Page 34 of Charming my Best Friend

Chapter 11: Lucy

I was relieved that Aiden wasn’t depressed over breaking up with Chelsea. If he’d been sulking, I don’t know what I could’ve said that wouldn’t have sounded heartless. Not that he was a sulker anyway.

In fact, ever since I’d known him, I was always impressed with the way he just got on with things even when they didn’t go his way. It made him even more attractive than his thick hair and his taut muscles which I watched moving under his shirt as he opened his apartment door with a six pack of shandys under his arm.

“When was the last time you came over?” he asked, flicking the lights on and tossing his keys in a bowl by the door.

“It’s been a while,” I said, remembering how awkward Chelsea had been to me the last time I was there.

Aiden walked over to the fridge and slid my beers in the freezer. “I don’t think anything has changed.”

“This bookshelf is new,” I said, making my way over to it.

“Oh that. I built that myself actually.”

I put my hand on the side of it. “Really?”

“Well, it’s from Ikea, but still.” He took a glass out and popped a few cubes out of an ice tray. “Shandy with ice?”

“Please,” I said, looking at the books on the shelf. They fell into three clear categories: business books, physical therapy & anatomy books, and biographies of sports personalities. “I didn’t know you could read.”

He smiled. “I can’t,” he said, appearing at my side with a cold drink. “But I can sound out the table of contents well enough to get the main ideas.”

I laughed and took the glass from his hand. “Thanks.”

Aiden put two thick fingers on the spine of one of the books and slid it off the shelf. “You might like this one,” he said, handing it to me.

It was a business book called Getting it Right the First Time Around.

“Every chapter is the story of how a different entrepreneur started their first business and what they wish they’d known.”

I put my beer on the edge of one of the shelves. “You got all that from the table of contents?”

He shrugged. “To be honest, I haven’t even read it. I was just hoping you would check it out and summarize it for me.”

I opened it and flipped through the pages. Even though the small print was too blurry for me to make out in my pleasantly drunken state, it was obvious that he had read it. Not only was there something underlined every few pages, but I recognized his cramped hand writing in the margins. “Looks like you’ve already done the hard work for me.”

He leaned against the bookshelf and brought his beer to his lips. “I don’t know how much of it would be relevant to opening a salon, but you’re welcome to borrow it anytime- or anything else in my library that grabs you.”

I rolled my eyes when I heard him refer to the skinny shelf as a library, but there was a twinkle of pride in his eyes that was sort of cute.

“I’m going to throw some taquitos in,” he said, heading back towards the kitchen. “You wanna put some music on?”

“Sure,” I said, looking around.

“Speaker’s on the table.”

I made my way over to his iPod and turned it on. “I can see your musical tastes haven’t evolved.”

“I mostly listen to that when I’m working out. You might be better off finding something on the radio if it’s guitar sounds you’re after.”

I switched the radio on and tuned it to my favorite classic rock station, laughing when I heard the familiar melody. “I’d like to dedicate this song to you,” I said, turning it up.

“Hilarious,” he said when he recognized Queen’s I Want to Break Free. “I suppose it beats Bat out of Hell.”

I walked over and took a seat on one of the barstools so I could keep him company while he laid the frozen taquitos lengthways on the pan, watching as he closed one of his drunken eyes to ensure that they were evenly spaced.

“Do you want me to do the nachos?” I asked.

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