Page 8 of Married to Number 22
And I feel the change.
Abigone.
And yeah, I saidhehadn’t changed, but I just meant on the inside.
Because the outside of Aiden is markedly different, and the way I’m suddenly pressed flush to him feeling all that I’m feeling is different in the best possible way. So much more intense than teenage infatuation, than a few kisses snuck here and there.
The inside, though.
That’s familiar.
That’sAiden.
Safe and good and always something I can rely on.
My home when the realities of living with my family were…well, what they were.
All of that familiar, all of that safe…it flows through me and I melt against him. “I missed you, Aiden,” I murmur. “A lot.”
“Is that why you decided to show up on my doorstep and wake me up at two in the morning after all this time?”
Guilt slices through me.
He’s still talking though, so I tuck it away, stow it to flagellate myself later.
“Is that why you still have it?” he asks.
“It?” I hedge, even though I know exactly what he’s talking about.
The marriage contract.
The whole reason I knocked on his door at two in the morning.
“Luns,” he murmurs, settling his hands on my shoulders and leaning back. Holding my gaze, lifting a brow, and…
I give.
Just a little.
“I moved back home.”
Surprise sliding through his green eyes. “Youmoved home?”
A pulse of pain, my throat going tight. “Grams died eight months ago,” I push out, and the truth of saying that aloud is so agonizing that I can barely stay standing, barely fathom surviving it.
She was…
The only bright spot.
Except for Aiden.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmurs.
And then I’m held tightly against him again, wrapped up in that safe and familiar. He smooths one hand up and down my spine.
“You should have come sooner,” he orders.
“I didn’t know you were back in California,” I whisper. “I just happened to see you pop up on the TV.” I push lightly at his chest, gaining enough distance for me to see his face again, to stare into green eyes I once knew better than my own. “You made it,” I tell him, touching his jaw, smiling up at him, the pride I have for him and all his hard work cutting through the grief, the worry, the strain that have eaten me up ever since I got the call that Grams was sick a year ago.
