Page 92 of Pretender

“No, no, you’ve just given me something I need to mull over.”

“In a good way?”

“It depends what I will do with it, I suppose,” he says.

“What will you do with it?”

“Right now, I want to clear up one thing.” He stops and I almost walk right into him. “I take relationships seriously. What gives you the impression I don’t?”

“Just the sheer number of them?”

He shakes his head. “Is this from that god-awful blog again?”

“And my eyes.”

“Right. Have you been noticing me going on dates, then?”

“Are you deflecting again?”

“Deflecting?”

“You do that every time. With the pelican thing earlier, and any time your dad comes up, you say a fraction of it and then change the topic.”

He sucks his lower lip in, knitting his brow.

“Mark said you’d never talked about him,” I add, fiddling with the skirt of my dress.

“When did he say that?”

“At the engagement party.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s true.” His jaw clenches.

Fuck, he’s upset now. I said too much.

“It’s okay, Aiden. Don’t worry. I mean it.” I put a hand on his arm and archive away for later how it flexes under my touch, and it’s simply a glorious forearm. “You don’t have to tell me about your dad, or your dating, or anything.”

“Why do you say that?”

I shake my head, confused.

“Why do you just relent like that?” he presses.

“I—I was making you uncomfortable and wanted it to stop.”

“You should make me uncomfortable. Push me. We don’t grow inside our comfort zones, do we? I want to be better for you. Maybe I need more time to verbalise some things, but don’t just give up.”

“You want me to push you?”

“Yes.” He sighs. “It tells me you care enough to try.”

“Okay.” I look up at him. “Can you please calmly tell me when I’m pushing too hard? Because I… I’m not sure how to explain it, but I really don’t cope well with emotional explosions without understanding what’s going on.”

“That’s quite understandable. I’m sure few people cope well with that.” He brushes his hand over mine, down to the tips of my fingers.

“Some more than others. You seem to laugh things off more easily.”

His hand drops away from mine again. “Hm.” The Aiden grunt.