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“Tell me about your job.”
“What’s there to tell? I catch men cheating on their wives. End of story.”
“Surely, you catch women cheating as well?”
I shrug. “Sometimes. But it’s mostly the gender with dicks who act like dicks and cheat.”
He chuckles. “You must have seen some strange cases.”
“You have no idea,” I start and then proceed to tell them about Mr. and Mrs. ‘Smith’.
When I finish, he stares at me with his mouth hanging open. “Let me get this straight. They pay you five-hundred bucks to catch them cheating?” He snorts. “And here I thought your job was boring.”
Boring? No, my job is many things, but boring is not one of them. “It’s not funny. It makes me feel like a voyeur.”
He chuckles but then realizes I’m not joking. His face is dead serious as he leans forward and grasps my hand in his. “Hailey, honey, do you enjoy watching?”
I make a face and stick my tongue out. “No.”
“Then, you’re not a voyeur.”
“But—”
He places a finger over my lips. “No. A voyeur is someone who enjoys watching other people have sex. You don’t. You have nothing to feel guilty for.”
He hit the nail on the head. While Suzie thinks Smith day is freaking hilarious, I can’t enjoy the little game they play as I feel guilty for getting paid to set the entire thing up. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The waitress arrives with our food. She sets plate after plate on the table. A large salad, a basket of garlic bread, a bowl of spaghetti, a plate of bruschetta, and a pizza. My eyes widen as the table fills. I wait until she leaves before remarking, “I think we may have ordered too much.”
Aiden chuckles as he scoops salad onto my plate. I allow him to eat for a few minutes before I decide it’s time.
“You promised to prove you didn’t bully me in high school.”
“You want to do this now?”
“Yes,” I say even though I don’t want to do this ever. I’m thirty-one-years old I should be over how I was bullied in high school, but I’m not. At least not when it concerns this gorgeous specimen of a man sitting across from me.
“Okay.” He sets down his fork and focuses on me. I squirm. “I know my clique teased you because you had a crush on me.”
“Teased? Is that what we’re calling it now?” Teasing is making jokes amongst people who like and respect each other. Harassing a girl to the point she runs away bawling her eyes out is not teasing.
Aiden’s cheeks turn pink. “Sorry, you’re right. It wasn’t teasing. It was intended to be cruel.” He waits for my nod before continuing. “I didn’t want them to give you a hard time. I tried to stop them, but it was impossible when you followed me around like you did.”
My face flames. It’s true. I followed Aiden around like a lovesick puppy.
“Instead, I avoided you. If you and I weren’t in the same place, they couldn’t bully you about your crush on me.”
My eyes widen. Is he an idiot? “Do you seriously believe they left me alone when you weren’t around?”
“I know they didn’t. But I figured they wouldn’t be as hard on you when I wasn’t around.”
Whatever he thought – wrong or not – doesn’t matter. What does matter is his promise to prove his innocence to me. Something all this talk is not doing. “How is this proving you didn’t bully me? You may not have said the cruel words they did, but you didn’t stop them either.”
“I know. I apologize. I was a stupid teenager. I thought being cool was the most important thing in the world.” He snorts. “I know better now.”
I set my fork down and lean back in my seat. He hasn’t said anything I didn’t know. He already told me how he avoided me to keep his so-called friends from harassing me. Can I really blame him for not sticking up for me? He didn’t know me from Adam in high school. And being cool was the most important thing in the world then. Ugh. I rub a hand down my face. I need to get over this obsession I have with how I was treated in high school.
