The Wall of Winnipeg and Me (30 page)

“Intergalactic fighters,” I tried to draw him in, raising an eyebrow. “Like
Streetfighter
but with a plot. It’s epic.”

Adding the intergalactic part must have been too much because he just shook his big head. “What the hell is an intergalactic fighter?”

“A fighter…” I stared at him and grabbed two pieces of candy, handing him an Airhead because I knew it was vegan. “Here. This might take a while.”

“
H
e has
a tail the entire time?” Aiden held the same Blow Pop up against his lip that he’d taken from the jack-o-lantern bucket after polishing off an Airhead. I may or may not have had to force myself not to look at his mouth for more than a second or two at a time. “That seems stupid. Someone could grab it and use it against him.”

The fact that he was thinking strategy over an anime that I was so fond of got me pretty damn excited; I just had to be careful not to let it show on my face. “No, he lost his tail when he grew up,” I explained.

We’d been going on about “Dragonball” for the last hour. In that time, exactly four kids had come up to the house for candy, but I was too busy explaining one of my favorite shows in the world to Mr. I-didn’t-have-a-childhood to really focus in on that.

He blinked as he thought about my explanation. “He lost his tail when he hit puberty?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why does it matter? It’s genetic. Guys grow hair in places when they hit puberty; he can lose his tail if he wants to lose his tail. You just have to watch it to understand.”

He didn’t look particularly convinced.

“After that, there’s “Dragonball Z” and GT, and those are even better in my opinion.”

“What’s that?”

“The series when they get older. They have kids and then their kids grow up to become better than them.”

His eyebrow twitched and I was fairly certain his mouth did too. “Do you have that on DVD too?”

I smiled. “Maybe.”

He gave me a side-glance, reaching up to scratch at his bearded cheek with his last three fingers. “Maybe I’ll have to watch it.”

“Whenever you want, big guy. My video collection is your video collection.”

I swear he nodded as if he’d actually take me up on my offer.

With a victorious sigh, I turned my attention back to the street to see that it was completely empty. Not a single soul roamed our block or any other block within visual distance. Something tickled at the back of my head, really making me think about the evening, about Aiden coming out to sit with me.

I bit my lips and asked slowly, “That’s probably it for kids today, huh?”

He lifted a shoulder, pulling the lollipop out of his mouth. “Seems like it.”

I got up with the nearly full container of candy and made sure to keep my face down as I collapsed the legs of the chair together. Something clogged my throat. “Kids don’t really go trick-or-treating in this neighborhood, do they?”

Aiden hummed the most obnoxious non-answer in the world.

And I had my answer.

I couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to figure it out.

He had known kids didn’t come out to trick-or-treat in his neighborhood—his freaking gated neighborhood. So he’d come out to keep me company. How about that.
How about that.

“Aiden?”

“Huh?”

“Why didn’t you tell me there weren’t little kids here?”

He didn’t bother looking at me as he headed into the house with his chair tucked under an arm. “You looked excited. I didn’t want to ruin it for you,” he admitted without a shy note in his voice.

Bah-freaking-humbug.

If there was something I could have said after that that would have been appropriate, I had no idea what it could have been. I thought about the tiny kindness he’d done me as I took the chair from him and set both of them back into the garage while he went to the bathroom.

My stomach growled and I went about rinsing some chickpeas and drying them while my mind wandered to Aiden. He appeared in the kitchen and sat at the breakfast table, his broad back curling over it as he worked on his puzzle in peace. I made dinner—quadrupling what I usually would have made for just me alone—and told myself that I was only doing it because he’d been nice to me.

I wasn’t even going to bother asking if he was hungry. He was always hungry.

When the food was ready thirty minutes later, I served up two bowls and held the one with three times as much as the other out to him. Aiden eyes caught mine as he took it.

“Thank you.”

I just nodded at him. “You’re welcome. I’m going to go watch TV while I eat.” I made it all the way to where the living room met up with the hallway that went straight down the middle of the house.

“You want to watch that Dragonballs show?”

I stopped in my tracks when he spoke.

“I’m curious now what a little kid with a monkey tail who can supposedly ‘kick ass’ looks like.”

Glancing back to make sure he wasn’t pulling my tail, I spotted Aiden sitting on the edge of his seat, ready to get up if I gave him the notice. I was dumbstruck for a second before reacting. I had to force myself not to smile like a lunatic. “It’s ‘
Dragonball
,’ big guy, and you don’t have to tell me twice.”

I
was sitting
at my computer when the first massive lightning bolt hit. The house shook. The windows rattled. Wind howled, slapping the house’s siding. The height of the storm I’d seen the meteorologist on TV forecasting had finally come.

And I panicked, saving my work as quickly as I could so I could turn off my computer.

Then the next bolt hit, the light so bright right outside my window it seemed unreal, closer to a nuclear blast than an act of nature. The lights had no hope. Just like a candle going out, they were there one second and gone the next.

“Fuck!” I muttered to myself, already diving from my desk toward the bed, blind, slapping my hands around so I could find the nightstand. My knee found it first, and I cursed, grabbing the spot that I was sure was already turning into a bruise with one hand and finding the top drawer with the other. It didn’t take me long to find the small LED flashlight inside. I made sure it was always in the left corner, and sure enough, it was right there.

Flicking it on, I sucked in a deep breath before jumping back on the bed and sliding under the covers. The flashlight was the best thing money could buy; five hundred lumens for a contraption three inches long. I moved the bright beam around the ceiling and toward the open doorway, listening as the screaming winds outside got louder. I shivered.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t gotten a warning that a storm was coming in advance. It had been raining steadily for some time, but instead of the storm moving away, it had just gotten heavier and heavier. Great.

This was so stupid. I hated being so scared of the dark. I really did. It made me feel like a dumb little kid. But no matter how much I tried to tell myself it was okay, that I was fine….

That didn’t do anything.

I still shook. My breathing still got bottled up in my throat. I still wanted the lights to come back on.

“Vanessa? Where are you?” Aiden’s rough voice carried its way from down the hall. I could barely hear his footsteps as they got lost mixed in with the noise outside.

“In my room,” I called out, weaker than I ever would have wanted. “What are you doing awake?” Sleepy Pants had gone to bed at his usual time: nine. Three hours ago.

“The thunder woke me up.” Another big flash of lightning illuminated the body filling the doorway a moment later, and I flicked my flashlight at his legs.

His bare legs.

He was only wearing boxer briefs. There wasn’t a shirt over his chest. Aiden was standing in my doorway in just boxer briefs, his medallion around his neck, and muscles.

So many muscles.

Stop it. I needed to stop it right away.

“Jesus. How bright is that thing? Point it at the floor, would you?” he said in a voice that confirmed he’d been dead asleep just minutes ago. I flicked the light toward the ceiling instead. “You all right?”

“I’m okay,” I said, even as an unnecessary shiver racked my spine. “Just pissing my pants. No big deal.” The laugh that came out of my mouth sounded just as fake and awkward as it felt. I sounded like a crazy person.

The sigh he let out made it seem like he was completely putting himself out as he strode forward, around the side of the mattress before stopping, towering. “Scoot over.”

Scoot?

I wasn’t going to ask. I should, but I didn’t as my heart seemed to climb into my throat and take a seat.

I scooted. Neither one of us said a word as he climbed onto my bed and under the covers as if it was no big freaking deal, like this wasn’t the first time he’d done it. I didn’t let myself get all shy and prude-ish, or anywhere near it. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I wasn’t going to say no to the other half of my paperwork getting into my bed when I’d rather not be by myself.

Lightning flashed brighter than bright through the two windows in my room once more before plunging the house into that eerie darkness that creeped me the hell out despite the beam of light aimed at the ceiling.

Without a shameful bone in my body, I wiggled over the foot between us until his elbow touched mine.

“Are you shaking?” he asked in a strange tone.

“Only a little bit.” I scooted an inch closer, soaking in the heat his body was throwing off.

Aiden sighed like I was torturing him while all I’d done was mind my own business in bed. “You’re fine.”

I moved the light in the shape of a circle across the ceiling. “I know.”

Another great big sigh only possible from a man his size made its way out of his throat. “Come here.” His voice seemed to rumble across the sheets.

“Where?” I was already next to him. I rolled onto my side.

“Closer, Van,” he ordered, exasperated.

I wasn’t anywhere near being worried about how weird it was to be in bed with someone who hadn’t even given me a real hug once in the entirety of the time we’d known each other. I definitely wasn’t thinking about how he was mostly naked and how I only had underwear and a tank top on.

So I moved over, right on over until I realized he wasn’t on his back any longer. He was on his side. I practically pressed up against him, my face right between his pecs, my arms between my chest and the middle of his.

He was warm, and he smelled wonderful, like the expensive coconut oil and herbal soap he used. The same stuff I used to order him from online once upon a time when things between us had been so different. I couldn’t begin to imagine that Aiden—that same man who had spent a minimum of five days a week keeping me at arm’s length five months ago—was in my bed right then because he knew about my phobia.

Later when I was capable of it, I’d think about him waking up and coming to my room, but right then wasn’t the time.

He shifted a little, just a little. The bristles covering his chin brushed my forehead for a split second. He made a noise, a soft one, a relaxed one, and his facial hair touched me again, lingering just a moment longer on my skin. “How have you survived the last twenty years being terrified of the dark?” His question was so cottony, so pliable, I opened my mouth to answer before I thought twice about it.

“I always have a flashlight,” I explained. “And except for these last two years, I’ve always lived with someone. Plus, it’s rare that I’m ever in complete darkness. You learn how to avoid it.”

“You lived with a boyfriend?” he asked casually, his breath warm on my hair. If his tone was a little too casual, I didn’t pick up on it.

“Uh, no. I’ve never ‘lived’ with one. I’ve only had three and it never came up.” I locked my gaze on that shiny gold medal draped high over his left pectoral. “Have you ever lived with a girlfriend?”

The scoff that came out of Aiden made me jump just because it was so unexpected. “
No
.” His tone sounded either disgusted or disbelieving that
he
would do something so stupid. “I’ve never been in a relationship.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Ever?”

“Ever,” the smug-ass responded.

“Not even in high school?”

“Definitely not in high school.”

“Why?”

“Because every relationship will end up one of two ways: you’ll end up breaking up, or you end up marrying the person. And I don’t like wasting my time.”

That had me tipping my head back so I could meet his eyes. His expression said he thought I’d lost my damn mind, but my mind was too busy to be lost. He had a point about the outcome of relationships, but the rest of it… His lack of dates. The religious medallion around his neck. It all suddenly made sense.

“Are you…” I couldn’t get it out. “Are you saving yourself for marriage?”

He didn’t throw his head back and laugh. He didn’t flick me on the forehead and call me an idiot. Aiden Graves simply stared at me in the shadowy room, his face inches from mine. When he was done staring at me, he blinked. Then he blinked some more. “I’m not a virgin, Vanessa. I had sex a few times in high school.”

My eyes bulged. High school? He hadn’t been with anyone since freaking high school? “In high school?” My tone was as disbelieving as it should have been.

He picked up on what I was trying to hint at. “Yes. Sex is complicated. People lie. I don’t have time for any of it.”

Holy. Shit. I watched his face. He wasn’t lying. Not even a little bit. That suddenly explained what the hell he did in his room for hours by himself. He masturbated. He masturbated all the time. I felt my face get hot as I asked, “Are you a born-again virgin?”

“No.” Those lashes lowered over his eyeballs again. “What would make you think I was?”

“You’ve never had a girlfriend. You don’t ever go on dates.” You jerk off all the time. Crap, I needed to stop thinking about him and his hand and all the time he hung out in his room.

Aiden was definitely giving me a ‘you’re an idiot face.’ “I don’t have time to bother trying to have a relationship, and I don’t like most people. Women included. ”

I wrung my hands, which were still between our two bodies. “You like me a little.”

“A little,” he repeated with only a small curve to the corners of his mouth.

I let his comment go and reached forward with one of my index fingers to point at the St. Luke’s medallion around his neck. “Isn’t this a Catholic saint? Maybe you’re religious.”

His big hand immediately went up to touch the quarter-sized object he carried around with him always. “I’m not religious.”

I raised my eyebrows, and he gave me an exasperated expression.

“You can ask whatever you want.”

“But will you answer?”

He huffed as he settled that massive, mostly nude body in front of me. “Ask your damn question,” he quipped brusquely.

I held the tip of my index finger directly above his medal before drawing my hand back toward my chest, feeling uber shy. I’d wanted to ask him for years, but I’d never been confident enough to. What better moment than when he was commanding me to ask? “Why do you always wear it?”

Without a hint of reservation, Aiden answered. “It was my grandfather’s.”

Was that my heart making a racket?

“He gave it to me when I was fifteen,” he went on to explain.

“For your birthday?”

“No. After I went to go live with him.”

His voice was smooth and comforting. Everything about it had me closing my eyes, sucking up his words and giving me this sense of openness. “Why did you go live with him?”

“Them. I lived with my grandparents.” The bristles of his beard touched my forehead again. “My parents didn’t want to deal with me anymore.”

That was definitely my heart making all kinds of horrendous noises. This all felt too familiar, too painful even for me.

Possibly too painful even for Aiden.

What Aiden was saying didn’t add up with the man across from me. The one who rarely raised his voice in anger, hardly ever cursed, rarely fought with any of his opponents much less his teammates. Aiden was a low-level charge—determined, focused, disciplined.

And I knew way too well what it was like to be unimportant.

I wasn’t going to cry.

I kept my eyes closed and Aiden kept his secrets close to his heart.

His breath touched my forehead. “Did you ever go to therapy?” he asked. “After what your sisters did?”

Maybe this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have after all. “No. Well, I went to a psychologist when I left my mom’s house. Well, when CPS took custody. They only asked questions about what things were like where my mom was concerned. Not about… anything else really.” In hindsight, I figure they wanted to be sure I hadn’t been abused by her or anyone else she could have brought into her kids’ live. The psychologist must have seen something in my older sisters that he didn’t like because we got split up into different houses. Honestly, I’d never been happier than I was after that.

How messed up was that? I couldn’t even bother feeling that guilty about it, especially not when we’d gone to a good family with strict but caring adults. Not like what I’d had before. “I don’t like being scared. I wish I wasn’t, and I’ve tried not to be,” I blabbered on mindlessly, feeling defensive all of a sudden.

He reared back, and I could tell he was looking at me with an uncertain expression. “It was only a question. Everyone is scared of something.”

“Even you?” I made myself meet his eyes, easily batting away the defensiveness I’d felt a moment ago and clinging onto the subject change.

“Everyone but me,” came his smooth, effortless response.

That had me groaning. The bright beam of light between us was throwing shadows over parts of his face. “No. You said it. Everyone’s been scared of something. What about when you were a little kid?”

The silence went thoughtful just as thunder made the windows rattle. I subconsciously touched him right between the pecs with my fingertips.

“Clowns.”

Clowns? “Really?” I tried to imagine a tiny Aiden crying over men and women with overly painted faces and red noses, but I couldn’t.

The big guy was still facing me. His expression clear and even, as he dipped his chin. “Eh.”

God help me, he’d gone Canadian on me. I had to will my face not to react at the fact he’d gone with the one word he usually used only when he was super relaxed around other people. “I thought they were going to eat me.”

Now imagining
that
had me cracking a little smile. I slid my palm under my cheek. “How old were you? Nineteen?”

Those big chocolate-colored eyes blinked, slow, slow, slow. His dark pink lips parted just slightly. “Are you making fun of me?” he drawled.

“Yes.” The fractures of my grin cracked into bigger pieces.

“Because I was scared of clowns?” It was like he couldn’t understand why that was amusing.

But it was. “I just can’t imagine you scared of anything, much less clowns. Come on. Even I’ve never been scared of clowns.”

“I was four.”

I couldn’t help but snicker. “Four… fourteen, same difference.”

Based on the mule-ish expression on his face, he wasn’t amused. “This is the last time that I come over to save you from the boogeyman.”

Shocked out of my mind for a split second, I tried to pretend like I wasn’t, but… I was. He was joking with me. Aiden was in bed joking around. With me. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I was just messing with you.” I scooted one more millimeter closer to him, drawing my knees up so that they hit his thighs. “Please don’t leave yet.”