Irresistible (Neighbor from Hell #11) - R.L. Mathewson Page 0,21

three weeks, she should have this thing down, but unfortunately for him and his schedule, the stubborn woman fought him every inch of the way.

“No, you don’t!” she snapped, and since she was clearly still upset that he hadn’t given in to her demands for donuts this morning, he ignored her and focused on everything that he needed to do today.

“Aidan?”

“Yeah,” he said, thankful for the distraction.

“Are you planning on treating me like a patient for the next two months?” she asked, clearly not ready to drop this.

“I’m not treating you like a patient,” he said, even though he had a bad feeling that he was doing exactly that and for one very good reason.

He didn’t know how to act around her.

“What would you call it?”

“Taking care of you,” Aidan said, not pointing out that treating her like a patient was the only thing that helped because he honestly had no idea what he should say to her.

He couldn’t really treat her like an ex, because they’d only had a one-night stand. He also couldn’t call her a friend, because even after a month he barely knew anything about her. The only things that he knew about her was that she was stubborn, had an appetite that put his to shame, had an addiction to carbs that actually frightened him, and was just as uncomfortable around him as he was around her.

Whenever they were in the same room, it was…awkward.

Working on her apartment helped. Now after he took care of her and made sure that she was eating enough and staying hydrated, he could go work on her apartment and spend the rest of the night trying to figure out how he was going to raise a child with a woman that he had absolutely no idea how to talk to.

“I can take care of myself,” Melanie pointed out from the bathroom when she was supposed to be waddling back to bed.

“And you’re two minutes over the schedule,” Aidan pointed out, scrolling through his schedule and noting that he was scheduled to work a shift in the emergency room tonight.

Shit!

“Is there any chance that Rebecca can come over to help you with dinner? Or maybe your mom?” he asked, kind of hoping to avoid her mother since the woman liked to pretend that he didn’t exist. Not that he didn’t deserve it, but still…

“Yeah, I’m sure one of them can stop by,” Melanie said after a slight hesitation, making him wonder if he should ask his father to cover for him so that he could take care of her, but since his father was already picking up his slack at work so that Aidan could check on her during the day, he didn’t want to push his luck.

“Good,” Aidan said, sighing as he checked the schedule for the rest of the week and amended his previous question. “Is there any chance that one of them could come help you with dinner for the rest of the week?”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” the woman that was now making them run five minutes behind schedule said as she opened the door and proceeded to waddle towards the bed, leaving him to follow after her and nodding like an idiot, because he had absolutely no idea what else he should say to her.

*-*-*-*

Perhaps she should have called Rebecca like she’d promised? Melanie thought with a groan as she slowly, because there was no other way that she could do it, sat back against the bathroom wall and closed her eyes as she struggled to catch her breath. She definitely should have called her mother since her mother would have refused to leave until Aidan came home just so that she could get the chance to ignore him again.

At the very least, she should have brought her cellphone with her. Out of habit, she’d left her cellphone on the nightstand, which was only ten feet away, but it might as well be a hundred miles away right now. Resigning herself to sitting there until Aidan came back, and she really hoped that he was coming back soon, Melanie shifted to get more comfortable.

She was sick to her stomach, exhausted and ready to call it a day, curl up, and go to sleep. But, she couldn’t do anything more than sit here, waiting for the nausea to stop so that she could get her butt back into the rather comfortable bed that she was stuck in until her own bed was moved into her