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Aiden winced. “Well, when you put it like that, Vin, I do sound like a loser.”
“Stop it.” Her voice rang out above the sounds of the diner and Aiden’s head snapped up almost involuntarily. She wasn’t glaring, but the look on her face was stern. “I don’t ever want to hear you talk about yourself like that ever again.”
“Vin—”
“No,” she said, cutting him off. “You are not a loser because someone you trusted took advantage of that trust and used it to hurt you.”
Aiden nearly missed his mouth when he tried to use his next forkful to buy himself some time from having to respond to her words. He didn’t know how to. He had never had someone fight so hard for him against himself. He didn’t know how to handle this.
“It’s really not that bad,” he said, though he could hear in his own voice that he didn’t quite believe those words. It was bad enough to almost make him homeless. It was bad enough that he was second-guessing himself and his own ability to make decisions.
“It really is, friend,” Vini said softly. “It really is that bad if he did that and you had no idea. Did he at least say when he would be able to have everything settled?”
Aiden knew he should probably lie and say yes, but Vini looked so earnestly concerned for him, he knew he couldn’t go through with it. It would feel like lying to himself, and doing that hadn’t helped him in the least so far.
“No,” he admitted. When she leaned back, he rushed to continue. “But I’ll be calling him tonight to get a timeline sketched out for when things will be taken care of so my credit can rebound. I don’t want to put Janae out too much by becoming an unwanted guest.”
Vini shook her head. “I doubt she would ever say that about you. From what Ava has been saying, the girl thinks sunshine sparkles out of your ass. She keeps showing off pictures of the kitchen. Although, now that I’ve seen it, I understand why.”
Despite still wanting a hole in the floor to open up and swallow him whole, Aiden couldn’t stop the rush of pride that swept through him at the thought of Janae showing off something he’d created. “I’m glad she likes it.”
“She doesn’t just like it, my friend. She loves it and tells everyone how you have magic hands.” Vini’s lips curled up into a smirk. “Magic hands sounds real specific. Anything you want to mention before my thoughts go wild?”
Aiden frowned for a moment before realizing what she was getting at. “Vini . . . be serious.”
“I am serious,” she replied with a shrug. “Listen. You’re a great guy, and from everything I’ve heard, Janae is pretty cool too. I say, if something sparks there, you should go for it. I mean, what’s there to lose?”
Aiden wanted to agree. He wanted to jump in, sight unseen, and tell Janae that he thought she was one of the most attractive women he’d ever met. He wanted to ask her to join him on a night out so he could wine and dine her just to see that same bright smile break out on her face, the one he’d seen the night she’d screwed in the last kitchen cabinet. That moment had played through his thoughts over and over again. He wanted to be with her, but something kept holding him back.
“And when you hear from your dad, make him give you a definite time frame for getting his shit together so you can move on and up with your life.”
The memory of his dad, and the red numbers on his credit report, slammed him back into the present. He sighed, feeling his chance with someone as put together as Janae slowly fading away.
Chapter 13
The house was quiet when Janae stepped in. She still couldn’t get over how nice the kitchen had turned out. She had taken to parking in the back of the house and entering through the back door just to have an excuse to marvel at it every time. Even now in the warm amber light of the late afternoon sun, the kitchen was still bright and inviting. The soft warms and reds cast beautiful shadows over the speckled countertop and creamy cabinets. If she didn’t have things to do, she might sit and relax at the kitchen table and just stare. As it was, she was feeling inspired and had left school that day with every intention of getting some painting done in the sunroom.
She dropped her things off and changed into her well-worn and paint-spattered overalls. Maybe it was a bit cliché to wear, but she liked having the pockets necessary to carry a few brushes with her as she moved. The sunroom was probably supposed to be used for relaxing conversations and sweet tea socials, but she preferred to be surrounded by the comforting views of her neighborhood. She was close enough to town to occasionally see people walking by. Sometimes, when her blinds were open, one or two would even wave. It made her feel more centered and attached to the place she was now calling home. She had considered a house farther out of town at first, where she could have had more acreage, but she was glad she had chosen differently. Being closer to the main area meant she was able to meet people more easily, even if it meant purchasing a house that needed work.
By the time she had finished setting up her canvas, her mind was already awash with the colors and lines that her fingers itched to paint. Maybe moving into the house had been for the best. She was already feeling much more open creatively than before. She had started on a few paintings while living at the apartment, and even finished one portrait, but she still hadn’t felt nearly as colorful as she did now. She had barely begun to make progress when her phone buzzed, the sounds breaking her concentration.
Janae sighed and placed her brush down, wiping her hands on her pants before she reached for the phone. Thankfully, it was just a text message from Braeden, but when she read over it, her heart thumped wildly.
Mom and Dad found out about the fire. Just giving you a heads-up.
“Shit,” Janae hissed out. She looked up at the ceiling, frustrated at not only her parents for learning about the fire, but also at herself for not telling them on her own terms. She didn’t doubt that she would probably be receiving some frantic phone calls soon and she needed to get her story straight. The phone in her hand vibrated again and she looked down at the screen.
They called me, totally freaked out, but I told them you were fine and that I knew.
Still might want to call them before Mom calls you first. You know how she gets.
Janae groaned softly before dragging her hand over her face. She knew it was a conversation that needed to happen, but now that it was here, she wasn’t ready. She typed back a quick thank-you before sliding her phone back into her pocket.
“Damn it,” she whispered before walking over to the one chair she kept in this room, collapsing into it. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to her parents about things. She truthfully hated keeping them in the dark about what was going on in her life. But the real issue was that she wasn’t sure what to say to keep them from offering to fix everything for her. How was she going to explain that, yes, awful things had happened, but that she was handling them, and she would be alright on her own?
Their parents were well-meaning, but they had always been a touch overbearing. She knew it was due to her and Braeden not only having been born prematurely but also being only children. Sometimes, Janae had wished for a younger sibling to be born—someone to take the attention off them. But it was just her and Braeden, and with Braeden’s outwardly boisterous personality in contrast with Janae’s own quietness, she was often the one fretted over. It wasn’t like she was going to fall apart at the first bit of frustration, but her parents didn’t see it that way and often leaped in to take control before she could even try to sort things out herself. She didn’t want that to happen here.
She wanted to make Peach Blossom home on her own terms. But she still blanked on what she could say to fully explain that she liked it here with her slower mornings, familiarity, and the way Aiden’s smile warmed her like sunlight filtering through the windows. Even Braeden didn’t understand it, and her twin was the closest person to her, to the point that sometimes they felt like one person split in two.
