Make Believe: A Novella (10 page)

“That is
hilarious. She’s only four years younger, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, she’s twenty
-one. She made me feel
old
.”

“You are, babe. Well, compared to us younger people anyway,” I teased.

“Oh, is that right?”

I nodded my head
and tried to suppress my laughter.

“OK
, you asked for it,” he said before pinning me down on the couch and tickling me mercilessly. I let out a scream as I tried to fight him off, but of course, he overpowered me easily.

“OK, I take it back,” I said between laughs.

“So easy to find your kryptonite,” he whispered inches from my lips.

“Yeah, I wish I could find yours as easily,” I joked.

“You did. I’m about to kiss it,” he said before his lips met mine. “Right, let’s get take-out and watch movies all night,” he said, jumping up.

“Trying to live out your teenage fantasies?” I teased.

“Yes, I miss those days. We spent more time together then,” he smiled.

“I know, what about
starting a date night?”

“Like every week?”
he questioned.

“Yeah, we could go see a movie or some
thing, but it’ll be our night. Nobody else, just us. What do you think?” I asked.

“I like the sound of that.” He smiled down at me. “
Let’s start tonight, Chinese takeout?”

“Yeah, sounds good to me.”

* * *

The movie was great
, and the food was even better. It was nice when Aiden and I got moments like these, when nobody else interrupted us or got in the way. I liked it when it was just us.

We were having a great time
, but I sensed something was bothering him. I turned down the volume on the TV and looked at him.

“What’s up?”

“What do you mean?” he asked in confusion.

“I know something is wrong
. You’re way too quiet, and you have your thinking face on,” I chuckled.

“You know me way too well
, you know.” He smiled, grabbed my hips and pulled me until I was straddling him. The feel of his hand at the soft of my back made my body tingle all over, but I ignored the feeling so that I could get to the bottom of this.

“So, what’s going on inside that brain of yours?” I asked, resting my hands on his chest.

“I was thinking about my dad,” he said softly.

“What about him?”

“I don’t know, sometimes I just think back to everything that he did, to my mom, and Caitlyn’s mom. It just makes me so mad sometimes,” he whispered.

“I understand
, but he’s really changed, Aiden. Not many men in his situation can do that. I know it was wrong, but aren’t you glad he turned things around?”

“Of course, it’s just the memories. You
remember what it was like, you were there.”

“I know, but I don’t want you beating yourself up about
it or thinking you could have made it better because you couldn’t have. Just concentrate on now, and the future. You are not like your dad, Aiden. You’re going to be an amazing father.”

I saw the small hint of a smile appear on his lips.

“Are you trying to tell me something?”he teased.

“
No, but maybe one day,” I smiled.

“I would like that, in fact I think that we should get started now. Don’t want to leave it too late,” he chuckled.

“Oh, really?” I replied as he pulled me closer.

“Mmm,” he whispered before kissing me very slowly. I could feel the love
as his hands slid up to hold my face in place. They say that your first kiss is the one that you remember, but every kiss we share remains forever etched on my brain.

My body jerked instinctively as the cold pads of his fingers started to trace a pattern
just above the hem of my jeans. I closed my eyes as his hand traveled underneath the thin material of my blue tank top, exploring every dip and curve that my body had to offer. In one swift movement, the blue garment was a bundle of mess on the floor. A quiet moan escaped my lips as his grip on my waist tightened. He flipped me onto my back before pausing for a second.

“Hold on,” he said as he dipped his hand into his
jean’s pocket. He pulled out his phone while smiling down at me. I watched as he switched it off before throwing it on the floor. “Tonight,” he whispered before his lips began a trail up my jaw line, “I am collecting
all
of my ‘to be continueds’ and I don’t want any interruptions.” I burst out laughing from underneath him.

“So you are,” I chuckled, and he did. He really did.

Chapter 9
: Monday, October 7
th
at 6:28pm

APRIL’S POINT OF VIEW

“And there it is,” she scoffed as I looked up at her.

“What?”

“The pity, the sympathy.”

“Was it real? Was that about you?” I asked
, sadly. She began laughing hysterically. She walked over to the wall and leaned against it.

“No
, it’s about Cinderella just before she met her Prince Charming and lived happily ever after,” the sarcasm dripped from every single word.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t! Don’t pretend to care now, April, just don’t.”

“I’m not pretending, Leah. What I read...your diary...it was awful
. No one should have gone through that,” I replied genuinely. “From the start, I only ever tried to be your friend, I really did.”

“Well
, that’s where you messed up then because people like you can’t be friends with people like me. No one can.”

“That’s not tru
e. Maybe you are angry, maybe you just need to get everything out, but you do deserve a friend. Everyone does, even you.” I watched as she slowly slid down the wall until she hit the floor. The tears had gathered at the corner of her eyes, but she didn’t dare let them fall. I found myself wondering what would have happened if her childhood had not been so messed up. Would things have turned out like this? We sat in silence for some long moments until she finally spoke.

“I was five. Most people
don’t remember what happened when they were five. I do. She said we had to be nice to him because he paid the bills. Steve. Our
new
‘Dad.’” A humorless laugh escaped her mouth. She didn’t dare make eye contact with me as she spoke. Instead, she chose to focus on a damp patch on the gray floor. “It was the first time anyone had ever bought me anything nice. I was
so
excited,” she took a deep breath before continuing her story. “It was a pink dress with big white flowers all over it. It was so pretty. I felt like a princess. All I wanted to do was try it on. I just wanted to look pretty. In all the books and movies, the pretty girls with the beautiful dresses, they were the ones who got their happily ever after. They lived in castles and married princes. I wanted to be a princess. I wanted to live in a castle and marry a prince.

No one was home
, and he said that if I wanted to try on my dress we had to play a game first. I was so excited. No one had ever played a game with me before. It would be the first time. All the other kids said I was strange because I was the only one without a
real
daddy,” she paused before laughing to herself. “Maybe they would like me if I had a pretty dress, or if I was a real princess because people always like princesses. I didn’t like the game; it really hurt. He said I’d get used to it like other princesses. But it hurt, so I kept thinking about the pretty pink dress with all of the white flowers on it. It hurt so much, and I just kept looking at the pretty pink dress because once I had it, once it was mine, I would get to be a princess and everyone would like me. Everything would be OK, once I had on
my
dress. I was wrong,” she scoffed before taking another deep breath. “I wasn’t a princess, nobody liked me, and I hated
pretty pink dresses.”

Chapter 10
: Six Days Earlier

AIDEN’S POINT OF VIEW

April was right, I was still paying for staying up the other night, but it was worth it. Taise seemed way happier when we all left, so I was happy.

Leah
hadn’t shown up for work yet, and nor was she answering my calls. She was forty-five minutes late, and I was not impressed.

The clearing of a throat interrupted my internal rant. When I looked up, I found a dishevelled looking Leah, standing at my office door with her h
ead hanging. Her hair was a mess and she had on the same clothes from yesterday.

“
Um...I’m so sorry I’m late,” she mumbled and tried to avoid eye contact with me.

“Leah, is everything alright
?” I asked, getting up.

“Yeah, I just woke up late
. I am so sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Look at me,” I said calmly.

She reluctantly lifted her head up, revealing a huge bruise on her right cheek.

“What the hell?” I gasped as I moved toward her.

“It’s nothing,” she said softly,, backing away from me.

“Did somebody do this to you?” I felt like I was staring at my mom all of those years ago. Everything was here
— the fear, the desperation, and the denial. I was not about to allow anyone in my life to experience that again. “Leah, you can trust me. I just want to help,” I whispered, took a step closer, and lifted her chin. “What happened?”

“
I don’t want to talk about it,” she replied quietly.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I said.

“What? Are you firing me?” she asked shocked.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I think you should go home, get yourself together
, and come back in a couple of days.”

I saw a sudden panicked look sweep across her face.

“I can’t go back there,” she whispered.

“Why?”

She took a deep breath. “I lied. I am not going to Nevada to look after my father. I don’t even know my father.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I needed this job to get enough money to move away.”

“From who?” She
did not speak. “Who?”

“My ex
-boyfriend. I didn’t think that he would find me here, but he did.”

“He did that to you?” I asked, pointing at her face. She nodded her head
, and I felt my fist clench tighter. I tried to keep calm and pretend that anytime I heard that a man had put his hands on a woman it did not make me want to rip off his head. “Here,” I said as I handed her my keys. “Go and wait in my car, I’ll be out in a minute.”

“I don’t understand,” she looked puzzled.

“I’m going to take you somewhere safe.” She slowly removed the keys from my hand and walked out the door. I pulled my cell from my pocket and dialled April’s number.

“Hello,” she answered after the third ring.

“Hey, you OK?”

“Yeah, you?”

“I’m fine, look...I’m going to be out of the office for a little while so if you need me, call my cell.”

“O
K, sure. Is everything OK?” I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to lie to her, but I knew Jess and Crystal were already making her paranoid about Leah. I didn’t want her to think it was anything more than it was.

“Yeah, just a couple of meeting
s about some new equipment.”

“Sounds good, well I’ll see you later. Love you.”

“Yeah, love you too,” I ended the call. I hated lying to her.

After asking Lisa to cancel
and reschedule any appointments we had, I joined Leah in my car.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

* * *

After swinging by Leah’s apartment so that she could pick up some clothes, it took about
fifteen minutes to get to the motel that I had in mind. Neither of us spoke again until we pulled up outside. It was not a particularly big place, but it would be fine for a couple of nights.

“You don’t have to do this,” she whispered as she avoided eye contact with me.

“I want to, come on.”

“I can’t hide forever, Aiden. He will find me, he always does.”

“Don’t worry about that right now, OK?”

“O
K.”

I checked Leah in for three days at the motel, to give her some time to figure out what to do next.
The room was not too bad for thirty dollars a night. It didn’t have much in it, just a single bed, a tall lamp and a dresser but it would do.

“This is so embarrassing,” she
said once I closed the door behind us.

S
he sat down on the bed, placed her head in her hands, and took a deep breath. I took a couple of steps toward her before I sat down next to her. I placed my hand on her back.

“Hey, you have nothing to be embarrassed about,” I reassured her.”

“You’re my boss. You shouldn’t have to be taking care of me.”

“I’m human
first, then I’m your boss, and you’re not the first person I’ve taken care of in a situation like this,” I admitted.

“Really?” She turned her head slightly so she could see my face.

“My dad, he used to hit my mom.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.” Suddenly I felt her shaking underneath my hand. “Hey, hey, it’s OK.”

“I’m just scared. I fell in love with someone like that
so what does that say about me?”

“
It says you are brave because you walked away.”

“But I’m not brave
. That’s just it, I’m not,” she began crying and threw her head into my chest. I was a little lost as her hand wrapped around my neck, and she began crying more and more. I awkwardly patted her back, trying to calm her down. “Please stay for a bit, don’t leave me,” she whispered, her head still buried in my chest.

“O
K, OK...”

* * *

It was not until my eyes fluttered open that I realized that I had fallen asleep. Shifting slightly, I noticed a hand lying on my chest. Looking down I discovered Leah lying in my arms and immediately jumped to my feet, waking her at the same time.

“What happened?”
she asked sleepily.

“We must have fallen asleep. What time is it?” I asked pulling my phone out
of my pocket to look myself. “Damn,” I grunted when I saw three missed calls from April. It had been four hours since I had brought Leah here. I cannot believe I let this happen. Panicking, I moved further away from Leah as I searched for April’s name in my phone. 

“Aiden, wait. Please don’t tell anyone what happened to me...I don’t want them to feel sorry for me.”

“I need to call April. I can’t lie to her,”
again,
I thought to myself.

“And what are you going to say, that we slept together in a motel?”
she huffed.

“It wasn’t like that, and you know it,” I replied angrily.

“Yeah,
I
do,” she said as she opened up her overnight bag. Pulling out a pack of facial wipes, that looked similar to the ones that April uses, she continued. “But the problem is that April doesn’t,” she said with a smirk on her face. “I mean, you could tell her that you saw the bruise on my face and felt the need to
save
me, but that would be a lie,” she said, cleaning her face with the wipe.

I looked on in shock as I watched the
“bruise” disappearing before my very eyes.

“You have got to be kidding me
!” I couldn’t believe this. She wiped her face completely clear. It was just make up, not a bruise.

“Actually I’m not,” she said
, taking a step closer to me.“Then there are these,” she said, pulling out her phone. I looked in shock as she scrolled through a set of photos of us sleeping together in each other’s arms.

“What the hell do you want from me?
” I demanded angrily.

“
You? Nothing. Nothing at all. You’re just a small part of something much bigger, and if you get in my way,” she said, waving the phone in front of my face, “there’ll be consequences.”

“You do know I could just take that phone from you,” I
scoffed.

“You could, and I would care
, but these photos aren’t the only copies. Then there are the credit card records of you booking a room here ,and of course, Lisa as a witness that we left together. Then the small fact that you told April you were in meetings all day. Not looking too good for you, is it?” she smirked. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have work in the morning. Don’t want to be late for the boss,” she laughed.

Storming past her, I headed toward the door.

“Oh, and Aiden, I hope you find the gift in your car before April does,” she laughed as I walked out angrily.

What the hell just happened?
And who was that girl because it wasn’t the same broken girl that I thought I brought here...

APRIL’S POINT OF VIEW

“I don’t get where he is, he always returns my calls,” I said, turning to Crystal.

“Maybe one of the meetings just ran over or he got lost on the way back.”

“Maybe.” I wasn’t convinced that Crystal was right, but I didn’t want her to worry as well. I knew Aiden had been in meetings, but he should have been home two hours ago. He usually calls or sends a text to say if he is going to be late, but nothing. The sound of the door opening interrupted my thoughts.

“Aiden?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Oh my gosh I was so worried
. Where were you?” I asked as he walked into the living room.

“I’m sorry, my meeting ran over
, and my phone died,” he replied as he shifted his eyes to the floor.

“See, I told you that the meeting probably ran over, didn’t I?” Crystal said
, smiling.

“Yeah, you did,” I agreed
, but something was off. I knew Aiden better than that, and the way that he was acting did not make any sense.

“Right, now that everything is fine, I’m going to
take off,” she said, putting her jacket back on.

“Yeah
, thanks for staying with me,” I smiled as she gave me a hug.

“It’s
OK, and don’t you make us worry again,” she said, wrapping her arms around her brother’s neck before walking out the door.

“So, what really happened?” I asked.

“What? I already told you.” He was irritated and stomped off to our bedroom.

“Then why don’t I believe you?” I asked sadly.

“Maybe it’s because you allow my sister and your stupid friend to fill your head with crap that’s why!” he replied angrily and began to tear off his cloths.

“Really?” I
was furious.

“Yes! What do you want from me, April? I told you what happened
. What more do you want?”

“Nothing,” I said
, walking out the room.

“April, wait. I’m sorry
, I didn’t mean to get mad at you.”

“It
’s fine,” I lied.

“No
, it’s not. I’ve just had a really bad day. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, I’m sorry,” he said.

“No
, you shouldn’t have,” I replied, trying to hold back the tears. It didn’t matter what he said, I knew he was lying and until he could be honest, I didn’t want to know.

“April,” he breathed
, but kept walking past him.

“No, not tonight.”

Putting on my pjs, I called it a night. Grabbing my pillow and a comforter, I headed for the spare room.