He no longer looked shell-shocked. Juliette didn’t know of any other word to describe how he’d looked earlier. But something had caused his earlier reaction, and she wanted to help him if she could.
“No, not really. I’d rather be with you.” Unsure of how he’d react if she touched him, she moved closer but kept her arms by her side. “Is everything okay? You seemed upset at my uncle’s house. Do you want to talk about it?”
Aaron raked a hand down his face and then through his hair. “You’d be….” Rather than continue, he paused and closed his eyes. When he opened them, the pain she saw almost knocked her to the floor.
“My cousin Troy and I were close. Much the same way you are with your cousins. Seven years ago, your uncle’s neighbor Bryon Casella had a whole cocktail of drugs and alcohol in his system when he killed my cousin in a car accident. Troy’s girlfriend survived, but she spent weeks in the hospital and then months going to physical therapy. Bryon and his sister walked away unharmed.”
What did she say to that? “I’m sorry” didn’t come close to being adequate, but what else was there? “I’m so sorry, Aaron. I can’t even imagine how you must have felt.” She couldn’t even begin to imagine losing her siblings or cousins in a similar fashion.
“Do you know how much time Bryon spent in jail?”
She didn’t know, and by the tone of Aaron’s voice, she didn’t want to either. “No.”
“None. He had his license suspended and got probation. And you know why, don’t you?” Even if she’d had a response, he didn’t give her a chance to offer it. “Because money can buy just about anything, and his parents had plenty of it.”
Hugging him might not be the right move, but she didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t push her away, but he didn’t put his arms around her like he usually did either.
“I couldn’t stay there and be around him.”
She understood that. In a similar position, she would have left too. “I’ve bumped into Bryon at parties and whatnot, but I don’t know him well. You won’t have to see him again, I promise.”
Aaron laughed sarcastically, sending an uneasy chill down her spine. “Great, I just have to be around people like him and his family.”
People like him? How should she interpret that? And did she even want to know? Before she made up her mind, either way, he stepped away from her.
“You know what? I need a little time alone.” He ran his fingers through his hair again. “I’m going to change and go downstairs for a swim. I’ll be back in a little while.”
Sometimes you needed to be alone. She understood that too, at least intellectually. Emotionally was another matter. “Okay. I’ll be here.”
She waited on the sofa while Aaron went into the bedroom and changed. Once he left, she went in and put on the pajamas she’d packed. She didn’t bother to hang up her dress before pulling back the blankets and climbing into the king-sized bed. Earlier in the evening, she’d imagined climbing into it with Aaron while wearing far fewer clothes. Instead, she was flipping through the television stations while Aaron went for a swim. Talk about the night not going as she’d expected.
After going through all the channels more than once, she settled on a history channel and tossed the remote on the nightstand. They shouldn’t have gone tonight. If they’d stayed in Avon, he never would’ve seen Bryon or the Casellas. Perhaps someday, in the distant future, he would’ve still told her about his cousin. However, doing so might have been less painful if he hadn’t just seen the man responsible.
Be around people like him. Aaron’s words repeated in her head while the narrator on the television talked about the building of Stonehenge. She wanted to believe he meant people who used their money to get out of trouble. And no question about it, people like that existed. In fact, she’d bet Bryon’s family wasn’t the only one at the fundraiser guilty of doing it.
The large knot in her stomach suggested her interpretation wasn’t accurate. “It’ll be fine.” Maybe if she heard the words, not only thought them, she’d believe them. “Aaron just needs some time alone.”
She heard the suite door open, and soon after, Aaron entered the bedroom with a towel draped over his shoulders. The frown he’d worn when he left remained fixed in place, and the knot in her stomach grew.
“How was your swim?” Not even the threat of torture
would get her to ask the question really on her mind.
“Not bad. I had the pool to myself.” He grabbed clothes from his suitcase and headed toward the bathroom. “I’ll be right back.”
Her cell phone on the nightstand chimed, and a glance at the screen revealed a text from Addie asking if everything was okay.
Beats me. Juliette kept the thought to herself and instead sent Addie a simple yes.
“We can look for something else to watch or turn the television off. It’s up to you,” Juliette said when Aaron came back into the room. She’d seen Stonehenge, and while it was an impressive structure, she didn’t care about what part of England the stones came from or how the builders transported them.
Aaron climbed into bed and repositioned his pillows behind him. “Do you mind putting on the baseball game? The Red Sox are playing the Angels in Los Angeles tonight.”
Yep, she hadn’t imagined watching the Red Sox play tonight, but if that’s what he wanted, she’d put the game on.
For a long time, Aaron had stared at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep. When he finally did, it hadn’t been a restful sleep. Instead, the memories from Troy’s funeral and Bryon’s trial plagued him. Thankfully, he hadn’t stayed asleep long. Rather than linger in bed, he went into the other room and turned on game one of the 1986 World Series. It’d been either the game or a documentary about the Giza Plateau. Not that it mattered much in the long run what he put on, because he didn’t pay much attention to the television. Even if it’d been this year’s World Series and his favorite team had been playing, his thoughts would have remained focused on the events of the previous evening and the woman sleeping in the other room.
Over a month ago, when Candace pushed him to invite Juliette over, he’d admitted he would’ve considered it if she was like so many of the guests who stayed there. But since she wasn’t, he had wanted nothing to do with Juliette, because people like her lived in a world that played by a different set of rules. The weekend the power went out, and she stayed with him, he began to see her more as someone he genuinely liked and enjoyed spending time with and less as an individual who had the money and influence to get away with anything—even the killing of another person. At some point between then and now, she’d gone from being someone he enjoyed spending time with to someone he cared about. Not only did he care about her, but for the most part, he never thought about the influential people she was related to or the connections she had. Unfortunately, that started to change last night when they walked into her aunt and uncle’s house. Seeing Bryon and knowing his parents were not only there but also her aunt and uncle’s neighbors drove home the knowledge that Juliette existed in a part of society far removed from him. A part he’d have to put up with if he stayed in Juliette’s life, and honestly, he didn’t know if he could do it even for her. Until he reached a decision, it was probably in both their best interests to take a break from each other.