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It had stopped ringing by the time he got there, but it started again as he carried it back to the drivers’ side and got back in. He tried to force himself not to look, but he lost the battle. He frowned when he saw the nameAidenon the display. Who was Aiden? He hoped it might be one of her brothers. She’d told him that she had three brothers. He didn’t think she’d told him their names – or if she had, he didn’t remember them.
He blew out a sigh and set the phone down on the center console while he waited for it to stop ringing.
He was relieved when it did. But the relief was only momentary. It started up again a few seconds later. He had to look. It was Aiden again. Why would the guy call her three times in a row and not leave a message?
Jacob scowled out through the windshield, hoping that Becca would come back soon.
When her phone stopped ringing for the third time, he waited. It didn’t ring again, but it did beep with a text. He looked down; he couldn’t help it. His heart thudded to a halt when he read what he could see before the screen went dark again.
Aiden: I need that money, Becca.
He sat there scowling to himself. He shouldn’t have looked, and he knew it. He was mad at himself. He was even madder at this Aiden person – whoever he might be.
His scowl dissolved into a smile when he realized that he wasn’t mad at Becca. He felt protective of her – not suspicious of her. That was a first for him. He’d known plenty of women who were out for what they could get from him. Women who had a lot more money than Becca did weren’t above trying to get him to pay for whatever they could talk him into. He’d learned to be wary, but he didn’t feel the least bit wary of Becca.
He smiled when he saw her come out of the main entrance and hurry back to him. He liked that idea, the idea of her hurrying home to him after school – and where the hell had that thought come from?
She smiled when she got back in and pulled the door shut after her. “Sorry about that. I got talking.”
“No problem. You dropped your phone.” He nodded to where it sat on the console.
“Oh! Thanks.”
“It rang a couple of times,” he told her as she reached for it.
She frowned as she checked the screen, and then blew out a sigh. “Ugh.”
“Is everything okay?”
She turned to him and held his gaze for a long moment. “Do you see me as a friend?”
He wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “I’d like to see you as more than that.”
“I know. I would, too. We already talked about that. But if … if that’s going to go anywhere, we need to be friends first, right? And … you feel like a friend to me, and I could really use one right now. But if I talk to you about this, it has to be as a friend – not as … as … I don’t know. As some girl you picked up and ….” She shook her head. “I don’t mean that to sound bad. I just mean ... You can talk to your friends about your problems in a different way – without worrying what they’ll think of you or worrying that they’ll try to step in and take over, even if they are just trying to help.”
He nodded. He thought he understood. “If you need a friend to talk to, I’m here for you.”
She let out a short bitter-sounding laugh. “That’s what Aiden said, even though he left me here struggling to do everything by myself.”
Jacob frowned. He didn’t think he was going to like where this was going. “Want to tell me, then?”
“Yeah. But only if you remember that I just want to vent. I’m not asking for your help. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Her expression softened and she gave him a gentle smile. “And partly I want to tell you so that you don’t think Aiden is someone that I’m seeing or anything. I’m not. There’s only you.”
He couldn’t hide his smile at that. He liked the thought of being the only guy in her life.
“Okay. I told you that the last guy I was with ran away from me. Well, that was Aiden. We moved out here together because he got a job here. He asked me to come with him, and I was lucky to get hired at the school. We hadn’t been here for long when he was given the chance to go and work for a startup in Las Vegas. It was a good move for him, and he took it.”
“You didn’t want to go with him?”
“No. Well, maybe I would have, but I’d started at school by then – made a commitment. He didn’t want me enough to wait for me, and I didn’t want him enough to leave for him. So, I guess that says it all, doesn’t it?”
“I guess it does.” Jacob knew he shouldn’t ask, but he had to. “I’m sorry, but I saw the message when he texted. What’s the deal with the money?”
Her shoulders slumped. “We rented the townhouse together – because he wanted it and said we’d be fine to afford it! We were – between us. But it’s not so easy by myself. Anyway, he called me this morning to say that he has a chance to buy into the company that he’s working for – and he wants his half of the deposit back. I don’t have it!” She blew out a big, shaky breath. “I don’t have enough to give him half the deposit back. I don’t have enough to replace Fred. I don’t even have enough to keep paying my rent for much longer.” She gave him a sad smile. “I’m probably going to have to admit defeat and go home soon.”
