A Million Kisses (Wish 1)

24 - Fake dating

"You're not getting out of the dishes, Princess."

After she left, Rachel said, "Someone is distracted."

"It's probably lover boy." As soon as Aidan said it, he remembered the old man didn't text.

Rachel tsked and Aidan scoffed. Vibrations in the pocket of his jeans interrupted his negative feelings. Pulling out his phone, he saw Mia was calling. She rarely called him.

"Hey," he answered hesitantly.

"I can't believe you made my snickerdoodles!"

"What? How?" He looked at Rachel who was engrossed in the crossword.

"Aidan, she's beautiful. When mom called to tell me you had a girlfriend, I didn't believe her."

"She called you."

"Only because I wasn't home. She called Brenna first."

"Was this before or after she called me?"

"I don't know? Did she call you last night?"

"No, this morning!"

Rachel said, "She called me and asked questions last night."

"Aunt Rachel, you didn't think to warn me?" Aidan pleaded.

She shrugged. Mia said, "Mom wants me to meet her. So what weekend should I come?"

"She's going away, so you can't."

Sage entered the apartment without knocking.

"When will she be home?"

"I don't know. Sage, how long are you away for?"

"They're only letting me on-site for two days. I won't be gone a week. Why?"

"My mother is sending my little sister to visit. To meet you."

"Oh!"

"Mia, if you're coming wait two weeks, okay." After his sister agreed, he ended the call and put down his phone. "This is getting out of control."

Rachel said, "You have two choices. You can break up or well, you can figure out the other one out on your own. Now let's try these cookies and then you can clean before we start dinner."

"Dinner! I haven't had breakfast. How'd it get to be afternoon?"

Sage laughed. "Looks like you're having cookies for brunch. They're good. I made something!" She bounced with excitement.

"We did." Aidan corrected her. "Not as good as Mia's."

"I want to meet this cookie magician."

Whatever had distracted Sage wasn't bothering her anymore. Together he washed, and she dried the big items which couldn't fit in the dishwasher. Rachel helped by putting away the clean bakeware.

Aidan received another call from his older sister. Brenna wanted to tease him about his girlfriend. "Mom said she's rich and Dad said her mother hasn't had any work done."

"Bea would never." Aidan's chuckle grew attention from Sage.

"You're cozy calling her Bea."

"She loves me."

"Sage or her mother?"

His voice was serious when he answered. "Her mother."

"So, it isn't serious?"

"No, Bren. It's not serious." Aidan's eyes pierced Sage's blue ones, as he answered truthfully.

Sage asked, "Aunt Rachel, can we have some time before our next lesson?"

"Go on, dear."

Sage looked at Aidan. "Can we talk?"

He followed her up to her apartment. She paced back and forth, as he leaned against her kitchen counter.

"This is crazy. It was supposed to be one weekend and now your family is involved. I don't want anyone to get hurt." She stopped and looked at him. "I don't want you to get hurt."

"I feel the same about you. I'm a big boy. If you want to break up."

"No, I don't. I know it's not fair, but I like all the fun parts of dating with you."

"The fun parts?" The words caused him to smile.

"You know. The cooking and the walks in the park. Hand holding and your jokes."

"That's all things friends do. I enjoy being your friend, too."

"Can we just keep this thing a little longer? Sometimes when I'm stressed, I need fake boyfriend hugs, and this trip is stressing me out."

Aidan pulled her into an embrace. He felt her muscles ease. "Why is it stressing you out?"

"I don't know, but Geoff doesn't want me to go. He can be jealous."

"You think."

"Okay, so you've seen it. I'm convinced there's a hunky archeologist, and he doesn't trust me not to fall for him. Why doesn't he trust me?"

Aidan sighed. He needed to answer her. He pulled back to see her face. "Sage, he has never trusted you. You can deny it, but he's hiding something. You've trusted him too much, but he hasn't returned your trust."

"He was off yesterday and he never mentioned it."

"I can't figure him out. He's jealous of me, but then he leaves you to spend weekends with me."

"Aidan don't read too much into this, but if I wasn't with him, I'd want to be hanging out with you."

"Fake dating?" Aidan hoped not.

"Maybe or maybe not."

It wasn't the affirmative he was looking for.

He sighed. "So we'll fake date a little longer and we both want to be friends."

He didn't like the summary, but would settle for now.

"Should we see what we're making for dinner?"

Aidan nodded and opened the door for Sage to step through.

Once on the twelfth floor, Rachel said, "Are you two ready to focus?"

"Yes, ma'am." Rachel shot Aidan an annoyed look.

"I'll teach you to make a roux."

Sage replied, "A what?"

Aidan sang, "Roux, roux, row your boat."

"Tsk, with a good roux you can make any kind of cream sauce, bearnaise or alfredo, but we'll be making Aidan's favorite. Baked macaroni and cheese."

"Your secret recipe!"

"Shared with the two of you, because I trust you both to keep it secret."

Both nodded up and down.

"Okay, we start with equal parts butter and flour."

"Softened?" Sage asked.

"No, that's for baking. This we'll melt."

A messy kitchen later, the oven timer dinging and Aidan said, "I'm afraid to look. You do it."

"Okay." Sage opened the oven and using oven mitts carefully lifted the baking dish out of the oven.

"It looks right!" Aidan felt excited. He could make his favorite dish.

Rachel said, "The verdict will wait until we taste it."

"Killjoy!" Aidan smiled.

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