Maggie’s tone softened. “I know. But don’t you worry about it. The law’s got nothing to do with how much we love our babies. You let us take him, and you won’t ever have to fret about it again.”
~*~
They left twenty minutes later with assurances that Ethan would be in contact with the Sinclairs’ lawyers right away, Eugenia red-faced, Tonya notably relieved.
“I feel a little skeevy,” Ava admitted as they slid into the car. “Like we were making a drug deal or something.”
“Change your mind?”
“Oh no.” Already there was a new lightness in her chest, a sense of things sliding into their proper cosmic alignment. “It’s better this way.”
“Yeah.” Maggie sighed. “Now we’ve just gotta work on your brother. See how many crowbars it takes to pry his head outta his ass.”
Eleven
Sam didn’t want to miss Aidan, but the fact was she did. She’d come to love their afternoon snack dates – if she could call them such. It wasn’t just the old fascination at work; there was something about his undefeated, juvenilefuck the worldattitude that calmed her inside, eased all the tension she carried in her shoulders. When they walked side-by-side, hands wondering what it would be like to tangle together, she felt the weight of all the planned minutes and hours that lay ahead drop slowly away from her.Fuck the world, she thought, and was left with only a cool moment on a university sidewalk, sunlight dappling his gorgeous headful of dark curls.
She went a week without his visits, after their Dartmoor garden talk. And then suddenly, there he was, waiting outside her classroom door like he hadn’t kissed her, and hadn’t asked to try. Like normal.
Fuck the world, her conscience whispered, and she leaned up against the wall beside him.
“You’re back.”
He nodded, eyes bright with their usual mischief. “I couldn’t stay away too long. Had to get my fix.”
“Ugh,” she groaned, but her face warmed with pleasure. “Come on, you hopeless romantic you.” She tugged at his sleeve and he followed her down the hall and out through the double doors, into a windswept, sun-drenched afternoon.
The air hummed with the cold, hundreds of leaves scrabbling across the cobblestones faster than the groundskeepers could blow them away. The kind of day that made you want to lean into the person you walked beside.
Instead, Sam shoved her hands in her coat pockets and felt the wind wreak havoc on her braid.
“How’ve you been?” Aidan asked, and she could sense the carefulness in him. At another time she might have laughed to think that he was treading lightly around anyone, but she took it as a compliment with a decisive burst of warmth in her chest.
“Up to my eyebrows in sloppily-written papers,” she said. “Is ‘misogyny’ really the only ten-dollar word college kids have ever heard of? That’s their entire literary analysis these days.”
“Dunno. I’m not real sure what that is.”
“Be glad you don’t, believe me.”
“I tend to believe people who are smarter than me.”
They were dodging the point, that being they couldn’t go back to small talk. Not after what had occurred between them. If she felt it – this pulse in the narrow space between them – then he had to feel it too.
“What’ve you been up to?” she asked, to stall.
“The usual. Working. Club stuff.”
“Right…right…”
They halted at the same moment, turned toward one another, and almost tripped the kid walking behind them.
“Dude!” he exclaimed angrily, and swerved around them.
Sam didn’t notice; her eyes went straight to Aidan’s face. “Why did you come back?”
He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “I was serious about what I said before – my fix.” His grin fell lopsided, self-conscious. “I was serious about wanting to try, too.”
“Aidan…” She wanted to shove him away; wanted to pull him in close. Was she just sabotaging herself at this point? Was this one of those times when she was supposed to stand still and let the Good Things train run right into her?
