The Wall of Winnipeg and Me (43 page)

I slid my hands down his biceps to his elbows and finally to his wrists. “Are you going to stay for a little while?” I asked, trying not to build up too much hope. Maybe he had some kind of… something he’d come for besides me.

Turning his wrists, he slid his hands down until we were palm to palm. “I just flew four hours to get here. Who else would I be here for?”

I loved this man.

That was what I thought. What I said though was a completely different thing. “Okay, smart-ass. Let me grab a chair for you then,” I said, taking a step away before blinking at him. He really was standing there in the middle of a convention in his hoodie with a backpack on. He was here.
Here
.

With a squeak I hadn’t made since I was probably twelve, I threw my arms around Aiden’s arm and hugged him once more for a split second.

“Okay, I’ll be right back,” I said, loosening my hold and taking a step back to find him looking down at me with the strangest expression on his face.

“I’ll get one,” he muttered, tipping his head toward mine. A small smile creased the corners of that ultra-serious mouth. He dropped his chin. “Has anybody thrown anything at you?”

I crossed my eyes. “Not yet.”

Aiden blew out a breath and gave me that look that got on my nerves. “Told you.” He reached forward and tapped my elbow with his fingertips. “I’ll be right back.”

I wasn’t sure where he planned on getting a chair from, but if anyone got what he wanted, it was Aiden. He’d figure it out. With that thought, I crawled back under the table and took my seat again, suddenly feeling way more optimistic—and about eight hundred times happier—than I had minutes ago.

I’d barely plopped down and shuffled my seat forward when I realized that both of the authors on either side of me were staring. Literally staring. One of them even had her mouth open.

“Please tell me that’s not your brother,” the one whose mouth was actually closed, stammered out, her gaze zoomed in on the direction Aiden had disappeared to.

“That’s not my brother,” I said a little more smugly than what was necessary, my thumb rubbing over the top of my ring.

“Is that a model?” The one who was gaping practically panted. “Because he’s never hugged me like that before.” She hooked her thumb at the man sitting next to her, who was frowning while also facing where Aiden had gone.

I bit my cheek and tried to hold back my smile even as my soul rejoiced with
Aiden!
He’s here!
“No.”

Both women just looked at me a blankly for so long I reached up to fiddle with the leg of my glasses, feeling a little awkward.

The male model finally leaned around the author he was sitting with. “That’s Aiden Graves, isn’t it?”

And, of course, someone was going to immediately recognize him. I’d seen an ad of him at the airport the night before.

“Who’s that?” the author on my left asked.

“The Wall of Winnipeg. The best defensive player in the NFO,” the guy answered, his gaze bouncing between the spot Aiden had gone and me, his expression more than a little curious. “Are you writing a book about him?” he asked, and I swear I almost rolled my eyes. The sign behind me with my name on it clearly said I did graphic design. Plus, we were at a romance convention. I didn’t know I wrote biographies.

“No,” the familiar, deep voice answered unexpectedly, right before he dropped a metal chair into place right next to me. “She’s mine.”

And he went for it.

My heart went for it too—over the cliff that is.

I thought—

Well it didn’t matter what I thought. Or why’d he’d gone with that instead of going with any other answer except the slightly painful truth. Painful because my insides clung onto the ‘M’ word even though it shouldn’t have. Somehow, with Aiden wielding it, it felt like a weapon of mass destruction intent on destroying my heart.

I should have known better. I knew how stupid it was to feel something for him other than friendship. I really did. This between us was business—he’d made that point abundantly clear before we’d signed paperwork. We both got something out of it. But friendship had blossomed between us—a genuine one that had tugged on my head and heart so much that it had turned into more. For me at least.

I loved Aiden, and hearing him claim me as his, bypassed every instinct in my body that had pushed me to succeed on my own. It didn’t make me feel like I was worth more, but it gave me a turbo boost regardless of how stupid it was for me to take his statement out of context. It was useless to hope. Useless to love him. Care about him, sure. I’d cared about him for years. Had a massive crush on him during that time too.

But this…

It made me want to hope, and that was the last fucking thing I needed.

Now, these people who I may or may not see again in my life would know for sure we were together. I knew how things like this worked. Each person would tell another person and most people in my industry, in the profession that I wanted to work with that included potential customers in this room, they would all know Aiden Graves and I had married, and in five years, they’d know what I lost. Everyone would know we’d gotten divorced if they even remembered.

Which they probably wouldn’t. Would they?

For the price of paying off my student loans, I was going to have to live with it. I’d have to, and that knowledge made my chest give this unnatural squeeze that made my entire body ache. How could I miss something I still had?

A big, sturdy elbow nudged me. “What’s the matter?” Aiden asked in a slightly quieter voice, uselessly trying to keep the conversation between the two of us. I wasn’t fooled. Everyone around us was probably trying to listen in.

I made myself blink my depressing, unnecessary thoughts away and turned my chair enough to face him, wiping my expression off. At least that’s what I hoped. “I was just… I’m fine. I can’t believe you’re here.”

“A happy surprise?” He watched me with those dark eyes before the side of his kneecap kissed the side of mine.

Did he sound hesitant or was I imagining it? I thought about playing it off, but then again, all signs pointed at the fact that the big guy actually knew me. He would recognize if I were lying. “Duh,” I whispered. “It just got me thinking about how the next four-ish years are going to pass in no time, and how much I’ll probably miss you afterward.” I gave him a frown that was trying to be a smile. “It’s dumb. I’m so happy to see you, and I’m already getting upset thinking about not having you around.”

Why was I telling him these things? And why were my eyes tearing up all of a sudden? I blinked up at Aiden, uselessly wiping at them with the back of my hand and let out that horrible laugh when you’re crying but you want to think something is funny. “I’m so happy you’re here and I’m crying,” I cry-laughed bitterly, suddenly aware that all these people I didn’t know who were busy checking out Aiden, could probably see me getting upset.

When I raised my gaze to make sure Aiden thought I was being as crazy as I imagined I was being, I realized he wasn’t smiling. Not at all. The unimpressionable look on his face didn’t say that he thought I was being nuts, and he wasn’t going to tell me I was getting worked up for no reason. Instead, his Adam’s apple bobbed and he stared at me as if he was at a loss for words.

Which only made me feel awkward. Wiping at my eyes again, I sniffled and made myself smile at him, not earning even a fracture of one in return. I wasn’t going to worry about it. “Sorry. I don’t know why I got so worked up. My hormones must be all out of whack.” I swallowed and licked my lips, still all too aware that he was burning my face with his gaze. “I’m so happy you’re here. I really am. This was the best surprise ever. ”

His bearded cheek dimpled, and I knew he was biting down on the inside of it, his nostrils flaring in the process. A deep, deep, deep sigh slowly expelled from his lungs, and I swore, it was almost like his chest deflated. His entire body language changed in such small details I would have missed it if I didn’t know him as well as I did. But the fact was, I knew Aiden. I knew almost everything about him, and I saw the signs.

I just didn’t know what to do with them. The only thing I was aware of was that I wanted him to have an idea of how much it meant to me that he was here. With me.

In that moment, I knew this unrequited love I felt for Aiden was going to end up in heartbreak. The real problem was that my head didn’t seem to care about the consequences. I leaned forward, putting my hand on the solid bulk of the middle of his thigh, and kissed his bristly cheek, maybe not imagining the background noise of the women around me reacting to me touching and getting so close to him. “I really can’t believe you’re here.”

“You said that already,” he murmured as his eyes dropped from mine to somewhere slightly below.

“Too bad. I’m in shock.” I gave his leg a squeeze before straightening in my chair and grinning at him. “Yay,” I whispered.

His eyelids hooded low over those clear, dark orbs. “You’re going to give me diabetes.”

That had me bursting out laughing, lifting the stress off of me for a moment, earning me that tiny little curl on the corners of his mouth.

He reached up and touched a lock of the pale-pink color Diana had dyed my hair weeks ago. “I’m going to get a green tea. Do you want that sugar with a side of coffee crap you like?” he asked, already getting to his big feet.

“Yeah, but I don’t know if they’ll let you in with a drink or not.”

He gave me one of his looks. “They’ll let me in.” One hand going to my shoulder, he squeezed it and then picked up my table on one edge, moved it aside, and side-stepped through the gap he’d made. Then he put it back where it had been without moving any of my things over.

It definitely wasn’t my imagination that 90 percent of the women he walked by in line—and behind their tables—watched him and his tight, round butt make their way to the exit.

I was so screwed.

A hand moved in my peripheral vision. “You married that?” the lady next to me asked, even though her face was glued on that fabulous butt.

This huge knot formed in my chest as I watched Aiden’s broad back disappear into the crowd. I had to suppress what I was sure was going to be a sigh. “Yep.”

“
I
tried
to get here earlier, but I couldn’t get a flight,” he explained a few hours later when we were lying on my bed in my hotel room with eight boxes of take-out scattered between us. Two dishes had some variety of tofu inside, three boxes were steamed rice, two were all sautéed veggies, and the eighth had sweet and sour chicken. The three apples, four bananas, two fruit cups, and large green tea he’d had at the convention hadn’t satisfied the big guy at all.

Dipping my chicken in extra sauce, I eyed him, still on a high from him surprising the hell out of me by showing up. It was unreal. The fact that I’d had person after person approaching my table, after he came back with drinks and snacks, hadn’t escaped me at all. To give him credit, Aiden had handled the attention as well as could be expected. He went as far as to say “thank you” and “nice to meet you” to the people who asked him for autographs once word got around he was there.

Sure, everyone who had dropped by came for him or used me as an excuse to approach the table, but by the end of the convention, all of my business cards had been taken and so had most of my bookmarks and pins. I’d been tagged in at least fifty pages online, more than one including some kind of picture of the big guy and me.

I wasn’t dumb; I would take what I could get, even if it was for the wrong reasons, and I’d capitalize on it. So what if everyone in the future knew our relationship hadn’t worked out and then wondered what had happened to cause us to split. So what if the first thing they assumed was that he cheated on me. That was what everyone usually guessed when couples broke up.

Telling myself I didn’t care what anyone thought, didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

I would know we hadn’t ‘split up’ for that reason. It would have to be enough.

“When did you start looking?” I asked him, shoving the thoughts of cheating and divorce aside again and focusing on him being here.

He hummed, his mouth full. “Yesterday.”

Ahh, hell. I knew I might have laid it on too thick when he’d driven me to the airport. It might have been me telling him, “Stick my hard drive in the microwave if I don’t come back,” that did him in.

“There weren’t any flights last night, and I had to wait to talk to Zac so he could watch Leo; otherwise, I would have gotten here sooner,” he added.

“I really didn’t mean to guilt-trip you into coming.”

He shrugged. “You would never ask me to come, and I wouldn’t have if I didn’t want to.”

While I knew that was the truth, I still felt just a tiny, little, baby bit bad. Just a little. “Yeah, I know, but still. I shouldn’t have cried so much about it or made you think—”

“—you were going to have things thrown at you.” He let out a low chuckle that was all playful and totally unexpected. Aiden reached over and set his palm on my knee, careful not to touch me with fingers that had sauce on them. “I went to bed worried.”

He was worried about me?

“Everyone seemed nice,” he ended.

Of course everyone had been nice to him. Okay, they’d been nice to me too, but it was different. Everyone had been checking him out, before and even some after they realized I caught them in the act. Hookers.

I wasn’t going to lie. This unfamiliar and territorial feeling took over every time I saw women take on expressions that made it seem as if they were two seconds away from jumping his bones while he’d sat there, completely oblivious to the world around him, with a book in those million-dollar hands. And I thought then, of course they checked him out. Here was this massive, incredibly attractive man in a romance novel convention… reading a damn book.

But that part of my brain hadn’t been fond of the ogling even though I logically couldn’t blame them. I wasn’t going to be surprised if pictures of him showed up on the internet tomorrow—if they hadn’t already been posted—with ridiculous memes or captions beneath them.