When it does, Aiden smiles, turns on his heel, and walks away.
I’m almost to the horses outside when he catches up, and I have to hand it to Dolly, she’d at least been right about one thing. Apparently, all I do need to do is walk the other direction.
“Aiden,” Cypress says, reaching out for my arm right as I’m about to pull myself up into the saddle. “Hold on a minute.”
I shrug him off, not trusting myself to face him. My chest feels too tight, my skin too hot, the music from inside still too fucking loud. “I’m fine.”
“You aren’t,” he argues, and I can’t tell if he’s cross or if everything just sounds wrong right now. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you come here.”
I laugh. “You didn’tmakeme do anything. My choices are my own.”
Rather than try to swing up again, I start walking down the dirt path away from Dolly’s bar and toward the house, leading Helios—because I suppose that really is his damn name now—behind me. Cypress follows a moment later with Cerberus, hislong strides catching him up quickly until we’re side by side.
“What that man was saying—”
I shake my head. “It’s not important.”
“It is.”
“No. It isn’t.”
“It bothers you—”
“You don’t think I’ve heard that before?” I ask, pausing and letting myself look at him now, at his frown that actually makes me miss the grin. “I’ve heard far worse. Far more times than I can count. It’s the same thing everywhere I go. Here. Soldana. Doesn’t matter. Everyone always wants to know the same damn thing.” I start walking again, afraid if I don’t, I’ll reach for him. “You might as well get it fuckin’ over with too.”
His frown deepens, though this time it seems more in confusion. “Get what over with?”
“You know what,” I tell him. “You’ve been saying since that first night in the alley that you know who I am.”
“And I do,” he replies, still sounding so sure of it. “From the moment I saw you in the saloon. Maybe even from outside the hotel—”
“Then why don’t you ever ask me about it?”
“About what?”
“All of it,” I snap, surveying the rocks and brush as if they’re judge and jury. “The gunfights. The stories. The people I’ve killed. You’ve never asked me about any of it.”
He shrugs. “Because I didn’t think you were ready to tell me.”
“Never seems to make a difference to everyone else.”
“Well,” he says with a sigh. “I don’t want to beeveryone elseto you.”
I stop again, turning to face him, still able to hear the music in the distance as proof we’re not the only two people in the world right now. “What is it you want then?”
He opens his mouth to speak but then closes it, seeming tothink better of what he was going to admit before he glances away. Another of his tells, though I haven’t quite figured out yet what this one means.
“You really don’t know?” he asks finally. “You didn’t know me, too?”
“I knew you…” I begin, but now it’s his turn to shake his head, smiling a bit.
“As a thief,” he corrects.
“You are a thief,” I remind him.
He smirks. “Only for you.”
I roll my eyes. “You robbed Maddock in Soldana.”