Page 39 of Almost True
Igripped the wheel, then relaxed my hands. Any further sign of nerves and I’d never hear the end of it from John.
“Saw that.”
Okay.Hearing the end of it was a pipe dream. He’d been dissecting my every move since he entered the car. Apparently, not greeting him had been a sign of nerves. My shoulders were bunched up. My eyes were crazy. Reportedly, I was driving a little slower than normal…
“You saw nothing.”
He shifted around in his seat, but I kept my eyes glued to the road ahead.
“I know a nervous Aidan when I see one, so don’t go thinking you’re fooling me. My question is, why am I your date? Why are you not gonna be there as Madeline Reynolds’ date since she clearly has a thing for you?”
I shot him a glare and ignored the little flip in my gut. “She does not, and it wouldn’t be appropriate. I’m not even sure me going in the first place is okay.”
“Uh, pretty sure if the hostess invited you, that means it’s okay.”
We arrived at the neighborhood and rolled through the impressive entrance. The gates stood open tonight, and the security guards waved as we entered. They knew me, and Maddie had likely submitted a list of vehicles to make the process smooth for attendees.
My stomach twisted yet again. The guests tonight would be Silverton’s finest and likely then some. I’d heard she had friends coming in from Salt Lake and farther reaches. I had no problem with Julian Grenier or anyone else I guessed would be attending from the local crowd, but hobnobbing with a bunch of rich people and inevitably being introduced as the gardener just didn’t sound like my ideal evening.
And yet, here we were.
We pulled up to the house, and I parked a half block away behind another car. John wouldn’t stop staring at me as he exited the truck, so I finally gave in to him as we walked toward the house.
“What’s going on here, Aid? I don’t like seeing you all tense like this.” He reached over and shook my shoulder as though to loosen me up.
I shook out my hands. “Yeah. I know. I’m nervous to see her. Nervous to be at this party even though I’ve seen or talked to her every few days. We’re doing well with our friendship, and I don’t know why but showing up tonight makes me feel stupid. Like my head’s too big for my body and everyone can see.”
“You do have an unnaturally large head, but your dark hair and beard hide it well, so no worries.”
He jumped away before I could shove him, his gleeful cackle helping to loosen some of the tension that’d wound around my chest in the last hour. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be here for Maddie—I did. I hadn’t actually seen her in three days, and it’d mostly been from afar. I had the full crew working long shifts, but they’d finished everything yesterday around noon.
We’d texted back and forth a bit. Simple things like how Luca was doing and if she had any friends coming into town for the party. I hadn’t really wanted a list or anything, but I could admit I wanted to know if Chadwick what’s-his-face would be there. Happily, the answer was that she had a few girlfriends coming, but no mention of Chadwick.
As a rule, I wasn’t a big party-goer. I didn’t know what to do with my hands at these things. Did we really all stand around and talk? How much could I possibly have in common with these people? If they ran in Maddie’s circles, they would undoubtedly be wealthy, brilliant, and transient. Ultimately, not people I’d be likely to see again.
So my nerves tonight were two-fold. First, I was anxious to see how things went with Maddie. Would she be aloof? Friendly? Would she introduce me to anyone and if so, how would she refer to me? All of that was exhausting enough in itself since I didn’t remember the last time I’d overthought so many things.
And second was the more general anxiety over small-talking with strangers. Thankfully, my wingman was the king of small talk, so he’d make up the difference for me.
“It’ll be great. I can’t wait to meet her and get a feel for you two together in a room.”
I grunted, clearly displaying my highest levels of sophistication for the night. He chuckled and may have even skipped a little.
“Seriously. I have a feeling it’s going to be really easy to tell that there’s more than friendship between you, but obviously I have to see for myself.”
“We’re friends. That’s all.”
“Mm. Mm-hmm. A friend you had a hot fling with a year and a half ago and that you haven’t stopped thinking about since? Yeah.Friendly.”
“It wasn’t a fling. It was a few hours of talking and a kiss.” Agreatkiss. But still.
He snapped and pointed at me. “Precisely my point. It was a blip that should’ve gone down in the history of your life as an interesting evening but instead, you got hung up on it. So now I get to see where things stand.”
We reached the door, and I knocked twice in lieu of ringing the bell. “Well, you can shut it for now and—”
“Welcome! Oh. Come in.” Anthony grinned and waved us in, shouting, “Maddie! He’s here!”
John gave me a wide-eyed look with one of those ridiculous, impressed smiles.
