by R. J. Lewis
“What about you?” I ask him. “What sort of home do you envision for yourself?”
He thinks. “I haven’t thought about it.”
“Really?”
He shrugs. “It’s just a place to lay my head at night.”
“It should be your castle. A place you retreat to.”
Aidan watches me, curious. “To do what?”
“Everything and nothing. It’s your safe place.”
“Tell me about your idea of a home then. Of your everything and nothing safe place.”
I look out across the water, thinking. “Well…”
“Well what?”
I feel a little embarrassed. “It’s stupid.”
“Nothing you say is stupid, Ivy. Tell me.” Then he adds tenderly, “Please.”
I let out a soft sigh. “Once, a few years back, I had a dream I was in the most beautiful house. It was Georgian style, all white and magnificent, on a bit of land and far from the city. In the dream I was standing in front of one of the bedroom windows and looking out into a forest.”
“Do you know where you were?”
I mull that over, biting my lip. “Could be anywhere, I guess, but I’ve planted Vancouver Island in my mind for some reason.”
“Have you ever been?”
“Once with Ana. I was sixteen. Her family has a vacation home there. A beautiful cabin along the coast. I spent the second half of summer in the water just beyond a pebbled beach. I’ve never felt that freedom again.”
He watches me thoughtfully. “What did freedom feel like to you?”
I swallow back my emotion, quietly answering. “Having no fear, no constraints, living in the moment, ready for the next thing. I hadn’t tasted bitterness yet. I didn’t know pain.”
We slow to a stop. I lean over the rail, my gaze still trapped on the flowing water.
“What is freedom to you, Aidan?” I ask quietly.
“I’m living it, Ivy,” he answers thoughtfully. “It was a second chance at life, at not being shackled to the past, to my mistakes. Sometimes…it catches up to me, certain things I try to let go, but…I’m looking ahead. You have to keep looking ahead.”
I nod once, swallowing hard. I have to look ahead. I wish it were that easy.
There’s such chill in the air now that we’re standing still. I let out a small shiver. A moment later something warm envelopes me. Aidan’s suit jacket. I look up at him, surprised. He’s not looking at me anymore. He’s looking out across the water with a mercurial expression.
My heart warms at his kind gesture. I slip my arms through the sleeves. The inner fabric feels soft like velvet. I’m literally coated in this man’s scent now. I take a quick whiff of it. His cologne is dangerously good. I can only describe it as Aidan.
“You hungry?” he then asks me, looking down at me.
I nod. “Starving.”
“Let’s find a good place to eat.”
“Okay.”
We turn back and plod along the sidewalk in the direction of Lansdowne Park. He’s silent in thought and I’m dying to know of what. We wait at the corner for the light to turn green when his fingers brush mine. Slight as it is, it sends tingles through me.
“I hope your feeling of freedom isn’t forever lost, Ivy,” he remarks quietly, and then we cross.
Fifteen
Ivy
We’re seated inside a loud bar and grill. It’s packed with people, and they’re counting down to a major UFC match on the big screens. I glance at the time on the wall. It’s just before nine at night. I pull out my phone and have a quick glance at the screen. I have no messages. Good. That means he’s out, too.
We’re sitting at a circular high table on stools beside the large entrance windows. Aidan’s rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt. His tie is loosened, and the hair at the top has been blown in all directions. The rugged look suits him.
The waitress pours us a cup of water and sets two menus down for us. I eye her as she sneaks glances in Aidan’s direction. Her cheeks are rosy, and she looks sort of nervous. It’s really cute. When she leaves, I’m smiling softly at myself. I glance up at Aidan and he’s already looking back at me, a lazy smirk crossing his lips.
“Who do you think is going to win?” I ask him, flicking a glance at the nearest screen.
He doesn’t look. “I don’t give a fuck, Ivy.”
I narrow my eyes at him in thought. “What do you give a fuck about then? And don’t say your company, or your cars.”
“I don’t know anymore.”
I raise a brow. “Anymore? As in, this is a recent development?”
“I think I’m having an identity crisis.”
I smile because I think he’s joking, but he’s not smiling back.
“Care to explain?” I press lightly.
He settles his elbows on the table and glances down at the menu, but he’s not reading it. He’s searching for words. He looks suddenly younger than I’ve ever seen him before. God, he’s a beautiful man.
“Lately I’ve been tempted to run,” he mutters, brows coming together. “I don’t know where. I just want to run away from everything. It’s not like before, when I was a kid, either, because I wanted to run then but that was because my father was a drunk and my mother was dying of cancer. Those were valid reasons. I wanted to run to start a new reality, to bury the past, but now…it’s the same feeling, but it’s not for the same purpose.”
My heart has slowed down. The conversation’s taken a serious turn I didn’t anticipate. My smile is gone, and I’m staring at him and trying to picture him as a kid. My throat feels clogged. I swallow to rid the heaviness there. “I uh…” I clear my throat. “I didn’t know your life was like that, Aidan.”
He looks up at me. His brown eyes are deep and so dark, it’s easy to get lost in them. “Because you didn’t look me up,” he tells me, his expression growing tender. “You really know nothing about me.”
“But how come I feel like I do?” I shake my head slightly, feeling embarrassed. “But I don’t, clearly.”
“You do,” he corrects me. “You know me pretty well by now, Ivy. You don’t need to know my autobiography to know me, you understand? I…don’t bring anyone close.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want anyone to see past the man they think they know.”
“You mean the asshole.”
His lips spread into a soft smile. “Yeah, although I am an asshole. More so back then.”
“When is back then? Like when you were a kid?”
He shakes his head. “I’m pretty sure my assholery was at its peak a couple years ago.”
“What happened to you a couple years ago?”
He shrugs. “I was just angry. I think when you try and bury your upbringing, it catches up to you. It haunts you. After so many years, it gets bigger and bigger. It was a big shadow hanging over me by the time I finally turned to it. I lashed out at everything, at my grandmother, my…brother.”
I feel my heart strings pull. “Is that why you’re not close to him?”
He licks his lips in thought. “He forgave me pretty quickly.”
“Because he loves you.”
“But I never actually apologized.”
I frown, looking down at the table as I work through that. “You don’t have to hear an apology to forgive someone.”
“Maybe.”
He seems bothered. He taps his finger on the table. I’m starting to realize he does this when he’s thinking hard about something. I watch him, taking his face in, eyeing every part of it like a map. My chest sinks slowly as I let a breath out, wishing for…more. His taps slow when he looks back at me. He looks into my eyes like he knows what I’m thinking about, and then he glances fleetingly at my lips before he looks away entirely.
“Have we figured out our orders?” the waitress asks, appearing.
I quickly look down at the menu and pick the first thing that pops up. We place our orders and she leaves, lookin
g over her shoulder again at Aidan with those rosy cheeks.
“Are you from here, Aidan?” I ask him then, trying to get a clearer picture of him.
He shakes his head. “Toronto.”
“Is your grandmother in Toronto? That’s why you don’t see her often?”
“Yeah.”
“So your company is based here in Ottawa?”
“Actually, it’s in Montreal, but I prefer an Ottawa office. This city is clean and isn’t so big your head gets lost in all the noise.”
“What is your company exactly?”
He chuckles, looking surprised. “Fuck me, Ivy, this is refreshing.”
“What is?”
“Your obliviousness.”
I smile and shrug. “Like I said, I didn’t look you up.”
“I own SwiftPayPro Holdings. It’s an online payments system, used for money transfers –”
“Oh, my God, no, I know,” I cut in, feeling shocked. “I have an S.P.P account. I use it for everything.”
He just smiles at me, and I…just stare at him. I’m dumbfounded. Okay, this guy is a big shot for real. Like…everyone has a SwiftPayPro account, just like everyone has an Amazon account. It’s everywhere.
“Okay,” I finally say, after my shock has ebbed away. “You’re the real deal, Mr West.”
He doesn’t answer. No smartass remark. Nothing. He sort of looks like he regrets telling me that. Maybe he liked I knew nothing. Does he think I’m going to treat him any differently? Jokes on him. He’s still the cocky, arrogant jerk that’s hunted me down in a coffee shop and brought me here.
Oh, and he wants to taste my lips. I can’t forget that juicy bit of truth.
“I thought you’d have owned something far more exciting,” I then add to lighten the mood. “Frankly, I feel a little disappointed, sir.”
His eyes look heavier. “You said you’d never call me that.”
“Sir? Well, I usually envisioned the guy I’d be calling that to have a bald spot and no waistline.”
“Wow, so you must really be disheartened.”
“Truly.”
He relaxes, smirking at me. “See, I envisioned you saying sir in a very detailed fantasy, Ivy.”
Heat rushes everywhere. I feel it in my cheeks, in my chest, in that pulsing spot between my legs.
“Were you on your hands and knees in this fantasy?” I muse, referring to our earlier texts as I take a sip from my water.
He watches the action carefully. “Quite the contrary, beauty.”
This waitress seems to know when to ruin the mood. She returns to serve us our beers. She lingers long enough to watch him take a small drink from it, like she just needs to see him do it. Then she’s off again. This chick is fucking hilarious.
The second we get a bit of alcohol in us, the atmosphere lightens up entirely. The heat is still there. He flashes me the most searing looks when he doesn’t think I notice. Our attention is on the screen and at a random match between two lightweights. When blood is shed, the bar roars with approval. It’s so primitive, I love it.
I turn to him, smiling curiously. “You ever been in a fight, Mr West?”
He takes a sip of beer, chuckling. “Yeah.”
“Why do I feel like your ‘yeah’ is an understatement?”
“I wouldn’t call them my proud moments, but I got into a fair share of punch ups. I learned it’s stronger for a man to walk away than it is to engage. Being reactive was a weakness of mine.”
“Things got to you quickly?”
Instead of answering, he looks at me now, raising his brows. “What about you?”
“Oh, God, yeah.”
“Really?”
“What’s so surprising about that?”
“I’m not surprised. That’s too much personality in a tiny package, Ivy. I don’t know how somebody so small can be so fucking feisty. I believe you.”
“I too was reactive.”
“What changed?”
I don’t answer straight away. I think back at the last time I blew up – I’d blown up for the very last time. It was the day I found out Derek had cheated on me. I was drunk and made a total ass out of myself in front of everyone in that bar that night.
“I humiliated myself,” I admit, looking away from him so he doesn’t meet my eye. “I was a total fool. I woke up the next day, hungover, feeling the deepest shame in my life. I’d allowed something I had no control over to get to me. It was a lightbulb moment.”
Aidan’s not dumb. His eyes narrow. “Let me guess, you packed up your shit and left.”
I just smile weakly at him. Totally not something I want to discuss right now. Aidan is my safe place – my home away from home. He makes me feel like all that drama is a distant memory.
“Well, I’m here right now, with you,” I tell him softly, trying not to let the heat flood my cheeks. It takes a surprising amount of strength to admit to him he is starting to mean a lot to me. I’m so scared of rejection.
Aidan smiles warmly at me, nodding. “I like this. I like being here with you.”
“Me too.”
“You’re…” he pauses, rearranging himself in the seat like he too is out of his element. “You’re enchanting. You send a pulse straight through my chest I haven’t felt in…I haven’t felt ever, I think. So yeah, I like this, being here with you.”
I can’t fight the heat in my cheeks any longer. I feel so flushed from his words, from his attention, from the genuine look in his eyes as he takes me in.
“Being around you makes me happy, Aidan,” I admit quietly. I’m so unused to being open about my feelings, it feels weird to do it. “Even talking to you throughout the day instantly makes me happier. I haven’t felt this way in a long time.”
“When was the last time you felt truly happy?” he asks.
“Probably my sixteenth birthday.”
“What did you do for your sixteenth?”
“Nothing, but everyone stopped to wish me a happy birthday. I felt special. Like I wasn’t invisible. At school, they sang me a happy birthday and I had lunch bought for me. I’ve never been spoiled like that before.” I look away so he doesn’t see my face. “My mom wasn’t big on that stuff. Ana actually showed up at my door in the night with a cupcake lit for me. She told me to make a wish. She said it would come true.”
He stares at me for a long beat before asking, “What did you wish for, Ivy?”
“I wished I’d get away, even for a short while. Two weeks later I was on that beach on Vancouver Island, the one I was telling you about earlier.”
He smiles at me softly. “Your dream came true.”
“Yeah, which is why it was so amazing.”
“What did you do for your twenty fourth?”
I roll my eyes and shrug. “I was at my mom’s.”
“It was over the summer?”
“August third. A week before I flew out, before I bumped into you on the plane.”
“What did you do?”
My smile is light. “I watched Bridget Jones’ Diary in my room with a bowl of ice cream.”
He’s looking sort of bothered now. “Anyone wish you a happy birthday?”
“Oh, yeah, all my Facebook friends sent me cute stickers on my wall.”
“I won’t even pretend to know what that means.”
I laugh. “Probably a good thing, Aidan.”
Our platter of wings is served just then. Aidan doesn’t touch the food for a few moments, staring at me instead with a thoughtful look. There’s no awkwardness in the quiet moments between us. We munch on the food. At one point, he leans over the table and wipes the corner of my mouth with a napkin, cleaning up the sauce. I grin at him, until he runs his thumb over my bottom lip. The action is so quick, it’s like a blink. It steals my breath away. I look into his eyes, and he stares back, unwavering.
I turn away, focusing on the TV. It’s a great distraction from him. The fights capture my attention and I find myself standing up and gravitating toward it. I
f the lead up matches are this fun, I can’t imagine what the main event will be like.
“You surprise me, Miss Montcalm,” Aidan tells me, coming up from behind me. His hand rests on my hip, like he’s marking me in front of everyone.
“What is surprising?” I ask him.
“If this shit is what you’re into, I’ll take you to a match one of these days.”
I turn my head and look up at him, grinning. “Can you imagine how crazy that would be?”
“I’ve been,” he tells me. “And it lives up to the hype.”
I can’t imagine.
I don’t know how it happens, it’s a natural progression I suppose when you’re in the bar scene, but we become part of the crowd. The men openly welcome us, and none are behaving inappropriately. They’re busy yammering away about UFC to care about the women. I glance around at the ladies, biting back a laugh because they look neglected. No one seems to recognize Aidan, and if they do, they don’t give a fuck.
“Someone’s gotta tell me about these main guys!” I step in. “I want to be ready to root for the right guy.”
The bustle that follows is hilarious. The men look at me with the most eager expressions. Half of them are pulling out their phones, adamantly telling me I must watch a few matches, or at least see the highlights.
“The Scottish one is the favorite,” one of them says. “He hasn’t lost a match yet.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” another argues. “The Brazilian has a record for TKO’s.”
And so the back and forth continues. I get given screen after screen. I watch a few highlights. In the background the music gets turned up and the lights are dimmed for the evening. The Prelim matches ensue, and Aidan is tethered beside me, joining in on the conversation. He describes the time he’d been to the last match in Abu Dhabi, and suddenly he’s every guy’s best friend.
“Is he yours?” a woman asks me, sidling up beside me at the bar, watching Aidan as he stands before the men. They’ve shuffled down the bar from me. He’s surrounded by the guys. His hands are up and he’s talking in detail, describing the fight he watched from up close. So close, he says, he could smell the copper scent of the fighters’ blood in the air.
I turn my attention to the pretty brunette beside me. “I’m sorry what?”