You and Me Baby Read online

  He followed her instructions but stopped short of the U-turn because there on Maple Street was a half full parking lot, right up next to the town’s one and only old, greasy spoon restaurant.

  They had a bar.

  “Hallelujah,” Aiden said, parking the rental car and vowing to make this a merry Christmas after all.

  “Take one down, pass it around…”

  Two hours later, Aiden squinted, trying to remember just how many bottles of beer there had been.

  “A whole lotta beer on the wall,” he sung softly to himself, making a general estimate.

  He scratched his head. On the wall. That was a funny saying. Why was the beer on the wall? Why would you take it down and pass it around when it would make better sense just to drink it all yourself?

  Kids’ songs didn’t make sense. Kinda like that song about a baby falling through the trees in its cradle. (And furthermore, why was a song about a drinking party a kids’ song?)

  Aiden got a little philosophical when he was drunk. Some guys got angry, and some got loopy. Not him. He could solve the world’s problems after a few beers. Couldn’t solve his own, unfortunately, as he’d sat here at the bar, watching the crowds come in, enjoy, and leave, wondering what he was going to do with his life now if things didn’t work out as easily as he hoped they would.

  Maybe beer didn’t make him philosophical. Maybe it just made him depressed.

  This depressing thought was reason enough to grab another drink.

  He looked down the length of the bar, searching for the guy who’d been serving him most of the night, but he couldn’t find anyone there. Frowning, he turned around in his seat to see if there were any waitresses maybe, waiters, anyone who worked here…

  He’d turned halfway on his stool just as she was turning back to the front of the restaurant.

  Her.

  He recognized her.

  That wasn’t saying anything shocking, as he should have been able to recognize most of the people in this town. But what was saying something was that she recognized him, too, given the way her eyes widened slightly as they met his.

  Then, her lips settled into a thin line.

  “You!” Aiden yelled, causing her to take a deep breath and look around apologetically at the other diners before she made her way over to him, resignation in the movement.

  She’d already seen him then, and she’d been avoiding coming over to his side of the restaurant.

  Why, though?

  Well, who cared, honestly. The good news was that she couldn’t keep avoiding him, not with him yelling for her.

  Smart guy, Aiden.

  “I remember you!” he shouted. Outright shouted it, because he was feeling good at the remembrance.

  And wow. She looked good, too.

  She was wearing her long brown hair down, just like she had back in high school. Probably impractical for working in a restaurant, but it sure did look nice. It gave her a distinctly feminine look, which was only enhanced by those curves she wasn’t hiding in her jeans and a T-shirt, her stance as she finally stood before him casual and relaxed.

  Her blue eyes, though, looked angry.

  Still hot, though.

  “You remember me?” she asked, her expression stony, cold.

  “Louise,” he said, pounding the table. “Your name is Louise.”

  She tilted her head at this and studied him for a long moment.

  He’d gotten it wrong, hadn’t he?

  He let his mind click through the other possibilities. Unfortunately, feeling good like he did also made his brain work a little slower.

  “Uhh… Linda?”

  She just stared at him.

  Not a Louise or a Linda. Hmm.

  “Liz? Lisa? Lucy?”

  Still a nope.

  It was right there, right on the tip of his tongue. He could see her, there at the high school library, studying, shooting him a filthy look when he and his friends would come in and take over the table nearest to her, spreading out all their textbooks as they waited for the nerds who were going to come and tutor them, coaches’ orders.

  Laney. Lynn. Or…

  “LAURIE!”

  He shouted that one, too, but only because he knew he had gotten it right. Laurie Roberts. Hot diggity.

  And wow. She was hot! She just got better and better looking the longer he sat here staring at her.

  “Aiden Pearson,” she noted, still frowning at him.

  “You got it on the first try!” he laughed. “Laurie Roberts. You were always smart like that.”

  “Yeah, well, that was one of us, at least.”

  Wait a minute. Ouch.

  He looked to see if she was joking. She wasn’t, judging by the unfeeling expression on her face.

  Did she just call him stupid?

  Quite possibly. (And wow, maybe she was onto something because he couldn’t rightly figure out if she’d meant to insult him so spectacularly. Congratulations, Aiden. You are stupid!)

  Laurie Roberts. Hot and smart.

  “Good for you,” he said, raising his bottle to her, noting that it was nearly empty. “I’ll need another one of these.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m cutting you off.”

  “Why? I haven’t had too much.”

  “Oh, yes, you have.”

  Well, maybe. But who was she to be making that call?

  “Am I missing something here?” he asked.

  “Pardon?”

  “Do you spend evenings hitting the bar, policing guys on the number of drinks they can have?” he asked. “Because if so, Laurie, you need to get a hobby. But you didn’t have many of those in high school, did you?”

  Ooohhh. And that sounded like an insult. Not intentional, but she’d been a little snippy with him. Guess it was fair and all…

  “I’m working, you idiot,” she said. “And I came over here to ask you if you’d like to order something to eat. Might make you a little less drunk, although I’ll likely still have to call someone to drive you home.”

  But Aiden wasn’t listening. He’d latched onto just one thing that she’d said.

  “You work here?” he asked. He glanced over the restaurant. It was a dive, honestly, and not a classy one at that. Poorly themed, greasy menu, mediocre alcohol, and surly waitstaff.

  Laurie frowned at him again.

  See? Surly.

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “Wow,” he sighed. “You were smart in high school. I wouldn’t have pinned you for staying around here and waiting tables.”

  She visibly hardened at this, even more than she already had been.

  “Nothing wrong with working an honest job,” she said.

  “Oh, nothing at all wrong with it,” he said, thinking about his own lack of work. “A job is a good thing. I would have just figured that you’d done something more with your life.”

  Even tipsy (okay, drunk), he could tell that he’d said the wrong thing.

  “Forget that I said that,” he said.

  “Aiden, I’m going to do my best to forget this entire conversation,” she hissed. “And we don’t need to have any more conversation. Just tell me what you want to eat.”

  Well, she was even ruder now.

  “Have I offended you somehow?” he asked.

  “Well, let’s see,” she said. “You just told me that I’m not living up to my potential.”

  “Oh, I know,” he said. “And I apologized for that. But before that. When you first came over here and I couldn’t remember your name. You were mad at me.”

  “I wasn’t mad at you,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Well, you weren’t happy,” he said. Most people here were happy to see him. Aiden Pearson – hey! Where’s that guy been?! Pull up a chair, crack open a beer, and let’s talk about where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing and who you’ve been with and –

  Oh. Oh, wait a minute.

  Laurie narrowed her eyes at him.

  Who you’ve been with…

  Some people weren’t always glad to see him. Women, mainly. Women who he’d been with, then not been with again, to put it in its most delicate terms.

  One night stands. (Not so delicate, that term. But truth is truth.)

  He wasn’t a bad guy. He wasn’t a particularly good guy either, though.

  Maybe she was hacked off because once upon a time, he and Laurie had…

  She was hot, after all.

  “Laurie,” he said, lowering his voice. Or at least attempting to. He was probably still yelling. It was hard to tell with all he’d been drinking. “My apologies.”

  “You already apologized for what you said,” she waved him off.

  “No, I’m apologizing for the past,” he said.

  She looked confused for a moment. “And by that you mean…?”

  “You know,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “The. Past.” He looked at her meaningfully.

  “Wow, you’re drunk,” she said. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Aiden.”

  “You know,” he said. “Me, you… you know.”

  He could use more graphic terms, but he was going to refrain. Being a gentleman and all, apologizing to the lady for having never called after he’d had his way with her.

  A gentleman.

  “You know…” she said slowly, imitating him. “And by that you –”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Oh, no,” she said.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “I know why you’re upset.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” She shook her head. “Trust me. NOOOOOOO.”

  What?

  “You mean, we never…” He raised his eyebrows again.

  “First of all,” she said, her hands on her hips, “what ki
nd of pig are you if you can’t even remember something like that?”

  “Apparently it wasn’t very memorable,” he said, feeling a little insulted by the pig label.

  “Second of all,” she said, ignoring this, “ewww. Eww, eww, eww. It never happened, Aiden. And it never will happen. Not if you were the last living, breathing man on Earth.”

  Well, then.

  “Now, what’ll it be?” she asked. “Cheese fries? A steak? What?”

  “Another beer,” he said. Losing his job was one thing. Disappointing his family was another. Having a waitress at a dive bar in a town in the middle of nowhere tell him that she wouldn’t have him if he was the last man on Earth was the limit, though.

  He needed a drink.

  “No,” she said. “Can’t serve you any more tonight.”

  “I really need this, though,” he said, needing it more and more with every word she spoke.

  “Why is that?”

  “I’m having a quarter life crisis,” he said, squinting at her.

  “You’re a lot older than twenty-five,” she said, frowning.

  “Okay, so I’m redefining myself,” he corrected. “Like most people do in their twenties.”

  “You’re actually in your thirties,” she kept on.

  “Blast it, woman,” he said, frowning right back at her. “I’m trying to have a moment here!”

  She looked at her watch very deliberately.

  “You’re going to have to speed the moment along,” she said. “Kitchen’s going to close soon.”

  He blew out a long breath, wondering what he was going to do tonight. He couldn’t go back to the house and face everyone, could he?

  Merry Christmas.

  “Why are you all even open on Christmas?” he asked, stalling for time and honestly wondering.

  She shrugged. “Because there are guys like you with nowhere else to go.”

  “I have somewhere else I could go,” he said, without adding, but I don’t want to go there.

  “Well, good for you,” she said, echoing his earlier sentiment. “Then, I take it that you don’t want any food if you have somewhere else to be.”

  Sure did. Or at least, he’d pretend to. Quarter-life crisis nothing. He stood to his feet… and the room wobbled just a little.

  This didn’t escape her notice as she watched him carefully.

  “Hey, Aiden, can I get your keys?” she asked.

  Why would she want his keys? Was she thinking he was too drunk to drive?

  No, that wasn’t concern on her face. He couldn’t rightly tell what that was on her face because she had the same unfeeling expression that she’d had most of the evening.

  So, he assumed the best. Because he was drunk and all.

  Maybe now that he was standing and she was getting a good look at him, she’d decided that the last man on Earth wasn’t such a bad deal after all.

  “You wanna come home with me?” he asked, grinning. “I feel like we hardly know one another, but sure. Maybe we’d better go back to your place, though, because the whole family is at mine, and…” He looked at the table.

  Where did his keys go?

  He looked over at her. “I don’t know where my keys are.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she muttered. Then, before he could even ask her if they could just take her car instead, she had her hands in his front pockets.

  “Well, hello,” he said, wishing for a brief moment that he’d stopped drinking a couple of beers ago because he really wanted to be completely and fully aware of what was going on as she was digging around his jeans –

  She pulled her hands out a few seconds later, holding his keys and shaking her head at him with just a hint of exasperation.

  “Do you have someone I can call?” she asked.

  “You can call me,” he said, thinking that she just got hotter and hotter the longer he was here. “Maybe we can go out sometime.”

  “A friend who can pick you up maybe?” she asked, not even acknowledging the question. “A family member?”

  A family member who could pick him up… hmm…

  Caleb would do it probably. Adam maybe. They’d probably even refrain from telling him just what they thought about his choices. But the lectures he’d get when he got home…

  “I’d rather not,” he said. Understatement of the year, probably.

  “Anyone you’re still in touch with around here?” she asked.

  He hadn’t been back in years. He hadn’t kept in touch with anyone from back home, apart from family.

  But still, his mind went to that billboard he’d seen driving over here. Travis Collins, big time construction guru. They’d been good friends a long time ago. Surely things couldn’t have changed that much. He could almost picture Travis giving him a pistol wink, just like he had back in the day, in and out of football practice, the weight room, all those years at the high school…

  “Travis Collins,” he said.

  Laurie looked at him doubtfully. “You’re friends with Travis Collins? Still?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Of course I am. Talk to him every day practically.”

  Exaggeration. But still.

  “He talks to you every day?” she asked.

  Maybe she wasn’t buying this.

  “Why is that so hard to believe?” he asked.

  “He’s just… different than he was,” she said.

  What in the world was she talking about? How was Travis different? The two of them had been close back in high school and hadn’t talked since then, but how would she know any different?

  And how different could Travis be if he was still living here, living his old life like normal?

  “Well, yeah, I know all about it,” he said. “Tight. Travis and me. We’re tight.”

  Laurie studied him for a long moment, then took a breath, sliding a phone out of the back pocket of her jeans.

  “Travis, Travis, Travis,” she murmured. “Easy to find, at least.” After another few clicks and swipes on her phone, she held the little device up to her ear. She twirled Aiden’s keys around her finger as she waited and as he squinted, hoping to make her face a little less blurry –

  “Travis,” she said, relief in the sound. “This is Laurie at the Dive.”

  The Dive. They’d changed the name of this place. It was… well, what was it before?

  Aiden couldn’t remember. But wow, the new name fit. He’d never forget it.

  “Did she?” Laurie was smiling now, talking about something entirely different than Aiden and his woes. She gave a small laugh.

  Well, maybe Laurie and Travis were an item.

  Aiden frowned. Maybe Travis needed his butt kicked. Seriously, they weren’t even friends anymore, really. If someone was going to compare the level of Travis’s worth as a friend against Laurie’s hotness, then Laurie was obviously coming out ahead. Way ahead. Aiden would kick his old friend’s butt if it meant winning Laurie over. No one even really believed that old saying about bros before –

  “Ho, ho, ho and all, I know,” Laurie said. “But I’m glad she enjoyed it. It was my pleasure.” She took a quick breath. “Hey, I’ve got a situation here and need your help. You remember Aiden Pearson?”

  Aiden prepared himself. It had been years…

  “The very one,” she said, smiling. “He’s here, right now, drunk.”

  “I’m not drunk,” Aiden corrected her.

  “Yes,” she continued on, ignoring him. “And you’re the only person he’s still in touch with around here. You’re tight, he said.” She listened for a moment, then laughed again.

  He was totally going to kick Travis’s butt now.

  “Would you?” she asked. “Why would you do that for him?” There was genuine confusion in her eyes as she looked back at Aiden. She listened for a few more moments, murmured, and then said, “Well, okay. But let me at least drive him out there for you. It’s Christmas. You should be home with your family.”

  Oh. Family. Travis had a family, a wife and probably a whole horde of children, which meant that the odds of him and Laurie having something going on were relatively slimmer. No butt kicking necessary after all. Aiden felt himself stand up straighter, knowing that Laurie surely didn’t have anything going on with Travis after all.

  Good.

  Not like she had anything going on with him either, but –

  Hey, she’d just said she was going to drive him! He didn’t know where they were going, but he was cool with it. Laurie, driving him somewhere…

  He gave her a thumbs up, which she answered with a confused look.

  “Well,” she said to Travis, “as long as you’re sure. You may get to explain some things to your bunch in the morning when he wakes up with a hangover and quite possibly pukes everywhere.”