"What's that?" she asked.

"I've had, like, five missed calls since I got home,” I said.

"Really?" she drew out the word and grinned, leaning forward as if to hear the rest of the details. "From whom might these calls be from?"

"Who," I said.

"What?"

"It should be, 'who might the calls be from'." I looked at her evenly as she rolled her eyes.

"Quit changing the subject," she said.

"Lawyer, remember?" I said. "At least that was the plan."

"Oh, come on!" she said in a tone that indicated she had finally had enough. "Get over yourself already!"

"Excuse me?"

"Do you think you’re the first person to get passed over for a job?" she said. "Wallow in it. Feel sad for a little while. Then get over it! Get out there and find another job. I'll bet the offers were lined up when you graduated law school, weren't they."

"Um... I guess so,” I said.

She was right.

They had been.

"And you got how many missed calls from Aiden?"

"Five," I said. "But how did you know they were from Aiden?"

"You just told me,” she said with a grin as she ducked the throw pillow I launched in her direction.

Out the window to the balcony I saw the clouds had piled up gray upon gray and small droplets of water began to pelt against the patio door.

"See?" I said, gesturing towards the window.

"They do have indoor clubs, you know,” she insisted.

Our conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door. Kelsey gave me another raised eyebrow. I tilted my head to indicate that she answer it. She stood and walked over. When she opened the door I couldn’t see who it was, but I could guess based on the look on her face. She leaned her head back towards me.

"It's for you," she said in a sing song voice. I threw the blanket off and walked over to the door. She stepped aside and grabbed her car keys. "I'm heading out,” she chirped.

"Are you?" I said with a glare.

"Yep." She grinned at me as she sailed out the door. "Talk to you later!"

I would have to kill her when she got back.

Aiden stood in the thresh hold drenched from the down pour. His hair plastered against his forehead and the black tee shirt he had changed into clung to his body in a way most distracting, despite how angry at him I remained.

God, he looked amazing.

"Don't you have a job to tend to?" I said in my most condescending tone.

"Oh for god's sake, Blair,” he blurted. "I turned it down!"

I hadn’t expected this response.

"You what?" I asked.

"I turned down the job,” he repeated. "I didn't take it."

"What? Why?" I asked, confusion muddling my anger.

"Oh for... Can I come in?" he asked.

He had gotten my attention.

I stood aside and gestured for him to come inside. Without a word I slowly walked to the linen closet and got him a towel. He silently waited, his hair dripping in the entry way, until I handed him the towel.

I stood with my arms crossed as he toweled his hair.

Finally he stopped.

He kept his eyes down to the floor and didn’t speak for a few minutes. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, waiting to hear what he had to say, and still not sure if I cared.

"Look," he began. "I never meant for any of this to happen. I... The other night, Blair. I don't expect you to forgive me. I wouldn't forgive me for the things that I said."

"Then why did you say them?" I said, still glaring at him.

 "I don't know how to tell you this, but... I wasn't entirely myself that night."

It took me a moment to understand his meaning.

"Were you... high?" I asked.

"You could say that,” he answered.

"Aiden," I said, gesturing wearily towards the couch. "Would you like a cup of coffee?" I asked though I kept my tone distant.

I didn’t want him to think this was friendly coffee.

"That would be nice,” he said. "I may have caught a chill out there in the damn rain."

"That would be a shame, now wouldn't it,” I said dripping with sarcasm.

"I deserved that," he called after me as I stepped into the kitchen.

I returned with a cup of coffee for him.

"Let's start from the beginning,” I said.

"Okay."

He sat down on the couch and I sat across from him in the chair.

"What happened the other night?" I asked. "What was the meeting about? Before you came over."

"Let’s just say the meeting contained a misunderstanding. It triggered an episode and I just went on an old fashioned bender. Made me paranoid. Of course I lashed out at you, because you’re the person I care about the most."

"Is that so…"

I wasn’t convinced and I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me by coming over.

"Yes, Blair,” he said softly. "That is so." Something about his voice when he spoke caught my attention. He had lost the confrontational defensive edge.

He glanced up from underneath his eye lashes, giving me a look that would have melted me up until the last night he was here. I leaned back and listened.

"I want you to know, I don't expect you to forgive me. Not in the slightest. But I just want you to know, I had to tell you in person that I didn't mean a word of what I said the other night. Not a single word."

My cool disposition was starting to crumble.

The last thing I wanted was for him to see me fall apart, but with the pain and anger rising up to the surface I feared that is exactly what was about to happen.

"Then why did you say it!" I said in a voice sharper than I intended.

He lowered his eyes and shifted in his seat, as an uncomfortable silence passed between us.

I stared him down hard, sending daggers through my eyes at him.

He kept his eyes averted, tapping his fingers alongside his coffee mug. He took a sip of the hot liquid and then set it down on the table.

For the first time in our lives I noticed the palpable difference between us.

Every other time, we had held on to the undercurrent of our friendship, something I had thought would always be there.

But this time it was gone.

I felt certain that he noticed it too, the way he couldn’t bring himself to look at me. Finally he spoke again.

"There's no excuse, Blair,” he began. "Try to understand. My mind wasn't in a good place. I wasn't right, but... I thought you had tried to hurt me and I wanted to hurt you back just as badly."

"But why did you think that I had told the firm anything?" I asked.

"I knew that you were the only one who knew."

"But... I hadn't even told Kelsey. I hadn't told anyone. How did the firm find out? Who told them?"

"I did,” he said with a sheepish look.

"What?"

This I had to hear.

"That meeting, it turns out they were vetting me for the part,” he said. "I didn't know it at the time, but... Part of their policy is to ask about any medications that I might be on. Of course I didn't recognize that's what was happening, so I jumped to the conclusion that they were asking about the Amphetamines. I thought you had ratted me out," he finished, letting his words fade into silence as he sat with his elbows on his knees, his hands hanging limp in front of him. "So I admitted to the addiction, and left the office. After I met up with my doctor friend, I spent the next couple of hours driving around trying to figure out how to confront you about it. Things got a little bit out of hand as you already know, and I’m so, so sorry."