Rainey's Song Ch. 03

Even through the haze and smoke of the club, through the fast-moving motions of engrossed dancers and the general din common to all nightclubs, Aidan recognized Rainey. Only, she didn't look like the Rainey he'd grown used to seeing on his irregular visits to the magazine office.

This Rainey had sleek, straightened hair pulled back into a stylish ponytail at the base of her neck, she wore a red satin lingerie-inspired top that hugged her full breasts and flared out around the shoulders to cap the creaminess of her rounded upper arms. Curve-hugging jeans and strappy red sandals completed the outfit and Aidan couldn't help but be amazed at this transformation of the girl who'd stammered shyly at him the day before into a lush, sexy woman tonight.

He was vaguely aware of Jean-Philippe still talking to him, but he tuned him out as he watched Rainey follow her dark-haired friend onto the dance floor. He still couldn't believe it was her and he couldn't stop staring. She looked…she looked…

He watched her glance around anxiously as her tall friend was grabbed up into an impromptu dance with a man who was obviously drunk and a stranger; Rainey was left standing alone and painfully motionless in the middle of the floor. From the few times he'd ever spoken to her, Aidan had an idea of how shy she was and he couldn't stand watching her look so anxious. From the way she was chewing on her lower lip she looked like she might panic and make a run for the door.

Not thinking about what he was doing, he put his empty beer bottle on the bar, slid off his stool and started toward her.

"Aidan, what are you doing," he heard Jean-Philippe call out.

He didn't slow down or look back.

"Your guess is as good as mine," he tossed over his shoulder as he made his way through the crowd to Rainey.

It took him awhile to push through the throng of people amassed in front of the bar, losing site of Rainey in the process he was afraid that by the time he reached her she wouldn't be there anymore. But, emerging on the other side of the dance floor, he looked around and saw her standing a few yards away. Her back was to him and he could see her craning her neck as she looked for her dark-haired friend.

Now that he'd found her he stood motionless for a few seconds. 'What am I going to say,' he thought. He could hardly walk up behind her, tap her on the shoulder and say, 'Hello, I saw your friend desert you. Can I be of any service?' And what if she didn't recognize him in the darkness? He sure as hell almost hadn't recognized her. But, he reminded himself, that was only because she looked so…different. He found himself staring at her again. Staring like a high school kid with his first crush. But he couldn't help it. There was just something about her tonight that was making him feel off balance and even a little nervous about approaching her.

'This can't be good,' he thought unconsciously and almost decided to go back to the bar, but as he watched her, she turned again so that her profile was outlined against the dull lighting of table lamps on the far side of the room and he could see her face. She looked like she was close to tears.

Aidan started toward her. He always had been a sucker for damsels in distress. He stopped barely a foot away from her and, without thinking, reached out and grabbed her arm since she probably wouldn't be able to hear him call her name over the music.

When she jumped and turned around wide-eyed he cursed his own stupidity for scaring her. He grew uncomfortable as her huge green eyes, fringed with amazingly long lashes, widened even more when she realized it was him standing behind her. Aidan didn't know what he'd expected her reaction to be but this intense uncomfortable silence hadn't really been on his list of possibilities. Trying to put her at ease, he gave her a little smile and dropped his hand from her upper arm—completely refusing to acknowledge the strange tingling in his palm as he let her go.

"Hey Rainey," he said when she kept staring at him. Not the best opening line, he conceded to himself, but it was better than them standing there staring at each other.

But Rainey didn't smile back at him.

For a moment he thought she hadn't heard him, then her face took on a look of desperation and her lips moved.

"Oh crap," he thought he heard her say.

Aidan's brow furrowed a bit. Had he heard her right? He leaned in closer, catching the scent of lilies that seemed to surround her, and said, "What did you say?"

'Oh my God,' Rainey thought. 'What *did* I just say?' Aidan was so close to her, so uncomfortably close that she could feel the heat of his body. She was suddenly light-headed.

"N-nothing," she stammered. What was he doing here? Of all the places he could be on a Saturday night, why did he have to pick this club? Why did he have to be standing here, looking at her and touching her, making her stomach do strange little flips? She was sure she looked terrible; God, she could feel the sheen of sweat from the closeness of the club covering her skin and he would see it, too.

'Damn,' she thought. 'And I'd just managed to forget that incident at work yesterday.' But here he was again to mess with her senses. He was dressed casually in a black polo and jeans, but she could clearly delineate the shape of his muscles beneath the shirt. He was so close that, if she extended her hand just a little, she'd be able to touch his broad torso.

Rainey swallowed hard. "I think I need to sit down." She'd been speaking more to herself than to him, but he nodded and took hold of her elbow to steer her through the crowd. The tightness of their passage through the mass of milling people meant that Aidan's body was pressed up against hers for what seemed like hours.

They finally made their way through the throng and, for her own sanity, Rainey quickly moved away from Aidan's touch. She looked for a table near the dance floor so that Karen wouldn't have that much trouble finding her but Aidan, who'd come to stand next to her, pointed to a table that was almost as far into the corner as possible. Rainey groaned inwardly but followed him through the maze of tables and people until they reached their destination.

A small crimson lamp, a few shades brighter than the club's deep red walls, was the table's only decoration; it's orange-colored lampshade cast a sunset-like glow in a small circle, illuminating both Rainey and Aidan with interesting highlights and lowlights as they each took one of the two seats.

Aidan looked at Rainey who was, much to his consternation, staring at her hands as if there was some sort of secret hidden in them.

"So…" he said, but she didn't look up. He watched her fidget for a while, crossing and uncrossing her legs. Finally he said, "Rainey."

"Hmm?" She still didn't look at him.

"Rainey," he said her name again and waited this time, giving her no choice but to meet his eyes. When she finally did he asked, "Are you all right?"

She was chewing the inside of her cheek and Aidan realized how nervous she was. Was it him that made her so uncomfortable? He'd never experienced anyone as unsure of themselves as she was and he couldn't understand it.

"I'm fine," she said quietly, her eyes darting to his and then back to her hands.

Aidan didn't know what to do. He wanted her to just relax and maybe smile a little, but he didn't know how to get her to that point so he sat watching her for a while. It was like she was two different people, he mused. When he'd first seen her emerge from the staircase he'd thought she was this amazingly beautiful, sexy woman and, he admitted to himself, he'd been attracted to her. More than he'd been attracted to any woman in quite a while, actually.

But sexual attraction wasn't anything new to Aidan; it was something he could deal with. Now, sitting here with her while she looked so uneasy, he was still attracted to her—God, even across the table he could smell the scent of lilies that clung to her skin—but he was more interested in making her calm down. He wanted to talk to her, he realized. Really talk to her. There was something in those green eyes that made him *need* to talk to her.

Yesterday, at the magazine office when he'd stumbled upon her in the break room, it was the first time he'd ever really looked at her. Sure he'd seen her before and he knew her name, he knew the names of everyone who worked at the magazine, but until yesterday, their paths had never crossed.

He smiled to himself remembering the way her face had flamed bright red when that drawer had refused to open. So he'd teased her a little bit. Told her that she owed him.

But he hadn't really meant it. He'd only wanted to make her smile yet she'd just stared back at him, solemn and confused, obviously apprehensive about what he meant. Any other woman would have flirted with him, he knew. Aidan wasn't a conceited man but he understood that women found him attractive and he usually used that fact to his advantage. But Rainey…she was nothing like all of those other women he'd had meaningless flirtations and dalliances with. Innocent and pure, so quietly hopeful and shy, she was nothing like he'd expected her to be and that intrigued him. It was so rare to find anyone, male or female, who didn't fall into a pre-set category. But Rainey was one of those people and Aidan wanted…

What *did* he want, he asked himself. There could never be anything physical between them. She was barely nineteen years old, a freshman in college, and he was in the middle of grad school. He was only twenty-four himself but that five years could be like a chasm in relationships. He'd learned that the hard way, he thought darkly, but he pushed the memory aside.

He was attracted to her, he admitted that to himself, but he was old enough to understand that sex could be as much of a complication as it was gratification sometimes.

So, they'd be friends, he decided. He could help her realize that she was beautiful and worthwhile and she, well, she could remind him of what it felt like to be full of dreams. Reaching across the table he took hold of her right hand and, ignoring her gasp of surprise, proceeded to closely inspect the ring she wore on her ring finger. Her hands were soft and dainty, with long, elegantly tapered fingers and graceful oval nails.

Aidan shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He had never been so turned on by a woman's hands in his life. "This is lovely," he said to distract himself from the knot of desire forming in the pit of his belly. He let the tip of his much larger finger stroke the pink stone in the center of the silver setting.

"It…it's my high school ring," she said quietly, sitting perfectly still as he continued his inspection.

"R.O.W. What do those stand for," he asked, referring to the initials engraved on one side of the ring.

"Rainey Olivia Wilson."

"Olivia," Aidan smiled and looked into her eyes. "I like it."

Rainey smiled as he turned her hand in his so that he could look at the symbols etched in the other side of the ring. "And this," he asked, tapping his fingertip against a tiny image of two people embracing.

"It's supposed to mean 'memories,'" she said and smiled thoughtfully.

Watching her, Aidan asked, "Do you miss high school?"

Her laughter surprised him. "No, not really. I was…" she seemed to be searching for the right words. "I was awkward and timid and…" she trailed off. She'd been about to say "fat" but caught herself in time. No need to point out the obvious, was there?

"And what?"

"Nothing," Rainey shrugged. "I was pretty much the bottom of the adolescent food chain. I had one or two good friends who went to the east coast for college but other than that…" she shrugged again and figured he could fill in the rest on his own.

High school hadn't been terrible for her but it was, by no means, the magical fairytale that so many Hollywood movies painted it to be. She'd been a good student, quiet and respectful, and her teachers always recommended her for achievement awards. Other than that, no one noticed her. Being invisible had been okay with her, though she'd always admired the confidence the popular girls. Never once had she seen one of them in doubt or self-conscious. She had never wanted their popularity for she wouldn't have known what to do with that kind of attention; all she had ever envied them was their self-assurance.

"So, if you don't miss high school," Aidan asked, his voice bringing her back to the present as he lowered her hand to the table but still held it in his, "what do you miss?"

She pulled her lower lip between her teeth and smiled in memory. His gaze shot to her mouth and, for a moment, he was distracted from anything but the shape of her mouth and the fullness of that bottom lip. He wondered what she tasted like. He was so caught up in watching her that he almost missed her next words.

"I miss my kids," she said. She'd been looking at her ring as she spoke but when she looked up at Aidan and saw the look of dumbfounded shock on his face she laughed.

"Wait, you have kids?" Aidan asked the question slowly while she was still laughing. He had to have heard her wrong.

Finally getting herself under control, Rainey shook her head and smiled at him. "Okay, that definitely came out wrong." She chuckled again. "I *work* with kids over the summer. In a day camp," she added.

"Ah," Aidan said, "that definitely makes more sense that what I was thinking." They laughed together and then fell silent. "So, what was so great about working with kids," he asked when it became clear that she wasn't going to continue on her own.

She was silent for a long moment, a faraway look on her face and Aidan waited patiently for her to collect her thoughts.

"I love all of the little things that they find so amazing. I love talking to them about their pets, books they've read, they're siblings, you know, all of those things that they're parents might not have the time to listen to." Aidan watched her talk. Her face lit up with the animation of her memories and her mouth curved into a soft smile; the cadence of her voice was hypnotic.

"I remember this one time," Rainey continued, "myself and some of the other staff decided that, for a treat, we'd show our kids how to make ice cream. So, we brought them zip lock bags, the milk, the ice, flavoring, everything we needed, and proceeded to show them how to do it. To get the ice cold enough, you have to add rock salt to it, and then you put another baggie with all of the ingredients for the ice cream *inside* that bag so they're separate. We told the kids that but…"she paused in the middle of her sentence to laugh at the memory.

"But they put the salt in the ice cream itself," Aidan guessed.

Rainey nodded through her laughter. "Four tablespoons of salt. Every single one of them did it even though we told them over and over not to. Once we were finished and we told them they could eat it, all I heard was, 'Teacher, mine tastes funny.'"

Aidan chuckled at the story. "So what did you do?"

"Well, I felt so bad that they'd been so excited about having ice cream that I ran down to the grocery store and bought them Popsicles. That was probably a bad idea, though. It was so hot that day that they ended up with bright red rings around their mouths from the juice and spots all over their clothes from the Popsicles melting faster than they could lick."

As he looked into her eyes there was a strange fluttering in Aidan's chest that he couldn't figure out. There was something about Rainey that made him want to sit here talking to her all night. As it was, he began to absent-mindedly stroke her palm with his thumb. Looking right into her eyes and said the first thing that came to mind. "You're amazing."

Rainey's heart felt like it was going to pound its way out of her chest and do a little jig on the table between her and Aidan. Even if it did, she thought abstractly, she wouldn't be able to pull her eyes away from his. He was looking at her like he could see right into her soul. Unbelievably, her heart picked up its pace. "It was only Popsicles and a ruined batch of ice cream…" she began.

He cut her off, shaking his head slightly as he stared at her. "I'm not talking about the ice cream. I'm talking about you. You've got this little wall up all the time; you're so shy and quiet. But then…now…when you forget to be afraid of the world, there's this unbelievable, generous, funny…beautiful person underneath all of that."

Rainey didn't know what to say. It was true that she'd been so comfortable with him after he'd gotten her to start talking that she hadn't been afraid or anxious, but the things he'd said to her…

"I'm not beautiful," she said and watched his brow furrow at her words.

"Yes, you are. You are," he said again, more firmly when she shook her head a little in denial. "How can you possibly think that you aren't?"

She was speechless. He was looking at her so intensely that she had to fight not to squirm beneath his stare. Her hand was still in his, his thumb resting lightly on her wrist; her eyes flicked to where their hands were joined then back to his face and she wondered if he could feel her erratic heartbeat.

"I just know I'm not, that's all," she said. She was chubby, plump, fat. Whichever way she put it, it meant the same thing: she wasn't beautiful. Of course there were times when she thought she looked nice, but she never let herself go so far as to think 'beautiful,' because she knew she never would be.

The look on Aidan's face was one of frustration and Rainey became confused. What did he have to be frustrated about? He was the one driving her insane by holding her hand and giving her compliments that she knew weren't true. It anyone should be frustrated it should be her.

Not only that, but this whole conversation was making her uncomfortable. "So, I was surprised to see you here tonight," she said in a desperate attempt to change the subject.

Aidan spoke at the same time, however. "What are you afraid of, Rainey," he asked.

His question hung in the air like a palpable object and Rainey watched him apprehensively. She decided to pretend like she hadn't heard his question. She wasn't afraid of anything…not really…so maybe he would just drop it.

He was obviously aware of her discomfort so he replied to her comment and let his question go. "I'm here because my friend owns the club and I'm doing an article on it for the magazine," he said.

Rainey's eyes widened in surprise. "Are you serious?" She didn't know much about this club, or any club for that matter, but from what Karen had told her before they came out to 'Soleil,' the owner of the club also had a few scattered across Europe and the U.S. that were popular spots for several celebrities and other VIPs. "Karen would flip out," she told Aidan.

"Karen? Is that the friend you came in with?" Rainey nodded at his question, then something occurred to her. "How did you know I came with someone?"

"I saw you from the bar," Aidan said on a shrug. "I saw her get dragged out onto the dance floor and I thought I'd make sure you were okay."

"Oh," she said simply. She didn't know what to think about the fact that while she'd been standing there alone waiting for Karen to come back Aidan had been watching her from across the room. "Oh no," she said, starting suddenly with a dismayed look on her face. "I forgot all about Karen. She's probably been looking for me this whole time."

She jumped up from her seat and would have hurried away to find Karen if Aidan hadn't caught her wrist in his large hand.

"What are you doing," she asked, looking down into his eyes.

"Nothing," he said. "I just figured I'd save you the trip." At her looked of puzzlement he nodded his head in the direction of the dance floor. Rainey looked up to see Karen coming toward them and breathed a sigh of relief.