by C.M. Kars
I smile at him, ignoring the thudding of my heart and the relief cascading from my head down to my toes in a waterfall of warmth that makes me want to sit still and bask in it. I didn’t want to talk about it or go over it again. Maybe one day, but definitely not now. “We could go for a walk, but it’s doing that weird rain-sleet thing and I think your director would kill me if I brought you back with a broken ankle. We can stay in, cook something delicious, and watch a new docu-series I’d think you’d like about the Premier League.”
His mouth pops open, eyes going round. God damn it, he’s adorable at all times and it makes it hard to think. Focus. “How did you know about the Premier League?”
I roll my eyes. “Ayden, I like soccer. But this is Canada—hockey is what we watch. You’re English, so soccer’s all you watch. We can stream it after we make something delicious for dessert.” Not that I can eat dessert, but it’s hard to stew on something when you’re baking something sweet.
I’ve never seen him this animated while we cook up some dessert in the tiny kitchen of his trailer, bumping into each other more often than not, making a whole mess but not worrying about it. I know he doesn’t have anyone who comes and cleans out his trailer, but we’ll take care of it later. We end up making funfetti cookies from scratch and settle in his bedroom with our food to watch the first few episodes.
“You know, I grew up not far from Manchester before moving to London. Only kid there who didn’t believe in either the Blue or the Red,” he says after we finish the first episode and he’s come back from depositing our plates in the kitchen. He crawls into his bed and grabs an extra blanket from somewhere beside him, hauling it over us. “That’s Manchester City or Manchester United to you.”
“One city has two teams?” Weird.
“It’s the same thing with New York hockey, right? The Islanders and the Rangers? Don’t ask me, one of the guys from the crew, Matt, is from there and it’s all he talks about.”
“Look at you, showing your hockey knowledge. It’s kinda cute.” I pinch at his cheek for added emphasis, flopping over onto my side, jostling my food baby to get closer to him.
“Only kind of?” He grins at me, gathering me close so we’re facing each other, chest to chest. “Would you like to watch another episode, or do you want to go home?”
“I’m pretty comfortable where I am, thanks.” And I am. So comfortable, all wrapped up in him, but the rest of me is doing the stupid thing and wanting more. I lean over just the few scant inches that are left between us and kiss him, slow and soft at first, before he rolls me onto my back, settling half on top of me, kissing me for all he’s worth. My body ignites with need, my skin tingling, my heart sprinting in my chest. I have a total fangirl moment in the confines of my skull while I realize that I’m kissing the crap out of Ayden Stone aka Chrisander Gage and life has reached peak fangirl love that I don’t think it will ever get better than this.
“Aria, we don’t have to do this,” he mumbles against my mouth, but I can feel how much he wants me against my thigh.
And it’s been so long since I got to have this, with someone I really, really like. “Yeah, but I really, really want to. Take your shirt off.” My hands are pushing his along and we get him untangled out of his long-sleeved shirt only to have him toss it somewhere that I don’t really see ’cause my hands are running over his warm skin, molding themselves to his muscles, and everything else that makes him Ayden. “How are you always so warm? It’s seriously not fair. We’re in the dead of a Canadian winter and you’re always so warm. What is this?”
Ayden laughs between kisses, and I laugh back, sharing it in such a way that melts my heart. “Why are you always so cold?”
“Canadian blood. We run on ice. Come closer,” I order, winding my arms behind his neck and plastering him to me while we make out, tongues rasping against each other, nibbles along our lips, tasting each other. When he nips along the skin on the side of my neck, my whole body jerks, startling a laugh out of me. That’s never happened before.
“Can I remove your shirt?” he asks, like he always does, making eye contact and pulling away from my mouth when I want his lips on my lips right now. I nod, hazy eyed, and feel his fingers playing with the hem of it, lazy drags of his fingers across the skin of my belly and hips, maddening when it doesn’t go any further than I want it to. In this case, I’m the overzealous one, wanting to go full tilt ahead while Ayden’s acting like we have all the time in the world. I know that’s not true, of course. But he has this way of making seconds stretch into minutes, and when my shirt’s finally off, now somewhere on the floor, his kisses along my collarbone and chest have me aching, legs sawing together trying to relieve the pressure between my legs.
“Fuck,” I groan, when his teeth drag along the top portion of my boob, snagging on my bra cup, teeth grazing my nipple as the cup is dragged completely off me. “Shit. More. I need more.” My hands move to his hair, clutching at him, making sure he stays exactly where I want him.
Ayden smiles against my skin, eyes meeting mine, all dark and dangerous and looking only at me. “Let me take my time with you, darling.” Bastard had to use that word. I’m ready to lose it just by hearing him say it in a sexy voice that I’ve only ever heard while in bed with him. “Let me take my time.”
This is Ayden—Ayden freaking Stone. The man of my dreams. I’m crash-landing from the land of dreams straight into a reality where Ayden Stone wants me just as much as I want him.
Can this be real. Really?
I’m terrified all of a sudden, knowing how high my expectations have become. I used to fantasize about a guy like Chrisander Gage falling in love with me. So I’m a fangirl, it’s what we do, but having Ayden’s skin underneath my hands, his lips kissing a path down to my navel, it’s all getting screwed up in my head, despite my heart thumping hard, the blood rushing in my ears, my body tingling like it’s been electrified.
“Ayden?” I call, and I can hear the uncertainty in my voice, which he can definitely hear, too, and he stops what he’s doing and looks up at me, face alert and attentive and his hands completely removed from my body, no point of contact between us. And for that, for that alone, I am grateful.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asks, sitting upright, putting more space between us, making sure the blanket covers me up, keeping his hands away from me while doing it. My heart beats harder at that single movement, the distance he creates between us. He’s calm about it, his breathing even, though he’s flushed, and his muscles are tensed.
I sit upright, too, grabbing at his hand and putting us palm to palm, blanket surrounding me. I feel better doing it. I open my mouth to try to explain these feelings inside me, this fear, this trepidation. “I really, really, really like you.”
He smiles at me, then grins. “I hope you know that I like you quite a lot as well.” There’s nothing on his face that indicates impatience, or annoyance, and I let out a long sigh.
I nod, trying to squeeze words past the pain in my throat. “Remember when we first met, when I was so disappointed after I met you for the photo op?”
Ayden nods, then tilts his head at me. “Yes, I do. You told me that day that you had extremely high expectations.”
“So I’m sort of having the same issue now. With my high expectations.”
I am definitely not expecting Ayden to burst out laughing. “You lovely girl,” he says, laughing through the words. He shakes his head and scoots closer to me so we’re sitting hip to opposite hip, staring at each other when I pull on his hand. “You’re telling me you’re afraid of us having sex and it won’t meet these exceedingly high expectations?”
“You don’t have to laugh at me, Ayden, I know it’s stupid. But I can’t help it. Every single female in the world wants to have good sex, expects good sex. I’m the weird one.”
He shakes his head, bringing our clasped hands up to his mouth to brush a kiss across my knuckles. “That’s the thing with expectations, though, isn’t it? Nothin
g will ever get done if you only expect it to happen without any of the doing to back it up.”
I gulp, fighting the mammoth butterfly death bout currently happening in my stomach. “Look at you, being all wise.” I shake my head when he brushes another kiss along my knuckles. “I’m worried that all of this is going to change everything. Everything, everything. That I won’t be able to walk away after all of this is over.”
Oh, he doesn’t like that. Ayden’s features get tight, like they’ve been hewn from marble, quick slashes of cheekbone, jaw, eyebrows low over his eyes. “Do you plan on never seeing me again if I don’t meet your expectations?”
Well, I’ve gone and bungled the whole freaking thing. I groan, closing my eyes, moving back to flop onto the mound of pillows he insists on sleeping with. “No, that’s not what I was implying.” I sigh, trying to put my thoughts in order. “Knowing you like this, and I do mean you, Ayden—it’s changed me in ways I can’t imagine. And being with you, it’s been like a dream, but dreams don’t last forever, and you’re going to have to wake up sometime.” I cringe, knowing that I’m going to have to bring it up, once and for all, just talk to him about it, like a grown-ass adult.
Being a Regular Jane and falling in love with a famous person, dating them in real life—there’s also the fandom. And while there’s always a few (hundred) bad apples in any fandom (seriously, in any fandom), these assholes seem to be the only ones I keep finding on my Google alerts, completely dragging a picture of Bekah (who plays Amy Eames on the show) and Ayden, walking hand-in-hand, on set, like they’re supposed to be doing, and the dark side of the fandom rears its ugly, stupid head.
While I searched up Ayden and “dating fans” a while ago and found no patterns of previous behaviour, what I’m reading about Bekah had my stomach turning, and some so-called fan sites have pictures of Ayden in his freaking trailer, making aspersions and coming to conclusions about a relationship between Ayden and Bekah that are completely groundless. I know because I’m the female with her back to the photographer (stalker fan) in one of those pictures taken in Ayden’s trailer. The whole thing gives me the heebie-jeebies, that he’s being watched like that, that we’re being watched in that way, in private moments that should remain private.
What the fuck, what the fuck?
I expected it to all be different, me and my expectations, like this would be easier with Ayden, that something as jarring as having my photo taken without my consent, knowing that we were inside his trailer and not out and about, dressed beautifully like a celebrity couple, makes burning hot bile rise up my throat, my hands clenched into fists to fight someone I can’t see, someone I don’t know.
“I…I read something online. Saw some pictures, between you and Bekah,” I murmur, playing with the blanket and looking at only the blanket. “But they weren’t really of you and Bekah. A case of mistaken identity,” I snort, but it’s forced.
Ayden’s quiet, thinking, and I take a chance to look up at him. I make a grab for my phone in my jeans ass pocket, fishing it out and pulling up one of the tabs, handing it over to him. I wonder if he’s doing that thing we just talked about, putting himself behind a closed door in his head, in his heart, as the room continues to sit in silence, the only sound the blood pulsing at my temples, the hard drum of my heartbeat as I wait for him to answer me.
How can he possibly think I can’t walk away when people are talking about Bekah like that? I feel shit and it’s not even about me.
“This was posted two weeks ago.”
I nod, because yeah, it was.
Ayden’s gaze goes flinty and I fight back a shiver. While I am half naked, now is not the time to think he looks super hot like that. Nope, definitely not the time. Nope, nope, nope.
“Why didn’t you talk to me about it?” He holds up the phone, hands it back to me gently. I plop it on the bed, suddenly unable to speak, to form sentences like a coherent human. I shrug instead, and Ayden’s eyes spark. “Aria, how can I know anything about what you’re feeling and thinking if you don’t talk to me?”
I shrug again and I swear to God he wants to smother me, I just know it. He flops down on the bed beside me, on his stomach, trying to suffocate himself in the mound of pillows, groaning all the while, or yelling, I’m not too sure with how muffled it is.
He finally lifts himself up for air, sits upright and looks down at me. Something in his face looks utterly broken and I think I made him look like that.
I sigh, lick at my lips. “Look, I didn’t want to tell you because you can’t do anything about it, not really. People have been shitty since the dawn of time, you know?”
Ayden shakes his head, runs his hands through his hair, yanking at it like he really does want to pull it out. I mean, he could pull off going bald, no problem.
“It freaked me out, yeah,” I say, underplaying, then giving him the honesty that he’s asking for. “I cried for like an hour, I think, after reading all those awful comments. I felt terrible for Bekah, and then I felt terrible for me, yeah. Got really sorry on myself, I’m not going to lie.” I nod along, like it’s going to help keep pushing the words out, getting them out there.
Ayden’s eyes are getting glossy and I hastily look away.
“It’s another reminder that maybe I don’t belong with you, belong in a relationship with you. I’m not a particularly strong person, I cry a lot, feel too much for people I don’t know, or people—characters—that don’t exist. It hurt, reading those comments, having to take them when I couldn’t defend myself. Is this what you go through all the time? Being stalked, having your photo taken without your permission?”
Ayden nods grimly, breath gusting out as if his entire chest is being squeezed. “It happens, it does, I’m not going to lie about it. But it’s part of my job, but it’s just my job. I’m not going to let it cross over into my personal life, no matter what it costs me.”
I tilt my head at him, holding my breath, then letting it out in a whoosh. “What do you mean?”
“It means, darling,” he says, and shit, here we go with that word again. His voice has dropped lower, more resolute, and I can’t help the shiver that races down my spine. “If you’re willing to stay with me, be with me, then I will do everything in my power to keep you safe, to keep your privacy. I know this is a lot to ask of you, I know, but I’m asking.” His gray eyes are intent on me now, trying to find an answer for an unspoken question.
“That’s a lot to ask,” is all I say, swallowing down the pain in my throat, wanting to go back to a few minutes ago, before I brought all this shit up. But when was I gonna ask him about it, after we had sex? After I figured out that Ayden and I are pretty much perfect for each other?
No.
“I know, I know it is.”
I pull in a deep, deep breath, deliberating, thinking it over. “Can I have a day to think about it?”
There’s pain there, on Ayden’s face, and it looks the same as it does when he’s wearing Chrisander, it looks the absolute same, and I wonder what kind of pain Ayden has gone through in his life to make him look like that, to make it hurt to look at him. “Yes,” he says, voice rougher now, wet. “Anything you need, anything you want.”
I know I have my answer already, but I take the time he gives me anyway, just to make absolutely sure.
Ayden deserves that, deserves for me to be absolutely sure of him.
Doesn’t everyone?
TEN
There’s radio silence for almost three weeks. Three whole weeks, where I haven’t gone two whole weeks without speaking to people I care about not once in the history of my life.
But here I am, two weeks completely Ayden free and absolutely miserable.
Miserable.
I commute to work, I do my work, and commute back home all while looking down at my phone approximately a thousand times wishing, hoping, wanting a message from Ayden to pop up on my notifications, wanting a missed phone call, something. But he had to listen to me and let me have my space,
let me keep my distance.
How long is he going to wait? How long is Ayden Stone going to wait for me?
I know it’s not fair, I know it’s not, but I have to get my head on straight.
“Yo, Aria!” Maddie pops up on my screen in a video call from my personal laptop, looking a tiny bit grainy, but I think that has more to do with what’s going on on her side of the Atlantic rather than on mine. Maddie waves enthusiastically, grinning wide, wearing her custom Maddie wear, some sort of loungewear soccer jersey for a team I don’t recognize the name of (but when do I ever), knees hiked up to her chest, hugging them close, long hair in a Lara Croft braid and snaking over her shoulder.
She looks exactly the same.
“I thought Raleigh was supposed to get on here, too?” Maddie asks, and I nod, afraid to actually start talking because I know I’m seconds away from having a meltdown. “Huh. She says she’s punctual, but she’s always late whenever we do one of these. I didn’t know time zones would suck so bad. So? How you’ve been? ’Cause, buddy, you don’t look too hot.”
I nod again, letting out a watery-sounding chuckle, and close my hand over my mouth, like it’s going to keep it all stopped up until Raleigh gets here.
A notification on my laptop pops up and I can finally see Raleigh’s face, mirroring the morning brightness than what Maddie’s got in her apartment. With a click of a button, I’m connected to London, England and Seoul, South Korea and it took a few minutes of mental math to get here, once and for all.
“Hey guys!” Raleigh crows, waving both of her hands excitedly, reminding me of a little kid. “Shit, what time is it there? Am I late?”
“Yeah, you’re late.” Maddie presses down a finger on her wrist, tapping an invisible watch. “Aria doesn’t look so good, right, it’s not just my shitty connection?”
