Blame It On The Carols (Sugarplum Falls #6)

Seven | Aiden

Seven

Aiden

I t was hard being around Makayla and not touching her like I wanted to. It wasn’t my fault that my body refused to forget the insane chemistry we had or that every time she walked past me, I smelled the familiar scent of the coconut shampoo she used. Her heart had imprinted on mine long ago, and there was nothing I could do about that.

After we closed for the night, I sent Jackie home while I finished up. There wasn’t much to do since she’d already had the kitchen crew clean up and prep for tomorrow. But still, I needed to keep myself busy so my mind would stay off of Makayla.

“What else do you need help with?” Sam asked, carrying the cleaning stuff he’d used to wipe down the tables. I’d told him he didn’t need to stick around since it was so late and he had an early day tomorrow. He was supposed to sell the lattes, not drink all of them.

“I think that’s it. I’m just closing out the register, and then I’ll be done.”

“Cool. I’ll hang out for a few then.”

I looked over my shoulder as he sat on the barstool and folded his hands in front of him on the counter.

“Don’t you need to get some sleep? You’re going to be struggling in the morning if you try to pull an all-nighter. We’re not in our twenties anymore,” I teased.

“You act like we’re old.” He rolled his eyes. “You just barely turned thirty a few months ago, and I’m only thirty-five. We still have plenty of youth in us.”

“Yeah, but you’re already yawning,” I pointed out as he tried to hide it behind his hand. “You have work tomorrow, while I don’t have to be back until tomorrow evening. I don’t want you to be exhausted because of me.”

“I’m fine,” he said, waving dismissively. “Besides, Mary is opening tomorrow. I don’t have to be in until the afternoon. We have a few new hires, so I’m going in to show them around, and then we’ll do some of their training after we close.”

“You guys have had a lot of new hires lately. Why aren’t any of them working out?”

He shrugged and leaned his head back on his shoulders.

“I don’t know. I guess a lot of them are still young and don’t really want to work. Most of them have been high school kids, and we all know how that goes. No one likes to get up that early to come to work, and in my line of business, our day starts before the rooster crows.”

I nodded because I knew how that went. I’d gone through the same thing a few months ago looking for bussers to help clean up with the evening crowd. It was light work, mainly clearing the tables and washing dishes, but no one wanted to do it.

It was quiet for a few minutes while I finished closing out the register. I stuffed the cash and the paperwork into the money bag and then put it in the safe so Jackie could take it to the bank in the morning.

“You ready to go?” I asked, pulling my keys out of my pocket so I could lock up.

As we headed out into the cold, Sam stopped and stared at me.

“I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’m going to say it anyway.”

I pulled my shoulders back and waited.

“Makayla still looks at you the same way she did six years ago.”

My heart plummeted in my chest because as much as I wanted his words to be true, I knew that they weren’t.

“We’re just friends,” I lied, mainly because I wasn’t sure you could even call us friends at this point.

He shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets as we headed toward our vehicles.

“I’m just saying, you didn’t see how she looked at you when she thought you weren’t looking. I know that look, Aiden. And I know you well enough to know that you’re going to do everything in your power to avoid allowing yourself to see it. But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t come to you, offering you some sage advice and shit,” he teased, nudging my arm with his.

“Part of me wishes that were true,” I admitted, glancing at him over my shoulder. “I miss her. Having her here has been a harsh reminder of what I lost. But the fact remains that I can’t give her what she wants. It doesn’t matter whether I still love her because deep down, I know that what she loves isn’t me.”