The Pretend Girlfriend (22 page)

"So why don't we go collect my winnings?" Gwen said.

"All the winnings go to charity, remember? Speaking of that, I'll take care of this stub for you," Aiden said, taking it from her and tucking it into his pocket.

She didn't want to be at the track anymore. The desire to go crept up on her, then revealed itself. She felt antsy around all these people.

"Let's go. Can you take me home?" Gwen said.

"Well, I should technically stick around to say thank everyone for their donations... But let's go."

"Thanks," Gwen said.

E
ither outside was much warmer than Gwen originally thought, or the interior of the limo was like a fridge. As soon as she sat down, her skin prickled at the cold touch of the leather seat.

After the roar of the crowd and the thunder of the horses, Gwen welcomed the quiet of the car.

"That was fun," Gwen said, still feeling heady over her victory. $2000! She thought. Of course, it wasn't really hers. But she'd still won it. And if she couldn't have it, a charity getting it sounded good.

It was quite the rush, really. She reminded herself to try and avoid gambling in the future, just in case she had one of those addictive personalities. That thought made her smile. She remembered her mom and dad talking when she was in primary school about an older cousin of hers who had an addictive personality. For the longest time, she'd thought that it meant a person was so interesting and cool that you couldn't help but like them a lot.

"Something funny?" Aiden said, noticing her expression.

Despite sitting in the back of the limo, this felt almost normal. Being with Aiden, that is. He wore normal clothes. In the shadows of the car, you couldn't tell they were top-notch items. He looked almost like the boy next-door. He sat across from her, taking up most of the seat. He looked pretty worn out, and Gwen figured that running and organizing an event like that had to take a lot out of you. No matter how much you worked out.

"Just thinking about something I used to believe when I was a kid," she said.

"I used to believe that putting a trading card in the spokes of the back wheel on your bike made it go faster."

Now that was an image simply too adorable to ignore: a young Aiden carefully getting the card set just right to make the bike sound something like a baby motorcycle.

Gwen laughed, "Well, at least it sounded cooler."

"Oh, you have no idea how much that annoyed old Henry," Aiden replied. It was the only time Gwen saw him become wistful at a memory of his father. Usually, he spoke the man's name like anyone else would talk about the bill collector who wouldn't stop calling.

"I bet your mom thought it was cute," Gwen said. She'd been wondering about the elusive Mrs. Henry Manning. There had been absolutely no information about her in the Wikipedia article, and Aiden had yet to mention her. She thought this might be her "in."

But her words wrought an entirely unexpected effect. The smile disappeared from Aiden's face, wiped away as though it had never been. He sat back and sighed that deep philosophical sigh.

"I suppose," he said, then, changing the subject, "I hope things are going well with you?"

Gwen didn't pursue the mom thing anymore. It was clearly a delicate issue. Almost as delicate and precarious as this sudden good mood and rapport the two of them had established.

"Well, I have an essay due soon. And a midterm that I'm disgustingly unprepared for..."

"Then I suppose I'll have to try and not keep you for too long," Aiden said.

"What do you mean? Hey, why are we going over the bridge? Aren't you dropping me off at my place?"

She'd been too engrossed in her own memories, and far too distracted by Aiden, to pay attention to where the car headed. Concentrating, she managed to recollect a point several minutes ago when the car slowed down for a while. Probably to pay the toll to get onto the island, she realized.

Looking out the window, she saw the now-familiar sight of the river flashing by below.

"Change of plans," Aiden said.

"Aiden Manning, where are you taking me?"

He shrugged, seeming more and more like the young man he was rather than the aloof businessman he usually pretended to be. He must have smiled more in the past two hours than in the past month. "You've been kind enough to let me into your apartment several times. I figured it was only fair you see my place. I mean, we are dating, aren't we?"

"Oh," Gwen replied. His place, she thought, followed by: Gulp. His place made her think of that still vivid dream from the other night. And thinking about that left her squirming in the seat, wondering how the limo could get so hot in just a few seconds.

Aiden noticed, "Are you okay? Should I crack a window?"

"What? No, no. I'm fine. My... thigh fell asleep is all. It's better now. So... your place? I think I could put off my essay until later. If you really insist."

"I really do," he said. She couldn't tell if he bought the thigh thing, but it was the best she could come up with, so it would have to do.

Aiden lived in an older building on the Upper West Side. And, to her surprise, he actually didn't have the penthouse. No, he lived on floor 12 of 15, in a two bedroom unit. One bedroom, he said, was converted into an office.

On the outside, and in the main lobby, the building actually didn't look that much different from Gwen's. Very unassuming. Of course, everything looked a bit better taken care of. The carpet runners weren't worn out for one. And the elevators actually had air vents.

They reached Aiden's unit, and he fished the keys out of his pocket, sorting through them for the right one. "It's kind of disorganized at the moment, so I hope you'll excuse the mess."

Gwen thought about the state of her bedroom. Piles of unsorted laundry in the corner. Bed perpetually unmade. She couldn't remember the last time she'd ran a vacuum through the place. "I'll try," she said.

Aiden pushed open the door, Gwen holding her breath. She let it out when she saw hardwood floors instead of polished concrete.

And there was no modern art on the walls. There was a framed
Casablanca
poster, as well as several black-and-white prints of interesting architecture. The Eiffel Tower hung on the wall beside the door. Big Ben watched from down at the end of the hall. She saw part of the Roman Coliseum where the hall made a ninety degree turn.

It was nothing like his father's office, with the enormous original paintings and the lofty ceilings designed to knock viewers off kilter with their magnitude.

"You're right," Gwen said, "This place is a wreck!"

Aiden waved her in, following behind. Her heartbeat kicked up a few notches when she heard the door close behind her.
I'm alone with Aiden in his condo
, she thought. It wasn't the most rational of feelings; she'd been alone with Aiden in her own apartment more than once now. Why should things be any different here than there?

The answer to that was obvious as well: the dream. In her dream, they'd been here. Or rather, the place she conceived of in her subconscious as here. The differences between Aiden's imaginary condo and his real one disconcerted her.

"Is something the matter?" Aiden said.

She realized that she was standing in front of him in the hallway, preventing him from going any farther in. He spent the time removing his shoes. Seeing that, she kicked hers off.

"No, nothing. I was just thinking of how messy it looks, you know," she said, winking.

"Indeed. So, how about the grand tour?" Aiden said, offering his arm. Gwen accepted, linking their arms together.

The entry hall went forward, then made a sharp left where it let into the living room. It was a large space, with bay windows at the other end. The wide sill running along beneath these windows served as a bookshelf. While it was clear from the quality of the furniture that Aiden had money, it was also clear that he preferred understatement to excess. Sure, the pieces were expensive, but they would have looked at home in normal house or apartment.

The kitchen was nice, with stainless steel appliances and a marble-topped island. Spacious, too, with a small, round table tucked away in one corner with two chairs. Gwen wondered how often Aiden actually needed both chairs.

There was also an array of saucepans, skillets, and other cooking implements hanging above the island.

"You cook?" she said.

Aiden shrugged, "I always find food tastes better if you put the meal together yourself. Don't you cook?"

She made a face and then slapped him lightly on the arm. "That's pretty sexist. Just because I'm a woman you think I know how to cook?"

That got her a look in return. "No. But aren't you being sexist when you think it's strange that I do know how to? You seem pretty surprised to know."

He had her there, she admitted. It was just as bad for her to assume that he didn't know his way around a kitchen as it was for him to assume that she did.

"I guess I am surprised," Gwen said, "If only because it still feels like I know so little about you. I mean, I pictured this whole place pretty differently..."

"Really? Come on, let's continue. There's not much more to see," Aiden replied, leading her out of the kitchen and down another short hallway. This one had three doors: one on each wall, and one at the end.

"So how did you picture it?" Aiden said, leading her towards the door on their left.

This was getting uncomfortable. Why did he want to know how she thought it would look?
What next
, she wondered,
is he going to ask what made me think about it?
Already, she could feel some heat in her cheeks. And was it just her, or was the whole world just too hot that day?

The first room he showed was the bedroom-turned-office. Bookcases lined the walls, sparing only the sliding doors of the closet. A corner desk sat in the far corner, the computer monitor on top of it turned off.

"Have you actually read all these?" Gwen said, letting her arm slip out of his. She didn't notice the oval rug on the floor until she stepped on it. It felt warm on the soles of her feet compared to the hardwood.

"Yes. Many of them are from school, of course. I picked up others as I needed them. Running an international business isn't as easy as it looks."

There had to be close to a thousand books sitting on all those cases. If not more. Large volumes and thin ones, paperbacks and hard covers. Many of them didn't have dust jackets, instead simply the gold lettering on the spine showing. Gwen moved closer to one of the cases and, making sure Aiden couldn't see, squinted to try and read.

"
The Dichotomy of Capitalism and Democracy
," Gwen read off the first title she could make out, "Sounds like some heavy reading." It sounded like the type of thing she would read during a late night bout of insomnia to put herself to sleep. Also, the thick book just looked heavy. You'd need some good forearms to hold that old tome up.

The books around it were all on similar subjects, business, philosophy, economics.

And, despite a bit of dust floating around in the air, the only "mess" she could see were a couple books lying open on his desk.

"Believe it or not, it's not the densest material I've had to read," Aiden said.

"And here I was, pegging you for a diehard romance fan," Gwen joked.

"I have a few of those out in the living room, actually. I keep the stuff I read for entertainment separate from the things I read for the business and the charities."

Gwen made a mental note to check out some of the books out in the living room, if and when the tour ended and they settled in out there. You could tell a lot about a person based on what they chose to read over what they needed to read.

She couldn't keep from feeling excited. This was going far better than she'd expected, and she was learning so much about him. She also got the feeling that Aiden rarely let other people into these spaces, and it felt nice to know that she'd somehow managed to earn that trust.

"So what's behind door number 2?" she asked.

Back in the hallway, he opened the second door. The bedroom, it turned out. As in the rest of the apartment, the furniture looked of good quality, but understated. A king-size bed took up much of the space, flanked by a pair of matching night tables with lamps on them.

The bed was made, too.
Showoff
, she thought. Of course his bed would be made. She bet it was the first thing he did every morning.

"I guess the prize is behind lucky number 3?" Gwen said. That feeling of heat kept building the longer they stood together in his bedroom. Her dream had ended in his bedroom. She caught herself wondering what sort of mattress he had. She bet it was a pillow top. She loved pillow tops. And with that thought, she knew it was time to get out of there.

"Let's go and find out, shall we?" Aiden said. Things got a little cooler back out in the hall, with the door to the bedroom safely shut.

The opening of the final door revealed the bathroom. No roiling clouds of steam rolled out to greet them, and the door to the shower stall was closed. For a guy's bathroom it actually looked pretty serviceable. Good-sized vanity, all three bulbs over the large mirror (which, unlike hers, wasn't flecked with little water and toothpaste stains) matched.

Once more, Gwen's fantasies started pushing their way into her conscious mind. She could imagine Aiden stepping out of the shower, pulling the navy blue towel off the bar over there... She swallowed heavily.

"Great, cool, nice. Lovely place," Gwen said, backing off and pulling the door shut.

Aiden picked up on her state of mind. He'd made something of an annoying habit of that. "Everything fine? You keep looking... I don't know... Disappointed? Frustrated?"

"It's nothing. Like I said, I just pictured the place differently. I guess the way you imagine something and the way it turns out to really be rarely line up."

"What did you imagine?" Aiden said, genuinely curious. He turned and walked back into the living room, clearly expecting her to follow him. She did. He sat on the couch, and Gwen followed suit.