Page 21 of Abduction
“That your man on the phone?” he asked me, nodding to the cell I had just stuffed back into my pocket.
“Yeah,” I sighed. I figured there was no point trying to hide it from him. He knew what was going on inside my head, and nothing could have gotten him to just walk away. For some reason, he actually seemed to care about me, even if I wasn’t sure why, even if I was certain there was likely some ulterior motive to his actions. He had been hitting on me when we first met, after all; maybe he was trying his best to get under my skin and take his shot.
“What’s he playing at now?” he asked. He looked pissed on my behalf. I wasn’t used to people getting angry for me, and I almost wanted to tell him he had nothing to worry about—but he wouldn’t have taken that. He had decided he wanted to help, and I wasn’t going to get him to drop it.
“He cancelled a weekend trip we were supposed to be taking to go see my parents, so he could work,” I replied, feeling the corners of my mouth turn down before I could stop them. I hated this. I hated feeling so useless, so helpless in the matter of my own relationship. I was supposed to have some control over all of this, at least, but every passing day, it seemed to fall further and further apart.
“For work?” he replied, raising his eyebrows at me incredulously. “And you believe that?”
I wished I could tell him I did, but at this point, everything was starting to stack up against him. How could I trust Aaron, after everything he had done, after the way he had treated me? I wanted to believe my fiancé would never fuck me around like this, but the more time that passed, the more clear it became he had other things as his priority right now. Other things that had nothing to do with me.
“I don’t know,” I confessed, my voice softening. “I want to, but I...I don’t know if he’s just using this all as an excuse to get away from me and do whatever it is he’s doing down there.”
“Shit, if I had a woman like you, I would never get distracted by work,” Josh remarked, shaking his head, as though the mere thought of it was enough to piss him off. I chewed my lip. I had no idea what he would have been like in a relationship, but something told me he would at least be faithful. And that had to count for something, right?
“I don’t know what I’ve done to make him so...to make him so uninterested in me,” I confessed. “I just...I feel like he’s slipping through my fingers, you know?”
I wanted to burst into tears right there in the street as I said it out loud. I had been doing my best to pretend I could handle this, that I could handle myself in the midst of whatever my fiancé was getting up to behind my back, but the pain of it suddenly landed on my shoulders, and I felt like I was drowning beneath the enormity of it. He had completely brushed me off, basically told me he didn’t want anything to do with me and he would rather have spent his time at work than he would with me. How was it fair? How was I supposed to feel loved or valued when he couldn’t even make the time to see my parents?
“Hey, it’s all right,” Josh told me, reaching out to squeeze my shoulder. I just wanted to fall into his arms, let him hold me there for a moment until I could pull myself back together. Everything was falling apart around me, and I had no clue how to put it all together again. I wanted to be sensible about this, I wanted to be able to handle myself, but I could tell Aaron was getting away from me. The man who was supposed to value me above everything else was acting like he couldn’t care less about me, and I would have been lying if I said it wasn’t starting to get under my skin. How could it not? I had worked so hard to get where I was, and now, I felt as though it was slipping out of my fingers. I just needed it back, needed the sureness that he was dedicated to me back. I didn’t know what it would take to gift it to me again, but I craved it something awful.
His touch was soothing in a way I hadn’t felt for a while, and I looked up at him, wondering how it was the two of us kept seeming to trip over each other like this. Maybe the universe was trying to tell me something—maybe it was doing its best to show me there were better men out there, men who would actually put the effort in and try to get to know me and help me out.
“Let me take you out for something to eat,” Josh suggested. “Something to get your mind off of all this. How does that sound?”
I smiled at him a little sadly. I wished I could have taken him up on it, but I was here with Kimmy, and I knew she wouldn’t have gone along with it. She wasn’t going to let some stranger take us out for lunch, especially not knowing what was already going through my head with regard to Aaron.
“I would love to, but I’m here with my friend...”
“I’ll take you both out, then,” he replied, as though it should have been obvious. I raised my eyebrows at him, laughing.
“Generous as it is,” I replied, grinning, “I don’t think she’d be down for that. This is meant to be a girls’ day out. Get my mind off everything.”
“What does she think about your man?” he asked. “Does she think there’s something going on?”
“She...she thinks I’m overthinking,” I replied, and he rolled his eyes skyward.
“So she’s stupid.”
“Hey!” I protested. “She’s just...she’s trying to help me.”
“She could stand to do a better job of it,” he replied, shrugging. He spoke his mind, and I liked that. I met plenty of people in my studies who struggled to come out with what they really thought, taught to contain it whenever they could to keep from stirring the pot in the wrong direction. His forwardness and honesty was actually a nice change of pace from everything else.
“Yeah, well, I’ll be the judge of that,” I replied. “She’s doing her best.”
“Sure, sure,” he shot back, cocking an eyebrow incredulously. I couldn’t help but giggle. It felt nice to have someone who was completely on my side with all of this, even if I was sure he was only doing it so he could get into my pants. I wasn’t sure if I was even interested in him like that, but there was a part of me that seriously enjoyed his attention. It had been a long time since a guy had looked at me the way he did, and I was into it probably more than I should have been.
“Well, I hope I’ll see you around again soon,” he remarked. “Hope you have some better news for me next time, too.”
“Me too,” I agreed, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Kimmy emerging from the store, carrying a bag which I was sure contained the dress she had been trying to convince me to get. She paused for a moment, catching me in conversation with this man she had never seen before, and I could see the confusion on her face as she tried to work out just what was going on here. I didn’t blame her. I had to admit, it was a little odd running into him again, but I enjoyed his company, I liked the way he talked to me. I liked that he seemed to be the only person in the world who could see anything wrong with what Aaron was getting up to. Confirmation bias, maybe.
Josh nodded his goodbye as Kimmy came over to join me, and she peered after him, clearly baffled.
“Who was that?” she asked, and I shook my head and shrugged.
“Just a guy I know,” I replied, keeping it as vague as possible. I didn’t want her thinking there was more going on here than there was. He was just some dude I kept running into, nothing was really happening between us. Yeah, he was nice to me, but that was about it—and even then, I was sure it was just because he wanted to get me in bed.
“Oh, okay,” she replied, wrinkling her nose, clearly not sure what to make of it. “Well...you want to get lunch?”
