Other Plans

Chapter Seven

"You'll never be that to me," he confessed. "Although," his lips tickled my ear as he spoke, "you do haunt me, Violet." I couldn't breathe. "You always will."

Turning my head away, I let his words burn my skin. "Why are you here?"

"Right now? Because you're trying to escape, and you'd probably die out there, so I couldn't let that happen. But why am I visiting Mr. Elliott in the first place? Honestly," he paused, pulling away from me to lean his back against the door, "I was out, and I just sort of ended up here."

I scoffed, resenting the universe. "Me, too."

Aidan rolled his head to the side, the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Of all the time between us," he murmured, "we find each other in the past."

Freezing air slipped in around the door, and I wondered how long I could stand there in the moment I never thought would happen again. Aidan looked exactly the same, but so incredibly different. When I didn't respond, he moved from the door and stepped in front of me, holding out his bent elbow.

"Don't go out there, Violet." Aidan waited for me. "I won't bite," he whispered above me when I hesitantly linked arms with him. "Anymore."

He must've felt me freeze, but maybe he couldn't since I was already an icicle... Slowly melting into a puddle at his side. Did he really say that?

"Mr. Elliott keeps addressing you as Captain," I stated, swallowing to steady my shaky voice.

"That's because it's my rank," he confirmed, opening the door to Mr. Elliott's office, where we noticed he'd fallen asleep. Aidan chuckled softly, releasing our arms and going to spread a blanket over Mr. Elliott. "Don't they have someone who can take over this place for them?" In the doorway, I shrugged, unable to think about anything other than Aidan taunting me moments prior. "Their kids or grandkids."

"He'll leave this store the day he leaves this life," I replied. "This was their dream."

"Hers," he clarified, looking at me when he turned from Mr. Elliott. "Do you remember the story he told us once, about how he saved and surprised Mrs. Elliott with it because it was her dream." Aidan placed his index finger at his lips, nodding at the door behind me, suggesting we leave. And go where? I noticed him fold one blanket over his arm.

"Aidan," I uttered as he approached, "I don't think I can be alone with you. I mean, it's probably best to stay with Mr. Elliott." He scratched his jaw as I spoke. "He might wake up and need us, or the roof could collapse."

Aidan's gaze washed over my face, his smile reminding me of everything I kept hidden in my vanity drawer.

"Are you done making excuses?" he mused, lifting his eyebrows. "Since when did you worry so much about roofs collapsing? Come on." Aidan walked around me to leave Mr. Elliott's office, his call for me echoing from elsewhere within the bookstore.

I followed the subtle glow of his phone to find Aidan kneeling above the wood-burning fireplace in the corner of the store where an old leather couch was framed by bookshelves stuffed with non-fiction, the kind of books we didn't read when we were young.

But it was the exact place we hid in a lifetime before.

"It's excruciating," he muttered, flicking a long match into the small flame when he stood. "Being here after everything." I watched him move, placing the container of matches on a shelf like the act was routine. Wind rattled the old panes of glass nearby, distracting me, but I swore his gaze was unflinching. Maybe that was my strange hope, the part of me in denial and locked in the past.

"I'm surprised you can even say tha—"

Aidan's brows furrowed as he reached into his pocket for his ringing phone, grimacing when he turned from me to take the call. His responses were muttered and, even in the dangerously close proximity, I couldn't hear him.