The Trouble With Before (25 page)

I’
VE BEEN TRYING
to do what Grams told me to do. I really, really have, and it has been the most frustrating experience I’ve ever had. I watch Lisa go to work at the bar every night, and she hates it. I can tell. She hides it pretty well—she laughs, she jokes—but there are moments when she’s quiet and I can tell it’s bothering her. The pain or sadness she’s bottling up is eating her up inside. She looks at me sometimes as if she wants to say something, but then she doesn’t. I’m so frustrated, and it doesn’t help that I haven’t had sex in about a month and a half.

I knock hard on her door to wake her. I hear her groan and mumble. “Up, Gregory.”

After a few minutes, she cracks open the door with a scowl. “It’s five thirty in the morning. Are you on crack?”

I just flash her a million-dollar smile. “Hit the shower. We’re going running.”

She looks at me in disbelief and tries to shut the door. “Noooo,” she whines.

She’s so cute I want to kiss her.

“I’m serious. Throw on some sweats or something,” I say.

She throws her head back and groans. “You’re not going to leave me alone unless I do this?”

“Nope.”

“Give me fifteen,” she says before closing the door.

“Five,” I tell her through the door.

I sit on the porch for fifteen minutes waiting for her. I’m about to go back in the house and drag her out when she appears on the porch, a pout on her face, in a T-shirt and tiny pair of shorts. I rethink this being a good idea.

“You are insane,” she says through a yawn.

“You love it,” I tell her as I jog in place. I’m surprised when she doesn’t throw a sarcastic comment back. “Come on.”

She starts the most pathetic attempt at a jog I’ve ever seen. “You should have made coffee before you came up with this brilliant plan.”

“When you start moving, you’ll wake up.”

She rolls her eyes dramatically but jogs a little faster. “Why are we even doing this?”

I jog backward in front of her. “I’ve got a lot of energy I need to get out.”

“You mean you’re horny, and instead of jerking off like a normal person, you wake me up to run like I’m GI Jane?”

I feel my cheeks heat up, which is weird because I’m not easily embarrassed. It’s not even that she talked about me jerking off, but more that I didn’t want to do that because of who I was thinking about. So instead I brought her out to run.

“Shut up and run, Gregory,” I tell her through a laugh.

We make it about five minutes before she asks for a break. I stop and laugh at her.

“This isn’t funny. I feel like I’m going to pass out,” she scolds me, holding her knees and taking deep breaths.

I pull a water out of my backpack.

“Thank God,” she says, snatching it from me. “Next time, how about you just call Hillary and leave me to my sleep?”

I ignore her and pull out my own water, only taking a sip. “Don’t drink too much. You’re going to cramp up.”

She frowns. “So, how are you and Hillary?”

I shrug. “We were supposed to hook up when I went to Chicago last week.” As I stretch my hamstring, I notice Lisa watching me as though she’s drifted off into a daydream. “You there?” I ask with a chuckle.

She nods and tosses the bottle back to me. I put it in the bag.

“Do you miss her?” she asks, taking off again.

I shrug. “I do. I don’t. I’ve just had a lot on my mind, I guess.” I sprint past her. Watching her bounce in front of me was the dumbest idea ever.

“When’s the last time you had sex?” she asks, and I let out a cackle.

“Are you propositioning me?” I ask her jokingly. Then I kick myself for having her put that image in my head.

“I was just curious.”

I smile at the thought of her thinking about me having sex. “I didn’t know you felt that way about me, Leese,” I tell her through a laugh. I glance behind me, and I swear she’s blushing.

“No, it . . . you’re such jerk.” She laughs, brushing me off.

I glance back at her again and hold in my laugh. She’s definitely blushing. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that’s a tiny smile on her face.

“Besides you wouldn’t be able to handle it. We’d have to get you a gym membership first,” I say.

She stops completely and puts her hands on her hips. “What does that mean?”

There’s a challenge in her voice, and I tell myself not to get too excited. This isn’t going where
he’d
like it to. “It means that you need a break every five minutes and we’re jogging at a snail’s pace.”

Her eyebrows shoot up as I walk over to her with an amused grin. I lean down so I’m at her eye level, and when her breath hitches, I almost lose it. I didn’t expect that reaction. I’m so close to her I can smell the strawberry scent she showered with. Our eyes lock, and for a moment, it’s like she’s begging me to kiss her. But she glances at her shoes, I wake up and realize I’m in the real world, not a dream.

“You’d pass out from exhaustion,” I tell her with a sly grin before returning to my run.

“Race you back to the house. Loser buys breakfast,” she says before breaking into a full-on run.

From there, our friendly jog turns into a sprint to the house. Shit, I forgot she ran track in high school. She
almost
beats me. She would have if I hadn’t picked her up and carried her onto the porch.

“Aidan, that’s cheating!” she scolds me between giggles.

I let her down, our chests touching, and her eyes are wide and bright. She looks genuinely happy. My arms are still around her back, and her hands on my shoulders. If she were any other girl, I’d kiss her. I’d take the lips that are parted just right for me to slide my tongue in, and I’d listen to her moans as I backed her against the wall.

But she isn’t any other girl. She’s Lisa, my best friend. Not only that, but there’s all of this stuff going on in my head and actual feelings I’ve been trying to deny and she still isn’t the Lisa she needs to be and it’s complicated, so complicated. But with her in my arms like this, looking at me as though she’s begging me to kiss her, it seems so simple. I just want to be the guy who gets to kiss the girl who’s been running around in his dreams every night.

“Hey, you two, I made breakfast!”

Grams has the worst timing ever. We both jump out of our embrace as Grams looks between us with amused suspicion.

“Aidan’s such a cheater.” Lisa laughs awkwardly before moving past Grams into the house.

Grams eyes me knowingly.

“I didn’t cheat, you were taking too long,” I call to Lisa, ignoring Grams snickering behind me.

For the rest of the day, I try to push thoughts of Lisa from my mind. How her eyes looked into mine, how her lips seemed like magnets pulling me toward her, how I’ve been thinking about her every night. She’s working a double today at the bar, which I’m glad about. It gives me time to get my thoughts together. I spend most of my day working on the Bel-Air.

My phone rings, so I pull out my phone and see that it’s from Ms. Red. She hasn’t called me in about a month. I know she’s had her hands full with Lauren and Caylen, so my stomach drops as I answer.

“Ms. Red, tell me something good,” I say playfully.

She laughs. “How are you, Aidan?”

I smile, trying to hide the hint of worry in my voice. “I’m making it. Is everything okay?”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to call and talk to you about.”

I take a deep breath and prepare for the worst. After everything that’s happened, I don’t know what the worst is.

“I know we’ve all had so much going on, but Chris’s birthday is coming up and I want to throw him a party.”

I let out a sigh of relief. Thank God there’s no crisis to avert. “I think we could use a party.”

She fills me in on the details. It’s going to be at their house in three weeks, and it’s sort of a surprise. Ms. Red is handling everything since Lauren’s still heavily pregnant.

“You know the party wouldn’t be the same without me. Of course I’ll be there,” I say happily.

“There’s one other thing,” she adds, and I can tell it’s something worrying her.

“What’s up?”

“Well, I know that Willa has been seeing Lisa since she’s been back.” Her voice is high, and I can tell she’s trying to be cheerful.

“Yeah, Lisa’s actually kind of crashing with me.”

“I’m glad. I was really worried about her from the last time I talked to her. But the thing is . . . I don’t know what’s happened, but Will says that Lisa hasn’t been responding to his texts or calls about her seeing Willa again.”

Her voice is tight, and my chest tightens too.

I let out a deep sigh. “Yeah, I know.”

“Willa has been asking about her a lot. Both of you actually.”

I feel like the biggest jerk in the world.

I’ve thought about Willa every day, but I don’t know how to go see her without pushing it on Lisa. “I know, I’m a big jerk.”

“Is-is something going on?” she asks. I can hear the worry in her voice. “I know that . . . I’d hope that it would be something important . . .”

I know that she’s thinking it better be something important for us to have pretty much backed out of Willa’s life.

I don’t have any intention of abandoning Willa. I’ve been trying to give Lisa time to realize that her presence is good for Willa, but after losing the baby, I don’t know how to approach her about it. I think she doesn’t believe being in Willa’s life is good for her anymore.

“Lisa . . .” I want to explain, but it doesn’t feel right, as if I’m betraying her.

“Will says this has really been bothering Willa. I wanted to talk to you before
he
approaches Lisa,” she says apprehensively.

My face scrunches up. I’m surprised he’s not ecstatic that Lisa’s backed off. Whenever I went to pick Willa up, he seemed about as enthusiastic as a dude about to get a prostate exam. He and I haven’t been close since Chris and I were kids. After finding out what Mr. Scott did with Lisa, I lost all respect for him, and we keep things as short as possible with each other now.

“I’ll talk to her,” I promise Ms. Scott.

“I don’t want her to feel forced about this. I only want her to be involved if she genuinely wants to,” Ms. Red says hesitantly.

“She does, it’s just . . .” I try to figure out how much I should say. It’s not for me to tell her about Lisa’s life, but I don’t want her to think Lisa has just gotten too busy or changed her mind.

“Everything was going so well, Aidan. What happened?” she asks.

“If I tell you something . . . could it just stay between us?” I ask quietly.

“Of course.”

“I mean, you can’t tell
anyone
else.”

There’s a stretch of silence.

“I promise, Aidan,” she says compassionately.

“Lisa was pregnant, and it didn’t go well. Since then, she hasn’t . . . she was doing really good at first, but since . . . I think she’s taking it as a sign she shouldn’t be a mom.” I shrug.

“Oh
no
,” she says, sounding genuinely upset. “How far along was she?”

I tell her what happened at the ultrasound appointment and afterward, about how Lisa’s been acting, how she stopped teaching.

“Do you know if her doctor assigned her a grief counselor?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I know she went to her follow-up appointment a few days ago. Sometimes she’s happy and seems fine, then there are other times where she just seems . . .”

“Closed off,” she finishes my sentence. “She really needs to talk to someone.”

“Well, she’s not talking to me, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the best person to help her. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t talked to anyone else about it either. She’s just holding it all in, and I’m afraid if I bring it up, she’ll shut me out and it’ll just be worse for her.”

“I know that it’s an uncomfortable topic and you don’t want to hurt her, but if it’s affecting her, then she’s already hurting. She can’t take what happened as a sign she shouldn’t be in Willa’s life,” Ms. Scott says sorrowfully.

“I know, I just . . .”

“I know. I know how Lisa feels.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t want to imagine Ms. Red in that kind of pain.

“I’ll tell Will to back off and just give her some time. Try to get her to talk someone if you can. Willa really misses her,” she explains.