Page 2 of It's Complicated

I wiggle my butt on the couch, plopping down between Leia, a tawny tabby, and Chewie, my ginger, long-haired stud. Sitting down doesn’t help calm my nerves. My mouth is still paper-dry and my heart pumping in my chest on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. I drop my head in my hands, folding my torso over my knees and taking a few deep, hopefully calming breaths.

The Christmas tree lights blink in my face from a corner of the living room. And while I usually enjoy their bursts of colored joy, now they’re making the anxiety worse. Sure, the holidays are over. I just didn’t get around to taking the tree down yet. I’m not in a hurry to do it, either. I love Christmas and the warmth the tree lights sprinkle on the house.

I bet Kirsten is one of those people who take down their Christmas trees on 26 December.

Shudder.

And perhaps that’s what’s better for Aiden. Someone organized and efficient, who doesn’t come with the baggage of approximately a thousand books, four cats, and six chickens. Maybe seeing him getting married and hearing him promise his eternal love to another woman will finally cure me of loving him. A disease I’ve carried with me for my entire adult life.

From the moment I met Aiden in college, I knew he was The One, but I have never confessed my feelings. I even encouraged him to date Kirsten at the beginning, when he thought she was too posh for him (I totally agreed and still agree with that assessment). The only reason I told him to go out with her was that I figured she was entirely wrong for him and that they wouldn’t last past a couple of dates. I’m such a fool and such a coward.

I’ve been a wimp since the winter of freshman year when I first fell hard and fast for him.

Aiden was in one of my classes, Introduction to Undergraduate Biology Research, the weirdest class I had that quarter. The professor, George Quilliam, was unconventional and, on the first lesson, he lectured us on how scientific research is 90 per cent rule-following and 10 per cent rule-breaking. He then asked who among us had a problem breaking rules. Aiden and I raised our hands. Jace didn’t.

Bioresearch wasn’t the first class I’d had in common with them, seeing how all three of us were bio pre-med students. But we weren’t friends back then. They were the cool kids, totally out of my nerdy league. Wherever they went, their then-duo made heads turn. Jace and Aiden had to be the hottest freshmen on campus. Both tall, athletic, and broad-shouldered. Jace, dark-haired, with eyes the color of a glacier, and a chiseled profile that would’ve made Michelangelo’s David hide in shame. With his full lips constantly upturned in a lopsided, confident smirk, he was the essence of casual, endless charm. And Aiden, fair, blond, everybody’s All-American dream. His face beautiful, elegant, and ageless—in a hanging on the walls of a museum kind of way. But his expression was never arrogant and his blue eyes were always gentle and warm. Jace was the personification of danger and excitement. Aiden, an angel fallen on Earth.

So, yeah, I’d noticed them before. But despite our many shared classes, they’d never spoken to me, and neither had I to them. I’ve never made friends easily, and after four months of cohabitation I was barely getting comfortable around my dorm roommate, so I wasn’t about to approach the two coolest guys in my year with some embarrassing, never-show-your-face-in-public-again line.

But that first day of the spring quarter changed everything. The course was elective and smaller than usual, with only ten students. So, obviously, that had to be the class where I picked a fight with the professor. Academic contexts are the only ones where I have no problems stating my opinion or openly disagreeing with someone—especially if it is to fight for one of my patients. But, as that day showed, my academic confidence isn’t always a plus.

Quilliam studied us law-abiding losers with our hands raised and smirked. “Very well, class. For your first homework assignment, I’m going to send you on a little rule-breaking quest. The Garden Gnome Liberation Front recently broke into my backyard and depleted my collection. So your first assignment, due next class, is to steal me a garden gnome.”

Students looked between themselves with a mix of amused expressions and is-this-guy-for-real frowns. But of course, I had to be the jerk who raised her hand and asked, “Excuse me, professor, but what do garden gnomes have to do with biology?”

“Ah, Miss…” He paused to check the class roster and confirm my name. “Archibald. As I said, no great scientific discovery was ever made without breaking a few rules first.”

I pouted, and he called me out. “Something you’d like to add?”

“Yeah, even if we bring you a gnome, what would make you think we actually broke into someone’s garden to steal it and didn’t simply order one online?”

“Excellent point, Miss Archibald. Express deliveriesarea plague of these times. Let’s agree each of your gnomes must look properly timeworn, then.” He peeked at us from under his spectacles. “And in case you were thinking of fabricating the distress I should warn you, I also hold a degree in applied chemistry and will be able to tell.”

That statement earned me a lot of glares from my classmates, so I refrained from commenting I could just order an old gnome from eBay.

It turned out that I couldn’t. By the time I got home that evening, and on my computer, four out of the five gnomes available for sale that would reach Urbana in time for the next class were already sold. The remaining one had reached a four-figure price tag that was way above my college allowance. Apparently, flexible pricing was another plague of the times.

That’s how the following evening I ended up dressed in all black, complete with a black beanie and black running gloves, strolling through the residential neighborhoods of the small college town in search of garden gnomes to abduct. I was walking alone in a side street, trying to act inconspicuous, when Jace and Aiden overtook me from behind. Jace stole the beanie from my head and twirled it on a finger.

“You’re going to get us caught by stalking the streets dressed so suspiciously. You have garden gnome thief written all over your face, Archibald.”

“I do not,” I hissed as I tried to rescue my beanie.

But Jace snatched up his arm, bringing it out of my reach.

Aiden smiled. “You do look a little suspicious, Lori. Could you at least lose the gloves?”

I was flabbergasted that he knew my name—that they both did—and blabbed, “I didn’t want to leave fingerprints and it’s cold.”

Jace smirked. “I promise you, a crime scene investigator won’t be involved in a case of gnome grand larceny.”

I glowered. “You the expert?”

That’s when Aiden ruffled my bangs—also a thing back then—and I was a goner.

“Are we doing this or not?” he asked. “Jace and I scouted the perfect house filled with creepy dwarfs.”

Jace put on my beanie and started jogging backward, preceding us. “Do you think we’d get extra points for stealing Snow White?”

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