Page 82 of On the Rocks

I nodded along, not wanting to make a fuss, but inside, I felt a little sick. He wasn’texactlymaking excuses to get away from me…but it didn’t sound like the kind of thing that needed him there in person. And even if it did, couldn’t he have invited me along? I was about to offer to come with him, but I never got the chance.

He gave me a wave from the door. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah, we—” I started to say. But he’d already stepped away, leaving me behind in the lab that felt very cold and empty now. It was like he couldn’t get away from me fast enough, and not for the first time in days, I found myself wondering if I’d done something to chase him away. Had I screwed this up? We’d both seemed to enjoy the sex, so that couldn’t be it. I drummed my fingers against my lips as worry twisted in my gut. My mother’s words resurfaced.

Be careful.

Nothing was wrong though. Aiden was simply busy. He was the CEO of a successful company with a massive product launch coming up. These were all valid reasons for him to be too busy for me at the moment.

But if that was all that was going on, why did I feel like I’d just been abandoned?

23

CORA

“Idon’t know if strapless was the way to go with the dress,” I said, pulling the silky material up—a sparkly green thing that showed off an obscene amount of thigh. “I feel like I’m going to sweat this off.” It had been a ridiculously humid July day, and even with the sun setting before the launch party, the air wasn’t cooling off much. Our tiny A/C unit was struggling to keep up, and I was already dreading the short walk from the building to my ride.

“There’ll be A/C inside the venue,” Jennifer reminded me, coming into the room with a hairbrush. “You’ll be fine once you arrive.”

“My hair is going to frizz.” It always did when the weather was like this.

“I say we go with a low updo and keep it off your neck,” Jennifer said, pulling my hair back and holding it in place as we both stared into the full-length mirror. “That way you can accessorize with some pretty jewelry but still get your mask on.” Jennifer was due at the restaurant in an hour, but she’d agreed to help meget ready for the party before she left. “We could put it up with one of those fancy claw clips you have.”

I nodded in agreement. “Then hairspray the shit out of it.”

Jennifer clapped her hands together. “That’s the spirit.”

I dragged a chair in front of the mirror and sat down as Jennifer set to work, brushing the tangles from my hair and smoothing out all the bumps. “I really wish you could come tonight,” I said.

She offered me a sad little smile in the mirror. “I tried to get tonight off, but there’s just no one to cover for me.”

I reached back to squeeze her hand. “I understand. It would have been nice to have someone there in my corner, though.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to take away from your time with Aiden,” she teased.

I sighed, releasing her hand.

“Uh oh. What’s wrong?”

“Things have been weird with me and Aiden.”

“Weird how?” Jennifer asked, twisting my hair into a fancy knot at the back of my head.

“Just…odd,” I said. “You know that feeling you get when you’re out of step? Or like when you know you’re not connecting the way you normally do, but you don’t know why?”

She frowned as she pressed my baby hairs down with hairspray. “You feel like you’re not connecting?”

I lifted my shoulder. “It sort of feels like he’s pulling away.”

“Well, he can’t have pulled away very far…” Jennifer said, gesturing to the concealer we’d used to cover the new hickey on my collarbone.

“Yeah, okay fair,” I said. “But even with that, I had to come on pretty heavy to get Aiden to touch me in the first place.”

“Hmm…Has he said anything?”

“Nothing! I literally don’t have anything to go on, which is what’s most frustrating. It just seems like any time we’re alone together, he finds an excuse to get away from me.”

“To go where?”

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