Page 60 of Heart Strings
I touch his hand with a grateful, if sad, smile. “Why’d you play this song when you saw me at the pub?”
“To remind you how good it felt back when we were together. I’m my happiest when I’m with you.”
Memories from our time together are filled with so much joy. Passion, yes, but also patience and generosity and an ease I don’t experience with anyone else. We’ll never know what would’ve happened in the last two years because I wasn’t brave enough to face the uncertainty of a long-distance relationship. We can’t regain that lost time, but we have this moment. I want to sink into it, temporary and imperfect and complicated as it is.
I swallow hard. “What if I told you that becoming a stranger to you has been the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through? Tougher than chemo and med school put together?”
“You’re no stranger to me. Not when every love song I sing is about you.” Aidan cups my cheek. Sincerity imbues his words. “The truth is, I love performing. But some days, all I look forward to is climbing into bed because there’s a chance I might dream of you.”
I draw in a shaky breath, but a response doesn’t quite form.
“Fans sing along to songs I wrote about loving you. They shout along to lyrics born out of us. And it feels almost invasive to reopen that wound every night and bleed onto the stage, because I can’t help but think of you when I sing and relive everything I did wrong.”
“God, I had no idea you still felt that way. I thought it was easy for you to move on. With your glamorous new life.”
A mirthless huff comes out of him. “It’s been a nightmare and a blessing to come from such an emotional place. I’ve hated that my career is tied to our relationship. In interviews, they always ask about my muse and I let them speculate because I’ve already spilled enough of my heart out to the public.”
I lean closer. “It’s taken you a long time to spill it to me, though.”
“To be fair, you’re far more intimidating than a venue full of screaming fans.”
We spot a stone bench overlooking a reflection pond and walk toward it. I sit. “Sorry. These shoes hurt.”
“Take them off.”
“No, it’ll ruin the whole outfit.”
“Hey. You don’t need to be perfect all the time. You can be barefoot and messy and real. I like you like that.”
Aidan drops to my feet, not breaking eye contact. He tugs at the tiny buckle of my ankle strap and slips off one heel, then presses his thumb into the arch until I let out an involuntary moan. Heat flares in his eyes. He gently removes my other heel, repeats the firm, soothing slide.
Either he’s taken massage classes since we broke up, or I’m so touch-starved and plagued by plantar fasciitis that he might as well be a touch savant. He gently kneads the arch of each foot with a thumb. “That’s…really nice, A.”
He smiles up at me. “You haven’t called me that in a long time.”
“I’ll call you anything you like, if you just keep going.”
It feels wonderful. Confident and not at all ticklish. Aidan folds forward, planting his palms on either side of my feet, and kisses the top of one then the other.
“I’m trying to apologize for making you feel like you weren’t worth fighting for. You are. I was an eejit who didn’t understand what you needed back then, but I’m listening now.”
His eyes flit up to mine as he kneels at my feet. He’s not often humbled, but damn does it look good on him. Aidan could have his pick of women, and yet here he is on his knees for me.
“Holy shit. Did you just…grovel?”
“Don’t you dare tell your cousin I kissed your feet. I’ll deny that one even if she waterboards me.”
I cross my heart, then run a hand through his hair. “Aidan, I forgive you. But I think you’re a little bad for doing this out in the open.”
A rare bashfulness comes over him and he takes one of my feet, kneading it slowly. His knuckle runs along my insole and I’m melting. “There’s little I wouldn’t do for you.”
He kisses each of my knees as if he’s asking for entry between them. “God, I’ve missed you,” he whispers into the inside of one knee while holding eye contact, his breath hot on my skin. His palms glide up the sides of my satin-covered thighs. I resist the urge to pull up my dress, spread my knees wide. “All of you.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” I breathlessly admit. It’s been sweet torture being so close to him all day.
“What are you gonna do about it?”
I tap my chin theatrically. “I don’t know. I kinda like you here, kneeling.”
