Страница 89 из 101
With a wave to all of them and an extra smile thrown in Cain’s direction, I ran back upstairs. The two covers I was working on were going to be hand-drawn designs, so I set up my brand new tablet and quickly got to work. I’d already jotted down ideas I had, so I quickly set forth drawing the bones for one of them so I could send it off before going any further.
One hour bled into two, and at some point, I heard the door open and a handful of male voices float up the stairs. The low hum of the television reached the office, but I kept on working.
It wasn’t until the garage door opened once more and the voices got louder that I sat up and listened. Sure enough, a few minutes later, someone pounded up the stairs and “Van!” reached me.
“In the office,” I yelled back, already saving my work.
Zac peeked his head into the doorway and gri
“Sure. Let me get dressed.”
He nodded, disappearing in the direction of his room. Sneaking into my bedroom, I grabbed my ru
I smiled as I sat on the edge of the bed, my heel on the mattress. “How was lunch?”
He lifted a shoulder and eyed me, leaning against the door. “Good.”
“What restaurant did you go to? The Chinese place, that café you like, or Thai?” I asked playfully, slipping my sock on.
“We went to eat Chinese.”
“Where’s Leo?” I asked.
“Downstairs,” was his curt reply before going with, “Did you and Cain date?”
My sock fell out of my hand. “What?”
Aiden straightened his upper back as he pushed off the door he’d been leaning against. His face was so remote, I had no idea what the hell that was supposed to mean. “Were you and Cain together?” he repeated himself.
I kept my gaze on him as I reached down and picked up the sock. “Ahh, no.”
His cheek twitched.
“No.” I blinked. “The only reason he started talking to me back then was because he wanted to copy off my work.”
Why was he making that face?
“I’m serious. That was the only reason we became friends.”
He was still making that damn face.
“What? Okay, maybe I thought he was cute, but that’s all.” I shrugged. “Guys like that don’t like girls like me, big guy.” Honestly, while it was the truth, I had no idea why the hell I’d said it.
His nostrils flared and his shoulders drew back. “Guys like what?”
Damn it. There went me feeling awkward as hell. “You know…” I made myself look down as I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Like that.”
“Like me?” he asked in a low voice.
“Not you-you, necessarily. I just mean… look, it doesn’t matter. I know what I have to work with.” I was all right looking. Every so often, I got hit on. But I wasn’t a major bitch, I worked hard, my crazy was usually under control, and I thought that mattered more than a face that would eventually get wrinkled. “When you can pretty much date whoever you want, and most of you guys can, I’m not going to be at the top of anybody’s list—”
“Shut up, Vanessa,” he snapped.
I scoffed. “You shut up.”
“Van!” Zac exclaimed, banging on the bedroom door. “Chop, chop!”
Getting to my feet, I quickly slipped my shoes on and shot Aiden a frown. “Look, we never did anything more than eat di
He didn’t move away from the door even as I approached it. What did happen was that he seemed to be grinding his teeth together.
I touched the middle of his chest; the big, perfectly developed slabs of his six-pack hardened under my fingers. “I promise, big guy. I would never break my promise to you. You know that.” When he didn’t say anything, I used my chin to gesture toward the door. “I need to go. When I get back, I’ll make a few casseroles or something so you don’t have to go out to eat again. Okay?”
Grudgingly, Aiden nodded and moved aside to let me open the door. Zac stood at the bottom of the stairs. “Come on, darlin’. We’re on a tight schedule.”
Five hours later, my legs were all noodle-like and I felt sick. It went passed exhaustion and dehydration—we’d started carrying water reservoirs on packs around our back. I felt like I had the flu. We had taken it easy after our long run two days ago, and our day off had been yesterday. But a puny seven miles with a negative split had damn near killed me. My knees. My ankles. My shoulders. Every single thing ached. Pounding back water hadn’t made me feel any better, drinking coconut water hadn’t helped, sitting down to rest didn’t make a difference, and neither did taking a shower and putting on pajamas.
I’d had to pull up a chair in front of the stove to cook di
Even Zac wasn’t faring too much better. He’d gone straight upstairs to shower after we got back and had taken his food to his room to eat. It was only through sheer will that I sat in the living room with the guys and ate di
What the hell had I been thinking trying to do a marathon? Why hadn’t I gone with a half one to start off with and work up from there?
“You need some help?” a slightly familiar voice asked from somewhere behind me.
Glancing over my shoulder as I rinsed the dishes so I could set them in the dishwasher, I spotted Cain standing in the kitchen with a few glasses in hand. The guys had all headed outside a little while ago, wanting to break in the fire pit. Chris had offered to do the dishes, but Aiden never got to see his friends, so I told him I could do it.
Even if I ended up passed out in the middle of it.
“If you want,” I replied.
“Scoot over.”
I did and let him take the spot closest to the dishwasher. I rinsed off a dish and passed it over to him, smiling tiredly. “Thanks for helping.”
“No problem.” His forearm brushed mine as I handed him another plate. “When’s the marathon you’re doing?” he asked, pointing out that he’d been paying attention when Chris had asked me about it during the commercials over di
“In about two weeks.” Just saying the number out loud made me want to throw up. I barely survived ru
“That’s cool.”
I was too tired to try and make a joke about how not cool it was while I was on the verge of dying. “What have you been up to since school?”
We hadn’t seen each other since the end of the spring semester of our freshman year. Cain had transferred schools the next fall, and even though I didn’t remember whether he’d ever called or text messaged me afterward, he might have. I’d been in the middle of recuperating from my accident and those next six months had gone by hazily, a mix of pain medicine and anger. I hadn’t been anyone’s friend then other than Diana’s, and that was mostly because she wouldn’t let it be any other way, and truthfully, I hadn’t given Cain much thought after that.
“I’m in Philadelphia now. I was in San Diego before that for a few years, but everything is great,” he said as he bent over to set the dish in the lower rack of the dishwasher. “How long have you and Graves been together?”
Considering I wasn’t sure how much Chris and Drew had told Cain, much less what Aiden told them, I was going to wing it. “Well, I worked for him for two years. We’ve been living together for five months now.” That way I didn’t have to get too specific.
“For real?”
“For real.”
“Huh,” he kind of muttered under his breath. “That’s… surprising.”
A faint reminder of what I had told Aiden in the bedroom earlier flicked through my brain, and I had to keep from snickering.
His elbow touched mine again as he took another plate from me, his green-eyed gaze reaching mine for a moment. “You look fucking great by the way.”
Everyone telling me I looked greatly recently only made me really self-conscious about what they used to think of me before. Did I look like shit? “Oh, thanks.” My weight had always yo-yoed depending on how much exercise I was doing. I gained it really easily and lost it really easily, but I couldn’t remember freshman year where I was, but it might have been at one of my heaviest periods.
Yeah, the silence after that was just plain weird. Luckily, it didn’t take long to finish rinsing everything off and setting the dishwasher to clean. Cain headed out while I wiped the counters off. I was so tired, but it was only nine o’clock at night. I grabbed a glass of water and chugged half of it down before trudging outside to see the guys for a little bit longer.
Pushing open the French doors leading to the patio with the last little bit of strength I had left, the heat from the stone fire pit hit me in the face immediately. In the second it took for my eyes to adjust, I found all four of the guys sitting around it in various stages of wide-open legs and slouches, hanging out.
“You finally made it,” Drew, the nicer of the two, exclaimed. On his lap was the blond ball of fur, completely passed out. Apparently, Leo had won someone else over in no time at all.
“Yeah,” I said pretty weakly, dead on my feet and realizing there were only four seats and they were all taken up.
“Here, take my seat,” Drew said quickly.
“Oh, that’s okay.”
“Sit with me,” Aiden suggested, or maybe demanded, without hesitation.
I stared at him, squeezing the cool glass lightly between my hands, debating whether to excuse myself or take a seat because there wasn’t another option. What was I going to do? Offer to take the floor when there was a perfectly good leg I could sit on? A leg that belonged to the man his friends believed I’d married out of love. Okay, come on.
For a moment, I thought about dragging out one of the dining room chairs, but it would just seem weird. And I really didn’t want to walk any more than I needed to.
I mean, it wasn’t like this was the first time I’d sat on someone’s leg. Friends did that kind of stuff. Married people snuggled, at least that’s what I reasoned with myself. Not because I wanted to sit on his lap or anything. Nope.