That might have made me wince if I felt guilty about what I’d done, but I didn’t. It also didn’t occur to me right then that he somehow knew I’d been planning on quitting for a long time. It just sort of went in one ear and right out the other. “I didn’t lie to you. I only stayed because you had just gotten better, and I felt bad leaving you so soon afterward. I couldn’t talk myself into doing it, and I was only trying to be a nice person. There’s a difference.”
His thick eyebrows went up a millimeter but no other muscle in his face reacted to my comment. “You told Zac,” he pointed out like an accusation.
An accusation I wasn’t going to grab onto. “Yeah, I told Zac because he’s my friend.” I damn sure wasn’t going to apologize for it. “Please tell me when I was supposed to casually tell you, and expect a high five. Or were you going to give me a hug and congratulate me?” I might have nailed him with a look that said ‘are you fucking me?’
“When I did finally tell you, you didn’t care, Aiden. That’s what half of this comes down to. I’m still… I’m so mad at you, and I accept that I shouldn’t be. I just can’t help it. You’re not my friend; you’ve never tried to be my friend. You haven’t once given a shit about me until you needed something, and now for some strange reason, you’re making it seem like you can’t live without me. And we both know that’s bullshit.”
He stayed quiet for a moment, taking a sharp sniff, his eyes seemingly trying to pierce a hole straight through my head. “I’ve apologized to you. I meant it. You know I meant it,” he insisted, and I could grudgingly admit to myself that the logical part of my brain recognized that statement as a truth. Aiden didn’t apologize, and for all the things he was, he wasn’t a liar. That just wasn’t in his genes. For him to actually say the ‘A’ word? It wasn’t insignificant. “I don’t have time for friends, and if I did, I wouldn’t go out of my way to make them anyway. I’ve always been this way. And I really don’t have time for a relationship. You understand that. I’m not worried about getting caught—”
So he was changing the subject. “Because you won’t be the one going to jail,” I reminded him under my breath, frustrated at his tactics.
He raised one of his eyebrows another millimeter, but it was his flaring nostrils that gave away his irritation. “I’ve done a lot of research, and I consulted an immigration lawyer. We can pull it off. All you would have to do at first is file a petition for me.”
Aiden didn’t say I think we can pull it off, he said we could do it and I didn’t miss that nuance.
“You know, Aiden, you make saying yes so damn difficult. I would have done just about anything for you if you’d asked me when I worked for you, but now, especially when you act—you still act—like one single ‘sorry’ makes up for disrespecting me in front of other people, and letting someone talk about me, it pisses me off. How can you ask me to do this huge favor for you when I feel zero obligation to? We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if I didn’t want my loans paid off.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “I want to tell you to leave me alone, that I’ll pay off my debt on my own like I had always planned on doing. I don’t need your money.” Meeting his eyes, I had to fight the urge to tear up. “I wished you had respected me enough to appreciate me back when it would have meant something. I liked you. I admired you, and in the course of a few days, you killed all that.”
The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them.
We stared at each other. And stared at each other. Then stared at each other a little more.
When I was a kid, I learned the hard way how expensive the truth was. Sometimes it cost you people in your life. Sometimes it cost you things in your life. And in this life, most people were too cheap to pay the price for something as valuable as honesty. In this case, I could tell the price tag had hit Aiden unexpectedly.
Slowly, after a few breaths, he ducked his head, and rubbed at the back of his neck with that great big hand. His breathing got harder, raspier, and he sighed an Alaska-sized breath. “Forgive me.” His tone was rougher than ever, seemingly dragged through sand, and then covered in shards of glass. Yet somehow, it sounded like the most real, heartfelt thing to ever come out of his mouth, at least in front of me.
But it still didn’t feel like enough.
“I can forgive you. I’m sure you regretted it later on when I wasn’t around but—” I shoved my glasses to the top of my head and rubbed my forehead with the back of my hand before lowering them again. “Look, this isn’t a good start to a fake relationship, don’t you think?”
“No.” He moved his head slightly, just enough so that I could see those dark coffee irises with that bright amber ring surrounding the pupil peering up at me beneath the fanned cover of his long eyelashes. “I always learn from my mistakes. We made a good team once. We’ll make a good team again.”
Lifting his head completely, a dimple in his cheek popped out of nowhere, and he raised his hands to cup the sides of his head. “I’m no good at this kind of stuff. I would rather give you money than have to beg, but I will if that’s what you want,” he admitted, sounding about as vulnerable as ever. “You’re the only person I would want to do this with me.”
Why wasn’t this so black and white?
“I’m not asking you to beg me. Come on. All I’ve ever wanted from you was… I don’t even know. Maybe I want to think that you care about me at least a little bit after so long, and that’s pointless. You want this to be a business deal, and I understand. It just makes me feel cheap because I know if Zac was asking me, I would have probably said yes from the beginning because he’s my friend. You couldn’t even find it in your heart to tell me ‘good morning’.”
He sighed, his index finger and thumb pulling at his ear. Dropping his gaze to the kitchen countertop, he offered, “I can be your friend.”
Two years too late. “Only because you want something.”
To give him credit, he didn’t try to argue with me otherwise. “I can be your friend. I can try,” he said in a low, earnest voice. “Friends take a lot of time and effort, but…” Aiden looked up at me again with a sigh, “I can do it. If that’s what you want.”
“I get so angry thinking about everything; I don’t know if that’s even what I really want anymore. It’s probably not what I ever wanted. I don’t know. I just wanted you to see me as a person instead of just that person you don’t ever have to tell ‘thank you’ to. So for you to tell me you can try to be my friend, it’s so forced.”
“I’m sorry. I know. I’m a loner. I’ve always been a loner. I can’t remember the last time I had a friend who didn’t play football, and even then, it usually never lasted. You know how much it means to me. You know how seriously I take it, maybe better than most of my teammates do,” he explained like it was taking everything in him to make that admission.
I just kind of side-eyed him.
He continued. “I know you know. I can also accept responsibility for not being very nice to you either, all right? I said I’m not good at this friendship thing, I never have been, and it’s easier not to bother trying.”
If that wasn’t the most slacker comment to ever come out of his mouth, I didn’t know what was. But I didn’t say it out loud.
“If you got on my nerves, I would have fired you the first time you flipped me off.”
I found myself not exactly feeling honored.
“You’re a good employee. I told you that. I needed an assistant, Vanessa; I didn’t want a friend. But you’re a good person. You work hard. You’re committed. That’s more than I can say about anyone else I’ve met in a long time.” That big Adam’s apple bobbed as he stared right at me. “I need a friend—I need you.”