Chapter 16: Friends With Benefits

“Aidan, are you OK?”

All memory of their argument was erased from Kate's mind as she watched him rise unsteadily to his feet, his arm braced against the wall for support. He swayed to the side dangerously as he shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not OK.”

He attempted to take a step toward her and stumbled forward, and she reached up with both arms to break his fall.

“Aidan!" she exclaimed, staggering beneath his weight.

He leaned against her heavily, and she managed to hold him upright long enough for him to get his feet back underneath himself.

"Come inside," she said, leaving her suitcase where it stood in the hallway and using her free hand to open the door and help him back into the hotel room. “Come lie down. Should I call the doctor?”

“Dizzy.”

She struggled to get him into the bedroom and onto the bed. He let out a groan, closing his eyes for a moment, as he sprawled out on his back.

“Aidan?” She shook him by the shoulders, and his eyes popped back open, blinking rapidly.

“OK,” he said. “Better.”

“I’m calling the doctor.” She had dropped her purse just inside the door, and she turned now to retrieve it, but he reached out and grabbed her arm, gripping it with surprising strength.

“Don’t go.” He was still breathing heavily as he spoke, but she saw with some relief that the color was starting to come back into his face. “Please. Kate. Stay,” he panted.

“OK,” she responded, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. “It’s OK. I'm here.”

“You came back.”

Kate nodded, once again recollecting the events of the past ten minutes. She'd stormed out, half-expecting him to stop her before she made it to the elevator, but he'd let her go. She was all the way downstairs before she'd started to calm down. The anger of the argument had faded almost immediately, replaced by an overwhelming sense of loss. It was over. She'd left and he hadn't stopped her.

She'd wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball on the floor, but she'd gathered herself as best she could as the elevator doors opened in the hotel lobby. If she was serious about flying back to New York, she'd realized, she needed to call ahead to the airline. She'd flicked on her phone and was shocked by what she saw. Missed calls. Texts. Voicemails. All from Aidan's number, from the wee hours of the morning. She'd sat down on a bench in the lobby and began to play one of the messages, hearing Aidan's voice, thick with panic:

"Kate, please call me back. I need you to call me back. I just need to know that you're safe..."

Message after message after message. He must have been waiting up for her all night. She remembered the words she had spoken to him in anger, moments ago: "I could swear you used to care about someone other than yourself..."

She shouldn't have said that. Whatever he felt for her – or didn't feel for her – whatever it was that they were to each other now, she couldn't say he didn't care about her. You don't leave this many messages for someone you don't care about at all.

She looked at him now as he lay on the bed with his hand still encircling her arm and his eyes glued to her face. "You came back," he said again.

She bent forward and brushed her lips lightly against his forehead. “You filled up my mailbox.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re crazy."

One corner of his mouth curved upward in a sheepish half-smile. "I went a little crazy," he agreed. "Just a little bit."

She smiled at him softly. "Thirty-seven calls," she said. "And I didn't even look at the texts yet."

He shrugged. “I thought you were dead,” he said, resting his eyelids closed as he spoke. “I thought you were chopped up into little pieces in some serial killer’s trunk.”

She chuckled. “Why would think that?”

“I dunno.” He shrugged again. “You can accuse me of a lot of things, Katie, but you can’t say I don’t care about you.” He opened his eyes again and looked at her. “That’s not fair.”

“I know. I care about you too, Aidan.”

“You ditched me,” he replied, pulling himself up now so that he was sitting with his back resting against the pillows.

“Take it easy.” She reached out a hand  to stop him.

“I’m OK now. I feel better.”

“Let me go get you some water or something.”

He was still holding onto her arm, and he tightened his grip on it again to keep her in place. “What is this all about, Kate? Why did you ditch me last night and go to a hotel?”

“I didn’t think I was ditching you.”

“You were supposed to go home with me, and you didn’t. In what universe is that not ditching me?”

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I shouldn’t have lied to you about where I was going.”

“Nevermind that. Whatever. I’m just trying to understand what was going through your head.”

She looked down at the bed, and the moment lengthened as he waited for her to reply. He broke the silence again before she could speak. “You didn’t honestly think I was with that other girl, did you?”

She let out a deep breath and met his eyes again. “Why did you tell your publicist to say ‘no comment’?”

He looked at her questioningly.

“When reporters ask about me,” she continued. “Why no comment?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

She could feel herself starting to tear up again, and she struggled to maintain her composure. “Are we just friends, Aidan?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, isn’t that what you’ve been telling people?” she asked. “Because it really seems like that’s what everyone thinks.”

He shook his head. “Who thinks that?”

“It’s OK. It’s fine, if that’s what you want. It’s just—I probably shouldn’t stay if that’s what this is because I don’t think I can— I don’t think I can—“  She broke off, pressing her hand against her mouth as she felt the tears start to spill over and roll down her cheeks.

“Kate.” Aidan gave the arm he was holding a gentle tug, and she turned and crawled across the bed to where he was sitting. “Come here,” he said, as he slipped his arm around her waist and she buried her face into his shoulder.

“I don’t think I can be just friends with you,” she whispered without looking up.

He closed his eyes and pressed his lips against the top of her head, letting his face linger there as he inhaled the scent of her hair. “I seem to recall a little while there when we first met when we were just friends,” he murmured. “Do you remember?”

She shook her head slightly against his shoulder.

“You were all upset about some asshole guy and I was doing my best to be a friend. A shoulder to cry on.” He brushed his lips against the top of her head again. “I think I managed to hold out a good 15 minutes before I broke down and kissed you.”

She laughed a little, and he felt her breath tickle the skin at his collarbone as she replied. “I thought I kissed you,” she said.

“Is that what you thought?”

He pulled his face away to look down with her, and she looked up and met his eyes. “You kissed me?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, instead resting his forehead against hers. He lifted a hand, wiping the pad of his thumb across one of her dampened cheeks. “We’re never going to be just friends, little girl,” he whispered, running his thumb across the length of her lower lip. “Not possible.”

He watched silently as she shut her eyes and parted her lips, and he closed the short distance between their mouths, letting his lips linger gently against hers.

“Not just friends, then,” she said, when he pulled his face away from hers.

“Not just friends.”

“So what are we?”

He broke his gaze away from her and leaned back against the pillows. “I told you in New York,” he said. “I told you what I wanted. Do you want me to say it again?”

She put her face back against his shoulder, and he could feel her lips curving into a smile as she replied. “That was before I bashed your head in and got you kicked out of your own house.”

“That’s true,” he nodded. “That does change things, doesn’t it?”

She looked back up at him in surprise, watching his face as he broke into a grin. “I think you better make it up to me,” he said, dipping his head to kiss her.

She broke away after a moment. “How should I make it up to you?” she asked. “You want me to get you some pizza?”

He shook his head, repositioning himself to run his lips along her neck as he began undoing the buttons of her blouse with one hand. “I’m not in the mood for pizza.”

“I thought you were dizzy, Aidan.”

“Feeling a lot better now,” he muttered against her neck.

“The doctor said you’re not supposed to overexert yourself.”

He laid her down on her back against the pillows and pulled his t-shirt off over his head. “Better be gentle with me then.”

“Aidan—“ she started to protest.

“—I’m fine,” he said, bending to kiss her. “I’m good now.”

She pushed against his chest, rolling him onto his back.

“You just relax,” she said, going up on her knees and straddling his legs.

He smirked and brought his hands up behind his head, lounging comfortably against the pillows, as she reached down and began to undo his belt buckle. She had the belt loosened and had begun to unzip the fly of his jeans when she stopped and looked back up at his face, smiling coyly. “Are you sure you don’t want any pizza?” she asked. “It’s awfully good.”

“Kate,” he glared back at her. “Don’t make me overexert myself.”

She giggled.

He kicked off his pants, and she began peeling off her own jeans as he pulled back the covers of the bed and slid underneath. “I’m cold,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around himself. “I’m  really cold.”

“Again?” she asked. “Should I come warm you up again?”

He nodded and held the covers open for her. She slipped underneath and began rubbing his arms vigorously as she'd done earlier in his hospital room. “How’s that?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Freezing,” he replied, faking a shiver.

She pressed herself closer and began to rub more slowly, running her hands across the muscles of his chest and moving lower until she reached the waistband of his briefs.

“Oh,” she said, looking up at him with widened eyes. “Not just friends, then.”

He rolled onto his side and bit her gently on the shoulder. “No.”

“This feels more to me like ‘close friends,’” she said seriously.

“No Kate. Not close friends.”

“Close personal friends?”

“I dunno,” he replied. “Does this feel personal to you?”

His mouth was roving now, trailing kisses along her shoulder and neck, and then moving back to her mouth.

“We better alert the media,” she said against his lips. She started groping blindly around the bedside table as he worked her mouth open and kissed her more deeply.

“What are you looking for?” he gasped after a moment.

“Bat phone,” she said. “Which one is the bat phone?”

He let out a laugh and pulled her arm away from the table, rolling her to the other side of the bed and bracing himself above her with his elbows. “You don’t need the bat phone,” he growled, lowering himself to kiss her again.

“Mmmmm,” she said against his mouth. “Gotta confirm the relationship.”

“Oh, I’ll confirm it for you.”

“Aidan!”

“As many times as you want,” he said, covering her mouth with his own as she arched herself against him. “You just let me know when you start to get the message.”