2. May

2

MAY

I stare at him with my mouth hanging wide open. He spends all his spare time with me, but I had no idea he wasn't seeing anyone else. There's so much that I want to read into that, but I also know that I need to protect my heart. Aiden has always been a player, and if you hear it from my brother or anyone else, he will always be a player.

I shove him away because I can already feel myself giving in. “Whatever. Don't lie to me, Aiden.”

He doesn't go far. He’s a lot bigger than I am, and my tiny push has no effect on him. If anything, it merely makes him laugh.

At least until his body presses against mine from head to toe. His warmth is heating me up in all of the right places. “I wouldn't lie to you,” he says, his voice deep and thick.

“Hey, May, your brother...”

I turn my head quickly and see my sister-in-law and best friend, Kinsey. She stops in the hallway and stares between Aiden and me. It’s like she’s watching a tennis match the way her head keeps going back and forth. She starts to stutter. “Uh....” and then she stops, speechless.

Damn, that’s not good if Kinsey’s speechless. She’s definitely a talker. I push on Aiden’s chest, and this time, he lets me put some distance between us. “It’s not what it looks like,” I tell her.

Aiden stands up to his full height. “It's exactly what it looks like,” he tells her.

I grab on to the front of his shirt and fist it and then look at Kinsey. “Tell my brother I'm fine, and I'll be out in a minute.”

She's staring at us open-mouthed, and as if just now realizing it, she snaps her mouth closed and turns on her heel.

“And Kins,” I say, stopping her.

She turns, red-faced. “Yeah?”

I hate to ask her this, but I know I have to. “Please don't say anything to my brother.”

“Sure thing,” she says.

I know I shouldn’t ask her to lie to my brother, who is also her husband, but I make myself feel less guilty knowing that she was my best friend way before she married Colt. There has to be some kind of loyalty there.

I turn back to Aiden, and he has a smirk on his face like he's happy about everything that just took place. He's not worried about what his reputation is going to do to mine in this small town. He's staring down at me, and his gaze is completely eating me up. He moves toward me and puts his hands on my hips and grips me there. I span my hand across his chest. “How much have you had to drink?” I ask. That’s it. Maybe he’s drunk.

He just shakes his head. “I've been nursing the same beer for an hour. I knew I was driving to your house tonight.”

There are so many things that I want to ask him. Has he really not dated anyone since me? Has he been only with me for two years? No one else? I lift my face and look into his eyes, searching his face as if I’ll find all the answers to my questions written plainly there. I’m a fool trying to read the answer to my unspoken questions. “What is happening here?” I ask.

He grabs on to my hand that is on his chest and covers it. He moves it slightly so that I can feel his heartbeat under my palm. “We're going out there. I'm going to tell Colt that I like his little sister, and that we've been seeing each almost two fucking years. Then we're getting out of here and we're going to go to your house and we're going to talk about this.”

My heart rate picks up. I've thought about this a million times, but I never thought it would happen. Aiden is a player . I've told myself that over and over and over again, making myself believe it. Now it's like I don't want to believe anything else because I know that if anybody could hurt me, it would be him. In the beginning, I knew that he was a player. It's like a big joke between all of the guys how women fall at his feet anywhere he goes. He's a pilot, for fucksake; it’s like he can have any woman he wants. And the way my brother talks about it, he has. I shake my head and step back. “No.”

He repeats, “No? What do you mean, no? I thought...” He stops and shakes his head and tries again. “I hoped...”

I lift my shoulders. “I mean, I thought we were keeping this light. That’s what we always talked about. Friends with benefits.”

His jaw tightens. “Have you been with someone else?”

“Don’t ask me that.”

“Fuck,” he says, low and lethal. “Have. You. Been. With. Someone. Else?” he asks again, enunciating each word.

I should lie to him, save my heart, but I’ve never lied to him before, and I’m not going to start now. “No, you know I haven’t. But I know you're a player, Aiden. Everyone knows you're a player.”

His jaw clenches as if he's mad that I'm even saying what everybody else has already said before. “I'm not, though. Where am I every night? I'm with you. I'm either at your house or you're with me. When do I have time to be a player? I have no interest in that.”

I shrug. “Just because we fuck—"

He interrupts me. “Don't finish that sentence, May, and don't think you can tell me how I feel about you. I know how I feel.”

I laugh out loud then because this is crazy. We’re standing in the hallway of the Whiskey Whistler discussing our business. Half the town will know about it tomorrow. It's either laugh or cry, because he's telling me things that I have only dreamed about him saying. “I'm glad you know because I thought we were just having fun. That's what you do, right? Have fun.”

He grits his teeth and is staring at me like he’s seeing me for the first time. “Well, I want more.”

I pull my hand from his and put both of my hands on my hips. I have to do that to put some distance between us. He’s so much taller than me I have to lift my head to look up at his face, but I want to make sure that I'm looking at him when I say this. “Look, Aiden, right now you want more. But what about next week? This has worked this long because no one knows about it. You can come and go as you please. You can do anything that you want. We don't have a name on it. Now, let's go back out there, and we'll talk about this some other time.”

And before he can sway me, I start to walk away and go back out to the bar. I try to keep my expression clear as I walk back to the table. Thankfully, Colt is in a conversation with someone, and I sit down in the seat that I left earlier. Kinsey is looking at me wide-eyed, and I know she wants to know what’s up. I need to tell her. Dang, I need to tell someone, but I know she's not going to be happy that I've kept this from her for this long. Hopefully she understands, and with any luck she can help me figure out what the heck I'm supposed to do at this point.