The Wall of Winnipeg and Me - Mariana Zapata Page 0,152

didn’t ask if you were fine. What the hell happened?”

He didn’t reply as he stuck his hands under the sink’s fountain sensor and splashed water on his face. What the hell did he do? Aiden rarely got into fights. Hell, he’d told me why they were so few and far between, and I’d never heard a better reason for it. He didn’t have an explosive temper; he usually just bumbled around at being irritated all day.

As he dried his face, I grabbed an ice pack from the freezer, wincing when he set the towel aside, giving me an up close look at the bruises that were going to take up a good portion of his face in a few hours.

Did I realize he was trying to avoid talking about whatever happened? Of course. I just didn’t care.

Handing over the ice pack the instant he’d thrown away the paper towels, I took a step back and took in his features again in disbelief. “Did you get jumped?”

“What?” His gaze swung over to me as he frowned just a little bit. He was insulted. He was genuinely insulted. “No,” he snapped, not in a mean way.

“Are you sure?” I asked hesitantly. Sure, he was huge, and sure, in raw strength, he definitely had 99 percent of other men beat, but if there were multiple larger-than-average guys trying to beat him up, it could happen. Right? Just thinking about that possibility suddenly pissed me right off.

Pressing the ice pack against the line of his jaw, he shook his head just the tiniest bit, his eyes doing this dismissive flutter. “I didn’t get jumped.”

His assurance wasn’t doing it for me, damn it, and I was getting angrier by the second. I touched his arm. “Tell me what happened, Aiden.”

“Nothing.”

Nothing. The right side of my mouth went tight. “You beat yourself up then?”

That scoff said more than the word “No” did.

“Then…” I trailed off, not giving this up.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I’d already known that from the beginning. But as stubborn as he was, I was too. And I wasn’t going to let it go because this right here, the clear signs of him getting into a fight with someone on his team was a sign of the apocalypse. Aiden didn’t give enough of a shit about his teammates to care what they said about him or to him.

He’d said it at the game, there were only a few people he’d ever met whose opinions mattered to him. And I knew that wasn’t something he said for the heck of it. He meant it.

I’d been trying my best since Friday not to think about the basketball game we’d gone to. Or at least, I’d attempted not to think about what he’d said to my sister’s husband or how he’d looked at Susie like he wanted to kill her. The memory of him grabbing my hand and walking with me to the car in silence as anger marred that handsome face, had drilled a hole straight into my heart. Then, as we’d sat in my car, he’d said, “I’m sorry I didn’t go with you.”

All I’d managed to do was sit there and frown. “To where? El Paso?” His response had been a nod. “It’s fine, big guy. It’s all water under the bridge now.” I couldn’t help but reach over and put my hand over the top of his. “That was nice of you to stand up for me, by the way.”

Well, I thought it had been more than nice, but the realization of what I thought I felt was something I never wanted to voice.

Then Aiden had gone and done it as he faced forward out of the windshield, teeth gritted, jaw tight. “I’ve let you down too many times. I won’t do it again.”

Just like that, this feeling of dread poured through my stomach, making me antsy. He’d spent the rest of the weekend more remote than normal. While he hadn’t become outgoing since we’d begun getting along a lot better, Aiden had retreated into himself a little more. He’d worked out and finished and started another puzzle, which was his telltale sign that he was trying to work something out in his head or relax.

It all suddenly made me nervous, and a little, tiny, baby bit worried. Pulling one of the stools at the island back, I plopped into it and simply stared at that discolored, harsh face in unease. “I just want to know whether I need to