Page 64 of Stay With Me (She's With Me 2)

“It’s from Andrew. Apparently he got my number.”

He hands the phone to me so I can read it.

Heard the suits were delivered. Don’t forget to be on your best behavior. Act like my son, not someone who gets charged for assault

It’s clear what Andrew’s intentions are. “You’re going so he won’t charge you?”

A scowl mars Aiden’s face. “He’s not going to charge me. If I don’t play whatever role he wants me to play then he’s going to want nothing to do with me.” He sets the phone down and turns to face me. “I guess you’re right. I came here to get closure, and I want to see how he’s living, what his life looks like now. If anything, it’ll be the perfect opportunity to embarrass him.”

I nod. I might not understand it fully, but I’ll support him in whatever he wants to do. “Are you bringing Jason and Jackson?”

“No,” he says quickly, then hesitates. “But would you come with me?”

My heart skips a beat. “I—yes, I want to come with you, but don’t those events have a lot of media coverage? You know I can’t get caught in a photo …” I trail off, not wanting to disappoint Aiden, but also needing to stay true to what I promised my mom.

“Oh shit. I’m sorry. That was selfish of me,” he says, but he gives his head a frustrated shake and looks down at his hands.

I swallow hard. I don’t want to disappoint Aiden, but is this something I’m able to do? I’m going to be leaving Aiden soon and ultimately betraying the trust we’ve just worked on fixing after he learned about the real me. He’s inviting me into a part of his life I’m positive he doesn’t want many people to know about, and I’m going to take that trust and crush it under my heel as I walk out on him when he’ll probably need me most.

“Yes,” I hear myself say, confusing my brain, which is shouting No!

“You don’t have to,” he says, but even I can tell that he sits up straighter.

“I want to,” I tell him, putting as much confidence in my voice as I can. “We’ll just avoid the photographers. No one will want to take a picture of two unimportant kids anyway. It’ll be fine.”

“I’d be lost without you,” he says softly, and I feel like throwing up even though his words mean the world to me.

Before the guilt makes me physically sick, I stand up from the bed and pick up the suit bag from the wire hanger. “You should try this on.”

Grumbling unhappily, he stands beside me in front of the bed. “I’ll have to get shoes. And you need a dress. Are you sure you’re okay running around finding a dress and shoes and everything?”

The “of course” leaves my mouth automatically. “Plus,” I add, “we have a couple of hours before stores close. I’m sure we’ll find something.”

Taking the bag from me, he unzips it and pulls out a luxurious navy suit. His face contorts in disgust. “This is a four-thousand-dollar suit.”

My shock is shadowed by my urge to laugh, but my eyebrows draw together in confusion. “You know how much a suit is just by looking at it?”

He turns the suit to fully face me. “No. He literally left the price tag on.”

Yup. There’s the price tag. And it’s $4,470.80, to be precise. If Andrew Kessler can afford to spend that much money on a suit for a son he doesn’t even like, he must be rolling in money.

Aiden drops the suit back on the bed with an angry scoff. “He makes me sick.”

Aiden tried on the suit Andrew got for him, and even though I didn’t get to see, he said it was scary how well it fit him. After he finishes, we go shopping and bring Charlotte along with us, partly because she’s an “expert last minute shopper,” and partly because she needs a distraction. Chase has been avoiding her like I’ve been avoiding Mason, each of us out of our own sense of guilt.

We go to a store for Aiden first, who tries on one pair of shoes, more just to see if they fit, and buys them with the money Andrew left him.

We make it to a boutique an hour before it closes, and I l

et Charlotte run around picking out dresses for me.

“Don’t look too excited,” I tell Aiden sarcastically, who’s looking around at all the dresses like he woke up in a foreign land.

He turns the full force of his smile on me and my breath hitches. “This isn’t too bad. If you ignore where we’re going, it’s kind of like we’re practicing for prom.”

The smile on my face freezes when I sit on the weight of his words.

He wants to go to prom with me. He thinks I’ll be here for prom.

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