“Hey, Aiden, are you on your way?” Kane asked when Aiden hit the answer button on his steering wheel. He’d been hoping it was Lily calling to tell him she’d changed her mind and wanted to see him, but it was Kane calling about the barbeque.
“Sorry, man. I’m gonna skip it today.”
He heard a little shuffling, like Kane was moving the phone from one ear to the other, before he replied. “Hey, you sound like crap. You okay?”
Aiden grunted in response.
“It’s Lily, isn’t it? You just have to go get her back, Aiden. You’ve been miserable without her. Go tell her you screwed up and you’ll do anything to make it up to her.”
Aiden could hear a female voice in the background, and he knew Elise was chiming in as well.
“I tried that. She didn’t want to hear it.” He gritted his teeth as he turned onto the highway. He really didn’t want to have this conversation. He wanted to throw something, or hit someone or break shit. And, he definitely didn’t want to go to a barbeque. If he did, he’d end up picking a fight with one of the guys just to try to stop feeling like this. To stop feeling as if he’d just lost the greatest thing to ever happen to him.
There was the sound of the phone moving around again and muffled voices before Elise’s voice came through over the Bluetooth in his car.
“Aiden, tell me exactly what she said.”
Aiden groaned. Great. Reliving it. This sounded like a good plan. “She said she had fun with me, but now it’s over. Oh, and she’s moved on. She found a new guy. It’s been nine days and she’s freaking moved on.”
“No, she hasn’t,” Elise said. “She just wants you to think that. She’s hurt and she’s scared, Aiden, but you can’t give up just because she’s trying to protect herself.”
“What do you mean? How do you know that?” He pulled off the highway and turned into a gas station parking lot so he could pay attention to Elise.
“A girl like Lily doesn’t just ‘have fun’ with a guy. She’s not like that, even if she promised you that’s what she was doing in the beginning. And, a girl like Lily doesn’t just get over a guy like you and move on in a little over a week. That’s just not going to happen.”
“Definitely not,” came another female voice in the background, clearly raised, and yelling into the phone, trying to be heard in the background.
“Who’s that?” Aiden asked.
“It’s Ashlyn. She thinks you’re an idiot, too.”
“Great. So what do I do?”
“Come over here. We’ll brainstorm.”
Aiden shook his head, even though they couldn’t see him. No way was he going over there now. “I can’t come over there with all the guys while you try to figure out how to fix my relationship with Lily. The guys’ll have a field day with that.”
“Hang on.”
He heard muffled talking and then Elise was back on the line.
“Meet me and Ashlyn at your place. We’ll be there in thirty minutes.” And, then she hung up.
Aiden shook his head again. He truly was clueless when it came to women. And, apparently, that wasn’t limited to the ones he was dating. It seemed to encompass his friends’ wives and girlfriends as well.