The Wall of Winnipeg and Me - Mariana Zapata Page 0,120

those long fingers resting on his knee kind of flicked up in a dismissive gesture. “I want to be remembered years from now. I have to win a championship for that.”

Something about his tone pecked at my brain, at that part of me that had stayed up for years to quit my day job one day. “Then you’ll be happy?” I asked carefully.

“Maybe.”

I wasn’t sure what it was about his ‘maybe’ that chewed up my insides. “You’ve won Defensive Player of the Year three years out of eight, big guy. I don’t think anyone will ever forget you. I’m just saying. You should be proud of yourself. You’ve worked hard for it.”

He didn’t agree or disagree, but when I turned to look at the passenger side mirror, he was facing out the window with what amounted to about the most thoughtful expression I’d ever seen.

Maybe.

On the other hand, I might have been imagining it.

My phone started ringing loudly from its spot where I’d left it in the cup holder. I glanced at it, but the screen was faced down, and I couldn’t get a good look without grabbing it, which I sure as hell wasn’t going to do, especially not when the rain started slapping the windshield more forcefully. As quickly as the ringing came on, it went out.

Then it started all over again.

“Are you going to answer that?” Aiden asked.

“I don’t like to talk on the phone when I’m driving,” I explained, just as the phone stopped ringing.

He hummed.

Then it started once more.

With a sigh, he grabbed it and looked at the screen. “It’s your mom.”

Oh shit. “Don’t—”

“Hello?” the big guy answered, putting the phone to his face. “She’s busy.” I turned my head to see his lower lip slightly jutting out. “I’ll make sure to let her know.” By the amount of anger in his enunciation, that was the last thing he was planning on doing.

How about that. Before I could thank him for his phone answering skills, he touched my phone’s screen and set it back into the cup holder. Wariness wiggled around in my belly and I cleared my throat. “My best friend finally found out we got married.”

“I thought you told her.”

“She knew we were going to do it, but I didn’t tell her we actually did. She said her brother told her, so I wonder how he found out.”

“She didn’t tell you?”

Thinking about how the conversation had gone again, I smirked at myself. “No. She was too busy yelling.”

Aiden made a thoughtful yet absent sound.

“That might be why my mom called. I’m usually the one who calls her.” Except for when she’d called in the wake of my failed trip to El Paso. Just thinking about it made me mad all over again. Maybe I’d wait to call her back… next month. I shook the bitter thought off. “Where’s your lawyer’s office at?”

Thirty minutes later, I pulled my Explorer into the multi-level covered parking lot adjacent to a tall professional office building.

“I’ll wait here,” I said, turning off the engine.

Aiden shook his head as he opened the car door. “Come with me.”

I eyed my legs and then shook my own head. “I’m not really dressed…”

The big guy didn’t even take in anything other than my face. “You always look fine. Come on.”

He didn’t wait for me to argue. He just shut the door on me.

I growled under my breath and got out, tugging my damp bottoms down and realizing that Aiden’s hoodie was actually so long it went over my shorts… Great.

With a resigned sigh, I found Aiden waiting for me off to the side. At least he had the decency not to mock me for how much of a mess I looked. Thunder and lightning shook the walking bridge we had to take to cross over from the lot to the building, and I might have walked a little faster than usual. Aiden had barely opened the door for me when the lights inside the building went in and out for a second.

The lights in the hallway flickered twice more as we walked to the elevator bank. Then they blinked again just as the big guy pressed the button to go up.

I paused, taking in the deserted hallway. “Should we take the stairs?”

He gave me a side look that said what he was thinking—you’re an idiot, Vanessa. Instead, he verbally went with, “I’m too tired.”

Oh. Huh. “Okay.”

Before I could think too much more about the consequences of riding around in an elevator during