by Nicky James
Scanning, I noted Aven and Finn in close conversation. Aven caught my eye and winked. I acknowledged him with a small quirked half-smile before ducking my head back to the game.
Those two and their marriage made my heart all gushy and warm. Since Bryn had told me about giving her baby up for adoption to a local gay couple, I’d been on cloud nine, knowing she was truly making a difference in two men’s lives. When I’d found out one of the men was Finnley Hollins, a guy I’d met at my group therapy, I was over the moon.
I’d gotten to know both men outside of group since I was with them at Bryn’s side for all her appointments. Their excitement was contagious. I also knew Finn was just as anxious as I was about leaving for this trip and being so far away from Bryn.
I tried to re-engage in our game since Anastasia had plowed on without me. I scanned the new room where she’d brought our little detective. I pointed to the bookshelf on the screen and made a motion with my hands to tell her I thought it opened as a secret passage.
Anastasia’s eyes lit up, and she squirmed as she tapped the screen, making the detective go check it out.
Overhead, the announcement for our boarding blared through the terminal. Iggy shifted to stand again and caught my eye. I nudged Anastasia’s arm, motioning to the speakers overhead. She frowned, so I pulled out my phone and typed, boarding time.
She nodded understanding and shoved her phone and the game away for the time being. Her thick brown curls were caught in her headphones, so she adjusted them, smoothing a chunk behind her ear and ensuring the headphones sat snug.
Anastasia wasn’t much bigger than I was. She had a cute little button nose and eyes like marbles, green, brown, and even a little gold in places. Cat eyes when she smiled or squinted. She hated when I teased her about it.
Iggy plopped down beside me and swung an arm around my shoulder, tugging me against him. I melted into his warm embrace and watched as people stood and gathered their carry-ons while readying themselves for the flight.
I carried my backpack with a few sketchbooks, in case I got bored, but otherwise, we’d checked the rest of our luggage.
“Who’s the bubbly guy?” Iggy whispered near my ear, tipping his head and indicating to the spunky, vibrant, loud man who’d immersed himself into our group shamelessly.
“I think he’s with Rory and Adrian. He’s not from group. Neither is the older guy beside him.”
“He seems to know a few people here by the sound of it.”
I shrugged and scanned our group. “Don’t know.”
Whoever he was he was definitely over the top. Dressed in tight red skinny jeans, a black shirt and a designer leather jacket with a red scarf, he caught a lot of attention. His hair was bleached and styled to perfection, and he wore a touch of makeup to highlight his eyes.
As the announcer began calling boarding groups, Iggy and I stood, hands clasped as we waited our turn.
Iggy chuckled and leaned down to whisper in my ear again. “Finn is going to give himself an ulcer if he doesn’t calm down. I swear he’s checked his phone at least ten dozen times since he and Aven got here.”
I giggled and peeked a glance in his direction. It was before five in the morning. I should probably tell him Bryn wasn’t an early riser.
“He’s just nervous and excited all rolled into one.”
“Now boarding group four.”
“That’s us,” Iggy said.
We lined up and waited our turn to have our ticket scanned.
We found our seats and got comfortable as everyone filed down the aisle. Anastasia waved as she passed us by, a wide grin spread across her face. She was many rows farther down, but she assured me she would be fine since she brought her Kindle.
As boarding finished up and most people were seated, Ireland and Raven came down the less congested aisle. Raven had his body wrapped around Ireland from behind, and a clear expression of anxiety was plastered all over Ireland’s face. Ireland closed his eyes and let Raven guide him as Raven whispered in his ear.
I hadn’t even considered how this situation might look to someone who feared touch like Ireland did. Poor guy.
It was hard seeing him like that, especially since he always seemed to be the stronger person in group. Comfortable with his phobia and never afraid to share his experiences—good and bad.
Iggy sat by the window, and I ended up squished between him and a stranger on my other side. I was smaller, so I wiggled as close to Iggy as possible, and we chatted until take off.
Once we were wheels up, Iggy rooted through my backpack and unearthed our breakfast. It was all part of our plan, so I didn’t argue. Because I refused to eat food from restaurants, we’d needed to make alternate arrangements for our travels which included packing breakfast for the morning flight.
Iggy would get an Uber once we were settled in our hotel in Edmonton and scope out the nearest grocery store so we could buy a bunch of acceptable items I could store in our room.
Iggy passed me an Ensure—which I still drank three times a day—a baggy with dried cereal—Fruit Loops because sugar is amazing—and dried mango slices—which were a new addition to my diet. For whatever reason, I managed dried fruit a lot easier than fresh.
I flipped down the tray and lined up my selections while Iggy unwrapped the overloaded breakfast bagel he’d bought at the café in the airport. He hadn’t much appreciated my little rundown of all the possible contaminants he was playing Russian roulette with, but he’d laughed and ruffled my hair, messing up my hard-won style—which I didn’t much appreciate.
I nibbled the colorful loops while I watched the dark sky out the window and thought about the upcoming conference.
We’d each been given a small section of time to talk about our phobias, how they’d come into existence, the effects they had on our daily living, and the steps we’d been working through to overcome our deeply rooted anxieties. What worked. What didn’t. How we felt about the help we’d been given or the resulting backlash from friends, family, work, or society as a whole—if those matters pertained to us.
At first, It’d bothered me because I’d spent a lot of years in hiding, afraid to own up to my fear of food. Then, I’d learned through group therapy, I wasn’t alone. So many others had shied away from admitting the truth because they felt silly or weakened by their phobias. The point of the conference was to educate professionals from the source and not from a textbook. Let them see the reality of what anxiety disorders did to a person’s everyday life.
I picked at my food over the following hour, successfully eating the majority of what we’d packed. When I’d tucked it away again, I curled up against Iggy and pushed the conference from my mind.
There was another pressing issue rattling around my brain lately. One I couldn’t ignore much longer.
“Vortex wants me to sign their contract at the end of the month,” I blurted out tipping my head and peering up into Iggy’s eyes.
Vortex was a major design company that produced some of the top clothing labels in the country. It was based out of Toronto, and they’d been itching to bring me onto their crew as a junior designer since one of their top directors had seen my work at our fall fashion show last November.
My final year of college was coming to an end in a few weeks, and Horatio Nacht had been vigilant in his emails, throwing contracts at me that were more and more enticing, leaving it impossible for me to say no.
However, it meant moving to a huge city and leaving my family behind. I was okay with that. It was the leaving Iggy behind part that tied my stomach into knots. Toronto was a three-hour drive from Dewhurst Point.
Iggy hadn’t said much about it. He’d encouraged me more than once to follow my dreams, but whenever I brought up Vortex’s growing offers, he grew antsy and withdrew.
“It’s an incredible offer. Especially right out of school. Have you decided to take it?”
I sat up and shifted to face him. “But it’s in Toronto.”
“I know.” Iggy grimaced, a
poor attempt at a reassuring smile.
I paused, waiting to see if he’d say more.
He didn’t. Like always.
Iggy’s opinion or thoughts on the matter were tightly contained, vaulted away and almost inaccessible. He’d never once asked what would happened to us. He’d never said he’d come with me, and yet, he’d never said he wouldn’t. He’d simply encouraged me to think about it carefully and follow my heart wherever it led me.
Well, my heart was firmly glued to him, our souls practically intertwined. I’d loved him since I was ten years old. How was I supposed to make any kind of decision if I didn’t know where his heart sat?
Maybe he didn’t love me the same.
I was tired of all the hedging and guessing.
“So, if I accept, if I go, what happens to us?”
The hiccup of time that followed my question felt like a black hole sucking away all my hopes and dreams about a future with Iggy. His warm olive skin tone paled a few shades, and his gaze dropped to his lap.
“What do you want to have happen?”
I flinched. “Obviously, I want you to come with me. But you haven’t said anything. I know it means quitting your job and looking for work, but Toronto is huge. I’m sure you’ll find work fast. You have a lot of experience, great references—”
“I know… that’s not it.” He fidgeted with his hands as deep grooves formed between his brows.
“Then what is it?”
The air in the cabin grew thicker as Iggy refused to meet my eyes. My heart pulsed in my ears.
Then he looked up, something unreadable glistening in his amber eyes, and he tried to smile but failed miserably. “Take their offer, Arden. It’s everything you’ve ever dreamed of. I’m so proud of you, and it’d be stupid to turn it down. I knew it would come to this eventually and… I just… have to figure some shit out.”
He took my hand and leaned in, kissing my temple and resting our cheeks together as he breathed deeply, nuzzling the hair behind my ear.
“Te amo. Tu eres el dueño de mi corazón,” he whispered. I love you. You own my heart.
When he pulled back, he encouraged me to settle beside him, effectively ending the conversation. But what did that mean? He knew it would come to this? My stomach churned and ached. Was he talking about the end of us?
I couldn’t ignore the unsettled feeling in my bones telling me Iggy and I were on borrowed time.
I had so many questions, but I wasn’t sure I was prepared to hear the answers.
The cabin walls pressed in around me. Claustrophobia had never been an issue for me, but suddenly, I didn’t feel like I could breathe.
CHAPTER SIX
Grayson
We landed in Edmonton at seven forty-five a.m. local time. Beck’s head rested on my shoulder, a string of drool leaked from the corner of his mouth, threatening to land on my T-shirt. I shook him, trying to rouse him from sleep, but waking Beck was like trying to rouse the dead.
“Mmm,” he mumbled. “Sleep now, I’ll suck your dick later,” he said, not quietly, smacking his lips and burying his face in my shoulder, officially smearing that drool into the fabric.
I chuckled and gave the guy beside Beck a shrug when he whipped his head our way, eyes bulging.
Once upon a time, Beck had been uncomfortable being out with our relationship. Not that he wasn’t willing to be seen in public as a couple, but he’d been overly aware of people and their reactions toward us. He’d calmed in recent months, but he probably wouldn’t be too happy with himself if he knew he’d just openly advertised our sex life to a complete stranger.
“Beck. Wake up, we’re here.”
He groaned but still didn’t open his eyes. His hand reached out blindly, and he patted my chest before sliding it south and unashamedly cupped my junk. “Fine, but don’t bitch if I’m uncoordinated,” he slurred.
I clasped his wrist and jerked his hand away as the guy beside us did everything in his power to disappear into his seat. He looked ready to disembark before we finished taxiing. I bit back a laugh and shook Beck again.
“Wake the fuck up before you get us charged with public indecency.”
I heaved Beck upright, and he swayed, his lids cracking open as he yawned and glanced around. Realization sank in, and he threaded fingers through his messy curls, straightened his glasses, and rattled his head. “Did I just?” He waved a hand over my body.
“Yes, you did. Now apologize to the poor guy next to you because I think you scared him.”
Beck noticed the man on his other side and the way he’d turned three shades of red as he scanned the front of the plane, avoiding eye contact.
“I’m sorry,” Beck mumbled to the guy before drooping back in his seat and jetting his gaze around. “Why didn’t you wake me up? You know I have a bad habit of performing sexual exploits in my sleep.”
“I was waking you up. You also have a bad habit of not listening to me.”
The side of Beck’s mouth quirked because he knew I was right.
“What’s the game plan? Do we have time to explore today or do you have to be somewhere?”
“I just need to register at some point. The events start tomorrow morning, first thing. So I was thinking we check in, drop our bags in the room, get me all signed in, then we can go wherever your heart desires.”
Beck had spent months researching antique shops, second-hand stores, oddities stores, and everything like it in the area so we could go on the hunt for anything worth adding to his shop back home.
After Edmonton, we were flying to Winnipeg to spend a few days with my parents before heading home. He’d highlighted a few stops there as well. It was an unofficial little vacation for both of us.
Beck grinned as his mind raced through options. I could see his wheels turning as he accessed the list he’d made inside his head and scanned for where to begin.
By the time we’d deplaned, collected our luggage, and found a rental car, Beck drove us to the massive hotel and convention center where we were staying, smack dab in the middle of the city.
It was ten o’clock when we arrived. Although we were on schedule according to the itinerary I’d drawn up, I couldn’t shed the knotting anxiety in my gut that made me check the time every ten minutes. It was an impossible habit to break. No matter where we went or what we did, I calculated and distributed our time accordingly. Every block of time needed to be accounted for or I grew antsy. Too much stagnation and I became swamped with nausea.
Things in my life were better but only because I’d developed rituals and routines to make them so. Controlled chaos, I called it. Dr. Kelby assured me it was progress. I moved with the flow of time, accepted its presence and passage but didn’t let it suck me into its vortex.
Mostly.
It still happened on occasion. There were still days I was caught and pulled under, panicked at an unaccounted hour. Other days, I couldn’t fight the impulse to record timestamps. Not all days were good.
I still took anxiety meds. I still had moments where I drifted from reality, but they’d lessened.
Beck was there for it all—even when it frustrated the fuck out of him.
Beck parked in the vast parking lot, and we collected our luggage from the trunk. The front foyer of the hotel was gorgeous with open-slated, solid oak steepled ceilings, track lighting that highlighted the stone walls, and a marble-fronted desk. A fireplace sat off to one side with couches and chairs surrounding it. Floor to ceiling windows let in the sun. Slate gray carpeting covered a majority of the floor, except for a tiled patch around the front desk which was midnight black and shimmered with flecks of silver.
A uniformed man with a nametag that read Wilhelm waved us toward the desk, a wide grin showing off brilliant white teeth. “Checking in, gentlemen?”
“Yes.”
“This way.”
I rolled my luggage behind me, and Beckett stayed on my heels, his head spinning as he took in the lobby.
“Wow, nice plac
e,” he said as he joined me at the counter, leaning against my shoulder, closer than he ever would have stood before. There was no mistaking our connection, and the woman behind the desk noted it and smiled.
We checked in and collected our room cards. I scanned for the elevators and noted a few other people from my group therapy coming in. Not that I didn’t want to be social, but I still didn’t know those people all that well, and it felt a little strange interacting with them outside the sessions we had together. Plus, they’d multiplied. Almost everyone had brought a significant other or support of some kind.
“This way,” I said, dragging Beck along to where I saw the bank of elevators before anyone saw us.
Beck had his face buried in his phone. “The main place I wanted to check out, The Antique Cache, doesn’t open until noon. The other three are across town.” He tilted his phone to show me as we rode the elevator to our floor. “This is the one I need to see. It’s the largest of them all, but their hours kinda suck.”
Beck frowned as he flicked through his phone, scrolling through their website.
“We’ll get there, I promise. Let’s drop our bags off and find out where I register then we can skip out of here, maybe grab lunch.”
“Perfect. I’ll look up some nice places to eat.”
He pulled up his browser and started searching as the elevator doors opened. Blindly following me, head stuck in his phone, I guided him toward our room.
All plans died the minute I unlocked the door and stepped inside. Beck bumped into my back when I came to a halt because he wasn’t paying attention. His chin lifted, and his jaw dropped.
“This is our room? Seriously?”
Phone forgotten, he walked in and spun, eyes wide.
I smirked and waved a hand. “It’s our first time going away together. Or at least as a couple. I thought we needed a nice treat, so I upgraded our reservation to a better room. Welcome to the King’s suite.”
Not only did the room have a king-sized bed, but it had floor to ceiling windows overlooking downtown, a whirlpool tub, a small sitting area, and a kitchen area with a bar.