Page 75 of Wreck Me
“Yeah, but it bears repeating.”
Aidan stood from the table. “God, you really are an old man now.”
“Hey, you might be as tall as me now, and I may be pushing forty, but I can still kick your ass. Right now I have a pricey piece of electronics that holds my whole life in one hand and coffee in the other, but if I didn’t, you’d be in a headlock, my friend.”
Aidan laughed—an honest to God laugh—and for just a moment he forgot about the woman who’d brought laughter back into his life. “Right. Hey, can you drop me off by the cabin on your way in? I can be ready in a few.”
“Yep.”
Aidan cleaned up after himself—he’d never tell his sister he’d thrown out the muffin—and Noah dropped him off at the cabin minutes later.
“Thanks for the ride. I’ll grab dinner for tonight.”
“And beer. Don’t forget beer.”
“Got it, beer.”
With a wave, Noah pulled away and Aidan slowly made his way up the walkway, unsure of what he’d find once he was inside. His stomach flipped like he was on a twisty roller coaster. It was a ride he wanted off of, but couldn’t find the stop button.
One foot in front of the other, man.
Why the hell was he thinking about the time he’d half carried her up the walkway? The first day he’d met her? Even that day, he’d been fighting how enchanted he was by her. As he walked up the concrete path to the door, those feelings hadn’t changed in the three weeks since that day.
When he opened the front door, his heart sank. He didn’t have to look around the small house to know that she was gone.
He didn’t have to see that all the small feminine touches she’d put on the place in her short stay had been swept away.
The scarf he’d used to blindfold her and that she’d worn to work last week that laid over the back of one of the chairs in the small dining space.
The lip balm she’d said she needed because she wanted to make sure she didn’t have dry lips when he kissed her. He could still taste the strawberry flavor of it on his tongue.
The bench at the end of the bed where her suitcase had sat, clothes poking out the side, was gone, the brown leather top visible again.
The bathroom vanity was neat, everything in its place again, her giant makeup bag no longer taking up half of the already small space.
The brass key he’d given her to his house sat in the middle of the island in the kitchen.
Everything was tidy and back to the way he liked it.
There was a stillness in the air that hadn’t been there since Megan came into his life.
It had once brought him peace.
Now it brought him nothing but pain.
He flopped down on the couch and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. She couldn’t have gone far but she may as well be a million miles away. She’d left a message loud and clear by leaving.
He knew she still had to be in town, but he wasn’t going to go after her. He loved her, but he couldn’t give her what she wanted. That wasn’t fair to her.
Besides, it was what he’d wanted anyway. He had called it off. She said she loved him, but she herself said she couldn’t be trusted to know what love was. And he didn’t want to be vulnerable to the pain another could cause.
And the two of them? When it ended—notifbutwhenbecause it always ended—it would be messy. Messy was another thing he didn’t do.
So if he’d done the right thing, why did it hurt so fucking bad?
Over the nextcouple of days, he managed to take grumpy asshole to a new level. He was spoiling for a fight, and if Landon hadn’t intervened, he would have found one with a tourist from the city with a big-ass mouth. He wanted to punch something so bad that Landon had to push him off the smartass that he’d pulled over for speeding through the square. The motherfucker had given Aidan attitude and he’d seen red.
He was thankful Landon had been nearby and seen the whole thing go down.
