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I raised my eyebrows. “I think you’re doing perfectly, but… why ask me?”
She gestured past me. “You’re really at the heart of everything. Everyone passes by and shares their sorrows with you. You have a good eye for what’s going on… for the heart of the town. You and Priscilla are very alike, in that way, I think. I guess I just wonder what you think.”
It was a compliment, and a good one at that, so it probably wasn’t supposed to sit in my stomach like I’d eaten something bad. I cringed without meaning to, looking away. Aria arched an eyebrow.
“That’s a reaction…”
“Sorry. It’s nothing about you. Just made me think of something else I’m trying… not to think about.”
“That’s the other thing, that you don’t really talk about what’s going on for you often, do you?”
“I’m just a more private person,” I said lightly. “Anyway… you’re doing perfectly. Emberlynn adores you. She’s serious about you, you know.”
She gave me a small smile, nervous, vulnerable. “Yeah?”
“Ma’am, she moved to New York to be with you. You think she’d do that casually?”
“I just… like I said. I get impostor syndrome.”
“I think we all do sometimes.” I leaned across the table, putting a hand on her arm. “If it makes you feel better, I think the fact that you checked in to ask how you’re doing and what you can do for Emberlynn is a sign you’re doing really well.”
She laughed. “Thank you. Now that we’re done with that elaborate dodge of why you’re in here looking sad in the corner—why are you in here looking sad in the corner? And does it or does it not have to do with Paisley?”
“Ugh…” I scratched the back of my head, focusing on my beer. “Just let a woman sit in a dark corner with fried chicken and beer.”
“Fine, let me cut to the chase.” She put a hand up. “I think she likes you.”
I choked on the beer. Not exactly the smoothest move I could have made. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I’m not sure what I would have done to deserve such a punishment.”
“You can be glib all you like. I hope you don’t think it’s the first time I’ve sat through someone trying to avoid answering. I come from sales, you know.”
Dammit. No wonder she’d literally cornered me and then driven so relentlessly. Come to think of it—I wonder if opening up about her genuine insecurities might have been a technique to soften me up, get me more in a reciprocal sharing mood. I’d been played like a fiddle. I set down my drink with a sigh.
“If the way she expresses her interest in me is by breaking into my house through my roof, I don’t want her to be.”
“Well, that’s the other thing,” she said, a curious look in her eyes. “I’m not sure if she knows she likes you.”
I paused. “What do you mean?”
She picked at her food. “Paisley… well. Growing up, she never got to be in touch with her feelings.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. I’d been labeled…” She gestured airily. “Whiny, complaining. Told to stop making a fuss over everything I wanted, everything I felt, everything I needed. It left a mark on me, but… I think, if anything, it might have left a bigger mark on Paisley. I was her only sister. She looked up to me in a lot of ways of how she was supposed to be. And not only did she grow up only ever knowing me as not supposed to have emotions, she was supposed to join in on beating them out of me. She’d have to form a completely disconnected view from her own feelings to be able to adopt a mindset like that.”
I stared down into my food, just cradling the basket while my mind wandered. It wasn’t like it sounded completely impossible, but… “I thought she threw all that kind of thinking away when she left her parents. Didn’t she used to be all… quiet and reserved?”
“She did. But that was survival mode.”
Huh. Paisley had used the same words. Come to think of it, everything Paisley had said this morning, after she’d dragged me out of bed… wanting to reinvent herself. Was she that scared of her own feelings?
“So,” Aria said, leaning back in her seat, “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s been… hot and cold with you. You shouldn’t hold it against her. Despite everything… she is trying her best.”
I swallowed. I’d always just dismissed those… two times as being casual flings. And same for earlier, in the camper. After the first one, I’d… dared to let myself fantasize for a while what it might have meant, what we might do. And if I was being honest, I wanted to date her, even despite everything. But then the way she would act like nothing happened, flippant and casual?
I’d gotten upset earlier because she’d kissed me and hadn’t meant anything with it when it meant so damn much to me. But if she felt the same way and just didn’t know how to recognize it? It would explain why it was always me.
I felt my face prickle, knowing I was probably getting red enough Aria could see even in this light. It couldn’t be like that—it wasn’t fair. Wasn’t right. I was leaving. And besides, I was… well. I was Harper. I couldn’t do that. Annabel had been a lapse in judgment—an attractive woman who had openly pursued me, made me feel beautiful and desirable when I’d felt it the least. And it was good that it ended. I hadn’t been the one for her. And there couldn’t be a one for me.
