“Sounds like you succeeded.”
His mouth twisted into something that wasn’t a smile. “I guess.” He sank back into his chair and held his hands up in supplication. “You just have to know that she’s actually incredibly sensitive and caring and emotional. The way she seems—that’s just a mask.”
“Maybe.” I was skeptical. “But no matter what, she’s married to your father. That’s . . . weird.” It was a lot worse than weird, but I settled on the gentlest word I could think of.
“She’s closer to my age than to his, you know.”
“And that makes it okay?”
He said helplessly, “We were alone together so much. It wasn’t like we planned it. Things just happened.”
I could picture it: the beautiful young woman, bored and lonely and feeling like motherhood is draining her of her sex appeal, stuck at home with nothing to do because her famous husband is always at work or out schmoozing . . . and then along comes this incredibly handsome, dynamic stepson and the place is alive again and he makes her laugh and he’s there, and day after day they see each other and they eat dinner alone together and the baby’s off with the babysitter and she starts to look forward to their evenings together, when it’s just the two of them, and sometimes their hands touch when they’re passing food . . .
So much made sense now. Like that time I ran into them at Starbucks—they had probably snuck out to be alone together. No wonder she had acted so weird and couldn’t wait to get away: she was probably freaked out that I’d seen them, afraid I’d guess what was going on.
But all I’d seen was a kid being dragged out to a coffee shop by his stepmother. It hadn’t occurred to me for a second to look at it any other way. Which maybe meant I was incredibly naive.
And the way she had acted so cold to me—almost rude . . . she probably felt like I was some kind of rival. Aaron had flirted shamelessly with me in public—so much so that even I thought he was in love with me. Crystal must have known that he was trying to mislead everyone, but maybe it still bugged her to see the two of us walking around together, openly teasing each other and holding hands, when she had to keep her distance and be all stepmotherly.
“I get it,” I said. “Really. And I’m not judging you, but I still feel bad for your father.”
“You should have seen him half an hour ago,” Aaron said. “You wouldn’t have felt bad for him. You would have been terrified of him. I know I was.”
“Did he find out? Is that what was going on tonight?”
He nodded, sinking down low in his chair and staring at his own knees. “Crystal told him. It was crazy. I—you know how I had plans with you tonight? She was upset. She’s sort of jealous of you—”
“I can’t imagine why,” I said. “It’s not like you were all over me at the Halloween party or anything. It’s not like you bent me over backward and gave me a steamy kiss in front of the entire guest list. Oh, wait, my bad, it was exactly like that.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I knew my dad wanted us to go out, and I thought that if he saw us together a lot, he’d assume we were and . . .” He trailed off.
“It’s great,” I said. “I can take being someone’s beard off my bucket list.”
“Are you mad at me?” He sat up so he could reach across the table and touch my arm. “I didn’t think you’d mind. I honestly thought you knew what was going on.”
“You’re just lucky I didn’t buy into all the flirting. I could have been really hurt right now.”
“You’re not, though, right?” he asked, studying my face anxiously. “You’re not heartbroken or angry or anything, are you?” I rolled my eyes and he gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Right. No. Good.”
“But I might have been.” I didn’t want to let him off the hook too easily. It was only luck that had kept him from hurting me—I had completely misread the situation.
“But you aren’t.”
“But I might have been.” I let it drop. “So why did Crystal tell your dad tonight?”
“God knows. She’d been a wreck all week, kept saying she was sick of hiding things, that she couldn’t stand to sneak around anymore.”
“Did you feel the same way?”
“Not really. I mean, I didn’t like sneaking around either, but it’s not like we could run off together. I’m eighteen. She has a baby. Realistically . . .” He stopped.
Yeah, it was absurd.
“Anyway, she’d had a lot of wine tonight, and got mad at my dad about something and started going on about how he was never home and I was more of a husband to her than he was and then he was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ and then . . .” He flinched. “And then she told him exactly what she was talking about. While I just stood there like an idiot, not knowing what to say or do until he turned on me and scared the hell out of me.”
“He threw you out?”
“Sort of—he told me to get out of his sight.”
“What happens now?”
“Hold on. Text.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at it. “Crystal,” he said. “But my dad could be looking over her shoulder, for all I know. I’d better be careful.” His thumbs started moving over the screen.
“A little late for careful,” I said as I watched him. “Don’t you feel bad for him? At all?”
He put down his phone. “If he had been a decent husband, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Don’t pretend this is all his fault and you’re some kind of innocent bystander.”
“I’m not saying that.”
“Michael’s Luke’s best friend. He’s like my uncle.”
He held his hands out and said simply, “I do love him, you know. He’s my dad. It kills me that I’ve hurt him this much. But I don’t know what to do about it.”
I relented. He was my friend and he was in pain. “You can stay here until you figure it out.”
“Don’t tell Luke or your mom, okay? You can say my dad and I had a fight, but don’t tell them about Crystal and me. Please?”
I wasn’t crazy about hiding things from them, but I also wanted to respect Michael’s privacy and let him decide whether or not he wanted to tell his friends, so I agreed.
twenty-seven
I put Aaron in Jacob’s room for the night. (Grandma was in the guest room near me, and the other guest room was downstairs, which felt too far away.) “There are teddy bears,” I pointed out. “Feel free to hold one if it will help get you through the night.”
“I will.” He soberly picked out a chubby little blue guy from the pile of stuffed animals and clutched it against his chest. “Thanks, Ellie. You’re a good friend.”
I said good night, but I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. I was too freaked out, not only by what Aaron had told me, but also by my own stupidity. I’d misread every signal he’d sent me over the past couple of months. All he had wanted to do was confide in me about this ridiculous affair he was having, but I’d assumed the big secret was that he was in love with me. God, I was an idiot. And a narcissist.
At least no one knew. That was the one thing that made it endurable: I’d kept my assumptions to myself. It was an argument for never telling anyone anything ever.
If only that were a viable way to live one’s life.
I was also relieved that Heather hadn’t ever come on too strong with him. She didn’t have anything to be publicly embarrassed about either. I felt bad though. I never should have encouraged her to like him. But at least he didn’t know she did, and I’d tell her the truth about him and Crystal as soon as possible—I had promised not to tell Mom and Luke, but I hadn’t promised not to tell her. She might be disappointed but it was no huge tragedy—they’d never even kissed.