Page 212 of The Compass Series

HAILEE

F or the next week, Aiden showed up at my apartment wearing that ridiculous clown mask to walk me to work, and then he traveled beside me on the way home.

After the first week, I told him to go mask free.

It seemed pointless after photographs of him showed up online claiming he had a mental breakdown and he’d been seen walking around in a mask.

I guessed it wasn’t a good enough disguise.

He didn’t seem fazed by the tabloids at all, though. His main objective still seemed to be…me.

He was a persistent man. Each day, he offered to walk me up to my apartment door, but I always declined.

Still, he asked. I wasn’t ready to have him in my space again.

The last time he was on those steps, well…

things moved very quickly. I wasn’t certain I was ready for things to hit that speed again.

Now, because of my openness, I had the chattiest famous actor walking me to and from work each day.

If there was one thing about Aiden, it was the fact that he’d find a reason to talk.

He’d talk about anything, too. Most of his thoughts didn’t stay in his head—he had a way of spitting out all kinds of things.

Some of his random facts were interesting; others were just plain dumb. Secretly, I liked hearing them all.

Walking beside him was odd, though, because our walks were oftentimes interrupted by townspeople coming up to communicate with him.

Everyone made it their mission to befriend Aiden, and with the kind of person he was, he welcomed the friendships.

He was able to converse with any and everyone who crossed his path.

I couldn’t help but wonder how much of the interactions were with him, or how many masks he put on daily. How many roles was he playing?

“Great talking to you, Ruby! Good luck at the dog show with your pup!” Aiden waved to Ruby as she walked off with her dog.

“See you later, Aiden!” Ruby waved, grinning ear to ear. That was how most people left his side—smiling.

Whenever people talked to him, they overlooked that I even existed.

Aiden made sure to introduce me to everyone who crossed our paths, though, making sure I didn’t feel left out.

The joke was on him—I wanted to be invisible.

It was exhausting when an introvert was befriended by an extrovert.

They went out of their way to make you feel included when all you really wanted to do was be invisible, binge-watch some television, and read some books with a dog or cat companion.

One day, I’d hope friends would understand that we introverts were fine not talking. It was literally one of my favorite pastimes.

“I’ve noticed something about you,” I told him as we approached the bakery. “You talk a lot more now to strangers than you did five years ago. I mean, I can tell you still hate it, but you handle it well.”

He paused in front of me and gave me that Hollywood smile that made my stomach flip in ways my stomach shouldn’t have been flipping for him. “What else have you noticed about me?”

Your eyes.

Your smile.

Your laughter.

Your right dimple that appears when you laugh and smile too hard.

The way your nostrils flares when you’re annoyed.

The way you walk in zigzags.

The way you look at me when you think I’m not looking.

The way you chew your gum and blow bubbles with it.

Lots of things, Aiden. I notice a lot.

“Nothing,” I lied. “Other than the fact that you’re corny.”

“Come on, I’m not corny. I’m charming.”

I huffed. “Charming? Yeah, right.”

“I am. It’s true, and I think you know I’m growing on you. I’m like a mushroom.”

I arched an eyebrow. “A mushroom?”

“Yeah, you’ll see I’m a fungi after a bit of time with me.” He laughed so hard that he slapped his hand against his knee, bending over into a giggling fit like a complete goof. “Get it? Fungi? Fun guy?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Aiden. I get it.”

He laughed so hard that that silly, cute, adorable dimple of his appeared. That was the real Aiden. He wasn’t playing a role or acting as anyone else at that moment. He was being him in his truest, most authentic form.

“Can I tell you a secret?” I asked him.

“What’s that?”

“I missed you.”

“Enough to invite me up to your apartment?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

As we were walking that night, the night sky was dark.

It was too cloudy to see many stars, but to be honest, I wasn’t looking up.

I was too busy staring at Aiden. Yet I saw the shift in his personality as he looked down an alleyway.

Two men were standing there arguing, one obviously intoxicated as he stumbled back and forth.

His face was bloody, and it was clear that the two men had a bad altercation.

A very unfair altercation, seeing how one could hardly stand.

The moment I zoomed in, I understood exactly why Aiden’s energy had shifted.

“Is that…?” I started.

“Yeah.” Aiden sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s Jake.”

Just as we were about to step in, I saw the sober man swing at Jake, and I gasped when he contacted his face. Jake went tumbling into the dumpster before falling to the ground.

“I don’t give a fuck why you don’t have it. All I know is you owe me my cash,” the stranger remarked. As he went to hit Jake one more time, Aiden rushed over and stepped between the two of them.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, chill out,” Aiden ordered the stranger. “I think you’ve done enough damage here.”

“Clearly, I didn’t because he’s still breathing. And unless you want to look more like this fucker, I suggest you mind your own fucking business.”

“You have no clue how much I wished I could, but this is business that I have to mind,” Aiden said through gritted teeth. Jake spit out blood, and without thought, I rushed over to make sure he was okay.

“Hails, just wait on the sidewalk,” Aiden tried to order me.

“I’m not going to just leave him here,” I said, seeing that Jake was beyond stable enough to even sit up on his own. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and he could hardly even form a coherent sentence.

“Hailee!” Aiden barked.

“Aiden!” I barked back, not willing to fold.

He knew I wouldn’t give in, so he turned back to the man in front of him. “How much did he owe you?”

“Fifty bucks.”

“Seriously?” Aiden grumbled. “You’re kicking a drunk’s ass because he owes you fifty bucks?” He pulled out his wallet and started going through it.

The moment the man saw Aiden’s cash, he narrowed his eyes. “Did I say fifty? I meant two hundred.”

“Excuse me?” Aiden cocked an eyebrow. “It was fifty just two seconds ago.”

“That was before I realized Jake got blood on my sneakers.”

“There wouldn’t be blood if you hadn’t pummeled his face,” Aiden snapped.

“Two hundred bucks and I’m out of your hair.”

Aiden muttered something not so nice under his breath but gave the guy the cash. With a smirk and a bounce to his step, the guy wandered off. Aiden rushed over to Jake and me, and he helped me get Jake up to a somewhat standing position as he leaned against the two of us.

“Jesus, Jake. What the hell are you doing?” Aiden mumbled, irritation in every inch of his voice. Not many things rubbed Aiden wrong, but Jake was one of them. Especially in his current state.

“We gotta get him to the hospital,” I told him. “He’s pretty beat up.”

“No hospital,” Jake muttered.

“Don’t be a dumbass. We have to get you to the hospital,” Aiden explained.

“No hospital!” he said again, this time stern. “Take me to your dad’s.”

Aiden grimaced. “I don’t think he’ll want you there. You were supposed to be clean.”

“I am clean. I am. I just had a bad night. It’s fine. Take me to your dad,” he ordered, coughing up blood.

“I can drive him over,” I offered. “My car’s right around the corner at the bakery. It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” Aiden said through gritted teeth, but he agreed.

He helped get Jake into my car, and I drove over to the Walters’s house. As Jake lay in the back of the car, he mumbled, “I didn’t know you were back in town, Aiden. If I did, I would’ve visited.”

Aiden huffed. “Yeah. Just like you did all those other times while I was growing up,” he sarcastically remarked.

I was no stranger to the relationship between Aiden and Jake.

Or more so, the lack of a relationship. The Walters, or Samuel, thought it was important to keep Jake in Aiden’s life.

Laurie wanted nothing of the sort. From a young age, Aiden felt special enough to have two fathers.

That was until he realized that Jake wasn’t the most consistent one in the world.

At a young age, Jake would make grand promises about how he’d take Aiden to baseball games.

About how he’d always show up for birthdays. About how he’d get sober for Aiden.

Aiden thought it was a big deal—someone wanting to get clean because of him.

Yet Jake always let him down, time and time again.

Some days, when we were kids, I’d show up at Aiden’s house and find him waiting on his front porch with a baseball bat and ball because Jake said he’d take him to the dugout to practice batting.

He’d sit there until the sun went down and his parents made him come inside.

Then he’d do it again another day. And another.

And another. Until one day, he realized that Jake’s words were empty promises that would never come true.

If there was ever a reason for Aiden to have trust issues, it was because of Jake Walters.

I knew that was why it hurt Aiden to his core when he found out that his father was the reason he and I stopped talking five years ago.

Samuel was supposed to be to him what Jake never could’ve been—honest.

After parking the car, I helped Aiden walk Jake up the steps and waited for one of Aiden’s parents to answer the door.

When Samuel appeared, he grew alert when he saw his beat up and bruised cousin Jake standing on the porch. “What the hell happened?” he asked, pushing open his screen door.

“What do you think happened? It’s Jake. He did what Jake does best—fucked up. He asked to be dropped off here, so here you go.” Aiden lightly shoved Jake into his father’s arms and turned to walk away. I felt completely uncomfortable, so I followed his lead.

“Aiden, wait,” Samuel said, calling out to his son. “We should talk.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you.”

“Son—”

“Have a good night, Samuel,” Aiden said coldly.

I felt the sting from his words as Samuel took a step back. My heart slightly cracked as I watched Samuel shatter within his own eyes. I wanted to give him comfort, but I knew Aiden deserved my gentleness at that moment. Samuel wasn’t my concern—his son was.

The two of us got into my car and drove away. The ride was silent, and I wasn’t exactly sure where we were heading. Aiden hadn’t spoken a word, and his hands were still in fists as he stared with a stern look out the passenger window. His right foot tapped aggressively against the floor mat.

I pulled the car over to the side of the road and placed it in park before I turned to Aiden. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

“You didn’t have anything to say to your father, which is understandable. But it’s me, Aiden. You can tell me everything.”

“I sure couldn’t for the past five years,” he snapped. Then his shoulders lowered, and he cussed under his breath. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to say that.”

“Maybe you did, and that’s okay.” I placed my hand against his shoulder and turned him toward me. “You’re allowed to be mad at me, too, Aiden. You can say anything to me—even the hard stuff that might hurt me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” His blue eyes looked so heartbroken. “You’re the last person I’d ever want to hurt.”

“Tell me the hard parts, and I’ll help you through them.”

“Seeing Jake didn’t bother me. Don’t get me wrong, it was hard and irritating, but that was Jake just being Jake.

He’d been that way my whole life. But facing my father?

The one who wasn’t supposed to be a hot mess?

The one who I’d looked up to my whole life and just learned that he lied to me for five years straight?

That’s the hardest part. Because now it feels as if I’m staring straight into the eyes of a man I never knew. ”

“You should feel the same way about me, though. I went along with the plan your father made up. I’m the one who actually went through with it. I?—”

“Hailee, I know this might be hard for you to understand, but I spent the past five years trying to be mad at you. I’ve spent over a thousand-plus days trying to be angry with you.

I even showed up here trying to ride that hatred roller coaster, and it doesn’t work.

It will never work. Do you know why I came back to town?

Why I decided to stay in Leeks for the holiday season? ”

“Why?”

“It was you,” he confessed. “I came back for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“When we were kids, you told me that if I’m ever in Hollywood and like I’m losing myself, I should come back and find you. For quite some time now, I’ve felt lost so… I came back.”

“To find me?”

“To find you.”

My heart would belong to that man for the rest of my forevers.

“Aiden?”

“Yes?”

I bit my bottom lip. “Do you want to see my apartment?”

His whole demeanor shifted with that one sentence. He narrowed his eyes as a sly grin found his mouth. “Is that… an invite to come see your interior design, or is it an invite to come take off your clothes?”

I turned the keys in the ignition and started the car. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”