It was like a splash of cold water in her face. “Emergencies only,” she said, wagging a finger at him. “Not ringing a bell like I’m your fucking butler. And I’m not scrubbing your back. Not that kind of party, pal.”
He chuckled. “I would never,” he said, which was quickly becoming one of her favorite quips from him. “Drive safe, and text me when you get home, okay? Just ease my anxieties and overprotectiveness?”
She humphed. Then she nodded sharply. They stood there in front of each other. She got the feeling that they should . . . do something. Hug? Shake hands? Wave in a weird way?
He leaned in, and in a panic, she did this weird bro hug that was, in a word, humiliating. Especially since he was taller than she was, and she almost brought him toppling down on her.
“You okay?” he said.
“Shut up.” She straightened her clothes and pulled her jacket back on. “Get some sleep.”
With that, she shut the door behind her. The cold night air was like a slap. She got into her car, her teeth almost chattering by the time she got the heater going. Slowly, she made her way up the winding mountain roads that led her back to her house. She really did hate driving in the dark.
Maybe I should’ve slept at his house.
But that would’ve been weird. Not that she didn’t trust him. But the fact that she did trust him . . . was perhaps not a great thing. Historically, her judgment when it came to people in general, and men in particular, was horrible.
Thank God he doesn’t seem interested, she tried to console herself. Because the last thing she needed was someone interested in her romantically, for more reasons than she could list on a piece of paper. But . . .
God, if she caught feelings, she would have to kick her own ass. This was not going to happen.
CHAPTER 21
GIVING THE SWORD TO A NOOB
It was now Saturday, and Aiden was absolutely miserable.
He’d actually been doing pretty well since Wednesday night, when Boggy （Maggie, he reminded himself） had helped him with food shopping and they’d binged Jujutsu Kaisen. Since then, she’d stopped by to check on him Thursday. The guild had done their weekly dungeon run, and she had smack-talked and brutally sliced her way through like the seasoned tank she was, earning accolades from the rest of the crew. It was actually even funnier seeing her brutality and picturing her tiny IRL self, or hearing her vicious insults in her relatively sweet alto.
Then, on Friday, they’d talked via cell while watching another movie, this time his choice—Buckaroo Banzai across the Eighth Dimension. It turned out she’d seen it before, and loved it, which made it that much funnier. She could actually quote it, and he laughed hard enough to tear up.
Sheryl had never watched his “nerdy” stuff, had not understood his sense of humor. She was sweet, and supportive, and would’ve probably taken a bullet for him when they were together . . . right up to the point when they weren’t together, and then she’d been tempted to shoot him herself. And in college, Jordan had been charming and vivacious, ushering him to parties and helping him fit in, loving him to distraction . . . but there had been pitfalls, too, and heavy expectations. In retrospect, as much as he’d loved them, he’d found himself being what the people he was in relationships with wanted him to be.
Not that two relationships is a lot of history to compare.
“Aiden!” Deb’s voice rang out. “C’mon! The game’s starting!”
He grimaced. Now it was Saturday afternoon, around three o’clock . . . and he’d been ambushed by Deb yet again, this time with a cadre of friends in tow. At his mother’s insistence, apparently.
“Your mother figured you must be bored, all by yourself, stuck in the house,” Deb had said when she showed up, armed with seven-layer dip and chips and an extremely bright smile. “I know it’s got to be pretty lonely. So I thought, if you couldn’t go out with your friends, why not bring your friends to you?”
“But . . .”
“I called Riley, he’s right behind me,” she pointed out, and true enough, Riley’s truck was parking on the street right in front of Aiden’s house. “And you know my cousin Patience.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“I also invited my friend Lisa and her husband, and Klara,” she said. “And a few other people from our church, and from the old football team. They love watching the Cougars play, and I figured you haven’t seen them since my party . . . and you weren’t able to stay long, because your stomach was bothering you. So now you can. It’ll be like a mini reunion!”
He blinked. “Um . . .”
There was a reason he hadn’t connected with his ex-teammates, other than Riley. Not that he disliked them, per se. He just didn’t have a lot in common with them. When they were teens, they’d had football. Now they had . . . nothing, really. Other than living in Fool’s Falls.
The party was a done deal, apparently. More cars showed up, and within an hour, the house was packed with thirty people. Which, though well intentioned, still felt rude as hell.
That said, he couldn’t bring himself to be a dick and kick them all out, especially when Deb just kept being solicitous, making sure he had a drink or food or whatever.
He gritted his teeth. Who does this?
The thing was—he’d lived in the Falls long enough to remember this sort of thing happening. Hell, his mother herself had performed a similar intervention when her friend’s husband died. The woman had withdrawn, refusing to socialize, to her own detriment. His mother had then taken a posse of her church ladies, and they’d descended on the woman’s house like a tornado of cleaning, casseroles, and kindness. He knew, in his heart, that Deb was trying to do the same. She really did mean to be kind. The fact that she was attracted to him—he assumed?—was secondary.
That said, it was part of why he had a hard time living in Fool’s Falls. He was actually lucky he hadn’t gotten the “be more social, be a part of the community” treatment before. The clock had been ticking. Now, his luck had run out.
He sat in his armchair, watching Riley smile and charm the ladies, watching Patience wander through like a butterfly, grinning and gossiping and flirting as she flitted about. The game was starting, and the couch was crowded with his old classmates, all older （and several, like himself, a bit larger）， all watching the game and yelling and hooting with encouragement, armchair quarterbacking, or booing and howling in despair.
Between the conversations, the TV, and the cheer squad, it was a wall of sound that made his head ache and his chest hunch in on itself.
It seemed like his cell phone was in his hand before he even consciously thought about it, and he started texting Maggie automatically.
Aiden: Kill me now.
BOGWITCH: What’s going on? Your foot?
Aiden: Deb’s here. In my house.
BOGWITCH: LOL
BOGWITCH: So kick her out.
Of course that would be Maggie’s first response. He grinned.
Aiden: She brought a bunch of people. My “friends” from h.s. Said she didn’t want me to be lonely.
BOGWITCH: Are you lonely?
He was about to type, then found himself pausing. He would’ve thought the answer was obvious: no. And he certainly wasn’t lonely enough to find this spontaneous football party fun, that was for damned sure. But . . .