Stay With Me (She's With Me #2) - Jessica Cunsolo Page 0,45
managed to hide it from Aiden’s intuitiveness. I always thought my mom wasn’t telling me details about her new boyfriend because she didn’t know how I’d react to her being with someone other than my dad. I thought she was trying to protect my feelings, or was possibly just embarrassed by me.
Aiden asks me something but I’m not paying attention, so I just mumble back a generic response. I thought my mom let me go away this week because she was finally starting to understand me. Did she just want to get rid of me?
Aiden says something else. I reply with a generic “Yeah, sure.”
“Thea!” Aiden demands my attention.
“Hmm?” I reply, looking at him for the first time since I got back in the car.
“Are you okay?” he asks, genuinely concerned.
“Yeah,” I answer, my voice coming out a little too high. I clear my throat. “Why?”
“Because I asked you whose car was parked in front of your house, and you replied ‘Pizza’s fine with me.’”
I close my eyes and do a mental facepalm. Really, Amelia? That was your idea of a generic response?
“Sorry. Just tired from the drive, I guess. And apparently hungry,” I reason, hoping he buys it. I am kind of hungry.
“We’ll stop for pizza. But first tell me what’s wrong,” Aiden gently demands.
“My mother is a homewrecker.”
Aiden brakes a little too hard at the stop sign. “Of all the things I expected you to say, that definitely did not top my list.”
The car moves smoothly forward again, and I turn in my seat to face Aiden. “Believe me, I never thought that was a statement I’d ever utter.”
“What are you talking about? You were only in there a minute or two. What happened?”
I explain briefly, telling him everything from the gross kissing noises and schoolgirl giggling, all the way to my escape, purposely leaving out any names.
“How do you know he’s married?” he asks me, trying to make sense of it.
“Because I know this man, Aiden.”
“Who was it?” he asks, not to be prying and nosy, but to try and help me work through and wrap my head around what’s happening.
I can’t tell him, can I?
“Thea, what are you not telling me?” Aiden responds to my silence.
“She was with Brian Evans,” I whisper. “As in Mason’s dad.”
To Aiden’s credit, he doesn’t jerk the car into oncoming traffic when hearing this new revelation, but his head does whip over to look at me briefly, eyes wide.
“Brian Evans. Our friend Mason’s dad?” he repeats.
“The very same.”
“Oh fuck.”
“Does he have an identical twin brother?” I ask hopefully, already knowing the answer before Aiden shakes his head.
“Do you think he suggested this trip so it’ll be easier for him to sneak around on Natalia?”
Aiden’s fingers shift on the steering wheel. I don’t even know how he’s processing this, especially after all Brian’s done for him these last few days. Plus, Brian is one of the father figures in his life; does this change how he sees him?
“I don’t know. I hope not,” Aiden says. “That wasn’t his car outside your house. He told us he was going on a business trip this week anyway, which from the sounds of it, is really a trip to Hawaii with your mom.”
Everything Mason said about his father working extra hard and taking business trips was bullshit. He was here. Figuratively screwing his wife and literally screwing my mom. Oh God, poor Natalia. And poor Mason. Should I tell him? Does he know? I don’t want to destroy his family or his view of his father.
I can’t believe it. My mind’s running a mile a minute with this new information. My mom and Mason’s dad. I know the Evans men know how to charm the pants (literally) off a girl, but that particular Evans is married. Does my mom even know that Brian is married? She must know. Why else would she have kept him a secret from me? No. She was just hiding the fact that she’s messing around with a married man, who happens to be the father of one of my best friends, and that she’s the other woman in this situation.
Was she cheating on my dad when he was alive? I knew their marriage wasn’t the best at the end, but did she cheat on him before it was even over? Was one of the reasons they were fighting in the first place because she was cheating on him? It’s like I don’t even know my own mother.