“Fine.”
Aidan bought the coffee and they stirred in their preferred flavors: just sugar for him, and hazelnut International Delight for her. A kid with a laptop was settling onto the intended bench as they approached, but Aidan made a face that sent him scurrying.
“Wish I could do that sometimes,” Sam said as she dropped down onto the cold concrete.
“What?”
“Thelook.”
“You should talk to Mags. I hear she gives classes.”
“No doubt.”
The disquiet pressed in more strongly, a cold hand against the back of her neck. Whatever troubled Aidan, he wasn’t just ticked off, wasn’t just stewing. This was heavy; it had clamped down on him.
He held his coffee and stared down at the toes of his boots, head hanging between his shoulders.
“Aidan, tell me,” she prodded.
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “My dad’s not always an easy guy to please.”
“I’d imagine not.”
“I kinda gave up a while back, when I was a kid. It wasn’t possible, so I stopped trying. And I guess that’s why I suck at doing anything right, even when I try.”
She kept silent.
“After the accident,” he continued, and her mind filled with an image of him, pale and drawn in Ava’s guestroom, his arms dark with healing road rash, his head supported by pillows; it turned her stomach. “I had a talk with my dad, and I realized – well, I was gonna do things different. No more fucking – I mean, screwing around. I was gonna get settled. I was gonna step up. That was my plan.”
Sam thought of Tonya Sinclair, and her stomach did another cartwheel. She swallowed. “Settle down as in…”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said with a snort. “I got it wrong, and I’m an idiot, I guess.”
“You’re not an idiot.”
He glanced over at her finally, brows lifted, half-smile sad and mocking.
“If I’m being totally honest, I think you’re a little selfish.”
His grin widened a fraction. “Yeah?”
“You like to have a good time.” She knew her cheeks colored as she thought of the wild MC party rumors she’d been subjected to since childhood. She’d overhead Aidan talking about a stripper once their senior year, just before he’d dropped out, that confident, smooth quality of his voice that said so much more than the words themselves.
“Not – not that there’s anythingwrongwith that,” she added, and he chuckled. “But you’ve been worried about yourself – about moment to moment experiences, and not the big picture, not the way your actions affect others, or yourself, even.”
She didn’t really expect him to agree, much less smile about it, but he did both. Nodding, he said, “I don’t impress you for a second, do I?”
A little tremor of something ridiculous in the pit of her stomach. A flutter in her chest. “Depends.”
His grin widened for a second, a brief flash of humor and happiness, and then his mood dimmed. His eyes stayed pinned to hers, dark and deep, and full of something she could only guess. “You’re better than me,” he said quietly, seriously.
“Aidan–”
“You finished school, you’re about to have two degrees. You go to work, and take care of your family, and you don’t break the law. You’re a good person, Sam. And you’re not selfish, not like me. You’re a better human being than I’ll ever be. But you don’t treat me like I’m not fit to breathe the same air as you.”
Awareness dawned, and with it a cool prickling along her skin. Anger knifed through her, a possessive, almost maternal urge to pull him in close, stroke his hair. “Who treats you that way?”
“Doesn’t matter now.”
