“Listen. It’s okay. We gave it a good try. Timing’s justbad.”
Shae swallowed the massive lump in her throat. “Yeah. I want to be less difficult with all this, but I’m not there.” Shae looked up as eight different emotions danced across Aidan’s features. His lips settled into a soft, understanding smile, but that didn’t stop Shae from catching the look of pity that flashed through his eyes. He reached out and just barely touched the side of her hand before letting his fingersdrop.
“Hey, at least we got off the app for a couple ofweeks.”
“We did and I enjoyed it. Sorry I wasn’t a...sure thing or whatever. I’ll—um, I’ll make sure I delete those pictures you sent me. I should havealready.”
“Yeah, whatever you want. I wasn’t worried about you havingthem.”
Shae clammed up. There was nothing more she could say and if she tried to make things better by talking more, she was confident she would just make them worse. Thank god, Aidan took the hint. He knew their time wasup.
“Well, I guess I should headout.”
“Bye,Aidan.”
“Bye, Shae.” She hoped he would walk away and never look back. Instead, he stepped closer and wrapped his strong arms around her. She knew exactly what he was doing the moment his chin rested against the top of her head. He was taking her in one last time. She did the same, wrapping her arms around his waist, hugging him tight. She buried her face against his chest. The tears were so dangerously close to the surface, she nearly pushed him away just to get them tostop.
“Scram. Get on out of here before I do something extra stupid and make it impossible for us to run into each other in public one day,” shesaid.
“I’m going, I’m going.” This time it was for real. Shae watched him as he walked down the front steps and out of Keira and Daniel’s yard. When he was down the block and out view, she went back inside and hid in Daniel’s office and let herself fall apart. She liked Aidan so much, but no matter how silly it sounded when she repeated it back to herself, she knew she was no good for him. Aidan was the perfect guy and he needed someone who could be good for him. Not some neurotic bundle of nerves that was constantly waiting for the other shoe todrop.
As soon as she stopped crying, she’d rejoin the party. While she waited for her emotions to get their shit together, Shae pulled out her phone and deleted the MATCHED app. She’d meant what she said. She was not ready to date again and it was time to stop pretending shewas.
8
Dear Santa,What the heck man?! Help me outhere...
Being dumpedon Christmas Eve wasn’t something Aidan had experienced before and it was not something he would recommend. It had been a long time since he’d cried real tears, and even though no tears actually leaked out, he felt them stinging the backs of his eyes the whole drive back to his place. He did not want things to end withShae.
When he got back to his apartment, he did his best not to get too down on himself before he went to bed. Purposely skipping over the bottles of booze lining the top of his fridge, he queued up episodes of a new cartoon on Netflix to keep his mind off the fact that he was now alone and pretty heartbroken. Shae didn’t need space. She need tonotbe with him. It wasn’t hard to get thatmessage.
He understood. He really did. She’d been in a rough relationship and it had ended badly, but Aidan also knew what she wasn’t saying. He knew what the problem really was. He had fallen for Shae, hard, and he didn’t think she missed the effort he was putting in to make her happy and comfortable. He was pretty sure that’s what sent her heading for the hills. He’d come on too strong, made himself too comfortable with her friends and family. They hadn’t even discussed any relationship terms and he was in full boyfriendmode.
He knew it was a big deal to introduce someone new to the people closest to you and Aidan should have asked Shae how she wanted to handle it before he was all hands on at the party. He was drawn to Shae. He loved being near her, he loved touching her, but like his sister said, two people need to be happy in a relationship. Shae had been tense all night and instead of checking with her early on, he waited until the last second to see if she was okay. He got it. He’d fucked up. Shae wasn’t ready to go where he wanted to take the relationship and he needed to accept that. It still fucking sucked. He was missing heralready.
When he woke up in the morning, he was glad to find that his gym was actually open. He went to work out and then grabbed a big breakfast. He powered through video chats with his sister’s family and his parents, grateful as fuck that his sister was too caught up in carting kids around an amusement park to ask about Shae. He thought he was doing okay until he met up with Matt outside the movie theater later thatday.
“Ho ho ho, homie. Merry Christmas,” Matt said as they briefly clasped hands and went in for the one-armed backpat.
“Thanks. MerryChristmas”
“Talia will be here in a few. She’sparking.”
“Cool.”
“How’s my favorite bakerdoing?”
“Ah, good I guess,” Aidan said with a shrug. “She kinda dumped me lastnight.”
“Shit man, whathappened?”
Aidan shook his head. “Don’t really want to get into it because I’m pretty fucked up about it. We’re just not really doing the whole ‘us’ thing anymore. She called itoff.”
“Sorry, bro. I’ll boycott Sweet Creams for twoweeks.”
“I appreciate that loyalty and dedication,” Aidan said with an empty chuckle. “You don’t have to boycott Sweet Creams at all. She’s doing what’s best for her and I think your business keeps their lightson.”
“Okay, good. Two weeks is too long. Still sucks though. You haven’t been this into anyone since Heather and you were pretty into her. I could tell you liked this girl. I saw you texting her all thetime.”