Fangirling Over You: A Fangirl Romance

by C.M. Kars

  “I was mapping out how Chris was going to act out the dialogue. I wasn’t spacing out.”

  “Yeah, you were. Mouth open, eyes far away, looking off into the distance. I called your name once or twice, and then I figured you were busy doing something in your brain, so I let it go.” I nod against his chest, still not looking at him. “I was watching you, obviously, and you sort of got this dreamy smile on your face, like you remembered something good that happened to you when you were a kid or something. It was adorable. And it made me jealous. You get to be a different person when you’re at work and I think that’s so awesome.”

  “Most people would make the conclusion that I don’t like myself.”

  I shrug again but think about it a little more. “I mean, everyone has flaws, has weaknesses that they wish they could change or fears they could overcome. What if we could all just reprogram ourselves, make a better version of ourselves and start again? It’s kinda what you’re doing, I think.”

  “Except I’ve never been in outer space, and I’m not the son of an elitist asshole who classes everyone by their use to him, even his own son.”

  I plant my chin over his heart, staring up at him, into his eyes. Is there no angle where Ayden looks shit? I don’t think it exists, not that I’m complaining. “No, you haven’t, but your mind can go there, you know? Can make the situation become real to you. You can imagine it all. I think that’s your superpower.”

  Ayden has a smile small tugging at the corners of his lips and my stomach squirms at the sight of it. All because of me, his mouth is splitting into a smile and the world seems brighter for it. “I love the way you talk, the way you think things through.”

  “I have a lot of thoughts. Too many. Not a lot of them good for conversation.”

  Ayden smirks, resuming the whole petting of my hair thing. I almost feel my eyes roll back into my head but let out a long sigh instead. “You make me want to kiss you when you’re being adorable.”

  “You make me want to kiss you when you say I’m adorable.”

  We sort of slide towards each other, crane our necks and give each other a peck on the lips, laughing afterward.

  Ayden frowns and manages to sit up in a way that I’m arranged to be sort of half-sitting in his lap. His hand goes to my chin, tipping my face upwards. “That wasn’t good enough. Let’s try again.” And he kisses me soundly this time, a kiss that makes liquid heat pool in my veins, and an ache bloom between my legs. My skin feels like it’s on fire, my body thrumming with an invisible electricity that’s nowhere close to being grounded. God, I want Ayden, I want him so bad.

  But there’s the whole situation with my bedroom.

  Ayden pulls back, his lips red from me, his breath coming in pants, eyes dark and hungry. His hands move to grip my hips, his grip tightening and loosening like a pulsing star. I might explode from that look alone. “What’s wrong? Am I hurting you? Should I leave?”

  I chew on my lip, pulling back to put some space between us, too aware of Ayden’s fingers on my hips, his touch, his smell, everything. “I don’t want you to go into my bedroom,” I mumble.

  “Excuse me? I didn’t quite catch that.”

  Sweet Leviathan, I’m going to die of embarrassment. It’s totally going to happen. I’m going to be struck down by embarrassment from all the blood that’s pooling in my face, and there’s just not enough that’s going to my heart. I take a deep breath and try again, make eye contact, be direct. “I don’t want you to go into my bedroom.”

  Ayden’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m perfectly happy right here, darling. We don’t need to go there.”

  “You don’t understand,” I say, clenching his shirt in my fists, wanting him closer, wanting more of this, of him, but knowing once he sees my room, all hope’s going to be lost. He’ll truly know the depths of my fangirl obsession, and that’s it. This dream within a dream will burst like a soap bubble and cease to be. Maybe I can live off the memory, but knowing that I was so close, only to fail now, is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. And that’s not something I want to live with.

  “I have…things in my room that I don’t want you to see. And I want the lights on so I can see, but then you would see everything, and I don’t want you to run away screaming.”

  Ayden’s eyebrows launch themselves to the top of his forehead. “Do you have a collection of knives or torture devices I should be made aware of?”

  “Not exactly.” I can’t look at him and keep staring at my fists, currently tightening their grip on his shirt.

  He thinks on this for a good five seconds. “I wouldn’t like you to use them on me, if that helps.” One hand comes up to stroke the skin of my cheek until his palm is cupping half my face. He can disarm me so easily, and that might be his superpower. Maybe kissing me is. I don’t remember ever losing my train of thought like this with past ex-boyfriends.

  I keep staring down at my hands clutching his shirt at his chest, trying to make my fingers let go while I deliberate on how best to tell him the truth. Ripping off a Band-Aid is the best way to do it, but I don’t think I can give voice to what’s hidden behind the closed door at the end of my hallway. I settle for whispering in his ear instead, delighting in the shiver that ripples through him at having me so close.

  “I have life-sized cut-outs of you—uh, Chrisander—in my bedroom, and I don’t want you to think I’m weird.”

  Ayden leans back, eyes wide, mouth parted. Surprise warring with something else that’s gone too fast for me to analyze and agonize over.

  Shit, I shouldn’t have told him anything.

  “How many do you have, darling?”

  I slowly raise my hand and then hold up not one, not two, but three fingers. Ayden looks at my three fingers then sputters out a laugh before throwing back his head and bellowing out a belly laugh that has me rocking in his lap. When he settles, he wraps his arms tight around me and holds me close, still laughing like I’ve made him the happiest person in the world.

  “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m quite flattered.”

  “I told you I would fangirl over Chrisander Gage and pretty much everything Leviathan. You’ve been forewarned.” I move to get up off his lap, totally intending to bring him to my room now that the secret’s out and stop when his hand holds onto my wrist and stops all of my forward momentum.

  “There’s nothing wrong with staying out here, you know.”

  I frown. “Do you not want to sleep with me?” I ask, hedging my bets.

  His grip around my wrist spasms in something like surprise. “What in the hell gave you that idea? I just don’t want to pressure you into anything.”

  I turn to look down at Ayden, putting either one of my palms on his cheeks, then gently moving my hands to the dark circles under his eyes. “Oh, I can’t wait to have sex with you, Ayden Stone, but I was thinking we can get undressed to what we’re comfortable in and have a nap. Nap dates are a thing, I think. If they aren’t, they should definitely be a thing.”

  “A nap? I haven’t had one of those in years, since before the show started.”

  I plant a kiss on the tip of his nose. “C’mon, then.” I step back, holding his hand while he stands, towers over me, and tug him towards the hallway and open the door to my bedroom. I don’t have anything especially embarrassing in there, no random sex toys lying about or dirty laundry that needs to be burned, nope, just the cut-outs that can sometimes scare guests so that they might think an intruder is in my home.

  “Christ, I hated these promo pictures.” Ayden releases my grip on his hand and moves towards the three cardboard hims and shakes his head at them. “I look like an ass. You see this one?” He points to my favourite one, where he’s scowling at someone off camera and is in the process of adjusting a cuff link. He’s so intense that this particular picture has been a feature in my spank bank since I bought it two years ago. “Someone from the crew was messing with me, eating my lunch, and they caught the look on camera and mass produced it, s
o I look like an asshole all the time now. I wasn’t even paying attention.”

  I tilt my head at him when he looks at me. “You don’t like giving off that vibe, do you? It’s why you came up to me at that burger place, huh?”

  “I don’t ever want to seem ungrateful or disrespectful. I’ve been given amazing opportunities because of the work I do, and I hope to never forget it.”

  My heart accelerates, and I’m finding it hard to breathe. He might be some sort of mutant—I mean, no one can be this perfect, right?

  I motion towards my bed and rummage through my dresser to get a shirt to sleep in. I put it on while turned away from him, then unhook my bra and remove it, tossing it over a chair that is mostly reserved for laundry I have to fold but is now empty. Ayden can’t know I do laundry. I turn around to find him staring at me.

  “Get comfortable. I’ll set my alarm for two hours, okay?” I tell him, programming my phone and placing it on the nightstand. I whirl to pull out a fluffy blanket to put on top of the comforter and rearrange my pillows to make me feel like I’m in a cocoon once I crawl in bed. “Ayden, I’ve seen you shirtless on TV. What’s the matter?”

  “They put makeup on me, adjust the lighting to make everything look just right.”

  “I knew that.” I did know that. I’ve looked and saved those pictures on my laptop enough to know every little detail and to compare them to other pictures of the same nature. There is some sort of Hollywood magic that happens in an editing room. I get it, I do.

  Ayden nods and fists the back of his shirt and pulls it over his head. Without looking at me, his hands go to his belt, but he stops and looks up at me, waiting for my permission. I give it to him and watch his fingers make fast work of his belt and jeans. His boxers stay on as he pulls back the comforter and slides into my bed, patting my usual side of the mattress, inviting me in.

  I want to remember this moment forever, just take a snapshot of it and have it in a picture frame in my mind where time and dust can’t erode what’s there.

  I move over to the light switch to turn the lights off and then climb into bed, snuggling closer to Ayden while moving my hair around so we’re both not lying down on it.

  “The whole point of a nap date, Ayden, is so that you can actually nap together,” I say, a good time later. He’s wiggly.

  “I can’t. It takes me a while to nap. I get too worried that I’ll oversleep.”

  “That’s why I’m here. I won’t let that happen. Come on, close your eyes. Close them, please.” When he does, I move my fingers gently through his hair, feather-light touches to his scalp and to the back of his neck, hearing his breath deepen and some of the tension release from his body as I caress him as he’s flopped down on his stomach right beside me.

  I can’t believe this is happening to me. I have Ayden Stone in my arms, being lulled to sleep, and I’m worried, so, so worried about what’s going to happen next.

  When Ayden finally falls asleep, I know I won’t be able to do the same, not with him so close, not with my body on fire and demanding, wanting the way it does.

  I just stare up at my ceiling and wonder how the hell I got here in the first place, how that random trip to San Diego changed everything for me.

  How it’s going to break my heart when all this is over.

  How Ayden will probably forget me within a year or two, but I’ll never forget this moment, the time we spent together, even if it only lasted a short while.

  That’s the thing with dreams, isn’t it? The sun always comes up and reality always wakes you up to start the day.

  NINE

  Early February…

  “Aren’t you lonely in here yet?” I ask, after scoffing all my food and then placing my hands on my expanded belly and patting it for a job well done. Life is good, the food was great, and the company is even better. I watch Ayden chew his lasagna in that careful way of his, where I just shove it into my mouth because I go from being not hungry to starving with no happy medium in between.

  “I like being alone. I’m not bothered by my own company.” Ayden shrugs it off, but I know better. He’s asked me about the neighbourhoods nearby and scoured the listings for an apartment to rent, and while Toronto is building literally thousands of units a day, they still seem scarce. He wipes his mouth, carefully again, looking at me with an intensity that would make me squirm if I could move.

  I shake my head, heaving myself up on the chair, settling against the back of it and wondering if I can surreptitiously undo the top button of my jeans to get some more breathing room. I have a food baby and she is large. “That’s not what I asked, Ayden.” I want to lean closer, but I just can’t.

  Ayden glances down at his plate, his last few bites must be mighty interesting with the way he’s glaring at them. “I don’t know what you want me to say.” I’ve noticed that when Ayden gets uncomfortable, he doesn’t squirm or fidget, but goes still, waiting.

  “The truth would be nice. I just want to know more about you. Tell me how Christmas was back home, tell me anything.” I make the herculean effort to lean forward to grab my glass of sparkling water and take a big gulp, hoping it’ll settle my stomach.

  “I’d rather like it if you would stop questioning me all the time when we’re together. I feel like I’m back in school.”

  Well, that’ll shut me up. I gape at him, wondering where the hell all this has come from. Since I’m not a mind reader, and mama didn’t raise any kind of quitter, I ask another question instead. “Did something happen today?”

  Ayden’s shoulders slump, and he puts his fork down with a clatter against his plate, rubbing at his eyes miserably with his hands. His trailer feels tight and enclosed, and even though the curtains haven’t been drawn, I feel like I’m in a fishbowl. When he looks at me, his eyes aren’t giving anything away, and the dark circles under them seem like they’ve been tattooed on. “I fucked up today. Couldn’t get anything to go right. I had to kiss Bekah again—Amy—and it felt wrong, absolutely wrong. I felt absolutely sick to my stomach. Still do.”

  “How come?” I whisper, afraid to say the words out loud. My heartbeat’s drumming in my ears and my throat’s gone dry.

  Please let it be a good answer. Please, please, please.

  Ayden looks up at me, his lashes casting shadows on his cheeks and I can’t read his eyes. I swallow hard, taking in a deep breath to halt the pain that I’m bracing myself for once he actually answers my question. I can count the heartbeats drumming in my chest for the time he makes me wait for it.

  “I thought it would be obvious, darling. I felt awful because I wasn’t kissing you—I was kissing someone else and that felt disloyal.” I try to cover the smile forming on my mouth with my hands, but it just sort of spreads wider and Ayden can totally see it, exasperated with me. “Right, I can see how that could make you happy.”

  I grin all the harder, then try to sober up. “Ayden, c’mon, how do you want me to react? Honestly.” I do a little happy wiggle in my seat, or as much movement as I can muster right now.

  He doesn’t look too broken up over the fact that I can’t stop smiling and takes a swig of his hours-old coffee to try and hide his smile, but I can see it on the rest of his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Ha. Sure you do. You want me to be completely okay with the fact that you kiss someone else, even if it’s for work? Especially because it’s for work! It’s weird. I understand why all those relationships in Hollywood never last.” I look at him, making sure he gets it. “I’m territorial when it comes to you. I don’t want you to be kissing anyone else but me. I don’t think that’s necessarily wrong.”

  “Of course not. I’m just telling you about my day, how it messed up my scenes because I couldn’t pretend anymore. The facade cracked. I’m not really sure how to fix it.”

  “I think you close a door to yourself,” I say, nodding now that the words are coming out in a way that makes sense. Hopefully. “Like, you put a part of yourself awa
y so you do what you have to. I think. I’m not too sure, though, don’t take my word for it,” I backpedal, leaning farther back in my chair.

  His gaze gets intense, and he takes up more space across from me, leaning in closer, blocking out everything else so all I can focus on is him and only him. “Did you ever have to do that?”

  Oh, oh.

  Well, I opened myself up to that, and it would be dishonest not to tell him the truth. I shrug, getting ready to tell him, like an athlete doing a warmup drill, deep breaths and all.

  “I was in a bad situation once—maybe one day I’ll tell you all about it—but in the end, I was stuck in a bad spot and couldn’t get away easily. I was pissed at myself, piss-scared, and I wanted to cry in turns with yelling or getting violent. I told myself that I needed to push all of that away, lock it away for when I needed it, and I had to focus on how to get out, get away. I was able to, with a huge amount of luck, and I’ll never put myself in that kind of situation again. But I know what I’m talking about. You have to hide yourself away—good parts, bad parts—to do what you have to, and when you let out that part of yourself that was never touched by what you needed to do, you can go on, distance yourself from what happened because you weren’t really the one doing it at all. Does that make sense?”

  Ayden’s face is tight, contained, a dark mass of water with something unknown moving underneath, ready to break the surface. The muscles in his jaw are clenched tight enough that I’m scared for his teeth. “And you’re all right?”

  I shrug again, my stomach aching with too much food…and the heavy subject. Topic change, please! “As much as any of us is all right.”

  I don’t like the way he moves his hand slowly towards me, seeking touch, but also extremely cautious, like he’s afraid to touch me. I rectify that by putting my hand in his grasp, his thumb stroking the back of my hand, bumping over my knuckles. “I wish that hadn’t happened to you, darling.” I can practically feel my eyes flutter when he says that special word. “And I’m glad you told me about it. I’ll think about using that mind trick for the next scene. I’m off for sixteen tomorrow and then back on for another sixteen. What would you like to do?”