Aaron: Casanova Club #7 Page 8

  As I studied her, dreamy thoughts washed over me. I knew the impulse immediately and rolled over to open my nightstand. I fumbled around the drawer blindly until I laid hands on my little black notebook, bound with elastic that secured a pen to the front. Once I pulled it out, I tugged the pen free, flipped the book open, and raised my right leg so I could rest the book on my knee and frantically scribble the thoughts that poured from my mind through the tip of the pen.

  Between sentences, I stole glances at Piper. She still slept soundlessly, perfectly, and I got caught up in the shadows her lashes cast on her fair, freckled cheeks.

  She must have been dreaming. Her eyes danced behind her eyelids, her lashes fluttered, and her breathing shifted.

  And still I wrote.

  Piper stirred about fifteen minutes after I’d picked up my pen. I was midway through finishing off my stream of consciousness on the notepad when she lifted her head from the pillow, blinked sleepily at me, and then lit my room up with a smile.

  I smiled back. “Good morning.”

  “Morning,” she said, propping herself up on one elbow and turning to the side to better face me. She was vulnerable in her nakedness. Not prideful or shy, just vulnerable and open and honest.

  I wished I was an artist so I could paint the lines of her body and capture her essence with more than just words.

  “Good morning,” I said after realizing I’d been smiling at her and thinking a thousand things at once as the seconds passed.

  She rubbed at her face, leaving smudges of mascara under her eyes and up toward her brows. Then she indulged in a yawn, covered her mouth, and flopped back down on my pillow. “You have the most comfortable bed in the world.”

  I chuckled. “A writer needs their sleep as much as they can get it. Which isn’t often.”

  She peered at me with one eye. “Did you sleep well last night?”

  “Better than I have in months.”

  “Likewise. And holy shit. My legs hurt from all that dancing. And my ass.”

  I laughed. “You did nearly dance it off.”

  She flashed me a wicked little smile. “It was worth it.” Her eyes flicked down to the notepad still resting on my knee, and she propped herself back up on both elbows and clasped her hands under her chin. “What do you have there?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It doesn’t look like nothing.”

  I glanced at the notepad hidden from her view by my hand, poised over the page with my pen. “I woke up and started writing.”

  “About?”

  “You.”

  “Oh,” Piper said curiously, raising an eyebrow.

  “It’s in the early stages. Just rambles. You know. Word vomit.”

  “May I read it?”

  No.

  Yes.

  Fuck.

  She was being open and vulnerable with me. And she’d showed me time and time again that she was trustworthy and that she liked my work. What was the harm in letting her read what I’d quickly penned? She wouldn’t say wicked things. Hell, she wouldn’t even think them to herself.

  I swallowed. “May I read it to you?”

  Piper’s smile broadened, and she sat up. The blankets fell down around her waist, and she didn’t bother pulling them back up. Instead, she draped them over her lap, crossed her legs, and pulled one of my pillows in front of her to rest her elbows on it. “Please do.”

  I licked my lips and stared at the little notebook in my hands. It had been a long, long time since I read aloud to an audience. Sure, one person didn’t count as an audience, but the nerves were still real; the self-doubt, the anxiety, the fear that my words would change things. It was all there, right at the surface, ready to pour out of me.

  But I kept those feelings at bay and, instead, focused on letting the words pour out of me instead.

  “She sleeps upon linen sheets like the girl you’ve always dreamed of but never met. She’s chaos and memories and whispers; things you can feel but can’t touch. She is free. Her skin, fair and smooth, sails on the waves of the bed like a blank canvas ready to be filled with all your hopes of what could be. What might be. If you were lucky enough to have her once, you might be lucky enough to have her again. But like the girl in your dreams, she won’t stay. Not for long. And once she’s gone, your sheets will be empty and dark and yearning for her skin, like your hands and your heart, and your only solace will be time—and the memories and whispers you shared with her.”

  Piper looked from the notebook in my hands to my eyes. Her expression was neutral but soft. “Aaron, that was beautiful. You just wrote that?”

  I nodded.

  “Wow. I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. They’re just ramblings.”

  “No, they’re not,” she whispered. “They’re what’s in your heart.”

  “Maybe.”

  Piper bit her bottom lip. “You don’t have to be guarded with me. I don’t want to be with you. And I’m sorry that I have to leave at the end of the month. But for the record, I feel lucky to have had you, too.”

  She’d seen right through my words to the truth: I was going to miss her.

  I closed the notebook and tossed it over to my nightstand. “You’d better feel lucky. I’m amazing.”

  Piper smiled and then giggled. “That, you are.” She adjusted herself once more on the bed, shifting to lay back down on her side, draw the blankets up, and smile up at me. “Nobody has ever written or said anything so nice about me before.”

  “I find that very hard to believe.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Maybe they have, and they just haven’t had the nerve to read it out loud to you.”

  She pursed her lips together. “Possible but unlikely. Even if they had, it wouldn’t sound like that. That was… poetic, for lack of a better word.”

  I chuckled and laid down to face her. “Well, thank you. I’m flattered.”

  “As am I. Thank you for sharing it with me. What a wonderful way to start my day.”

  “Speaking of starting the day, should we hit the kitchen and whip up some breakfast? If I don’t eat something soon, this hangover is going to ruin me.”

  Piper laughed and rolled over to swing her legs over the side of the bed. She stood up and walked to my bedroom door, pausing to look back at me over her shoulder. She caught me staring at her bare ass and gave me a coy smile. “I’m going to throw on some clothes.”

  “Must you?”

  She winked. “Cooking naked is never a good idea. Burns in bad places.”

  I pouted. “I’ll cook. You just watch.”

  Piper’s bubbly laughter filled the room again. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll put on the bare minimum. That goes for you too, writer boy.”

  “Writer boy?”

  “It suits you.”

  “I don’t hate it.”

  “Even if you did, I’d still call you it.”

  I grinned and waved her off. “All right. Go change. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  As per Piper’s request, I arrived in the kitchen five minutes later in nothing but a pair of boxers and an open linen button up. She emerged from her bedroom in a pair of bikini-style underwear with little pink bows all over them and a loose powder-pink sweater that hung off one shoulder.

  There was only word floating through my mind now.

  Babe.

  Piper started rummaging through my cupboards and pulled out some pans before going to the fridge and retrieving eggs, peppers, onions, spinach, and cheese.

  “Can I help?” I asked, realizing pretty quickly that she was planning on cooking for the both of us.

  “You can wash the vegetables.” She pointed her chin at the kitchen sink.

  I had the water running when Piper stole a glance at her cell phone on the kitchen island. It was vibrating as a call came in. She wiped her hands on her sweater and picked up her phone, waggling it at me. “Sorry, Aaron. This is my dad. I have to take it.”


  “Go ahead. I’ll start dicing.”

  She offered me a smile as a thank you before ducking back into her bedroom, and I hoped for her sake that everything with her father was okay.

  Selfishly, I worried that if they weren’t, I was going to lose her sooner rather than later. And after last night, I wasn’t prepared to give up these last two weeks with Piper.

  Not even close.

  Chapter 13

  Piper

  “Hi, Dad,” I said as I softly closed my bedroom door behind me.

  “Piper.” My dad’s warm voice filled the phone. “How’s my girl?”

  “I’m good. I’m really good. But I miss all of you. How are things? How are you feeling?”

  “Slow down, Pipes.” My dad chuckled.

  I gnawed at the inside of my cheek as I padded over to the bed.

  Did my dad know Phillip had already called and told me everything that was happening? Was he calling to tell me himself?

  “Sorry,” I muttered as I sank down onto the bed and drew my knees up to my chest. Worry chewed at my insides as fiercely as I chewed at my cheek—until I drew blood.

  “All is well for us back home, Piper. You don’t need to worry yourself over it.”

  Liar. “That’s good,” I said, hearing the disbelief in my voice. “Phillip called me the other day, you know.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. And he told me about your surgery.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you have a date yet?” I asked.

  My dad was quiet on the other end. I could picture him now, probably standing in the back room of the office, surrounded by extra dishes, cutlery, and filing cabinets filled with years and years of tax and insurance documents, employee records; all physical proof of the good old days from years and years ago.

  “Dad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, you have a date?”

  My father let out a long sigh. “I do. Less than a week from now. The twenty-first.”

  “The twenty-first?”

  “Yes. That’s good news, Piper. The less time between now and the surgery, the better. I’m sick of this bed rest. And this has been no good for your mother. Once I recover from surgery, things can go back to how they were. How they’re supposed to be. Your mother won’t have to do all the heavy lifting in my place and—”

  “Daddy,” I said firmly, “recovery takes twelve weeks. At least. And that’s so long as there are no complications. How are you guys going to pay for this? Where is the money coming from? Do you have to—”

  “Piper.” My father’s voice held a warning to it. Authority. “I’m your father. You don’t need to worry about money. It’s my responsibility to handle these things. And it’s my heart. Your mother and I have this covered.”

  I couldn’t help myself. “How?”

  “We’ve never talked money, Piper. I’m not going to start now. You just focus on your studies. But I must admit, it would be nice to have you there when I go in. There are things that can go wrong, and I…” My father trailed off as his voice got thick and shaky. I heard him swallow. “I want to see your face before I go into surgery.”

  “Oh. Daddy. I—”

  “It’s all right if you can’t make it, Pipes. I understand. You have a lot on your plate right now. Besides, all you’re missing is me in one of those really pretty hospital gowns. Ass out. You know.” He chuckled, but it sounded forced.

  He was trying to distract me from how serious this was. It was his go-to tactic. When my grandmother was sick, he’d distracted me with humor. And after she passed away, he used the same strategy at her funeral to keep me smiling. I learned from the master that humor was a wonderful reprieve from sorrow, and if someone was trying to make you laugh in your darkest times, they were a true friend.

  But this was different.

  “Dad, can we talk seriously for a minute?”

  “Of course, Pipes.”

  How was I going to say this? How was I going to tell him my deepest thoughts without hurting him?

  I just had to say it. His life was on the line, after all. And so was his and my mother’s future.

  “Dad, I think you should sell the restaurant.”

  “Piper, we’ve been over this enough. I’ve told you already, I’m not—”

  “You’re not interested in selling. I know. But sometimes, we have to make sacrifices. Sometimes, the thing we think we want is the thing that’s holding us down. The thing that’s more of a burden than it is a luxury. Do you know what I’m trying to say?”

  “Piper’s Paradise is my legacy. Your mother’s legacy. And when we aren’t around anymore, it will be yours and Phillip’s.”

  I blinked tears from my eyes as I lifted my face to gaze at the ceiling. “Daddy, I would way rather have you and Mom in my life than the restaurant. And the stress that place puts on you two is going to take you away from me. I can feel it in my bones. It’s time to—”

  “Enough, Piper.”

  “But Daddy, please. Just think about it. Think about Mom.”

  “I am thinking about her.”

  I bit down on my bottom lip to stop myself from arguing. I didn’t want a repeat of the fight we had the other month. I couldn’t bear it. I was already drowning in my guilt for not being there for my father or my family right now. They were facing this alone. If I was there, I could do so much to help. I could scrounge up a way to at least get a little business coming through the restaurant. I could take more shifts at the university library. I could get another job and work nights. I could do whatever it took to make things better and start cracking away at the debt my parents were being buried under.

  But I wasn’t there.

  I was here. In the bedroom of a billionaire’s house, about to indulge in a delightful breakfast after an even more delightful night of dancing and lovemaking.

  I swallowed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m just scared, Dad. I’m really scared.”

  “I know, Pipes. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. But I’m going to be okay. These surgeries have insanely low risk and extremely high recovery rates. I’ll be back on my feet before you know it.”

  He’d misunderstood me. I wasn’t just scared about the surgery. I was scared about all of it.

  “Okay, I love you,” I said.

  “I love you too. We’ll talk soon, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  My father hung up the phone, and I sat staring at my blank screen for several minutes.

  There was a quick fix to this. An easy one. One that would be as quick as me snapping my fingers.

  But it was a big ask.

  Aaron had offered to pay for my father’s surgery like he was offering to buy me a coffee. Like it cost him nothing. I had no concept of how much money was actually sitting in his bank account, but the fact that he was a Casanova bachelor meant there was a shit ton.

  Times infinity.

  He had copious amounts of money, and the price of my father’s surgery probably wouldn’t even make a penny-sized hole in his account.

  But it was still asking a lot. I needed advice. So, I called Janie.

  She answered right away. “Pipes! My girl. My love. My one and only. How are you?”

  “Janie, I need to talk to you.”

  “What’s wrong?” Her chipper tone evaporated. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at Aaron’s. Janie, relax. This isn’t about me.”

  “Oh,” she said, and I could hear the stress leave her voice immediately. “What’s up?”

  “My dad is going in for open-heart surgery on the twenty-first.”

  “What? Since when?”

  “Since he almost had a heart attack a week and a half ago and Phillip forced him to go to the hospital. They pushed his date up to get him in quicker.”

  “Jesus. Okay. Are you going to make it back in time?”

  “I don’t know.”

 
; “You should try.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I will. But that’s a conversation for another time. I have a predicament on my hands about how my mom and dad are going to be able to afford this.”

  Janie knew the ins and outs of my parents’ financial situation. It was the biggest stressor in my life, and seeing as how Janie was my best friend, she’d been a shoulder for me to cry on over this matter at least a dozen times over the last few years.

  “I think it’s pretty simple, Pipes. They can’t afford it.”

  I loved how honest she was. No bullshit. No thinly veiled words to try to make me feel better.

  “I know. But I might be able to pull something off.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Aaron offered to pay for the surgery.”

  Janie sucked in a breath. “Did he now? What a gem.”

  “Yes, I know. He’s very sweet. And kind. And wonderful. And—”

  “You’re gushing. Get on with it, Pipes.”

  “Sorry. Anyway, he offered to pay, but that’s a lot of money. And I feel guilty accepting it when I know deep down, I won’t be able to reciprocate the way he wants. Or expects. And if there are strings attached, I don’t want to get caught up in all that.”

  “Well,” Janie said slowly. “If there are strings attached, then he’s not as sweet and kind as you say he is. Do you think he’d want to make an arrangement, or was this just as simple as him wanting to give you the money and you’re making a bigger deal out of it because you feel weird about it?”

  I frowned. “Probably the latter.”

  “Listen to me, Piper. Aaron has a lot of money. Like, a lot of money. He’s been writing bestsellers for eight years, and they’re not just best sellers in the United States. He’s a global success. The guy’s bank account probably has more money than he knows what to do with. If he’s willing to help out, why not accept his offer? This is your dad we’re talking about here.”

  “Exactly. Even if I accepted the money, my father never would.”

  “True.”