“No, the case is ongoing.”
“Ongoing?” I roll my eyes. “In other words, you’re waiting for a clue to walk up and slap you in the face.”
He chuckles. “Never heard it been put like that before.”
“Then, what’s up? Why are you here? I assume it’s not for a beer. Pops said you wanted to see me.”
I will kill Pops. Kill him dead. If he recognized Aiden and decided it was time for me to confront my high school bully.
“Yeah, yeah, I did.” He clears his throat. “Actually, I have something to show you.”
I lean away from him. “Dude, I’m sure it’s impressive and all, but I’ll pass.”
He grins. “I never knew you were funny. You weren’t funny in high school.”
The smile dies on my face. How the hell would he know what I was like in high school? When he wasn’t teasing me back then, he was avoiding me like the plague. I start scooching my way back out of the booth. “Maybe you should leave.”
“Wait.” He grabs my arm and stops me. I almost jump when a current of electricity flows between us. The hairs on my arms stand up and I tingle in all the right places. Damn it. Not all the right places. Not when we’re talking about Aiden freaking Barnes.
He yanks his hand away. He stares at his hand as if he felt the current between us, too. But he couldn’t have, could he? He clears his throat. “Please stay. I do have something to show you.”
I stare at him for a long moment with a frown on my face. I know I should act like an adult and let bygones be bygones and all, but it’s not like I can suddenly stop being angry at him. “Fine, then.”
I turn to shout at Pops to bring me another beer, but he’s standing right in front of me already. “Thought you might be thirsty,” he says as he plops two beers down on the table. He glares at Aiden for a good thirty seconds before grunting and retreating.
I pull the beer toward me. I take a sip and think fuck it and chug half of it. “I’m waiting. What do you have to show me?” I try to sound aloof, but I’m dying of curiosity over here.
He reaches down to the seat next to him and brings up a book. And not just any book either. Nope. It’s our senior yearbook. Oh, goody. As if I haven’t been reminded of my disastrous high school years enough in the past week.
“I want to show you something.” He waits for me to respond but I’m done talking. He flips through the pages until he lands on the page with pictures of seniors starting with the letter M. And right there in the middle of the page is me – Hailey “Heartsick” McGraw.
Aiden taps the picture. “You’re mad at me for not remembering you. But I do remember you. I just didn’t recognize you.”
Damn it. He has a good argument. Unlike most kids who are freed from their braces in junior high, I had braces until my first year of college. I also wore glasses, which – thanks to the miracle of laser surgery – I no longer wear. And then there’s the hair. Oh, the hair. I had no idea how to tame my out of control hair back then. It wasn’t until a tutor at college pulled me aside and introduced me to the miracle of hair products that I learned how to conquer my curls.
“Although I gotta say, I miss the hair.”
Insert eye roll. He misses the hair? No one misses the mess my hair used to be. Least of all me. Combing the tangles out of my mass of curls was torture every single day of high school. I am not going back there.
“I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. I guess I didn’t expect the drama-obsessed teenager to turn into a take-no-prisoners PI.” He clears his throat. “Can we start over?”
He doesn’t get it, does he? Even if I can admit there’s a pretty good reason he didn’t recognize me, there’s another perfectly good reason I’m not ready to be his best friend. Did he forget he bullied me all through high school?
I cross my arms over my chest and lean against the back of the booth. “Have you forgotten the rest?” He looks confused. Being the generous person I am, I fill him in. “How you teased and tortured me all throughout high school?”
He shakes his head. “No, not me. It was my friends.”
“Lame. Sorry, officer, peer pressure made me be an asshole.”
His cheeks catch fire. “I admit I should have said something to them. I did try to protect you.”
Snort. Yeah, right.
“No, really. I did. Whenever I saw you in the hallway, I’d turn around before anyone could see you.”
My eyes widen. He wasn’t avoiding me? He was protecting me? Yeah, no. I’m not ready to drink the Kool-Aid.
“What if I can prove it to you?”