No Kissing Allowed (No Kissing Allowed #1)(43)

Likely, a hundred girls before me had thought the very same thing, and I wondered how many hearts he’d broken along the way, him never offering anything but the truth, the foolish girl hoping for things he would never give.

What was I thinking, inviting him? Bringing a guy home was serious stuff, not something you did with someone who blatantly said he didn’t want a future. I thought of Mom and Eric, how much they both seemed to like him, and how hard it would be to explain why he would never show up here again. Drawing a long breath, I stared out my window, my heart heavy.

I never should have invited Aidan home.

…

The Thanksgiving meal at my house was like a choreographed dance—plates brought out, then silver, then platters of food, and before long we were all seated at one of six tables decorated around the house. Mom introduced Aidan to the family with pride. They smiled and nodded and asked the normal questions, but otherwise, Thanksgiving flowed like always, and a part of me wondered what it would be like if I lived here. The idea had once been repulsive to me, but now…I didn’t know. I found myself missing home.

After eating dessert, we all went outside, and the men threw around a football with the kids, while the women watched with glasses of tea or wine.

“He’s very nice,” Mom said from beside me. It was the second time she’d complimented him, and I couldn’t help feeling a surge of relief. I had hoped my family would see Aidan the way I saw him, that they would push aside that controlled persona he put out and see him for the caring, sweet, intelligent man that he was inside. That my mom, the person I cared about most, liked Aidan meant the world to me.

I watched Aidan fake a tackle and fall to the ground as three of my cousins’ children jumped on him, screaming with delight. “He is,” I said finally, wishing every Thanksgiving could be like this.

“Maybe he could join us for Christmas, too?”

My back went rigid. Christmas. I didn’t allow myself to think that far ahead when it came to Aidan and me. I liked being with him too much to think ahead.

I opened my mouth to tell her he had to work, when she called out, “Aidan?”

“Mom, no. Let me—”

“Nonsense.”

He jogged over, his hair sticking out in a thousand directions, bits of grass and leaves mixed in like he’d rolled around all day in the yard. I picked out a leaf, smiling.

“Nice.”

“Oh, you like that, do you? We have a volunteer!”

Then he scooped me up and carried me across the yard, holding me down as the kids covered me in leaves. Finally, he released me and helped me to my feet, plucking leaves from my hair as he laughed. Then his eyes met mine and he leaned down to kiss me, ignoring my family. Like it was just the two of us under the clear blue sky.

We walked back to the patio, my thoughts muddled, my chest warm. I’d completely forgotten about what Mom wanted to ask him until Aidan said, “Sorry, Lorelei. What were you saying?”

Her grin spread. “I wanted to invite you to spend Christmas with us.”

He hesitated as his gaze drifted from Mom to me. “Oh…I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“No intrusion at all. We would love to have you.”

My throat constricted as Aidan flashed her a tight smile. “Sure. Count me in.”





Chapter Twenty-One


Aidan closed the door to his apartment the next day, set my bag on the couch, and turned around to face me. We’d barely spoken on the plane, and now that we were alone, I felt the full weight of the tension that had been building between us. Why did I take this chance? Why didn’t I realize how much I would love seeing him there, surrounded by my family, a part of my world? I wanted to make him feel a part of something over the holiday, but instead I pushed him too far. Too soon.

“Aidan—”

“Listen, I had a really great time with your family. With you.” Then he focused his attention on me, and in his eyes I saw all the doubts I’d felt being confirmed. “But I can’t do Christmas with your family. Thanksgiving was hard enough. And please don’t misunderstand. I wanted to be there. I wanted to see and experience your family. But at the end of the day, we can’t invest in each other’s lives in that way. We’re not a couple.”

Anger and sadness hit me all at once. “I know damn well what we are. We’re fun and easy, but nothing about this is serious. Any day now, we’ll end things and go back to our own lives, nothing missed. Am I right?”

“It’s how it has to be.”

“But why? Why can’t we change the rules?”

He sighed loudly, then started for the kitchen, grabbed a beer out of the fridge, and took a long pull from it, before setting it down roughly on his counter and spinning around to face me. “It always goes this way, you know? Every single time, yet I never learn.”

The anger coiling around in my belly sparked into barely contained rage. “Are you…did you just…?” My head shook as I tried to focus my thoughts, but all I could think about was the Aidan I’d been with over the holiday and how very different this Aidan seemed from him. “You’re scared. You know something’s happening between us and you don’t want to face it, so you’d rather shut it down than give it a shot.”

“I’m not shutting it down. I want to be with you. I want this—” he motioned between us—“to continue for as long as you’re willing to tolerate me. But you’ve changed the play without discussing it with me. Little by little, we’ve edged into this—” His frustration bubbled over and he tossed his hands into the air. “Whatever the hell this is. And now you want more. And you deserve it. If anybody on this f*cking planet deserves it, it’s you. You lost your father and have spent every day since becoming this driven, intelligent, amazing woman who sees what other people miss. You deserve a man who will give you everything. But I’m not that man. I never will be.”