Trade Off (8 page)

“Problem?” he asked, opening and closing hand-carved mahogany cabinets in the gourmet kitchen.

“Um no, it was just Neil telling me he has to go out of town tonight.”

Neil was visiting Los Angeles to talk to the team who had shown an interest in acquiring him last season. Given the fact that his former best friend had just signed on as their team captain, she couldn’t say she was shocked he was having his agent investigate his other options. If Neil signed with another team, she would have an impossible decision to make. Would she abandon her family, friends, and business to follow her husband or would she stay behind in the only place she’d ever wanted to call home? The bigger question plaguing her was how her husband would react if she chose to stay behind.

“Does that mean you’re free for dinner?” Aiden asked, propping his hip against the granite counter.

“Um, I…”

He smiled. “Come on, Sela. It’ll give us a chance to talk about some of the places we’ve seen, decide where to go from here in terms of my search.” When she didn’t respond right away, he said, “You can’t tell me you’ve never had a meal with a client before.”

“No, of course, I—”

“That’s all this is, dinner with a client.” He held his hands up. “If it makes you happy, I’ll write it off as a business expense.”

She laughed. “You couldn’t write it off as a business expense, but I could.” She regarded him carefully. “Okay, fine, but I pick up the tab for dinner.” She smiled when he scowled. “You are my client, after all.” 

Aiden sat across the table from the love of his life, watching the candlelight soften her stunning features, and he allowed himself a brief moment to pretend their lives had turned out differently. He imagined they were here celebrating the incredible life they’d built together… when the night was over, they’d be going home to
their
bed.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked, looking up from her leather-bound menu.

He knew he should brush the question off, but he never could lie to her. Honesty was the basis of their relationship; it was the reason he knew she was
the one
, the only one for him. “I was just thinking about what would have happened if I’d stayed.” He reached for his water glass. “Leaving Nashville… leaving you… was my biggest regret. No matter how many years I have to play the game I love, no matter how much money I make, it’ll never make up for what I lost when you left me.”

“I didn’t leave you,” she said, quietly. “You left me.”

“Was that your way of punishin’ me? Is that why you married him a few weeks after I left, because you were tryin’ to make me pay for leavin’ you behind?”

“No, I never begrudged you that opportunity.” She closed the menu and set it aside, giving him her undivided attention. “I know how hard you worked to be a first-round draft pick that year. Vancouver was lucky to get you while Nashville wasn’t even an option. We both knew that.”

“I was an idiot to think we could’ve made a long-distance relationship work. I should’ve proposed to you before I left… I should’ve asked you to move out there with me.”

She shook her head, and he realized she was still grieving for the life they’d lost too. “We were so young, naïve… We didn’t know where life was going to take us.”

He leaned forward to grasp her hand in his. “The one thing I knew back then was that we belonged together. I still feel that way.”

Sela glanced nervously at the dozens of pairs of eyes fixed on them. “We shouldn’t have come here. People haven’t been able to take their eyes off you since we walked in.”

Aiden had signed a few autographs and granted a few pictures, but he sent out the ‘back off’ vibe as soon as they sat down. He loved his fans and he appreciated the well wishes of the hometown enthusiasts who wanted to tell him how happy they were that he was back home, where he belonged, but he knew this may be his only opportunity to put the past to rest and he wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip through his fingers for anything.

He glanced into a semi-private dining room that appeared empty. Beckoning their waiter, he pointed to the empty tables. “Do you mind if we move in there? We’d like a little privacy.”

“Uh, I’m not sure if that room is available, sir.”

Aiden peeled a hundred dollar bill off the roll in his pocket. “If you could make it happen, I’d really appreciate it.”

“Of course, sir. Just give me a moment.”

Sela rolled her eyes. “Does everything come so easily for you?”

“No, but if I want something, I go after it until I get it.” As their eyes locked, they both knew he wasn’t talking about a table in a restaurant. 

“Please, don’t—”

The waiter appeared before she could issue another warning. “Madam, sir, if you’ll just follow me.”

Sela set her napkin beside her plate and followed the waiter into the dining room with Aiden walking at a comfortable distance behind her.

“Do you need a few more minutes with the menu?” the waiter asked.

“I think we do,” he said, glancing at Sela for confirmation. “But in the meantime, could you bring us a bottle of the 2005 Barolo Fontanafredda?”

“Of course, right away, sir.”

She smiled. “I see some things have changed. You were always a beer and blue jeans kind of guy.”

They had both taken time to go home and dress for dinner, agreeing to meet at the restaurant at the appointed time. He suspected it assuaged her guilty conscience, allowing her to believe they were engaging in a client / agent dinner, though they both knew the next few hours would be impossible to navigate without addressing their past.

He smoothed a hand over his light blue, silk tie and grinned. “I clean up pretty good, right?”

She laughed as her eyes lit with genuine appreciation. “You sure do.”

“I could say the same.” His eyes fell to the soft pink dress skimming the curves he used to love to caress. “I always thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on.”

Her smiled slipped before she forced it back in place. “You were young and inexperienced. You’ve been around the world since, I’m sure. I have no doubt the women who’ve warmed your bed in the past eight years could put me to shame.”

“No one could ever put you to shame,” he whispered. “No one has ever even come close to comparing to you.”

“Why are you doing this?”

He hated that it hurt her to relive their mistake, but he knew they couldn’t rectify it until they were willing to face the truth. “Baby, I wouldn’t hurt you for anything. You gotta know that.”

She lowered her head as her eyes landed on the wedding ring on her hand. “I’m the one who should be apologizing, not you.”

“I just wanna know why you did it. Why’d you marry him?”

“I—”

Sela closed her mouth when the waiter re-entered their private haven and Aiden wanted to howl with frustration. They were so close to a breakthrough, he could sense it, but he knew she was still reluctant to disparage her marriage.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” the uniformed gentleman said, smiling at Sela. He proceeded to open the wine Aiden had ordered and offer him a sample.

He swirled it around in his glass before bringing it to his lips. “Very good, thank you.”

“Do you need a few more minutes with the menu?”

“No, that’s fine,” Sela said, glancing at the embossed pages. “I’ll have the tossed salad to start, and the salmon and rice as an entrée. Thank you.”

Aiden didn’t even want to think about food right now, but he didn’t want to risk cutting their time together short by admitting he wasn’t hungry. “I’ll start with the salad as well, followed by filet mignon with the asparagus.” He handed both menus back to the waiter with a curt nod.

When the paneled wood doors finally closed again, Aiden said, “You were about to tell me why you married Neil.” He had been dying to ask the question for eight long years; he only hoped she found the courage to tell him the truth about her motives.

“I was confused,” she said quietly. “Scared, alone…” She sighed. “You were the only guy I’d ever been with and…”

He reached for her hand, silently praying she would continue to open up to him. “And?”

“I don’t have to tell you, Aiden. You remember what it was like. When you’re that young and you lose your first love, it feels like the end of the world. You can’t eat or sleep, you think about the other person all the time, cry over old letters and songs, and…” She smiled through her tears. “We were teenagers for God’s sake.”

He remembered how he felt the day she’d called him and told him she married a man he considered his brother. It felt like his two worlds were colliding, the woman and career he loved crashing into one other with a deafening finality that echoed in his ears every time he closed his eyes.

“We’re not teenagers anymore, Sela. So how do you describe this?” He gestured between them. “The connection is as strong as it ever was.”

When she started to protest, he held his hand up. “Don’t even try to deny it. We may not have been a part of each other’s lives for years, but I still know you. I know when you’re happy, when you’re sad, when there’s somethin’ weighin’ on your mind… like now. What is it, baby? You know you can tell me.”

A soft knock on the door announced the waiter was returning with their appetizer.

Aiden waited while he placed the salads in front of them and offered accoutrements before exiting the room. “Just tell me, whatever it is. I need to know.”

“Neil and I were friends, just like you and Sharon were.” She smiled. “I know you went to see her, by the way.”

He couldn’t say he was surprised Sela’s best friend had snitched on him. He knew the two women were as close as sisters and Sharon’s loyalty lay with her friend, first and foremost. He couldn’t blame her for that. “It was nice seein’ her again. It took me back.”

“She said the same thing.” She ran her fork through the crisp greens covering her plate. “She always thought the world of you.”

“The four of us were so tight back in high school. What the hell happened?”

“Well, you know that Sharon met James when she went to visit her aunt in Oklahoma the summer after our senior year. He was working in his uncle’s garage, trying to save money to go to college here in Nashville, remember?”

“Honey, everything was a blur back then. I was travelin’ everywhere, checkin’ out different cities, talkin’ to teams with my agent…” He shook his head. He didn’t want to waste any more time thinking it. “So Sharon broke up with Neil because she had feelings for James, right?”

“Yeah.” She set her fork down and reached for her wine glass.

“Do you mind?” he asked, raising his own glass.

“Of course not.”

“Here’s to traveling the course and ultimately finding your way home.”

“Cheers,” she said quietly, touching her glass to his.

“I remember Neil didn’t take the break-up too well. I’m ashamed to admit I wasn’t much of a friend when he needed me. I was too caught up in everything that was happening in my own life, tryin’ to figure out how you and I were gonna make things work when I had to leave Nashville.” He took a sip of the wine as he waited for her to comment.

“Neil was devastated when Sharon broke up with him. You know how serious they were.”

Almost as serious as he and Sela, which is why none of this made sense to him. “I remember. So, did Sharon ever tell you what it was about Neil that made her question their relationship?”

“Yeah, she said he was too jealous, possessive, needy…” She looked down at her plate, as though she was battling with her conscience over the prospect of revealing too much. “We all know he has problems that stem from his messed-up childhood, but I think he thought Sharon could help him fix what was broken, ya know?”

Aiden almost felt sorry for his old friend when he remembered how out of control he’d been during their senior year. He almost blew his shot at the big leagues when his drinking and reckless behavior made him a risk to the scouts interested in him. “So he dealt with his feelings for Sharon by marryin’ you? Why would you agree to that, knowin’ he still wanted your best friend?”

“Neil and I were both kind of lost, to tell you the truth. He was trying to come to terms with Sharon finding someone else and I was trying to figure out how I was going to move on without you.”

“Damn it, Sela. It wasn’t supposed to be that way and you know it.” He clenched his fork as he bit back a curse. “We were staying connected, and I was gonna spend the summers in Nashville. I thought we had it all figured out, then you call me up outta nowhere and tell me you married Neil. Do you know what that did to me?”

He knew she could read the despair in his eyes, but he was past the point of caring. If they had been face-to-face when she broke the news to him eight years ago, she would have seen a side to him she never saw before because he never experienced despair like that in his life. Everything that meant anything to him was suddenly gone and he knew it was too late to get it back.

“I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”

“How can you say that to me?” He knew putting her on the defensive was the worst course of action, but he couldn’t contain the anger and frustration anymore. “You destroyed me, both of you. What you did… what you both did… that was the worst kind of betrayal. If it had been anyone else, maybe I could’ve come to terms with it, but Neil? Why the hell did it have to be him?”