Page 74 of Not As Advertised

I felt her press her nose into my shoulder, a place that had become her favorite place to shore up her thoughts. I tightened my arms around her as I felt a tremor move through her body.

“It’s okay, you can tell me,” I whispered, thinking she was nervous.

She lifted her head and met my gaze, and I realized the little brat was chuckling.

An adorable, tiny snort came from her nose before she completely lost it.

“Not that bad? Are you…”

She was laughing so hard she had the whole bed shaking. She rolled onto her back and covered her face with her hands to stem the laughter.

“It’s not even that funny. It’s just… So much stress tonight.”

I was glad to see her body releasing that pent-up emotion. If she was teasing me, it meant that she wasn’t totally bogged down with worry.

“Har, har. I get it. I might have a tendency to be a bit overbearing.”

Wiping her eyes, she leaned back toward me and brought her lips to mine before nuzzling back as deeply into my neck as she could.

“Of course, Aiden. Only a bit,” she said, trying to sound serious but failing when I felt her smile against my skin.

“Good night.”

Two weeks later, I felt like we had gotten back to level ground again. True to his word, Ethan hadn’t said anything to anyone, nor did he treat Abbie any differently now that he knew about our relationship, much to my relief.

Abbie was staying at my house for the weekend, like she had every weekend since we’d gotten together.

So when I was startled awake in the early hours of a Sunday morning by a sound coming from downstairs, it took me a minute to realize I was hearing the low ringing of my phone over and over. Shit, I’d always remembered to put it next to my bed as my alarm. Why had I left it downstairs?

I recalled the night before when we decided to head up to bed in a hurry after she teased me with tiny touches throughout the movie that neither of us was really watching. By the time the credits rolled, I was so desperate to have her that I’d practically dragged her upstairs to my bed and devoured her, saying, “Screw the dishes,” when she mentioned tidying up first.

Gently extracting my arm from around Abbie’s waist, I stood unsteadily, still half-asleep, to go down and find my phone.

I made it down the stairs, relying only on the railing, not bothering to turn on any lights.

My phone lit up the living room from its position on the coffee table. It wasn’t until I’d picked it up and looked at the screen that I realized it was two a.m. Adrenaline shot through my system.

Unlocking my phone to see, I saw five missed calls from Claire.Shit! Something must have happened because my sister preferred text over all forms of communication. I could count the number of times she had called me on one hand since leaving for college.

I pressed her number and waited for her to pick up.

“Aiden…” Her voice was a broken whisper.

I heard her breath catch in her throat.

“Claire, what is it?”

Her hesitancy had me panicking. Was it Mom? Had something happened to her?

“Claire, I need you to tell me what’s going on.”

My words came out harsher than I intended. The tidal wave of fear inside me was taking away any patience I had to modulate my tone.

“Claire?” I tried again, speaking more softly this time.

The muffled sound of quiet voices was replaced by a low “Hello, Aiden?”

Who the fuck is this?

---