right word.
“Efficient?” he offered playfully. “Resourceful? Decisive?”
“Annoying.” She answered, but she couldn’t keep a smile from her lips.
Aidan grinned back. “I just don’t see the point in hanging around, if there’s something you really want.”
“What about you?” Stella shot back, feeling unsettled. “What do you want?”
Aidan’s gaze met hers, and for a moment, something shimmered between them in the dark. “I don’t know,” he said quietly, and it felt to her like there was a world of emotion behind those few short words.
“So why don’t you do the same thing?” she said softly. “Think about what made you happy when you were younger, and do it all over again.”
“Maybe I will.”
The moment stretched, then Aidan looked away. “Here we are,” he said abruptly, as if noticing for the first time that they’d arrived. He got out of the car, and Stella collected her shoes – and herself – and followed, relieved to have some distance between them again, but regretting it all the same.
He was just being a friend, she reminded herself, as they walked up the path. A good neighbor. The kind who drove her home, and walked her to the door, and absolutely, definitely, didn’t have any romantic intentions, however date-like it seemed. “So…” she mumbled, feeling tongue-tied.
“So…” he echoed, jamming his hands in his pockets. He looked awkward, and a little bashful, and for a moment, it was like she was seeing eighteen-year-old Aidan on her doorstep.
She must have been staring, because Aidan paused. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Just… I have the weirdest sense of deja-vu.”
“Really?” Aidan asked, looking amused. “Because I’m pretty sure I would remember if I’d ever taken Stella Hartley home before.”
He was kidding, she knew. “True. And you have a few more worry lines than you used to,” she agreed, trying to keep things light.
“But you haven’t changed at all.”
Stella gulped. Maybe it was the sincerity in his voice, or the way the moonlight was playing across his eyes that made her forget where she was standing, and what, exactly, she was doing, but she couldn’t look away.
And neither did he.
Aidan leaned closer. His fingertips came to rest on her bare arm, and she inhaled at the touch; a shock of sensation.
There was something she should be telling him…
The thought surfaced, from somewhere in the distant reaches of her mind, but Stella found it hard to focus. Her heart was beating faster, and that quicksilver rush returned, slipping through her bloodstream.
Some very important detail…
But Stella’s brain was hazy, and Aidan was standing too close for her to care. His eyes locked on hers, and he leaned in closer… closer… His breath was hot on her lips, and she could almost taste him—
“Mom, is that you?”
The door opened suddenly, and they were flooded with bright light from the hall. Matty was standing there, his gaming console still in one hand, and a can of soda in the other.
“Honey!” Stella blurted, leaping back. She felt like she’d just been busted staying out past curfew, even though nothing had technically happened.
Yet.
“How’s the tournament?” she asked, too loud.
“Fine, but I need to reboot the Wi-Fi.” Matty barely glanced at Aidan. “Don’t touch anything for like, five minutes, OK?”
“Sure,” Stella said, relieved he hadn’t done himself any injury during the evening alone. And that he hadn’t opened the door ten seconds later. “Go right ahead.”
Matty disappeared towards his room, and Stella turned back to Aidan. He was standing there looking totally shocked.
He hadn’t known about Matty.
Crap. Stella winced. She should have mentioned something sooner, she knew, found a way to casually share that small detail about her having a kid, but that ship had well and truly sailed.