“We care about you, Aiden. So we stayed.” My cheeks heat up because of the way he looks at me.
“And we never want to see you in handcuffs again,” Brian says, and then he hugs him too. A giant, comforting dad hug.
“Thanks for your help, Brian. You, too, Alan.” Aiden shakes hands with the lawyer, who tells him that it was no problem, and to call him if anything else happens.
“Come on, man.” Mason lightly slaps Aiden’s back while his dad talks to Alan. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Aiden agrees, and we leave the place that almost turned more than one life upside down. As we walk out the exit, I can tell both Mason and I want to ask Aiden about what happened, but we’re too scared to. Despite his exhaustion, Aiden notices, and he knows exactly what we’re thinking.
“I’m too tired to answer your questions right now,” he says. “I’ll tell everyone what happened tomorrow.”
Makes perfect sense. He was interrogated for hours straight; we don’t need to subject him to even more interrogation.
“Need a ride, Aiden?” Brian asks. “Your house is still a crime scene, right?”
Mason’s about to offer his house for Aiden to stay at, but before he has the chance to say anything, I blurt: “You can crash in my guest room.”
I need the chance to sort everything out with Aiden—alone. He just found out literally a few hours ago that my name is Thea and that I’m hiding my real identity from a man trying to hunt me down. We didn’t get to talk about it, even though he said he was all in, that he understood, that he didn’t hate me. But I still remember how betrayed he looked, how betrayed he must have felt. Aiden said that he accepted me, the real me, but it’s only fair to him that I tell him my story—the whole story. He deserves that.
“Plus,” I continue before anyone can object, “your car is already at my house. It’ll make things easier for you.”
“Are you sure?” Brian asks. “If it’s a problem, Amelia, Aiden can stay with us.”
“No problem at all. What time is it? One a.m.? My mom will have just gotten home and will be asleep by the time we get there since she has an early morning flight. She won’t have time to object.” I don’t add that I sent her a text saying we were all out watching a movie and that I’d volunteered to drive, and her only reply was K.
Either Aiden is so tired he really doesn’t care or he’s burning for answers, because it only takes a few moments for him to agree to come to my house.
Up until a few minutes before Aiden got arrested, I’d been avoiding him like a kid who’d received a bad report card dodges their strict, high-standards-holding parents. And now I’m practically begging him to come home with me so we can talk alone. Funny how things change in a matter of hours.
After saying good-bye to Mason, Brian, and Alan, we all head in different directions in the quiet parking lot, which is a stark contrast to the loud craziness of the police station. It’s a calm, cool night, but I feel anything but. Now that I’m alone with Aiden, sneaking glances at his broad frame as we walk, my stomach squeezes. Will my stomach always do somersaults when I’m around him? Will my heart ever beat normally when I look at him?
Before I can open the driver’s side door, Aiden’s behind me. Suddenly, we’re chest to chest, and he’s looking down at me, a lightness in his eyes and a tension in the air.
His deep voice is low and even. “We were interrupted.”
His closeness makes it hard for me to think. “We were?”
“Mmm-hmm.” His hands tug my hips to his. “I have no problem refreshing your memory if you forgot.”
He leans down and kisses me, roughly and fiercely, like it’s been ages since we’ve seen each other and all he needs to feel whole is his lips on mine. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him closer to me, needing to feel him against me. All the worry and tension I didn’t even know I was holding vanishes as we come together. He’s here. He doesn’t hate me. I didn’t lose him. The kiss ends way too fast, but I’m still left breathless when he pulls away.
I’m all in, Thea Kennedy. His words play in my mind, making me shiver. His grip tightens. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” he says, his warm hands vanishing from my waist as he walks around the car to the passenger side.
As I pull out of the parking lot, Aiden calls Julian to see about picking up the twins, but Julian says they stayed up all night asking questions about Aiden and playing video games, and only now fell asleep.
Aiden rubs his temples. “Okay, let them sleep. I’ll pick them up in the morning and explain what’s going on. Thanks again, Julian.” He pauses, listening. “Yeah, I’m okay. See you tomorrow.”
We don’t talk, and the soft hum of the radio acts as background noise. The road has that late-at-night quality in which the lights are hazy, and Aiden leans back against the headrest, his eyes closed and body relaxed.
His presence fills up my small car, and he almost looks ridiculous with his long legs barely sitting comfortably under the dash. He’s sitting right there, and he’s not pressing me for answers. Not pushing me about Tony. Not asking me about the three people Tony killed. It’s equally hard for me to not ask him how he’s feeling. I tap the steering wheel and force my vision to stay on the road, not to drift over at Aiden, too nervous to ask him any questions despite the fact that he just kissed me.
“Thea,” he says, breaking the silence, his head still relaxed against the seat.
“Yes?” I answer, my heart skipping a beat at hearing my real name in his deep voice.
“The tapping is driving me crazy,” he says, eyes still closed.
I stop immediately. “Sorry, I’m just …”
“Anxious?” He lifts his head. “I know. How are you holding up? We didn’t have enough time to talk about your secret. You know I’d never tell anyone—you don’t even have to ask. But I was worried about you being in a police station.” He shifts in his seat and runs his hand through his short but messy dark-blond hair. “If those articles are a snapshot of what you went through, then being there must not have been the easiest thing for you.”
How much time did he have to go through the news articles of my past lives that I keep hidden in a shoe box? He’s either really good at puzzles or he got a really good look, because he’s spot on about my hatred of police stations.
“Normally, it would’ve brought up some bad memories, and I definitely wouldn’t want to be there for as long as I was. The smell. The phone ringing. God, even the stupid chairs are all the same. I’ve been let down so many times … but I was only worried about you.”
My voice erupts awkwardly, and Aiden asks, “Why are you laughing?”
“You literally spent hours in jail being questioned about a murder. You went through that whole traumatic experience of being arrested and interrogated and potentially going to jail. Your stepfather is dead and your house is a crime scene, and the first thing you do is worry about me?”
“I knew I didn’t do it, and I knew my alibi would check out. I didn’t have anything to hide so I wasn’t worried about being charged. But since I had nothing to do but wait, my mind wandered, and I’ve got to be honest with you—thinking about everything we’ve been through, I was mad for a moment. After opening up, trusting you, telling you things I’ve never told anyone. I was pissed thinking that you didn’t care, that my feelings weren’t being reciprocated.”