Pen Pal(62)

I turn to Aidan and gather my courage. “And today proved something to me. Seeing you with your arm around Deb, thinking you were with her…” I swallow around the lump in my throat. “I don’t want there to be anyone else. For either of us. I’m in way deeper than I thought, and to be totally honest, it scares the shit out of me.”

The emotion reflected in Aidan’s eyes is overwhelming.

Deb and Jake disappear. The restaurant disappears. Everything around us fades to black. There’s only me and Aidan sitting beside each other, looking at each other’s bared souls.

He says gruffly, “Me too. All of it. Me too.”

“I know,” I whisper, tears filling my eyes.

He takes my face in his hands. “But you don’t have to be scared. I’ll catch you when you fall. I’ll always catch you.”

He tears me apart and glues me back together again, all with a kiss.

Jake groans. “Well, fuck me. I guess now I’m the asshole.”

Deb says, “You’ll make up for it by paying for everyone’s dinner. Ah, and here’s the waitress with the appetizers now! Perfect timing. Let’s eat, guys.”

When Aidan pulls away from me, I catch a glimpse of a familiar figure in the large rectangular mirror mounted on the wall behind our table. A tall, gaunt man in a gray trench coat with a hat pulled low over his eyes stands near the front door of the restaurant. Though I can’t see his eyes, I feel him staring in my direction.

By the time I turn around to look at him, he’s gone.





29





“Kayla? You okay?”

Aidan glances over his shoulder, following my gaze. I turn back quickly to the table and force a smile. “I just thought I saw someone I knew.”

It isn’t a lie. And it’s not as if I’m going to sit here and admit the someone I thought I knew may or may not be a ghost, so I’ll just keep this stupid smile on my face until my heartbeat returns to normal and I can stop the screaming inside my head.

There are no such things as ghosts. There are no such things as ghosts. There are no such things as ghosts.

Dear God, please let there be no such things as ghosts.

We start on our appetizers. We share small talk. We order entrees and eat. I don’t remember much of the rest of the dinner, because my brain is preoccupied with trying to solve the puzzle of who the man in the trench coat is if he’s not an apparition from another dimension who’s stalking me all over town.

I really need to go see that shrink.

When we’re finished eating and we say our goodbyes to Deb and Jake, Aidan guides me out of the restaurant with his hand around my upper arm. When he steers me toward his truck parked in the lot outside, I say, “I take it I’m not going home tonight.”

“You’ll be lucky if I ever let you go home at all.”

Oh, boy. It sounds like I’m in big trouble. I guess that kiss at the table isn’t going to make up for what happened earlier. I say nervously, “I left my handbag in my car.”

He shoots me an intense look, his energy crackling. “Forget the handbag. You’ve got more important things to worry about.”

I’m sure my gulp is audible.

The drive to his apartment is tense and silent. I keep opening my mouth to say something but closing it again, lost for words. It’s dark by the time we arrive at his place, and it’s starting to rain.

He parks, kills the engine, and turns to me, eyes glittering.

He says nothing, so I go first. “I’m sorry I wasn’t honest when you asked me what was wrong.”

He waits for more, his silence burning.

“I should have told you the truth, but…I was hurt. And angry. And felt like a fool.”

“You promised me you wouldn’t lie to me.”

I whisper, “I know. I’m sorry.”

“I believe that. But what happens next time? What happens if I ask a question you don’t want to answer? You gonna lie to me again?”

Not trusting myself to speak because I’m getting emotional, I shake my head.

“No, really think about it before you answer. Do you feel you can’t trust me?”

I look out the windshield into the drizzle and swallow back tears. “It’s myself I don’t trust. My head is all fucked up. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. All I know is that I want you. I want you more than anything, and I don’t understand how that could have happened so fast.”

He reaches across the seat and takes my hand. Giving it a firm squeeze, he murmurs, “Same. And I’m as scared as you are, bunny, but I’m not gonna let it get in the way of enjoying every fucking second. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Oh, God. He’s killing me. I’m going to expire right here in the front seat of this truck.

I cover my face with my hands. He drags me across the seat into his arms. Then we sit there in silence broken only by the patter of the rain on the roof.

After a long time, he says in a husky voice, “You ready to take your punishment?”

A shudder runs through me. I whisper, “Yes, sir.”

He kisses my temple, then whispers next to my ear, “Good girl.”

What happens inside my body when I hear those words can’t be normal. There’s tingling, shivering, butterflies, the works. But all of that stops abruptly when Aidan releases me and starts the car again.