Page 46 of His to Cherish
Until then, I was a woman of my word.
“Hungry?” I asked, acting as calm as possible. “I made some teriyaki noodles earlier. They’re still warm.”
I left him in the entryway, staring at me as I disappeared into the kitchen. It took only moments before he joined me, eying me warily.
“You’re not going to ask?”
I wanted to. God, I wanted to.
Instead of asking, I turned the heat on the stovetop to low and added a couple of tablespoons of water and a dash of sauce to the pot so I could reheat the noodles without drying them.
“Is that what you need from me?” I asked, turning to the fridge.
I pulled out a beer for him and set it on the counter.
He stared at the bottle for a moment before shaking his head. “No. I don’t want you to ask.”
“Okay, well the noodles will only take a few minutes. I’ve got steaks thawed if you need something more to eat. But other than that, if you want to go watch TV, I’ll be out in a little bit.”
He watched me as he twisted the top off the beer and took his first swallow.
When he set the beer on the counter, he tilted his head—assessing me. Looking for something.
He was probably searching for a sign that said I really was dying to know why he’d shown up, overnight bag in hand, and God, I wanted to. I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted to understand what brought us together. What continued to bring him to my house at night. He had friends, loads of them, yet he seemed to be relying on me and not seeing them.
I wanted to comfort him, to brush away his grief and the thick layer of sadness and anger that covered him. But it wasn’t my role.
It wasn’t what he needed.
I just wished I knew what he needed from me.
I swallowed a thickness at the thought.
“I’ll wait for you here.” His voice was gruff and rolled over me like the morning tide, a bit chilly but comforting, and brought with it new hope.
I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to see anything in his eyes that would diminish the impact of what his words and his voice did to me.
So I turned, stirred the noodles, and fidgeted with everything I could find to do in the kitchen all while I kept my back to Aidan. Thoughts of my talk with Beth from earlier entered my mind but I pushed them away.
I didn’t want to do or say anything that would ruin the already precarious mood he was in.
“How was work today?” I asked, trying to find something mundane to break the lingering silence between us.
After a stretched silence, he sighed. “Work sucks.”
“I’m sorry.” I meant it. I didn’t even know how he could find the energy or the motivation to get out of bed in the morning, much less put in a full day on a job site. “Bad market or what?”
“No, Chelsea. It has nothing to do with the market.”
I twisted my head, looking at him over my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t fucking—” He snapped the words out before squeezing his eyes closed and blowing out a deep breath. “I don’t want your pity and I don’t want your apologies. It just fucking sucks. All of it feels so damn pointless.”
I thought of a thousand things I could say to him.I’m sorry. I know. I’m sure they do. Things will get better.
They all sounded trite in my head, even if I meant every single one of them. If they rolled off my tongue they’d sound worse—completely meaningless.
Before I could stop myself, before I could talk myself out of it, I went to him.
