“So talk,” Heather said.
Shanna shook her head. “I can’t. My mouth is full of ice cream. Anybody else?”
“I read a book on Australian shepherds the other day,” Liz volunteered without thinking.
A hoot of laughter greeted her comment.
“Australian shepherds?” Susie echoed. “Not boxers or cocker spaniels or terriers?”
Liz frowned at her. “What’s your point?” she asked irritably, though she knew perfectly well what they were all thinking.
“We just find your fascination with that particular breed interesting, that’s all,” Bree said, her eyes sparkling with amusement.
“Personally I was thinking she was looking for an excuse to see Aidan so she could pass along information she thought he might need,” Susie said. “You know, since they’ve agreed not to see each other that way anymore.” She drew dramatic quotation marks in the air around that way.
“And why aren’t you seeing each other that way?” Shanna asked. “I don’t get it.”
Liz looked from one expectant face to the next, noted the barely contained laughter, then sighed.
“Okay, I’m pitiful,” she acknowledged. “Aidan’s never had a dog before and I thought the book might be helpful, but that isn’t the reason I ordered it. I wanted an excuse to see him.”
“Why do you need an excuse when the man clearly wants to see you, too?” Bree asked.
“Because we agreed,” Liz said.
Every woman there burst into laughter.
“Idiots,” Shanna murmured.
“Delusional,” Jess added. “And given how long it took me to figure out I was in love with Will, I am very familiar with that tendency.”
“Aren’t we all?” Laila O’Brien murmured. “I was still fighting my feelings for Matthew all the way to the altar on that trip to Dublin.”
“Thank you so much for the support,” Liz griped to the whole unsympathetic lot of them.
Bree patted her hand. “Don’t worry, sweetie. Our amusement really isn’t directed entirely at you. Just like Jess and Laila said, we’ve all been there, every one of us, living in the land of denial.”
Despite her friend’s attempt at reassurance, Liz didn’t feel one bit better. She knew their lives had all turned out okay. Right now, she couldn’t imagine any such outcome for her own, at least not one that included Aidan.
13
The basketball game didn’t work as an effective stress reducer. Aidan was as edgy and off-kilter after the game as he had been before they’d played. Oh, he’d worked up a good sweat and had even scored a few baskets, but his concentration had been shot. He was hoping no one had noticed, but these were O’Brien men. They might not be sensitive, but they were intuitive, especially when it was obvious that some distraction had kept his head out of a game he’d been so anxious to play.
Though he’d probably gotten closer to Connor than any of the other men, it was Kevin who’d apparently been designated to get to the bottom of whatever was on his mind. Aidan supposed he ought to be grateful Will hadn’t been chosen for the assignment. He had a hunch a good shrink could peel back his defenses in less time than it took to say Liz March.
As Aidan sipped from a bottle of lukewarm water, he watched as the other men dispersed. Even their parting catcalls were muted. Kevin stayed dutifully behind.
Aidan studied him warily. He didn’t envy the guy. This was the second time he’d been put in an awkward position. The last time it had been Thomas who’d put him there with questions about Aidan’s interest in the bay preservation project.
Seizing the initiative with the vague hope of getting the cross-examination over with, Aidan looked Kevin in the eye. “Something on your mind?”
Kevin was clearly startled by the question. “Actually I was wondering, we all were,” he began uncomfortably, “if there was something you wanted to get off your chest. Maybe problems with Liz?”
“No problems,” Aidan declared flatly, hoping to put an end to that line of speculation.
Kevin looked perplexed by his adamant response. “The word is that you’re not seeing each other anymore.”
“We were never seeing each other in the first place,” Aidan told him, avoiding any mention of the kiss that might have made a liar of him.
“Not the way I heard it,” Kevin said. “And the grapevine in this town might be annoying, but it’s usually as accurate as it is fast.”
“Not this time,” Aidan insisted. “Liz and I are friends. Period. Mutual agreement.”
“A mutual agreement doesn’t usually drive a man onto a basketball court to get his tail whipped,” Kevin noted. “Now a one-sided agreement, that’s something else entirely.”
Aidan studied him incredulously. He’d spent enough years in a locker room to know there were few boundaries among guys, but he’d never before had his love life dissected with quite this much fascination or seemingly genuine concern. There’d been a few bawdy remarks when he’d gone out with a model a couple of times, more when he’d been linked to an actress, but that was it. He didn’t know how to handle the real worry that seemed responsible for Kevin’s probing. His solution was to try, yet again, to deflect it.
“What is it with the men around here, or at least the O’Brien men?” Aidan asked, trying to sound curious, rather than impatient. “I’ve never known men to want to dissect relationships the way you all do.”
Kevin laughed, looking relaxed for the first time since the conversation had begun. “It comes from having Mick in the family. My father meddles, as you’ve been warned. We’ve all been the victims of that meddling, so we like to pass along the favor whenever we get the chance.”
“Is there any way to get you to back off?” Aidan asked in frustration. “Short of coercing Liz to walk down the aisle, that is?”
“Truthfully? Probably not,” Kevin said with a shrug that suggested many things had been tried and that all
