End of September…
Today’s the day, the day I get to go on set, and I’m just a soup of too many feelings that nothing feels like it fits inside me just right, just sort of sloshing around.
I took a little too much time choosing what to wear, wanting to look equally effortless and a little dressed up, but comfortable at the same time. I made up my face in a “my skin but better” kind of look, with three coats of mascara to be a little more dramatic, topped off with a dark, super-glossy lip gloss that makes me appear more confident than I feel.
I always get this way at the beginning of something new, too nervous, too aware of how weird I am, of how much of myself I have to keep hidden so I don’t scare the guy off. I’m tired of keeping myself hidden; I’m tired of being nervous.
Besides, Ayden totally knows about my biggest obsession and that he’s a serious factor in it. It’s so weird to be a fan of a person and that I’m going to be faced with that person soon, on set.
I walk down the street, stifling a yawn after a long, tedious day of work, rolling my neck on my shoulders, working out the kinks. I’m wearing my black skinny jeans and Chuck Taylors in the precise shade of the Leviathan main dashboard (something between a charcoal gray with an orange undertone), and a simple V-neck white T-shirt that shows off my boobs in the best way. My hair’s up in a messy bun, and I have a perpetual smile on my face, not to mention the mammoth butterflies in my stomach, making me grateful that I haven’t eaten anything since finishing up the workday.
I pass by people on my way towards the set, fingering my phone and the pass that’s in an email Ayden sent me this very morning, wondering what I look like, half-wanting to throw my arms out and grab a random person and tell them who I’m going to go see, do something that’ll make my excitement leak out before I actually explode and fangirl too hard in front of Ayden, the guy I’m now seeing.
Holy no.
I finally hit the barricade and security—guys in cargo pants, tight shirts, and wicked boots with thingies in their ears, eyes scanning everyone and everything, their gazes sticking to me as I get closer and closer. I wave, then pull up my pass on my phone after opening the appropriate email, hoping I can get through with no problem. I’m almost right up close to one of the big guys (his shirt about ready to give up the ghost and split right down all the seams) when I’m waved through, said guy moving aside to show me the space between the barricades with a smile and some directions of where I’m supposed to go.
People are starting to look at me, regular pedestrians craning their necks to get a look at the new zoo exhibit in the form of little ol’ me, and I start blushing like a maniac, hustling it to where the security guy said the trailers would be, cordoned off and barricaded, too. There are a bunch of trailers, like a little trailer village, with people’s names on them, or names like ‘makeup’ and ‘wardrobe,’ and I have to walk around for a couple of minutes to find the one that belongs to Ayden, his pseudo-home away from home.
I knock, a one-two-three combo, trying to be cool, but I just end up shaking my head at myself, tapping against my forehead for being like this. As I wait for him to open the door, I fidget, wishing I had a mirror just to make sure my makeup stayed exactly where I put it since the whole walk over here.
Ayden opens the door, half-in, half-out of the trailer as he’s standing on the top step. Like he wasn’t tall enough, I’ve got to crank my head way back to get all of him in one visual piece. And man, what a visual slice it is. He’s got dark jeans on, Vans, and a plain long-sleeved shirt in the fading late summer heat that’s rolled up to the elbows, like he knows my particular weakness for manly forearms and the veins that snake underneath the skin. Jesus Christ. All this combined with those forearms belonging to Ayden Stone? I’m in trouble, big time.
I’m hyperventilating at the sight of his forearms. That’s just great.
“Hi,” Ayden says, startling me, effectively distracting me from his forearms to notice the big smile on his face, his eyes practically shining with excitement. Damn, damn, double damn, that should not be as sexy as it is.
“Hi,” I mumble, having a hard time getting the word out. I don’t know what to do with my hands—do I wave? Would it be weird for me to wave when we’re this close already? I’m pretty sure my cheeks are burning, and I think my nipples might be tight and hard enough to be seen through my bra and shirt. I guess I should have worn bubble wrap or something. No.
“Come on in.” Ayden holds the door open for me, ushering me inside. We have a dangerous, electrifying almost body-slide as the two of us move past one another on the narrow staircase, and now I’m in his trailer, in his space, and it’s everything and nothing all at once.
Well, what were you expecting?
Once again, my expectations were set too high, and I definitely wasn’t expecting this.
The trailer’s only really wide enough for one person to do the walking comfortably in the mini hall unless you’re okay with playing human bumper cars. There’s a little table that’s set in a booth right next to a wide window that looks out onto a small courtyard that’s nothing but pavement and a couple of picnic tables and chairs where I guess the crew and cast eat together when they feel like it or have the time. At the far end of the hall, directly in front me at the very back of the trailer, I can catch a glimpse of a perfectly made bed, and a bathroom off to the side that has an accordion sliding door.
There’s not much else, though, not much at all.
“Aria? Is something wrong? You’ve gone really quiet.” Man, he doesn’t even know how much I’m feeling right now.
I bite my lip, trying to relax. I want to be here with Ayden, obviously, I just wanted more, so much more, and this, this just seems a little sad to me. It doesn’t feel like home at all.
“Where are all your things?” I ask without turning around to see the expression on his face, or so he won’t see the expression on mine. I’m the worst poker player in the history of the world, and he already knows how my face says everything for me, judging by the time he sought me after the photo op where we met, a whole month ago.
“Oh, that. It’s all in storage right now, with the move and everything. Not like I have much room here, do I?”
I shake my head, taking in the lack of Ayden’s personality in every little part of the trailer. “No, no you don’t. I just thought I’d be able to spy on your library, see what kind of books you like to read, or if you collect the caps off beer bottles, or sports memorabilia, or something…” I turn around to look at him, watching him as he looks at everything but me. Maybe he’s seeing his trailer as a stranger sees it for the first time, too, and maybe he’s just as nervous as I am.
Maybe I made him feel like I’m disappointed when I’m not…I’m not.
“I’ve got my Kindle, takes up a lot less space than all those books together, and I have my music on my phone,” he says, shrugging while he rubs the back of his neck.
Great, you’ve made him nervous. Good job, Aria.
“Half the fun of seeing someone’s place for the first time is seeing who they really are in the nooks and crannies, in what they own, their taste in furniture,” I say, waving my hand around, trying to explain myself. I have an insatiable need to learn more about him, but this trailer isn’t giving me anything at all.
Which is fine, totally fine. I still get to spend time with him, get to ask him questions instead of seeing it for myself in the pieces of other places, of other people he keeps putting on shelves or on display.
I’m with Ayden freaking Stone and I have to start acting like it.
Now.
Ayden nods, mouth pressed into a tight line. “This isn’t my home, Aria. This is just where I crash from time to time when we shoot. We don’t even know if the move is permanent here, and I hate moving and packing things, really hate it. I’ve been trying to find an apartment close by, but I’m picky, and I didn’t know Toronto’s real estate market is what it is.”
I nod because I get it, I do.
It’s another stark reminder that Ayden could be nothing more than a transient part of my life.
Leviathan shoots for 10 months at a time—who knows what’ll happen for season four? I mean, there’s always a degree of uncertainty when it comes to networks and whatever, the show could be canceled at any time, the writers could go on strike again, who knows? Not me.
It feels like I might start something I can’t finish, and it’s Ayden Stone, Ayden Stone, who I’ve been daydreaming about forever and now that he’s real, flesh and blood, apparently wanting to hang out and possibly date me. Hell, I don’t even know what to do first, my brain short-circuiting, stalling at all the worst moments just when I’m about to find a solution.
Just another reminder of what I’m doing with Ayden is pretty ridiculous. What is the point of even starting something if all of this is going to end in heartbreak?
Ayden carefully reaches out for my hand, putting us palm to palm. His hand’s warm and steady, strong. Real.
This is all feels so pointless. Now I know why fictional crushes have to stay in the fictional realm—reality bites so hard.
But why not start something you can’t finish? When is something like this ever going to happen to me again?
When?!
“I have a home in London, of course, where my parents are with my dog. I’d like for you to see it one day. We could go to my study and sit on the couch and swap books. We’d only have to get up to eat.” Books and Ayden? Yes, please.
God, it sounds like a promise, like a pledge, and my dumb heart does some form of acrobatics and my belly swoops, and I can’t help but smile at him, hoping it’s not as wobbly as I feel.
I didn’t expect Ayden Stone to be so sweet. I really didn’t expect any of this, this assurance that I might one day be in a future where both of us are together. And I want that so bad, but I don’t think I’m going to get it. So I lie, meaning every single word. “I would love that.”
Ayden stares at me, his eyes roving over my face while I let him take in his fill. I watch as his shoulders slump, and a small smile plays at the corner of his mouth, almost like an apology.
Did I just screw this up with my stupid expectations about impending heartbreak? Did I just do that?
“How about I give you a tour of the set?” Ayden asks, and I’m swinging back to my old excitement again, wondering what the hell the Leviathan looks like in real life instead of what I see when I watch the show at home. “I promise you’ll enjoy it more than this.”
Ayden tries to tug me along, turning towards the door, and I feel like a total heel. I have to do something.
“Ayden?” I call, making sure I stay planted in the same spot, not letting him tug me along, even though I want to. He turns around, staring at me with a bemused look on his face, eyebrows pressed down in a frown, mouth quirked up in a questioning smile. I tug him closer to me, let go of his hand, and place both my hands on his chest. Holy no, he’s like a furnace through the thin material of his shirt, and I feel the steady drumbeat of his heart underneath the slight pressure of my fingers.
I’m standing here, with the man of my dreams, and I’m ruining it. This isn’t how dreams come true, Aria!
I look up at him, tongue-tied, burning with the need to say words, to explain myself, to tell him how much all this means to me, but everything gets caught in my throat, and I’m afraid if I try to speak it might just come out as another language that makes no sense at all. Instead, I go up on my tiptoes, and press a light kiss to his mouth, sliding my hands up to either side of his neck and finally, finally into that gorgeous hair, bringing his face closer to me, making sure our mouths stay together.
Holy no balls, I’m kissing Chrisander Gage! I can die happy now! No regrets.
Ayden kisses me back, his tongue sweeping along my lips, and when I open my mouth to him, we’re tangling our tongues, the rasp of his on mine distracting me from even breathing. God, God, this is so freaking amazing!
Ayden pulls back first before I’m done with him, only to stare down at me, his eyes dark, his lips slightly swollen from my kiss, a pinch between his eyebrows that should definitely not be there. “What was that for?”
I settle back on my feet, slowly extracting my fingers from his hair to run my palm against the curve of his cheek and jaw to settle both my hands on his chest, marveling at the fact that I’m allowed to do so, that he’s letting me touch him in this way. This isn’t just a dream, it’s totally real, and it’s totally happening. “Sometimes reality beats whatever my imagination can come up with.”
Ayden smiles, his teeth showing so I can see that he’s got pretty sharp incisors, a smile I’ve never seen on the show before. I might even get territorial over that smile, the smile that belongs to me now. “I’m happy I could oblige. Come, I’ll show you the rest of the set. Just one more second,” he says, and I’m half-expecting him to turn back the way we came to grab an extra jacket or something, but he’s put both hands on my face, cradling me so he can kiss me with such sweetness my heart starts to ache.
How the hell did he know that when a guy kisses me while touching my face, my whole body feels like it’s melting? Did I tell him that? Or did he just guess?
Stop thinking, Aria, you’re going to ruin it.
I sigh into the kiss, just a gentle meeting of lips on lips. My hands are clutching his shirt at his hips, and damn it, I want more, more, more. I’m aware that his bed is not that far, maybe five steps backwards for me, and I could have all of him, I could have all of him and completely lose it.
“I’m happy to see you, darling,” he says, pulling back, while I’m sort of stunned to silence, blinking up at him, sure that this is all a dream. No, he called me darling again. There goes another piece of my heart—he’s pocketed it with that one word.
“I think you broke my brain,” I whisper to him, our mouths not far enough to keep me away from temptation. I rock up on my toes to make our lips meet again and again, not wanting this to end. But the Leviathan, Aria! Maybe Ayden will let you sit in the captain’s chair? You’ve gotta put a stop to this, who knows when you’ll be back?
“Hmmm, I think you broke more than my brain. Let’s go before I push it too far,” Ayden murmurs against my mouth before kissing me lightly again and grabs one of my hands, pulling me out of his trailer and locking it up once we’re both outside in the evening air.
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