Page 152 of Collide
“You two are bordering on Dylan’s level of disregard for the other people in this house.”
Aiden pulls away to look over my shoulder, where Kian covers his eyes like a child avoiding a kissing scene on television. “He’s subjected us to full frontal on this very couch. Don’t compare us.”
“Gross!” I scramble off of Aiden. “I’ve slept here!”
“Not too far off from what Dylan was doing,” Kian says, and I find it hard to keep the acid from crawling up my throat. “But seriously it’s too early for all this.” He waves a hand in our direction.
“Is there a specific time you would prefer to watch us?” Aiden counters.
Kian makes a gagging sound before grabbing a controller and starting the gaming console. He sinks a spoon into a container of peanut butter on the coffee table and shoves it into his mouth.
Aiden catches my eye. “My room?”
I shake my head. “We need to get out of this rut.” I start piling junk food wrappers into a trash bag.
Aiden stops me and cleans it up himself. “What do you suggest we do, Summer?”
“If this is your idea of foreplay, can you do it somewhere else? I already hear enough of it upstairs,” Kian mumbles through his spoonful.
“Shut up. You can’t hear anything anymore.” Aiden and I have taken serious soundproofing precautions. We even tried to get Cole to switch rooms, but he is very protective of his hobbit hole.
“Oh Crawford, yes, yes, yes!” Kian mimics girly moans.
When he goes to dip his spoon into the peanut butter again, I snatch away the jar, making him scowl. “I do not sound like that,” I say.
“Want me to record you next time?”
I lunge at him, but Aiden bars me with a hand on my waist. “Watch it, Ishida,” he warns, and Kian rolls his eyes and focuses back on his game. Before I can chuck the tub of peanut butter at his head, Aiden pries it from my grip and carries me out of the living room. “You’re right. We need to get out of this rut.”
AN HOUR LATER, we’re parked in front of the dockside restaurant in Hartford. Inside, I stumble when I spot Connor Atwood and Crystal Yang making out in a corner booth.
“My ex-fling and your ex-fling. What are the odds?”
Aiden tugs me to our table. “He was not your fling. She wasn’t mine either.”
“Should we go say hi?” I wouldn’t dare, but it’s fun messing with Aiden, especially when he gets all worked up like this.
“Sure, we can make this a double date,” he deadpans, taking the seat in front of me.
“Ooh, we could be swingers!” His glare sobers up my laugh. “I’m joking.”
“Yeah, good joke. Come here and tell me another,” he drawls, and when I roll my eyes, he abandons his seat to sit beside me instead.
“What are you doing?”
He settles in. “You were too far away.”
“For what?”
“For this.” His hand snakes up my thigh, high enough that my breath hitches. When he squeezes my goosebumped skin, I squeak.
I slap my hand over his, preventing him from reaching higher. “You can’t just move. The server’s going to be annoyed.”
“It’s not like I moved tables. It was such a pain when customers did that.”
Occasionally, Aiden drops random bits of information about his past that always manage to surprise me. “You worked as a server?”
“At my grandma’s diner. Only for a summer when I was sixteen. She fired me pretty quick.”
