It was emotional torture.
I was proud of myself I didn’t cry. Finally, I had a lock on my emotions.
Afterward, I pulled on a robe, wrapped my wet hair in the towel, and I’d walked into the kitchen to make myself tea when there was a knock at my door.
Aidan? I instantly thought, feeling rapid flutters in my throat.
“Nora, are you home?”
It was Seonaid.
I snorted at my ridiculousness and wandered over to open the door. “Hey.”
Her eyes narrowed on my dishabille as she pushed past. “I thought you would have just gotten home from rehearsals by now.”
“I left early. You want tea?” I gave her my back as I moved into the kitchen.
“Aye, sure. Why did you leave early?”
Why lie?
“I was there early, first there, in fact. Then Aidan appeared. He’s friends with the director and has been at a few rehearsals lately. He’s angry at me because he thinks I left him after Sylvie was taken from him. So he called me some nasty shit. I kissed him to shut him up and we ended up fucking.” I called it that because there was no other word for it. “Afterward, he told me he didn’t know what he’d ever seen in me and I told him I was just scratching a two-year itch.”
At first, she gave me nothing.
Then suddenly, her hand was on me, forcing me to turn to her. Her concerned eyes searched my face and whatever she saw there made her jaw muscles lock with tension. Confusing, because I was doing a wonderful impression of a blank piece of paper.
“You sound like you’re reciting something that happened to someone else.”
“It might as well have for all that it affected me.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Nora, he’s the first man you’ve had sex with since Jim and it sounds like ugly hate sex. How is that okay?”
“It’s fine.”
“Stop saying that,” she huffed. “Stop acting like this.”
“How would you have me act?” I said calmly, crossing my arms over my chest. “Wailing and crying and acting like a weak fool? I’m not her anymore, Seonaid. I’m in charge of my life.”
Her face crumpled. “At least that Nora felt something. This Nora is scaring me.”
“I’m fine.”
“What happened between you? I’ve been thinking over it since you told me last Sunday that he never left for California. Did his friend lie? Why did she lie? Does he know she lied to you?”
“Yes, she lied. I don’t know why but I think she was jealous. And no, he doesn’t know.”
“So you let him treat you like that when you could have told him that this was all a big misunderstanding? Why?”
“Because my life is calmer without him in it,” I explained patiently. “Life has been good for me lately, Seonaid. I don’t need the complication.”
Anger clouded her expression. “And I would totally bloody agree if you weren’t looking at me with dead eyes right now.”
I looked away because I didn’t know what else I could say to convince her I was okay.
With a noise of exasperation, my friend turned and marched toward the door.
“What about your tea?” I asked.
“Drink it yourself. Maybe it’ll heat the bloody chill out of your heart.” The door slammed shut behind her.
“Shit,” I muttered, collapsing against my kitchen counter. I was pushing everyone away. “Nice job.”
April in Edinburgh, I’d come to find over the years, was wet. Very, very wet. I finally understood the term “April showers.” It was only the first week in April, but already it had rained every day. It wasn’t constant, which made it worse—I’d go outside wearing stupid little ballet flats because the weather was dry and then ten minutes later, I’d get stuck in a deluge. The downpour usually only lasted thirty minutes but by that point, I was soaked to my skin.
I didn’t mind it too much. If the days had been filled with the delights of spring sunshine, I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy it anyway. I was pretending I was numb, after all.
Pretending and actually being that way were, of course, two different things. As I made my way to rehearsals on Wednesday, I was filled with trepidation, wondering if Aidan would be there. I hoped, after our encounter on Monday, he’d see sense and stay away. We were terrible for one another.
Turning up for rehearsal later than usual, I discovered Jack outside the building talking on his cell. He glanced up from the sidewalk, saw me, and said into the phone, “Hang on a sec, babe,” he pulled the phone from his ear and warned me, “the arsehole is here.”
“Aidan?” My belly flipped with nerves.
“Aye.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I murmured, wanting to turn around and go home. But I didn’t. I threw back my shoulders and forced myself to enter the building.
Feeling anxious, I took a deep breath and pushed open the double doors to the auditorium. Chatter from the stage end reached my ears as I took in the sight of our cast hanging around on seats and talking. Quentin stood by the stage with Aidan at his side. They’d been speaking about something but both looked up at my entrance.
They both stared.
My pulse fluttered.
As I approached, my gaze unwillingly drew toward Aidan and my breath stuttered at the anguish in his eyes. Not loathing. Not hate.
Pain.
And if I wasn’t mistaken: guilt.
What the hell?
“There you are. I thought for a second you weren’t going to make it,” Quentin said to me, yanking my eyes to him. “You’re better, yes?”
“Excuse me?”
“You left rehearsal early on Monday because you were ill,” he reminded me.
Discombobulated by Aidan’s expression, I could only nod, not quite sure what I was nodding for.
“Fine, let’s start. Where is our Orsino?” Quentin looked beyond my shoulder. “No doubt conversing on that dratted phone to an unsuspecting soon-to-be-infected-with-an-STD female.”
We eventually made it on stage but I could feel Aidan’s eyes on me the whole time. My lines eluded me, and I felt uncomfortable in my own skin, like I might burst out of it at any second. I couldn’t have been further from Illyria if I’d tried. Selfishly, I was glad when it seemed some of the other cast members, including Jack, were equally distracted.
Quentin called time on rehearsals early, yelling, “And when you return next week, I expect to be greeted not by this talentless, tatterdemalion cast! Understood?”
“If I bloody well knew what tatterdemalion meant, then aye,” Jack muttered as we walked offstage.
I gave him a weary smile of agreement and wished him goodnight. He left while I found my way over to the seat I’d been using and started to put my schoolwork back in my bag.
“Nora.”
My breath caught at the sound of Aidan’s voice at my back. Slowly, I turned, lifting my bag onto my shoulder and reluctantly looked up at him. Was it just me or did he look nervous?
What the hell was going on?
“Can we talk?” Aidan asked.
Suddenly, I was seeing him glaring down at me with fierce need as he pounded into me, feeling him stroke in deep, rough thrusts.
I flushed, breaking eye contact.
Nope. I should not be allowed to be alone with this man. We were magnets, he and I, and I couldn’t deny that. Staying away from him was my only course of action. “I have to go,” I said, turning to leave.
But he followed. “We need to talk.”
“There’s nothing left to say.”
“Apparently, there is a fuckload to say.”
What the hell did that mean?
I didn’t ask, even though my curiosity was tickling my tongue. “Aidan, I don’t know what you’re after now, but I want to be left alone.”
Marching out into the damp, dank, spring evening, I hurried along the road onto one of the main streets in Tollcross, Leven Street, and as soon as I spotted a cab, I lifted my arm in the air. The driver saw me and began pulling toward me.
“Nora, I’m not going anywhere.”
I sucked in a breath at finding Aidan right beside me.