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Chapter 35
Darcy to Elizabeth I’m sorry I roasted you, I was trying to flirt ~ Text from Aiden to Hailey
I re-read the text from Aiden. Is he making a Jane Austen joke? In the months since we’ve been together, I may have forced him to watch movie interpretations of Price and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility a time or two. If this is the result, I’ll be forcing him to read the novels next.
I giggle. Yeah, right. My six-foot-three-inch detective boyfriend wouldn’t be caught dead reading Jane Austen. I rub my hands together. This is exactly why e-readers were invented. That’s Aiden’s birthday present all wrapped up. Awesome.
I pull open the door to McGraw’s Pub with a smile on my face. The smile freezes when I get a look at the interior. What in the world? This is not the bar I know and love. There’s now a makeshift stage against the far wall with a curtain in front of it and all the tables have disappeared to be replaced by rows of chairs.
Am I in the wrong place? I look at the bar and there stands Aiden. “Where’s Pops? What’s going on?”
“It’s a surprise.”
I pop my hip out and place a hand on it. “When have I ever given you the impression I like surprises?”
He smirks. “Whenever I wake you up with my—”
“Finish that sentence at your peril, young man,” my father shouts from the kitchen.
I giggle as I walk to the bar. “What are you up to?”
“Remember when we first met.”
“Yes, I was a freshman and—” He stops me before I have a chance to tell the horribly embarrassing story of how I lost the ability to speak the first time I saw him.
“No. When we met again a few months ago and you accused me of not recognizing you.”
“Duh. You didn’t recognize me.”
He smirks. “On our first date, I promised to prove to you I wasn’t the asshole in high school you thought I was.”
I walk to him and fish the dog tag I gave him out of his shirt and fiddle with it. “Yeah, you showed me this and told me you wore it the entire time you were deployed.”
“This is very romantic. I should take notes,” Sid says from wherever he’s hidden.
Aiden lowers his voice. “There’s more to the story.” I cock an eyebrow and wait. “I attended every play you were in while in high school.”
“You did?” I wrinkle my brow as I try to imagine the most popular guy in high school going to one of my plays. “But I never saw you.”
“Nevertheless, I was there.”
“Darn. I wish I had known.” Although, I probably would have been completely tongue-tied and ruined the play had I known.
“Do you remember the last play you performed in high school?”
I don’t have to think about it. “Pride and Prejudice. Classic Jane Austen.”
Aiden sweeps his arm out. “Welcome to Netherfield.”
I look around the bar. There’s no indication we’re in 19th Century Nottinghamshire England. “I’m not seeing it.”
Pops walks out of the kitchen dressed in Regency era formal wear. He pulls at his collar while muttering curses under his breath.
“I’ve humped a sixty while wearing a flak vest and let me tell you, young woman, it was more comfortable than this garb,” he grumbles.
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I nod as if I commiserate.
“Mr. Bennet, I presume.” I curtsy.
