Inconclusion

For the first time in what seemed like forever, but in reality was only a few days, Aidan had awakened with a clear head. She even felt like she had managed to get enough sleep. Perhaps because she hadn't really done anything the day before.

She didn't have to reach across the bed to know that it was empty, but her fingers slipped over the sheets anyway. Was it... disappointment that she felt? Relief? More like something nebulous that lurked in the murky gray between the two.

The faint scent of his cologne still lingered. It ought to have bothered her. She should have yanked the covers off of the bed and thrown them straight in the washer from just the few moments he had sat there. Every piece of clothing he might have briefly touched should have followed.

But she didn't do any of that.

Instead she left the bed unmade and the clothes from two nights ago were allowed to remain on the floor. She half expected the first floor of the house not to be empty, but it was. There was a surprise, however. The breakfast plate sitting there on the counter. It was still warm to the touch, but when she ran out onto the front porch, the driveway was empty but for her Jeep and her motorcycle.

The stolen sedan was gone. Was that a sigh of relief or disappointment she gave as she closed the door? On the way back to the kitchen she paused, staring through the narrow door into the seating room.

It was crystal clear in her mind.

The heat beneath her cheek had no business being there. The hand resting between her shoulder blades didn't belong. Her fingers shouldn't have been circling languidly around old scar tissue. None of this was right.

But it didn't feel wrong, and that was the problem.

The couch was a fitful place to try to squeeze two bodies. Hers was mostly on top of his and their legs were loosely tangled. Every breath was a challenge for the way it made them subtly shift against one another. Blake Ross. What was wrong with her?

At first they just laid there, for at least an hour in the silence. Neither of them wanted to break it. Aidan was afraid of ruining the illusion, even if she didn't know what the illusion was. He was... well she guessed maybe it was sort of the same for him.

If she didn't think, didn't move, if she almost didn't breathe, she could forget the sordid history. She could just enjoy the feeling of not being there alone. He was firm, athletic, not as broad as Liam. His muscle didn't have the same marble-sculpted definition, but it was certainly there.

However long that initial silence had lasted, afterward she'd poured out everything she never should have, everything she hadn't known was waiting to break free. Maybe it was so easy because he already seemed to know everything anyway. Whatever the cause, he'd turned around and shared his own uncomfortable, twisted tales with her. Maybe they were true, maybe he'd lied.

She didn't know. She might never know. On the surface it all seemed true. The things she had found, the stories he had told, the emotion she'd read in him; it seemed real. She'd let herself believe it, just a little.

The hours had chased themselves away. Morning to afternoon to evening to sunset. Somewhere after that she had fallen asleep. Apparently he had stayed, either awake all night or sleeping somewhere else. And he'd make her breakfast again, the prick.

She ate in the kitchen, not bothering to sit at the table since she was alone. It was good, because of course it was. It wasn't until after she'd finished that she spotted the note on the dining table. A sheet of paper that had been torn off the pad she used for writing grocery lists on. The handwriting was startlingly neat.

Aidan,

I told you I wouldn't lie to you when we were alone. I got somewhere with you yesterday, farther than I ever expected you'd let me. I let you in farther than I thought was capable of. I didn't want to fuck it all up with this, but I told you I wouldn't lie to you.

You should know, and I have to be the one to tell you if I ever have any hope of getting that thing I want from you: Your Trust. I'm a coward. I couldn't tell you to your face. I couldn't stand to see your disgust again after yesterday.

I'm certain you will never want to see or hear from me again. With good reason. I promise you that I won't come back to the house. Not until you ask me to, which will likely never happen. But here's my mobile number anyway.

She skipped past the number and read this thing that he couldn't tell her to her face. The details of Wednesday night, why she couldn't remember it. Why she had these fuzzy images.

The intrusion, the verbal battle, the physical fight. The goading. The intent. The drug. Every detail, with a clinical sterility of description. Her stomach tightened into a knot. It wasn't quite... she didn't feel sick.

She didn't know what she felt.