And if I could do all that, when I was strong and when I was weak, I could remember it and let it lead me. My achy knee never let me forget what we’d been through in the last eight years.
I made my way out of the kitchen because the truth wasn’t a big deal. “I got hit by a car.”
I just usually didn’t tell people that it was my sister who’d been the driver.
By the time Zac and I made it out of the house, the sun had just started to hang low in the horizon. We jogged steadily for six miles one way before turning around to get back home. That last two miles on the way home we used as our cool down. After we’d caught our breaths, Big Texas abruptly snorted and asked, “How the hell hadn’t Aiden noticed your knee ‘til today?”
I let out a sharp snicker. “I was wondering the exact same thing.”
“Jesus, Vanny, I think I noticed it the first week you started workin’ for him.” He shook his head. “He doesn’t notice stuff that’s not football related unless it smacks him in the face.”
It was true.
Then he said, “Like you.”
And it was like something crashed down on my shoulders. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the truth was like a boa. It could be this heavy snake that could wrap around your neck and kill you, or it could be a feather boa, a nice, fun accessory to your life. In this case, I was going to force myself to take the truth in the form of the feather version. I’d already faced reality and that reality was the one Aiden had admitted to me: he hadn’t appreciated me until I left.
It was what it was. You couldn’t force someone to care about you or love you. I knew that way too well.
But Aiden was a man who only loved one thing, and if you weren’t that one thing, too bad. It was all he’d known for so long, he hadn’t looked in his peripherals at everything else surrounding him. I could accept that nothing else was anywhere near as important as football. What I wasn’t able to do was wrap my head around what Leslie had said regarding Aiden’s grandparents and the grief he’d gone through when he lost them. He’d never even mentioned them in front of me. But I guess that was just the way he was.
Now though, in his own way, I knew he cared about me. That said something, didn’t it? I didn’t think I was trying to pull at straws or make something bigger than it needed to be. I was simply taking what I could get and not making it out to be something it wasn’t.
I could live with that.
So I shrugged at Zac. “Yeah, exactly like that. He’s just so focused he doesn’t care about anything else. I get it.” I did.
With a big sigh, Zac sniffed. “It’s workin’ for him. He’s the only one on the team that’s an All-Pro.” The shape his mouth took after he finished talking made a bittersweet sensation go through my heart. I couldn’t help but think: Poor Zac.
So I smacked him in the arm. “Quit pouting. You’re only twenty-eight. That one quarterback played until he was almost forty, didn’t he?”
“Well… yeah. He did.”
“See?” That was enough for now, wasn’t it? I went with changing the subject. “Are you doing anything for Halloween?”
* * *
“Where are you going?”
I stopped at the door and held out the jack-o-lantern shaped bucket I’d bought the day before, so he could see the three bags of candy I’d torn open and dumped inside. “Nowhere. I was going to sit outside.”
Sitting in what I’d began to consider calling his throne—the breakfast nook—the big guy had a puzzle spread out in front of him. I didn’t know why I thought it was so cute but it was. It really, really was. Those big shoulders were always hunched over while he worked on them, and I didn’t need to catch him unawares to know he sometimes stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth when he was really into it. Now though on Halloween Day, his entire body was turned to the side as he caught me on my way out.
Aiden’s eyes dropped to my body in what I might have thought was the third time since we’d met, and he cocked a thick eyebrow, his face a plain, stony mask. “You’re all dressed up.”
“It’s a costume,” I said a little self-consciously. “For Halloween.” For the record, I loved Halloween. Other than Christmas, it was my favorite holiday. The costumes, the decorations, the little kids, and the candy… it had been love from the first October 31st I could remember.
Aiden tilted his head just slightly to the side. “What are you supposed to be?”
Was he serious? I looked down at my costume, thinking I’d done a pretty good job putting it together three years ago when I’d last worn it to a friend’s party. The overalls, the yellow shirt, the one-eyed goggle pressing into my forehead. It was obvious. “A minion.”
The Wall of Winnipeg blinked. “What the hell is a minion?”
“A minion. Despicable Me.” I blinked when he stayed silent. “Nothing?”
“Never seen it.”
Blasphemy. I’d ask if he was serious, but I knew he was. I stared right at him. “It’s one of the cutest movies in the entire universe,” I explained slowly, hoping he was joking.
He shook his head, his eyes flicking low again. “Never heard of it.”
“I don’t even know what to say to you, and at the same time, I’m not sure why I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it,” I said. “You have no idea what you’ve been missing out on, big guy. It’s probably the cutest animated movie after Finding Nemo.”
“I highly doubt that.” But he didn’t say he hadn’t heard of Finding Nemo. That was something.
“I have the DVD in my room, borrow it.”
Before he could respond, a knock sounded at the door and a bolt of giddiness shot through my chest as I clutched the bucket of candy in my hand and prepared myself for the trick-or-treaters on the other side.
Two small kids who couldn’t be more than six years old stood on the doorstep with really elaborate cloth sacks extended.
“Trick or treat!” they pretty much shouted.
“Happy Halloween,” I said, taking in the petite Power Ranger and Captain America as I dropped a few pieces of candy into each bag.
“Thank you!” they shouted back simultaneously before running to the adult standing at the end of the sidewalk waiting for them. The adult figure waved at me and I waved back before sticking my head back into the house. “I’ll be outside,” I called out to Aiden, grabbing the collapsible chair that I’d left right by the door earlier for this occasion.
I’d barely settled into the seat on the small patio outside when the front door opened and the legs of a chair just like mine peeked out, the big six-foot-almost-five man I was legally married to following after it.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he dropped his chair next to mine, further away from the door.
“Nothing.” He eyed me as he pretty much fell into the canvas. Honestly, a small part of me was worried it was going to rip at the seams when he plopped down, but by some miracle it didn’t. Leaning back, he crossed his arms over his chest and stared forward across the street.
And I stared at him.
He never sat outside. Ever. When would he have time? And why would he?