Page 43 of A Lifetime in 30 Days
Oh. Damn. This was not the direction she saw this going. She should’ve just gone on upstairs and waited for her tea like a good little girl.
“All those times I watched you with Caleb, saw him leaving you at the table while he ran around the room, talking to everybody but you. When we were out and he was careful to keep you close to him, but he barely paid you any attention.” He shook his head.
And Vanna felt like turning and walking away. This was a reminder of how early on Caleb had begun to show his ass—and how she’d learned to ignore it.
“I’m just doing what I’ve always wanted to do,” he said, and she effectively felt like crap.
This man was too good to be true. Had he really held on to his crush for her all these years? Had he watched her be with Caleb and felt some kind of way about it? Surely that couldn’t be true, since he had a girlfriend much of the time she’d known him in school. And she hadn’t even thought of him in that way. Well, not as much as he apparently thought of her. Yes, she stole looks at him, plenty of them. And yeah, she daydreamed a time or two about what it might’ve been like if they’d been the ones navigating through a relationship, but all that was futile, and she’d known that, so she hadn’t given it nearly as much attention as it seemed he had.
He scrubbed his hands down his face and gave a dry laugh. “Ah, man, I did not mean to say all of that.”
She cleared her throat, almost wishing she hadn’t heard all of that. “It’s okay. I mean, if that’s how you feel.”
Letting his arms fall to his sides, he said, “It is how I feel, Savannah. But we don’t need to go into that right now. Can you just go upstairs while I fix your tea? I want you to get that rest you need.”
All the right words; that’s what Aden always seemed to say. All the right words, and he did all the right things—now that his bossiness had been put into perspective. But what did any of it mean? She wasstill asking herself that question a little while later when he delivered her cup of tea.
“I can leave now that you’re all set,” he said as he stood on her side of the bed. “If that’s what you want. I don’t want you to feel like I’m crowding you or moving too fast. I realize all this can be coming off that way, and it’s really not my intention.”
“I don’t want you to leave,” she said, and stared down at her hands, now resting on top of the sheets that covered her legs. “I want—”
Her next words died as a loud crash echoed through the air and everything around them shook. Tea spilled over the rim of the mug, splashing onto the nightstand where he’d set it. The lamp wobbled, and Aden moved closer to the bed, ready to shield her from whatever. Seconds later a horn blared, and they both stared at each other quizzically.
Frowning down at her, he yelled, “Stay here and call 911!”
But the second he moved away from the bed, Vanna tossed those sheets back and jumped off the bed.
“Savannah!” he yelled when she was right behind him.
“Don’t ‘Savannah’ me,” she countered. “This is my house, dammit! I’m going to see what’s happened.”
Not bothering to argue with her because he probably figured it was pointless, Aden turned and headed down the stairs. She was right behind him again, until they both came to an abrupt stop at the sight of shattered glass throughout her living room, splintered drywall, her love seat turned over, and the front bumper of a car.
“Stay back,” he said, putting out an arm to keep her in that spot in case she planned to not listen to him again.
Which she definitely did, until he followed up with, “There’s glass everywhere, and you didn’t put on any shoes.”
She looked down at her pink toenails smiling up at her and huffed. “How the hell did a car ...” Her words trailed off again as memories of that car from this morning popped up in her mind. “Oh. No.” Shewas just about to turn back and run upstairs to grab her phone to call the police when she heard a sound.
Barking.
Aden had already started toward the door. She could hear him open it, and seconds later the barking was louder and the clickety-clack of nails on her hardwood floors filled the air.
“Frito?” she asked as the dog came up the steps and all but skidded into her. Then he was running circles around her, barking and jumping up so that his front paws were on her bare legs. “What’s wrong? How did you get here?”
“Them bitches put me out!” Granny yelled.
She was coming up the steps with Aden close behind. “They had the nerve to tell me I had to go,” Granny continued. “After they take almost half my check to stay in that filthy apartment the size of a damn closet. Get off of me! I told you I was okay! Get outta my personal space before I let your ass have it too.”
With that, she reached into her bag and pulled out her gun, whirling around until she could point it at Aden.
“Whoa!” he yelled, immediately putting his hands up.
“Granny! Wait! What are you doing?” Vanna yelled and—to hell with the glass on the floor—tiptoed over to where her grandmother now stood.
Frito was still barking, which, on top of all that had happened today, was really starting to work Vanna’s nerves.
“What? I told him to get away from me,” Granny said, then glanced over at Vanna. “Just like I told that stank hoe Sylvia to get her ass outta Sam’s bed. And you know what she told me?”
