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As he walks over to open the door, I stand at the base of the stairs, trying to casually lean against the banister as I plaster on a fake smile.
Yeah, like this doesn’t look suspicious.
Nils is much calmer than I am. He lets Arden in, and they do some kind of shake and bro-hug thing. They then engage in a quick discussion about Nils’s ankle.
From the entry hall, Arden finally notices me standing randomly at the base of the stairs. “Hey, Ellie,” he says, eyeing me up and down.
Oh God, I hope I don’t look too rumpled.
“Hey.” I rush over to give him a hug, mainly so he’ll stop looking curiously at me.
It’s more personal than the barely touching bro-hug he had with Nils, so I’m not totally surprised when, letting go and stepping back, he says, “Wow, you smell like…what’s that stuff called again? Oh, I know—Febreze.”
Oh, great.
Well, at least he didn’t say “sex.”
With a quick narrowed-eyed side glance to Nils, I try to sound casual as I explain to Arden, “Yeah. I wore this sweater yesterday, and it still looked clean. But when I put it on, I wasn’t so sure. So I sprayed it with, you guessed it”—I point at him like he just won a prize—“Febreze!”
“Huh.” He frowns a little, like he knows something is off. “Okay.”
Looking at me, then at Nils, then back to me, he asks, “So, what were you two doing when I texted?”
Shit, really?
Nils stifles a cough, and I freeze.
“I was in the kitchen having some toast,” Nils says at the same time I blurt out, “I was eating breakfast with him.”
That would be fine and line up with his answer to Arden’s question, except my stupid ass just pointed up the stairs.
Arden looks past me to where the freaking bedrooms are, eyebrows knitting.
Before he can question us—or, worse yet, put two and two together—I hurry up and divert the whole conversation by saying, “Hey, I haven’t told you yet, but I made a decision about my future.”
That gets his attention.
Phew!
He’s looking at me again, not up toward the bedrooms, as he asks, “Wow, no way. What did you decide?”
Throwing my hands up in the air like I’m doing some kind of a crazy cheer, I say, “I’m staying in Atlanta!”
Arden ignores my theatrics—thank God—and just replies warmly, “That’s fantastic, Ellie.”
He comes in for another hug, and all I can think is I hope the Febreze is still doing its thing.
When he lets go and steps back, he smiles and says, “This is so great. I mean, really fucking wonderful. In fact, it’s so good, I think we should go out to lunch to celebrate.” His gaze pivots to Nils. “What do you think, man? You should come along too. We can also celebrate how well your ankle is healing. Good news all the way around.”
“Sure,” Nils replies. “Lunch sounds nice.”
“Yeah,” I chime in. “That’ll be fun.”
I hope.
The timing’s not great, but I guess this little impromptu outing should go okay. I’d prefer to talk with Nils alone first, so we don’t have any more screwups like the breakfast thing.
But it looks like that’s not going to happen, seeing as Arden just turned to the door and said, “Cool. Let’s go.”
