Stay With Me (A Wattpad Novel)

by Jessica Cunsolo

  As for Chase and Noah’s relationship, that’s still up in the air too. Chase gave Noah a mumbled, half-assed apology that no one really thinks he meant. Before Noah could say anything, though, Chase stormed off. Noah’s been trying to talk to Chase all morning, but Chase has been avoiding him, which I think is starting to annoy Noah.

  Compared to all this drama, my Mason secret should probably stay well buried for now, as we’ve been through enough already on this vacation. I know Aiden still thinks I should tell him, but there’s just so much going on. Can I really be the person who ruins someone else’s vacation?

  Now, my friends are in teams on opposite sides of the arena, waiting for the horn to blow, paintball guns in hand. The losing team is on cooking and cleaning duty for the next three days, so all of our adrenaline is pumping, everyone wanting to demolish the other team.

  Since Aiden and I are on opposite teams, he promised me before the match that he’d shoot me last, you know, like the gentleman he is. I smiled at him and told him that I’d love to see him try.

  The horn goes off and we scatter. We paired up so the team could split up, and Mason grabbed Annalisa and Jackson before I could even say a word to him. That left Chase and me together, which of course I don’t mind. We’re going to kick ass.

  Not even two minutes in there are paintballs whizzing by my head, and Noah’s diabolical laugh pins him as the culprit. Somehow, Chase and I get split up, leaving me on my own, but I come across Jason crouching behind a pile of tires, his back to me.

  Can I shoot an innocent nine-year-old?

  Jason hears me and turns around, gun raised to shoot, and I automatically shoot him right in the chest, pink paint splattering all over his torso. He takes off his mask and gives me the look of a wounded puppy.

  “You would do me like that, Amelia?” He pouts.

  “Sorry, bud, find me again next round for revenge!” I tell him with a devilish smile before running off.

  I turn around the corner and run right into a solid chest that I would know anywhere. I back away and Aiden and I point our guns at each other, neither one of us able to keep a straight face in our standoff.

  “Did you just shoot my little brother?” he asks me as he takes off his mask, his lips curving up on one side.

  I take my mask off as well and smirk at him. “Maybe, but I thought you were gonna save me for last?”

  He tilts his head to one side, as if thinking through his answer. “I was, but that was before I knew you were playing a ruthless game. I don’t want to be on cooking and cleaning duty for three days.”

  We eye each other, and at the same time, aim and shoot at each other right in the stomach. Aiden looks at his stomach, now bright pink, and looks back at me, eyes bright and playful.

  “You shot me!”

  “You shot me too!” I defend myself, even though I heard his gun go off but didn’t feel anything hit me.

  “I purposely missed.”

  I look at the tree about five feet to my left, freshly painted bright blue.

  “But … the gun … you shot … and the tree?” I stutter, and Aiden gives me a mischievous smile.

  “I’ll give you a ten second head start,” he warns, his eyes alight and playful, so different from how he was just a couple of hours ago with his father.

  “But you’re already dead!” I point out, knowing there’s no way I’ll outrun Aiden. “And it’s not my fault you can’t aim!”

  “One …”

  I turn around and take off, and a few seconds later I feel strong arms around my waist and we both go down. If there’s a way to gently tackle someone, that’s what Aiden does, turning so that he takes the brunt of the fall into a pile of leaves.

  “That was not a ten second head start.” I laugh, dropping my gun and mask beside us.

  “I’m a fast counter,” he jokes, his hands tangling in my hair.

  I love seeing this side of Aiden. Okay, all sides of Aiden are nice, but the playful side just melts my heart. He pulls me in and our lips meet as my heart explodes. He groans softly and his arms move to my waist, pulling me closer and letting me melt into him.

  “Really, guys? We’re having a very competitive game here,” Julian says, and we break our kiss to look up.

  He’s standing with Annalisa, different colored paint smudged all over them. I roll off of Aiden and we both sit up, the front of my jumpsuit now smudged pink, just like how Annalisa’s looks.

  “Oh right. Like you guys, weren’t just doing the same thing?” I smirk, and Annalisa sends me a big smile in response.

  Aiden and I get up and he hands me my gun and mask as we hear yelling from around the corner. The four of us look at each other and run toward the noise to see what’s going on.

  “You already shot me multiple times! I’m dead! Stop shooting me!” We hear Noah say as we get closer.

  When we get there, we see Chase and Noah, each covered in different colored paint.

  “You started it!” Chase yells, shooting Noah in the stomach for what appears to be the tenth time.

  “We were just trying to have fun but you’re taking it personally!” Noah shoots him back.

  “Oh, we can get personal!” Chase exclaims, dropping his mask and gun and tackling Noah to the ground, and not in the gentle way that Aiden tackled me. They roll around for a bit before Aiden and Julian step in to break it up.

  Noah sits up. “What the fuck, man! If you have something to say just say it!”

  Chase sits up as well, all the anger that he’s been feeling suddenly coming to a boiling point. “You were going to sleep with Charlotte!”

  “And?”

  “And you’re one of my best friends! You were going to sleep with the girl I’m in love with!” Chase shouts.

  “I tried apologizing but you’re being a salty little bitch!”

  “You can’t do something you know would hurt someone and then apologize and expect it to be all better!”

  “I didn’t know how you felt about her!” Noah defends himself.

  Chase gets up and dusts himself off. “Everyone knew!”

  He collects his gun and mask and storms off in the opposite direction, leaving the five of us staring after him, unsure if we should go after him or not. We were supposed to use paintball as a way to have fun and break the tension, but it seems like it just piled on even more.

  Looking at the mask in my hand, I roll my eyes. Maybe next time we should go for massages or something.

  18

  The drive home is quiet and awkward. Aiden drives me, Annalisa, and Charlotte, and Annalisa gives Charlotte a rundown of what happened. Charlotte spends the rest of the ride frowning and looking out the window.

  As we walk into the house, everyone disperses to do their own thing. Chase and Noah still aren’t talking, Charlotte feels like she’s caught in the middle, and no one else wants to feel like they have to pick sides. If a fight like this happened at home, at least no one would have to see each other. But we’re staying in a house with each other for another week still, so there’s nowhere for them to go to cool off or avoid each other.

  After a shower, as I head into the kitchen to grab a snack, there’s a knock on the front door. Since everyone is content to ignore the world, napping or showering or doing who knows what else, I open the door to find one of the large men who was with Andrew this morning.

  “From Mayor Kessler,” he says simply, holding out his arm to me. He’s holding a clothes hanger covered by a large, protective bag. It’s obvious that there’s a freshly pressed suit in there, but the bag is black so I can’t see what it looks like.

  Taking the heavy bag from him, I discover that there are two smaller bags on separate hangers behind that one—I’m assuming a suit for each of the twins.

  “There’s a card for Mayor Kessler’s personal tailor in Aiden’s suit pocket. If any alterations need to be made, you’ll need to call him in the next twenty minutes and bring the suit in tonight,” he says, not waiting for me to reply b
efore turning around and heading back to his blacked-out SUV.

  “Thanks,” I mumble sarcastically as I close the door and head to Aiden’s room.

  I knock tentatively and he opens the door a few seconds later wearing nothing but a towel, his hair still wet from his shower and water droplets still dripping down the crevices of his well-defined chest. Forcing my gaze from his body to his face takes an enormous amount of effort, but he doesn’t notice since I thrust the suits out in front of me.

  “A large man just delivered these for you.”

  Aiden holds the door open wider for me, grabs the suits, and closes the door once I’m in his room. He doesn’t even bother looking at them before throwing them haphazardly on the bed and walking into the closet. I’m sitting cross-legged on the bed by the time he emerges fully dressed, and I try not to feel sad about that.

  “Can you believe that guy?” he asks, shooting a look at the suits beside me. “He actually thinks I’m going to dress up in the monkey suit of his choosing and be his puppet. What’s stopping me from exposing him for the piece of shit he is?” Aiden paces in front of the bed, ranting more to himself than to me. “He comes around here spouting all this ‘we’re family’ bullshit. Ha. It’s laughable how messed up that is.”

  “You haven’t thought about going at all? It’s being held at his house.”

  Aiden’s eyebrows draw together. “No, I haven’t.”

  “You’re not the least bit curious about him?” I hesitate. “Isn’t that why you picked Torywood Springs? To see him?”

  Aiden’s pacing stops and he looks straight at me, not saying a word.

  “You did pick here because you knew he’d be here, right?” I press.

  He sighs in resignation and sits down on the edge of the bed. “Yeah, I knew he’d be here.”

  I knew it couldn’t have just been fate, as Andrew had said, that brought them together, but I didn’t want to push Aiden.

  “I found out he was the mayor here after my arrest,” he confesses, looking out the back window at nothing in particular. “I saw a newspaper article about him running for governor, and recognized him. I couldn’t stop myself from googling him afterward. I don’t even know why I cared.”

  I try to put myself in Aiden’s shoes. “It’s normal to want to reach out to your parents.”

  He shakes his head, shifting to face me. “No, it’s not that. I couldn’t care less about having him in my life. In fact, I want nothing to do with him, and coming here did nothing but intensify that feeling.”

  “Then why did you choose here?” I ask softly. “Brian told us to go somewhere and you volunteered here before we even had a second to think.”

  He frowns. “I guess I was just curious, I don’t know. When I saw that he’s the mayor and got remarried, to some old money–type woman of all people, I couldn’t believe it. I guess I just wanted to see with my own eyes that he really wrote us off, that he’s living it up without a spare thought for the three sons he left behind.”

  I wrap my arms around his stiff shoulders and rest my head against his shoulder for support.

  “I wasn’t planning on talking to him. I wasn’t even planning on punching him believe it or not. At the carnival when I saw him, I just—I don’t know. I sound stupid.”

  “You don’t sound stupid, Aiden.”

  “It was stupid to think this would give me any closure.”

  Lifting my head from his shoulder, I look him in the eye. “It wasn’t a stupid idea. Andrew never was and will never be good enough for you, Jason, and Jackson, and now you know that for sure.”

  He nods, his eyes stormy and hard. “That, I know.”

  We both glance sideways at the suits sitting innocently on the bed. “So, should we burn those?” I’m only half joking.

  A vibrating from the nightstand draws our attention, and Aiden reaches over to check his phone. He shifts suddenly, his face set with new determination. “No. I think I want to go.”

  I pause. “Wait, what?”

  “It’s from Andrew. Apparently he got my number.”

  He hands the phone to me so I can read it.

  Heard the suits were delivered. Don’t forget to be on your best behavior. Act like my son, not someone who gets charged for assault

  It’s clear what Andrew’s intentions are. “You’re going so he won’t charge you?”

  A scowl mars Aiden’s face. “He’s not going to charge me. If I don’t play whatever role he wants me to play then he’s going to want nothing to do with me.” He sets the phone down and turns to face me. “I guess you’re right. I came here to get closure, and I want to see how he’s living, what his life looks like now. If anything, it’ll be the perfect opportunity to embarrass him.”

  I nod. I might not understand it fully, but I’ll support him in whatever he wants to do. “Are you bringing Jason and Jackson?”

  “No,” he says quickly, then hesitates. “But would you come with me?”

  My heart skips a beat. “I—yes, I want to come with you, but don’t those events have a lot of media coverage? You know I can’t get caught in a photo …” I trail off, not wanting to disappoint Aiden, but also needing to stay true to what I promised my mom.

  “Oh shit. I’m sorry. That was selfish of me,” he says, but he gives his head a frustrated shake and looks down at his hands.

  I swallow hard. I don’t want to disappoint Aiden, but is this something I’m able to do? I’m going to be leaving Aiden soon and ultimately betraying the trust we’ve just worked on fixing after he learned about the real me. He’s inviting me into a part of his life I’m positive he doesn’t want many people to know about, and I’m going to take that trust and crush it under my heel as I walk out on him when he’ll probably need me most.

  “Yes,” I hear myself say, confusing my brain, which is shouting No!

  “You don’t have to,” he says, but even I can tell that he sits up straighter.

  “I want to,” I tell him, putting as much confidence in my voice as I can. “We’ll just avoid the photographers. No one will want to take a picture of two unimportant kids anyway. It’ll be fine.”

  “I’d be lost without you,” he says softly, and I feel like throwing up even though his words mean the world to me.

  Before the guilt makes me physically sick, I stand up from the bed and pick up the suit bag from the wire hanger. “You should try this on.”

  Grumbling unhappily, he stands beside me in front of the bed. “I’ll have to get shoes. And you need a dress. Are you sure you’re okay running around finding a dress and shoes and everything?”

  The “of course” leaves my mouth automatically. “Plus,” I add, “we have a couple of hours before stores close. I’m sure we’ll find something.”

  Taking the bag from me, he unzips it and pulls out a luxurious navy suit. His face contorts in disgust. “This is a four-thousand-dollar suit.”

  My shock is shadowed by my urge to laugh, but my eyebrows draw together in confusion. “You know how much a suit is just by looking at it?”

  He turns the suit to fully face me. “No. He literally left the price tag on.”

  Yup. There’s the price tag. And it’s $4,470.80, to be precise. If Andrew Kessler can afford to spend that much money on a suit for a son he doesn’t even like, he must be rolling in money.

  Aiden drops the suit back on the bed with an angry scoff. “He makes me sick.”

  Aiden tried on the suit Andrew got for him, and even though I didn’t get to see, he said it was scary how well it fit him. After he finishes, we go shopping and bring Charlotte along with us, partly because she’s an “expert last minute shopper,” and partly because she needs a distraction. Chase has been avoiding her like I’ve been avoiding Mason, each of us out of our own sense of guilt.

  We go to a store for Aiden first, who tries on one pair of shoes, more just to see if they fit, and buys them with the money Andrew left him.

  We make it to a boutique an hour before it closes, and I l
et Charlotte run around picking out dresses for me.

  “Don’t look too excited,” I tell Aiden sarcastically, who’s looking around at all the dresses like he woke up in a foreign land.

  He turns the full force of his smile on me and my breath hitches. “This isn’t too bad. If you ignore where we’re going, it’s kind of like we’re practicing for prom.”

  The smile on my face freezes when I sit on the weight of his words.

  He wants to go to prom with me. He thinks I’ll be here for prom.

  I almost lost Aiden the first time because of all the lies I told him. Now here I am, telling him more lies. How much longer can I keep this secret from him? How much longer can I let him think he has a future with me when I’m supposed to be packing my bags to leave as soon as we get home? I’m such a shitty person.

  Aiden misinterprets my reaction. “Not that—not that I assume you’ll go to prom with me.”

  I suddenly can’t meet his gaze. “No, yeah. Obviously I’d go to prom with you.”

  If I was around.

  Before he can say anything else that breaks my heart, I turn around and walk to the dressing room where Charlotte’s loaded up a bunch of dresses.

  “This is so fun!” She smiles, looking wistfully at all the dresses. “I’m kind of jealous I’m not the one getting to put on a pretty dress, but dressing you up is still fun.”

  “Thanks for doing this, Char.” I pick a red dress off the hook and analyze it.

  “No problem! I can’t wait to do this again for prom, except then I’ll get to try on dresses too!” She laughs and leaves the room, yelling something at Aiden about how he can’t see, but I’m left thinking over her words, my stomach sinking. Again with prom. Another person I’m letting down.

  I close the door to the room and stare at the rest of the dresses, a frown on my face. This isn’t fun anymore. How long can I keep pretending I’m a regular girl? How long can I ignore my problems by pushing them off? Even all the stuff with Mason. Can I really tell him about his dad’s affair and then just vanish off the face of the earth?