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They paddled until the sun started to burn their skin and then Aiden gestured and they maneuvered into a small creek. There, hidden by tall reeds and bulrushes, was a small dock.
“Dad built it last summer.” Aiden clambered out of the kayak and tied it up. Then he leaned down to help her. “We’ll leave the kayaks here and walk. I know a great place. And I have chocolate and some of Mum’s shortbread.” He patted the pocket in his jacket and she laughed.
“Are you ever without food?”
“Not if I can help it.” He held out his hand and she took it, not because she needed his help but because she liked the feel of his skin against hers, and the way he held her so tightly. She was pretty sure that everyone else in her life would give her a big hard push given half a chance. It felt good to have someone so determined to keep her safe and keep her close. She knew she’d never forget how kind he’d been to her the night before. She’d rushed away from everyone and he’d followed her. They’d sat together on the dock until the sky turned from blue to black, until the sun was replaced by stars.
He’d made her feel less alone, and he was making her feel that way now.
“Watch your legs on the nettles.” Still holding her hand, he led the way along a path and after five minutes of walking they left the trees behind and reached the edge of a meadow. It was a sea of color, wildflowers swaying in the breeze.
“This is very cool.” She was about to sit down on the soft grass when Aiden stopped her.
“Wait.” He threw down his coat. “You don’t want to be bitten by insects.”
“No one likes me enough to pay me that much attention.” She meant it as a joke, but saw him looking at her. “What?”
“I don’t understand why you’re being so hard on yourself.”
“Really? I was super rude, and then when I try to make amends I end up traumatizing my father’s girlfriend—I think I have reason to beat myself up, don’t you?”
“No. I think it’s a difficult situation and you’re not being kind enough to yourself.”
It made her feel better that he thought it was a difficult situation, especially as he didn’t even know the worst part.
She sat on his coat, feeling the long grass tickle her skin.
“Do you believe in love?” She picked two daisies and threaded one through the other as she’d done as a child.
“Yes.” Aiden lay back and closed his eyes. “Don’t you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand it. People say they’re in love, and then they get married and divorced. People die and move on.”
Aiden raised himself up on his elbows. “Is this about your dad?”
“I’m just saying, that’s all.”
“But you’re saying it because of your dad.” He took the daisies from her before she could shred them. “Are you asking me if I think your dad loved your mum? Because I’m sure he did.”
“So how can he fall in love again so easily?”
Aiden shrugged. “I said I believed in love, not that you can only love one person.”
“You’re going to have six wives, like King Henry VIII?”
Aiden brushed a daisy across her cheek. “You think that would be allowed? If I had one for every day of the week, that would be seven wives.”
She flipped a daisy at him. It landed on his chest, on the open neck of his shirt where a hint of skin peeped through the V of the fabric. She looked hard at that skin, remembering when they’d swum in the lake in their underwear without thinking twice about it.
Izzy hadn’t felt anything then, but she was feeling something now. Did she love Aiden? Or was it just that he knew her better than anyone? Or was it that she was flattered that he seemed to want her around when no one else did?
He made her feel wanted. Needed. There was a connection between them that she didn’t feel with anyone else.
“Do you think either of your parents have ever had an affair?”
Aiden lay on his back and stared up at the sky. “No. Of course not.”
“Why ‘of course’? People have secret lives, you know.” She lay down next to him on her side, so that she could see him.
