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"Do I look okay?" she demanded, gesturing wildly to the towel wrapped like a pink turban around her head. One tendril of wet, greenish-looking hair trailed from beneath the fabric.
"I don't…" Aiden began hesitantly. He didn't know much, but he knew not to make assumptions about a woman's appearance.
"Look! Just look!" Tessa interrupted him with a frustrated groan. She tore the towel off her head, and her formerly dark, glossy hair tumbled around her shoulders in swamp-green clumps. She jabbed an enraged index finger at her head, bugging her eyes out in an expression that demanded reciprocal shock and sympathy.
Aiden coughed and scratched his chin. "It's, uh…it's a bold look," he offered diplomatically.
"It's hideous!" she wailed.
She flopped forlornly into the living room and collapsed onto the sagging couch, still wearing nothing but her towel. She looked up at him, red-faced and miserable, and then buried her face in her hands.
"What happened?" Aiden asked, shifting from foot to foot and shooting a helpless glance toward the ceiling. He prayed Seth finished his shower soon. Aiden didn't have siblings; he didn't know how to deal with situations like this.
"I bought some bleach and henna from the Stop n' Shop," Tessa muttered into her hands. "It was supposed to turn my hair a beautiful shade of auburn, but I think I mixed in too much indigo."
"Ah." Aiden took a seat beside her and picked at a putrid-looking clump, struggling to keep the helpless amusement from his tone. "Not exactly close on the color wheel," he observed.
She glared at him through a gap in her fingers and said in a dark voice, "Don't you dare laugh at me, Aiden Doyle."
"Wouldn't dream of it," he protested innocently, holding up his hands in mock surrender. "You'd skin me alive."
"Damn right. I'm still mad at you for how you treated Seth yesterday. What gives you the right to hurt him like that? After everything he's done for you—" She cut herself off abruptly, ruining her ferocity with a tearful sniff.
"He hurt me too," Aiden said quietly.
She had no response to that, but her eyes glittered with outrage from beneath her wet, spiky eyelashes. Aiden gently knuckled a tear off her cheek, searching for words to explain the complicated mix of emotions he'd struggled with for so many years. "The thing is…" he began awkwardly, "Seth did a lot for me growing up. He gave me rides, meals, training. Hell, he even helped buy my trailer. I'm living the life he gave me, and all I ever had to repay him with was my friendship. In the end, it wasn't enough."
"That's all he wanted!"
Aiden shook his head, debating how much to say. It wasn't his place to discuss Seth's sexuality, but Seth had already admitted Tessa suspected his feelings. She'd been a bright, watchful little girl. The details she probably noticed were enough to break Aiden into a cold sweat.
"I don't think so," he said awkwardly. "I don't think that's all either of us wanted…if you know what I mean. We didn't know how to handle it. He pushed me away, and I let him."
"So…why did you stay away so long?" Tessa dropped her gaze to fiddle self-consciously with the knot of her towel, hiking it modestly beneath her armpits. But Aiden didn't miss the fresh tears that spilled down her cheeks.
His voice was thick when he admitted, "I didn't know I was wanted."
"Wasn't it obvious?" she scoffed.
"Not to me."
That must have surprised her because her head came up in a flash. She scrutinized him with intense, dark eyes, so much like Seth’s, except her eyes were still young and hopeful, and Seth’s had always looked old. Aiden couldn't hold her gaze for long, so he stared down at the floor and began counting the dust bunnies he could spot beneath the couch.
"You get it now, right?” she asked. “That's the reason you spent the night?"
Aiden's throat felt dry. He'd been hoping to charm her without a come-to-Jesus moment, but there was no escaping it now. He swallowed hard, remembering what Seth had said to him earlier. How he'd looked at him, held him, kissed him…like he mattered.
"I'm learning," he admitted awkwardly. "Trying to, anyway."
She studied him with a narrow gaze. "Seth has been through too much. He deserves someone brave enough to stand by him, no matter what."
He considered cracking a joke to lighten the mood, but he knew that would be a fatal mistake. Seth wasn't the only overprotective McCall sibling. They both deserved honesty, no matter how terrifying it was. He met her eyes fearlessly and promised, "I'm all in. I swear."
"Good." She nodded, and despite her own inner turmoil, she offered him a wobbly smile. "That way, at least one of us can have a happy ending."
Aiden chuckled. "It's hair, sweetheart, not the end of the world. We can fix it."
"How?" She toyed despondently with the limp ends of her hair. "I can't correct it in time. I only have the henna, and it would take almost two hours to make it to town and back for more supplies. Riley is already on his way to pick me up. He's taking me all the way to Burns for a movie."
