The Wall of Winnipeg and Me - Mariana Zapata Page 0,133
his room.
Aiden was definitely giving me a ‘you’re an idiot face.’ “I don’t have time to bother trying to have a relationship, and I don’t like most people. Women included. ”
I wrung my hands, which were still between our two bodies. “You like me a little.”
“A little,” he repeated with only a small curve to the corners of his mouth.
I let his comment go and reached forward with one of my index fingers to point at the St. Luke’s medallion around his neck. “Isn’t this a Catholic saint? Maybe you’re religious.”
His big hand immediately went up to touch the quarter-sized object he carried around with him always. “I’m not religious.”
I raised my eyebrows, and he gave me an exasperated expression.
“You can ask whatever you want.”
“But will you answer?”
He huffed as he settled that massive, mostly nude body in front of me. “Ask your damn question,” he quipped brusquely.
I held the tip of my index finger directly above his medal before drawing my hand back toward my chest, feeling uber shy. I’d wanted to ask him for years, but I’d never been confident enough to. What better moment than when he was commanding me to ask? “Why do you always wear it?”
Without a hint of reservation, Aiden answered. “It was my grandfather’s.”
Was that my heart making a racket?
“He gave it to me when I was fifteen,” he went on to explain.
“For your birthday?”
“No. After I went to go live with him.”
His voice was smooth and comforting. Everything about it had me closing my eyes, sucking up his words and giving me this sense of openness. “Why did you go live with him?”
“Them. I lived with my grandparents.” The bristles of his beard touched my forehead again. “My parents didn’t want to deal with me anymore.”
That was definitely my heart making all kinds of horrendous noises. This all felt too familiar, too painful even for me.
Possibly too painful even for Aiden.
What Aiden was saying didn’t add up with the man across from me. The one who rarely raised his voice in anger, hardly ever cursed, rarely fought with any of his opponents much less his teammates. Aiden was a low-level charge—determined, focused, disciplined.
And I knew way too well what it was like to be unimportant.
I wasn’t going to cry.
I kept my eyes closed and Aiden kept his secrets close to his heart.
His breath touched my forehead. “Did you ever go to therapy?” he asked. “After what your sisters did?”
Maybe this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have after all. “No. Well, I went to a psychologist when I left my mom’s house. Well, when CPS took custody. They only asked questions about what things were like where my mom was concerned. Not about… anything else really.” In hindsight, I figure they wanted to be sure I hadn’t been abused by her or anyone else she could have brought into her kids’ live. The psychologist must have seen something in my older sisters that he didn’t like because we got split up into different houses. Honestly, I’d never been happier than I was after that.
How messed up was that? I couldn’t even bother feeling that guilty about it, especially not when we’d gone to a good family with strict but caring adults. Not like what I’d had before. “I don’t like being scared. I wish I wasn’t, and I’ve tried not to be,” I blabbered on mindlessly, feeling defensive all of a sudden.
He reared back, and I could tell he was looking at me with an uncertain expression. “It was only a question. Everyone is scared of something.”
“Even you?” I made myself meet his eyes, easily batting away the defensiveness I’d felt a moment ago and clinging onto the subject change.
“Everyone but me,” came his smooth, effortless response.
That had me groaning. The bright beam of light between us was throwing shadows over parts of his face. “No. You said it. Everyone’s been scared of something. What about when you were a little kid?”
The silence went thoughtful just as thunder made the windows rattle. I subconsciously touched him right between the pecs with my fingertips.
“Clowns.”
Clowns? “Really?” I tried to imagine a tiny Aiden crying over men and women with overly painted faces and red noses, but I couldn’t.
The big guy was still facing me. His expression clear and even, as he dipped his chin. “Eh.”
God help me, he’d gone Canadian on me. I had to will my face not to react at the fact he’d gone with the one word he usually used only