“If I don’t move soon, I might stay like this forever,” he said quietly, his voice still strained.
Shae let out a huff of laughter. “Do what you must.” Aidan slowly withdrew and somehow Shae made it onto the couch. Her whole body was liquid, she could barely move. She watched Aidan as he walked into the kitchen and got rid of the condom. When he came back toward the couch, Shae couldn’t believe how big his dick was, even semi-erect. She forced herself to stop looking at it and focused on Aidan’s face. He stopped next to the coffee table and picked up the spoon that was sticking out of the trifle bowl.
“Do you want to stay the night?” Shae asked as he licked a dollop of chocolate pudding and whipped cream.
“I’ll have to leave really early for work, but I’m totally into spending the night. Especially if we watch another Christmas movie.”
“You can pick this one.”
“Fuck yeah.” He took another bite of the trifle, then knelt on the floor beside the couch. Shae was hoping he would kiss her again, but his eyes just wandered over her face as he kept the small distance between their lips. “Was that good?”
“It was very good.”
“I’m gonna eat that whole thing,” Aidan said, glancing over his shoulder at the remains of the sweet dessert. Shae snorted, then reached up and pushed his glasses a fraction of an inch back up his nose.
✶
Aidan’s alarm went off early as fuck, but when he sat up to keep the thing from waking Shae he was shocked to find himself in an empty bed. The rest of their night had been pretty fucking great. He picked out some movie about this woman falling in love with Santa’s son who was due to inherit the Claus empire. It was actually a pretty good movie that dealt with some intense themes like parental expectations and fear of failure. Aidan was impressed. They spent another couple of hours naked together on the couch, then moved their party of two to Shae’s bed. They both passed out after they realized that Shae could take every inch of his cock in two more positions. He woke up a few times in the middle of the night, the result of sleeping in a different bed with another person for the first time in a while, and every time he opened his eyes, there was Shae pressed against him, curled up in his arms. They’d known each other for years, but they had only been seeing each other for a week. Didn’t change the way Aidan knew he was started to feel. He was falling for Shae.
He hopped out of bed and went looking for his clothes. He found them and Shae in her living room. She was sitting on the couch with a fresh cup of tea in her hand. She was dressed again, wearing some cute pajama pants with cupcakes on them and a Raiders sweatshirt. She greeted him with a warm smile and a good morning as soon as he came around the couch.
“It’s pretty early for your day off,” he said, stepping into his boxers.
“My sleep cycle is set in stone. I wake up early, enjoy the quiet for a few hours, then go back to bed until noon. It’s a good way to spend a day off. Do you want some breakfast? I have bacon and eggs and croissants.” Aidan thought back to that massive bowl of brownies and whipped creamed he’d destroyed the night before.
“I usually have breakfast after I work out. I’m gonna head to the gym, then grab breakfast on the way in. I have the shittiest metabolism ever. I skip a day and this all starts going to shit,” he said, patting his flat abs that stopped being so flat the minute he quit playing sports.
“Ah, I see. You did work off a good bit of that trifle last night.”
“It was totally worth it.”
He finished getting dressed, then leaned over the couch to kiss Shae. If he had morning breath, she didn’t say anything about it.
“When can I see you again?” he asked.
“I have a standing engagement with my friends and my cousin tonight and I’m gonna be slammed this Friday and Saturday—”
“And Sunday is your Christmas Eve get together.”
“Yeah and you should definitely come to that. My cousin’s fiance is a fireworks expert. He’ll probably blow up something cool.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Aidan replied, chuckling a little. Christmas wasn’t exactly a fireworks holiday. “Wednesday night sound good? You can come to my place and I’ll make you the one thing I’m sure I won’t burn.”
“That sounds great.”
“Bring a change of clothes just in case.”
“Oh. Sure.” Shae stood and walked Aidan to the door when he turned to her one last time.
“I had a great time last night, even though you’re a terrible ice skater,” he joked.
“Hey! I kinda got the hang of it.”
“I’ll see you.” He leaned and kissed her one last time before walking toward the elevator. Lovesick punk that he was, he couldn’t help but turn around to just take the sight of her in one last time before he had to get on with his day. Aidan didn’t know what he expected when he turned to get a glimpse of her, but he caught something before her million-watt smile spread across her cheeks and she tossed up her hand in a little wave. Shae had that look on her face again. Something was bothering her again. Something was holding her back.
6
Dear Santa, Am I doing this right…?
Aidan slammed the door to his car shut, then switched his phone to his other hand so he could get a better grip on the box of bagels he was carrying. His sister, Emily, answered with her typical cheery greeting.
“’Sup punk. It’s early for you, isn’t it?”
“Hey. You’re not busy, are you? I need advice. About a girl. A woman. This woman I started seeing.” Aidan had made it through his workout and miles of bullshit Los Angeles traffic just fine. That didn’t keep the image of Shae’s anxious face from playing over and over in his head. He’d had such a great night with her, he should have been skipping and whistling his way out of Shae’s apartment building.
He could have sworn she’d had just as good a time, but that tell-tale look was there and he couldn’t ignore it. Yeah, it felt too early in whatever was going on between them to look for problems. It was also never early enough to take notice of something, a tiny red flag that Aidan knew could turn into a full-on disaster zone surrounded by lights and sirens if it went unchecked.
“Oh, seeing a woman? We’re maturing. Well done, Aid.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m just messing with you,” Emily laughed. They were only three years apart, but she’d taken the plunge into aspects of adulthood that he couldn’t wrap his mind around when he was still in college. Now she was a working mom with three kids and a husband who she actually communicated with really well. If there was anyone he could get relationship advice from, it was his sister. “Okay, what’s the deal?”
“Her name’s Shae. She owns a pretty successful bakery,” he said with a bit of pride that he had absolutely no claim to. “We used to work together. She was married, now she’s divorced and we ran into each other on MATCHED.”
“Okay. What seems to be the problem—shit!” his sister yelped.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I just stepped on a lego and then stubbed my toe. Shit.” Aidan waited, trying not to laugh as his sister rattled off another string of curses, mumbling to herself about his slob of a nephew. “If you ever have kids, make cleaning up their toys a part of their play time. At least once a week, I almost break my neck stepping on something or tripping over something else.”
“I need to get past a third date before I consider what to do about my future children, but I will keep that in mind.”
“Sorry. Woman troubles. You have them. Go on.”
“Not exactly troubles. I just don’t know how to handle a situation, if it is a situation. She’s very funny. Very sweet. But sometimes out of nowhere, she just kind of shuts down or—it feels like she’s keeping stuff from me because she thinks I’m going to reject her in some way. She usually opens up about whatever it is with a little encouragement, but—I don’t know. I feel she’s holding back something and making assumptions about me and how I’m going to re
act to her all at the same time. That’s the best way I can describe it.” Hopefully he was making some sense.
“You said she was divorced?”
“Yeah.”
“Could be stuff with her ex. Divorces aren’t like regular break ups and she’s dating again? If Dave and I split up, I don’t even know how I’d get back into dating again. Do you know anything about the ex or why they broke up?”
“Yeah. Without going into too much detail, he blamed her for some shit she had no control over and then they got divorced.”
“Ah, okay. So the ex was a dick. Yeah, she’s probably still a little wounded in the heart department. She might be having rejection issues, which is totally understandable, especially if her ex was a dick.”
Aidan didn’t like the sound of that. “She did say they kind of had a rough split, over some rough stuff.” Aidan and his ex-girlfriend had been pretty serious, but they weren’t close to getting married and they definitely had never fought over bringing children into the world. He had no idea what that must have been like for Shae.
“I mean, I’m saying this knowing the small bit of information you’ve given me.”
“Yeah.”
“My advice? If you want to keep hanging out with her—”
“I do! I like her a lot.” Aidan almost shocked himself with how true those words were. He’d been hanging on to some sort of feelings for Shae for a long time. The short time they’d spent together only confirmed his suspicions. Shae was someone he could definitely seem himself with.
“Okay, well just keep hanging out with her. Let her know she can always talk to you about what she’s feeling.”
Aidan laughed as he leaned against the wall next to the elevator. “That won’t be a problem. She’s honest and so vocal with that honesty that I think she’s embarrassing herself.”
Emily’s own chuckle came back through the phone. “Well if she’s awkward and dealing with baggage, be extra nice to her.”
“I will.”
“Don’t worry, Aid. Things will work themselves out. Be good to her and if it feels like it’s not working out romantically it’s okay to step away too, without being a dick to her of course. There should be two happy people in a relationship.”
“Good point.” Not that Aidan was considering bailing on Shae because of her clear hesitations. His sister did have a point though. “I’m going to head up to my office.”
“Okay cool. Should I call you back later and you can ask me how my day is going, you little shit?” Aidan let out a burst of laughter as he turned and pressed the up button with his elbow. The thing usually took forever. For once the door sprang open. Aidan stuck his foot over the threshold to keep it from opening.
“How’s your day doing, dude?”
“Well as soon as my toe stops throbbing, I think it’ll be right on track. Got three orders in this morning, so that’ll keep me busy for the week.”
“Oh nice.” His sister and Shae had more in common than he realized. Emily also owned her own small business making custom jewelry.
“Yeah, I love marriage proposal season. Maybe one day I’ll make something for one of your women friends.”
“Yeah, maybe. On that note.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll talk to you soon.”
After he made sure to include hellos to Dave and the kids, he ended the call and stepped into the elevator. His sister was right. He just needed to treat Shae right and let her be herself. Hopefully in time she would see that there wasn’t a single thing about her that he found to be weird or strange or even remotely unattractive. He’d already brought her flowers, so more might be overkill. Maybe there was another way to show how he was feeling about her. He left the elevator, brainstorming ways to further woo her. He made it two feet into the office before Matt was on him, almost knocking the box of bagels out of his hands.
“Tell me you went to Sweet Creams.”
“No man, get off me. I got bagels. They’re closed on Mondays anyway.”
Matt backed off, with this sour look on his face like Aidan had just crushed his wildest dreams. “What’s the point of you dating this chick if you don’t bring in the highest quality of baked good every day?”
Aidan set the bagels and his messenger bag down on his desk, then adjusted his glasses and leveled Matt with a serious stare. “Are you out there dating women just for free food? Are ya, buddy?”
“You say it like that’s a bad idea. The girl likes you. The girl likes to bake. And I personally think I should benefit from these truths in your budding relationship.”
“How about you enjoy the bagels I’m not going to ask you to pay me back for and we never again talk about any woman I’m dating in terms of how they might benefit you.”
“You’re going to get me banned from Sweet Creams if I don’t stop talking about this, aren’t you?” Matt said, his face going slack.
“Hadn’t thought of that, but now that you mention it...”
Matt put up his hands in surrender and started backing toward their office’s small kitchen. “Hey man, I know when to stop rocking the boat.”
“Thanks.”
Aidan didn’t realize he kind of wanted to punch Matt in the face until he had to relax to dig up his phone. Sometime in the seconds between the elevator and Matt’s ambush, he’d missed a text from Shae.
See. Back in bed.
Aidan felt himself smile as he looked at the pictures she’d texted him. She was back in bed with the covers pulled up to her chin, flashing a huge smile. She had her hair wrapped up in a shiny, black bandana with some of her curls springing out of the top.
Looking good.
Enjoy your day off.
Oh I will.
I still have the nudes you sent me.
When Shae sent a Boomerang gif of herself biting her lip and waggling her eyebrows, Aidan’s laugh echoed through their office
Just promise me you won’t hurt yourself.
I’ll do my best.
“What’s so funny?” Matt asked as he came back to their desks.
“Nothing. Eat your bagel.”
✶
Shae needed keys to Keira and Daniel’s house, just for the winter. It was another freezing cold Monday night, standing on their porch waiting for Keira to answer the door. Okay, maybe Shae was cranky as hell for some unexplainable reason and she was taking it out on the thirty extra seconds it was taking one of them to respond to the sound of their doorbell.
She’d spent the whole day bouncing between feeling pure elation and gut-wrenching dread. Spending time Aidan was great. Sex with Aidan was even better. Between the ice skating, his adorable commentary during not one, but two different Christmas romance flicks and the sex—Shae had to keep the sex in mind because it was that good— she wanted to smile whenever she thought about him.
But for some unknown shitty reason, the butterflies in her stomach would suddenly turn into rabid zombie reindeer, pummeling her already rattled nerves. She’d spent most of the day trying to figure out why and all she could think about was Harvin and that just made her feel worse. And thinking about thinking about Harvin made her feel even worse.
She took a break from the shitty feelings to bake some massive cookies and that had helped a little. Still, she wasn’t able to shake the icky feelings that had almost ruined her day off. The only thing that had saved it was the texts she’d exchanged with Aidan. And the nudes she still had of him on her phone. The nudes she might have referred to before she got in the shower.
She might have been thinking of one of the better shots on her phone when Keira’s front door finally opened. Her fiancé, Daniel, who looked like a male supermodel on a bad day, stood on the other side of the threshold.
“Hey Shae. Come on in.”
“Hey.” Shae stepped inside and gave her cousin-in-law-to-be a quick hug. “Did you get your cupcakes? We had to wrestle Meegan away from them.”
“I did,” Daniel said with his handsome smile. He reached out with his prosthesis
and took the bag containing this week’s desserts out of her hand. “They were great. You ever think about selling them?”
“Ha! Good one. Keira’s marrying a natural born comedian,” Shae said, shaking her head. She shrugged off her jacket and followed him into the kitchen where Keira was stirring what smelled like chili. The house was still decorated to accommodate Santa and his whole village, but some Guns N’ Roses song was playing over their stereo system.
“Hey!” Keira set down her wooden spoon and crossed the kitchen to give Shae a hug.
“I’ll be in the bedroom.” Daniel leaned between them and kissed them each on the forehead before handing Keira the bag Shae had brought with her.
“Thanks, baby.”
“Yeah, thanks babe,” Shae added.
“No problem.” He winked at Keira and disappeared down the hallway. Shae almost asked him to come back. She could ask him some questions about his recent work trip. Get the latest updates from the world of pyrotechnics. Anything to stop the inevitable conversation she knew she was going to have with Keira and then with the rest of the girls when they showed up. Of course, Keira dove right in.
“So? How are you feeling?”
Shae sighed and let her shoulders drop. “I don’t even know.”
“Well, two dates in a week is pretty good, so clearly you don’t hate him.” She set down the bag on the table and surveyed its contents, her face lighting up.
“Yeah, chocolate chip cookie sundaes. A crowd favorite,” Shae said.
“Your cookies are the best. I know that sounds gross, but I stand by my statement.”
“I am good at what I do.”
“Okay, so talk to me. You were panicking the other day. You saw him last night and I’m assuming you didn’t kick him to the curb,” Keira said as she shoved the vanilla ice cream in their already packed freezer.
“No. Absolutely not. I like him a lot.”
“But…?”
WRAPPED: A FIT Adjacent Christmas Novella (The Fit Trilogy Book 4) Page 7
