He glanced over at her, eyes sharp and pale with disapproval. “Four guys is enough to change the…” He made a grasping gesture with one hand.
“Dynamic?” she guessed.
He nodded.
“Well, I for one am glad you came to have lunch with me,” she said, attempting to draw him from the window and his foul mood. Her poor Michael; he was even more fucked up than she was. “Come sit down,” she encouraged, laying out her own lunch of salad with leftover chicken on top.
He sat, still anxious and tense.
“Tell me about the big party,” she said. “What’s that gonna be like?”
He shrugged and unwrapped his sandwich. “Crowded. Loud.” He shot her a pointed look. “Not exactly your scene, honey.”
A quick flutter of distress in her stomach. “I figured that. Do you…do you want me to stay home?”
“No,” he said immediately, emphatically. “I mean, if you want–”
“I want to be with you. Always.”
He nodded, but his expression didn’t change.
“You don’t like when there are visitors,” she said quietly.
“I don’t like the reason they’re here.”
She shivered.
~*~
Sam was just shutting down her computer that afternoon when Aidan appeared in her office door, sparking an instant grin from her, a slow stir of heat in her belly. He had the sleeves of his white thermal pushed up over his muscular forearms, a look that drove her more than a little nuts.
“Let’s go out tonight,” he suggested, and she took his hand and let him lead her from the office.
They got a window booth at a big chain restaurant with photos of the food on the plastic menus; had chips and salsa and fatty entrees over drinks, talking about their days. Aidan filled her in on the visiting members of the club, painting colorful verbal pictures of Candyman, Jinx, Fox, and Colin.
It was when they reached the parking lot that he became almost comically reticent. His breathing changed, he looked down at his boots, and his brows crimped together.
“Uh…” he started. “I’ve been thinking.”
“About?” she prompted. Her tone was mild, but she felt an inward grab. Worry. Good relationship things rarely came from men thinking.
“Maybe we should…why don’t we…”
Oh God.
“…go back to my place tonight?” he asked, giving her a look that was almost a wince.
Sam let out a deep breath. “Okay. Sure.”
As far as apartment complexes went, Aidan’s wasn’t one of the nicer ones. In fact, it was only one step up from a total dive.
The buildings were red brick, the windows cloudy and covered from the inside with gapped blinds, half-fallen curtains, a beach towel or two. Weeds grew up through the sidewalk and parking lot pavement; she could see that even in the dark, beneath the light of flickering lampposts. The cars pulled up to the curbs were ten, fifteen-years-old, dented and faded. Following the red flare of Aidan’s taillight ahead of her, Sam glanced through her windshield and said a silent thanks for her own circumstances. Yes, she was in her thirties and living with her mother – but she wasn’t livinghere.
Aidan came to help her out, once they were parked, his arm going around her waist and pulling her in flush to his side. Affection, she wondered, or protection? Either way, she was happy to lean against him as they headed up the concrete stairwell to his door.
He inserted the key in the lock and then paused, turning to her. It was hard to see him in the shadows, but he radiated uncertainty. “Baby,” he said on a deep breath, “I gotta warn you that it’s not pretty in there.”
“No offense, but I’m not expecting it to be,” she said with a soft laugh. “Bachelors don’t make good housekeepers.”
