Window Shopping, page 6
Stop trying to be something that you’re not, Stella.
We’re the same, you and me.
You think you can change, but you can’t. People don’t change.
Your parents don’t understand you.
You said you’d always have my back. Prove it.
I come to an abrupt halt when I hear a clink. Was that in my head?
It sounded like a glass being set down on the ground.
Suddenly, the cookware section is a lot less soothing and a whole lot more haunted, the spookiness exacerbated by the life-sized Victorian-style Santa Claus positioned beside the register. Did he just wink at me?
I should probably just turn tail and sprint for the elevators. Collect my things and come back when it’s daylight, like the more sensible employees of Vivant. And that’s exactly what I’m about to do—until I see two shiny black wingtip shoes sticking out from behind a display of Le Creuset Dutch ovens. In between the polished shoes and the pant leg, there is a section of red and green socks peeking out, and somehow, I know who is attached to those feet.
“Aiden?”
That clink sound is louder than the first time. A beat passes. “Stella?”
Oh dear. It’s impossible to pretend that deep voice didn’t send a tremor straight through me. I’m still catching my breath from it when Aiden stands behind the display, towering over it—holding a bottle of liquor in his right hand.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” he says, openly chagrined.
My mouth is already threatening to smile. “Really? Because it looks like you’re getting sloshed by yourself, in the dark, in the cookware department.”
“Okay, it’s exactly what it looks like.”
Keeping my laughter contained is near impossible, but I button my lips and keep them sealed. I don’t know why. Maybe because laughing at this man and his unique sense of humor is too much of a privilege when I’ve spent a long time stripped of so many. Laughing with him feels like something a girl with a blow-out and peep-toe pumps should be doing. Not me.
Nicole is in my head again telling me I don’t share his sense of humor. I’m not like him. I’m unique. Born with a wild streak. I’m like her.
With a swallow, I approach my boss and lean back against the table display, holding my hand out for the bottle. Lips twitching, he hands it over and takes the spot beside me, leaving our hips less than an inch apart. When I tip the bottle to my mouth for a medium sized sip, I glance over and find him looking at my black-stocking-covered legs, but he quickly glances away, a muscle popping in his cheek.
“Rough day?” I ask, sounding a little breathless. At least I can blame it on the liquor.
“Nah, it was just fine,” he says, his tone warm and reassuring.
I raise an eyebrow at him.
“All right.” He takes a breath, rolls his shoulders back. “It wasn’t what I would call ideal.”
“Try again,” I say, bumping him lightly with my shoulder.
His laughter makes my pulse skitter. “Okay, you win. It was more messed up than Uncle Hank on New Year’s during a full moon. Is that better?”
“Much.” I hand him the bottle, trying not to watch too closely at the way he wraps his lips around the rim and gulps without reservation. It’s not what I would have expected of him. It’s better. He’s got a five o’clock shadow all over his jaw, his hair is finger messy. And his bow tie is just a bit off-center. It’s crocodiles today. Dressed in Santa hats. “What made it bad?”
He starts to blow it off. I can see that’s his impulse and I wonder why. It’s like he’s allergic to being anything less than positive at all times.
“There was a board meeting today,” he says finally. “My father, grandmother and cousin. You could say the family dynamic is on the complicated side.” Until he says this to me, I don’t realize how starved I am for information about this man. I am literally holding my breath and hoping he continues, only letting it seep out when he does. “I did most of my growing up with Aunt Edna and Uncle Hank. The rodeo clown, too, but like I said, he didn’t last long.” Aiden crosses himself. “Edna never planned on having kids. She’s a free spirit. Shocked the hell out of me when I first arrived. There I was, coming from this . . . tense and sterile environment and suddenly I’m in the care of this woman who collects wind chimes, embraces nudity and laughs at inappropriate moments, like when we’re passing a fender bender on the highway. But she never gave me anything but her best.”
I’m so caught up in his story, I forget to think before I speak. “If she’s the reason you’re so Aiden-y,” I murmur, “she did a great job.”
A slight crease appears in between his brows, as if he doesn’t know whether I’m complimenting him or not. “Aiden-y?”
A flush creeps up the back of my neck. “Yes, you know. Nice. Honest. The kind of guy who gives an ex-convict a second chance and wears crocodile bow ties.” Seconds pass and he just goes right on looking at me, probably reading in between the lines of every breathless word out of my mouth and figuring out that I’ve developed a teeny-tiny crush on him. Itty bitty. Microscopic. Definitely not big enough to make every nerve ending in my body gravitate so quickly in his direction that I feel off balance leaning against this table right now.
Definitely not.
Being around Aiden is like . . . I’ve been wandering around in the dark and suddenly I’ve spotted a big, crackling campfire. Please don’t let any of this be showing on my face. “Is Edna responsible for the bow ties?”
He seems to be having trouble gathering his train of thought, taking a few seconds to drag his attention from me to the store laid out in front of him. “She is, yes. I was down in the dumps when I arrived in Tennessee. My father and his new wife needed some space to get acquainted back in New York—and I guess they just kept on needing it.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, none of the kids in my new school wanted to hang out with the ‘lanky yankee.’ That’s what they called me and I have to admit, it has a nice ring. Much more creative than Fiber Gummies Greg who sat behind me on the school bus. He had some digestive problems.”
A corner of his lip tugs and I watch it with such rapt attention, it’s embarrassing.
“Anyhow, Edna started putting me in a bow tie for school. She told me no one can be anything but happy while wearing a bow tie. I thought she was crazy, but I had nothing to lose. So I tried it and . . . the bow tie made me feel like someone else. It was a shield of sorts in the beginning. They weren’t making fun of me, they were making fun of some kid in a bow tie. And when that kid laughed along with them instead of skulking off, the outcome was a lot better. In a way, I guess the bow tie conditioned me to be a good sport.” He reaches up and tugs on his crocodiles absently. “All the time.”
What am I going to do with this heavy, uncomfortable object that seems to be sitting on my chest and pressing down harder by the moment? “Do you ever feel like ripping it off and going skulking again?”
“Sure I do,” he says, squinting over at me. “Today in the board meeting, for one.”
“Why?”
Aiden shrugs a big shoulder. “When I’m around my family, sometimes I forget to be grateful Edna raised me. Sometimes I can only focus on the fact that I was sent away for so long.”
I study the hard planes of his profile, the way his fingers seem jumpy where they hold the bottle. “It makes you feel guilty, doesn’t it? Being anything less than happy.”
He frowns over at me. It’s not a mean frown. It’s a thoughtful one and it gives him a different kind of appeal. Sexy and intense. A small section of hair loses its battle with gravity and flops onto the center of his forehead where lines have appeared. His total absorption in our conversation makes my skin heat, my tummy muscles performing a weird flex. Why? I think because . . . this is a man who pays attention. This is a man who doesn’t miss anything. Apparently after a life of constant variables, I’m attracted to that. To someone who doesn’t need to be told the sky is falling. He’s the one who has already built a shelter. “Yeah. I do, uh . . .” He clears his throat. “That’s what it is. I’m impatient and irritated around my family. And that makes me feel guilty.”
“You’re supposed to be better than that.”
“Right.” He nods. “Yes.”
“You are. But you can’t be better all the time. No one can, right?”
I take the bottle he offers, but I don’t drink from it. Instead, I twist the heavy glass base of the bottle on my thigh, just grateful to have something to do with my hands. I have this uncharacteristic urge to talk, to share with this man. Maybe because I sense he needs a distraction. Or a friend. I don’t know. But it’s so easy to open my mouth and speak. I fear nothing from him, especially judgment.
“I’ve been in New York just over a month. I needed to get used to the process of things again. Using money, getting change back—even that was weird. I did a lot of sitting on benches and watching people walk their dogs. And it’s such a chaotic place, New York. There are sirens and labor strikes and traffic congestion and delayed trains. But the chaos of it really highlights the good things, you know? Like two people meeting in the park. Two people out of a million. Just connecting paths in the center of buildings and avenues and so many other humans. On purpose, they connect. It seems like it should be impossible in a place so massive. If there wasn’t all this wild commotion around them, meeting in the park might not be so beautiful.” God, I’m rambling. My hand tries to wave everything I said off, but the bottle sloshes, so I stop and search for a way to make myself sound less fanciful and ridiculous. “All I’m saying is . . . maybe the positive power of the bow tie only has to extend so far. Maybe it’s okay to loosen it up once in a while and let yourself feel or express some bad stuff. It’ll only make the good that much more valuable.” I sigh. “Everyone’s got some yuck.”
I’d have to be dead not to feel the way his gaze has settled on me. It’s magnetic. Even more so when he continues to consider me in thoughtful silence for stretched out moments. “Thank you. I’m going to think about that for a while. Probably a long while.” A beat passes. “What’s your bad stuff, Stella? I know we didn’t even scratch the surface the other night.”
“Mmmm.” I hum into a small sip of bourbon, the liquor burning a path down to my stomach. “We’re talking about you now, not me.”
He’s undeterred and I need to stop drinking this bourbon because his body warmth is beginning to suck me in. A few more sips and I won’t see anything wrong with laying my head on his sturdy shoulder or pressing the sides of our thighs together. “Your application said you went to high school in Pennsylvania,” he says, drawing me out of my dangerous thoughts. “Are your parents still there?”
Discomfort packs in tight below my neck. “Yes.”
“Are you going home to them for Christmas?”
“No,” I say on a forced laugh. “No, I’m not.”
He doesn’t say anything.
Seconds tick by as he waits for me to fill the silence.
And suddenly, there I am doing it. Knowing he is going to be kind and non-judgmental about this particularly messy subject makes me feel like I’m rock climbing, but at least I’ve got a sturdy harness. “My parents didn’t want me living at home after release. I stayed one night before my father drove me here.” I avoid looking at him. “I don’t blame them. They were pretty good parents, even if we never really related to each other and I took them for granted. Now . . . they’ve had just enough time to get back on solid ground with their friends and community after . . . everything. I can’t show up and disrupt their lives again. My presence alone would do that. It doesn’t matter if I’ve . . .”
“Changed?” He’s doing that intense concentration thing again. “Have you? Are you different than you were before?”
I take a moment to think. “In some ways, maybe. But it’s harder than people think. To just change. To stop being the kind of girl who steals her parents’ car in the middle of the night to joyride. Or spray paints her name in neon orange on the side of the town water tower. Worse things when I got older. And it’s like . . . the insecurities that drive someone to do those things? They don’t just erase themselves.” I roll a shoulder. “Change is hard.”
He tilts his head, prompting me to look over. “This trouble you got into . . .” he starts, cautiously. “You couldn’t have gotten into it alone.”
Nicole’s face materializes in my mind. She could be right there in front of me, reaching for the bottle of bourbon. Even imagining my ex-best friend here makes me feel like a fraud. Like I’m pretending to be something I’m not.
Oh, you’re having a heart-to-heart with this guy? Baring your soul? Poor little Stella.
Gut churning, I push off the table, banishing her voice with determination.
I don’t want Nicole here. There’s no room for her around the campfire.
Boundaries.
This man—my boss—he gave me a chance to fulfill a dream I never thought I’d ever have a shot at. He’s inherently good. I can’t say that about many people I’ve met in my life. Maybe I can’t even say it about anyone. And I just want to make his night slightly better after he’s given me this chance to . . . do something. Make a mark.
Okay, I don’t even need Nicole here to call me out on that being corny. But screw it.
“I have an idea.”
He sits up straighter. “Yeah?”
What am I doing? I don’t know. Flying by the seat of my tights, I guess. Just trying to distract him, take his mind off the unwarranted guilt of being slightly less than happy for a while. “We have fifteen minutes to find the perfect Christmas gift for each other. We’re not really buying them, of course. We’ll put them back afterwards. It’s just an exercise. You can choose it from anywhere in the store.” I pull my phone out and check the time, laughing inwardly at the way Aiden has come to his feet and started to rub his hands together, completely game for this spontaneous idea. “It’s ten forty. We have until ten fifty-five. Meet in the first-floor break room. Go.”
The man takes off running.
He runs like an athlete, no dorkiness detected.
It’s in that moment that I discover something I’d missed. Something monumental.
Aiden Cook has a firm, thick bubble butt.
My jaw unhinges and I have no choice but to let it hang there, the time ticking away on my own challenge just so I can watch those gorgeous buns move until he disappears around the corner. Not before they engrave themselves on my brain, though. Holy. Cakes.
When I realize I’m standing there, hypnotized by the booty, I shake myself.
Move.
I turn on a heel, mentally running through the departments in my head. What would I buy Aiden for Christmas? Menswear has bow ties, but that’s too obvious. I don’t know his shoe size. He probably has amazing luggage already. I’m not choosing him a new cologne to mess with perfection. I already like the way he smells too much.
This task is way more intimate than I realized.
I chew my lip over that fact on the way down the elevator—but my worries are interrupted when it hits me. Oh yeah. I know exactly what to get him.
Twelve minutes later, I jog through the empty aisles of glass cases toward the break room door, gift in hand, positive I’m going to beat him there. I’ve never been in a long-term relationship with a man, but it’s common knowledge they are terrible shoppers, right? He’s probably still upstairs rifling through blouses and sweating bullets.
My notion pops like a bubble when I skid to a shocked stop inside the break room door.
Not only is Aiden there waiting. His wing tips are kicked up, ankles crossed on the rectangular table, hands stacked behind his head. Two steaming mugs of hot chocolate sit on the table beside him, marshmallows bobbing on their surface.
In between the mugs is a long, black velvet case.
“No way,” I breathe, waving a hand in his general direction. “You found my gift and had enough time to make cocoa?”
The slight darkening of his cheekbones has to be a figment of my imagination. He can’t have a bubble butt and be a blusher. That’s got to be illegal. “You might say I’ve got a mental inventory of everything in the store.”
“That tracks,” I mutter.
I move closer to the table, my heart picking up speed with every step I take closer to him. Keeping my features schooled as much as possible, even though I’m ridiculously excited to exchange gifts—when was the last time I did this?—I turn a chair to face him and sit down, trying to cover as much of his present as possible with my hands. As I’m taking my seat, he drops his feet from the table and inches closer, watching each of my movements closely as if he’ll be writing a detailed report about my mannerisms later tonight.
“Who starts?” I manage to say, parched.
Aiden slides the black velvet box across the table. “Ladies first.”
He leans back in the chair, crosses his arms, his right knee starting to jostle. “Oh my God, look at how excited you are. I bet you have a Christmas song playlist, don’t you? December first, that thing is on random twenty-four-seven.”
“Wrong.” He winks at me. “I start it the day after Thanksgiving.”
An unrestrained laugh tumbles from my mouth before I can stop it or even think about swallowing the sound—and his knee stops bouncing abruptly.
In the ensuing silence, the only sound is Aiden exhaling unevenly. “Now that’s a laugh worth waiting around for, Stella.” Then, more to himself, “I was wondering if you were ever going to let me hear it.”
My insides are flailing, but I manage a scowl. “Just don’t get used to it.”
“Getting used to it would be impossible. But trying to hear it again?” His voice matches his eyes now. Smoky. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to help myself.”
He’s not near enough to kiss. Not even close. Based on the havoc his words wreak in my belly, however, he might as well be speaking from above me, his strong body pressing me down, down, down. “M-maybe I’ll just open this,” I manage, wrangling open the box with the desperation of a ten-year-old being gifted an Xbox.
