The panel is nothing more than a glorified Q&A, which I’ve come to learn are my favourite kind of panels. It’s a time where the fans can express their love for the actors and/or characters and ask the kind of questions that were only hinted at in the show, expressly left as subtext, or ask about their own fan theories with the people who know the characters best.
What more could a fangirl want?
Maybe dinner with the fictional character of her dreams, perhaps?
I feel a little like an idiot, waiting here, while the rest of those in the fandom that got tickets to the panel are leaving the hall, bustling out, talking in excited screeches to one another. And for a second, I’m so, so happy that serendipity made it so neither Maddie or Raleigh could make it, otherwise I wouldn’t be here, waiting for freaking Ayden Stone.
Yup, here I am, just looking a little suspicious, as if I’m waiting for someone. Hi, how are you? Yup, still waiting.
I half-nod and smile at random strangers when I make direct eye contact with fangirls and fanboys, trying to project an air of nothing to see here, move along, move along!
I half-convince myself that I dreamed the whole sharing a meal with Ayden Stone thing, because really, in what sort of hallucination does the man (character, Aria!) of my dreams ask me out to dinner without me fantasizing about it? Oh man, oh man, can this actually be real?
I check my phone for the time and decide to give Ayden another ten minutes, because ten minutes lost isn’t the absolute worst, but anything more and I’m gone. I don’t want to be the butt of someone’s joke either and have this somehow blown up all over Twitter.
Thanks, but no thanks.
I’m fidgeting, practically dancing on the spot as the minutes tick by.
Five minutes left. Countdown starts now…
There’s a security guy that keeps giving me the side-eye, and it’s starting to make me nervous, to make me start smiling a little bit too reassuringly. Yes, I’m not a security risk, and I don’t mean any harm. I mean, just look at me!
I tamp down on the butterflies eating my stomach lining, and the way I can’t sit still when Ayden (Stone) makes an appearance from the now-empty hall, and he smiles at me with that Chrisander Gage smile and my knees almost start to buckle before I have the wherewithal to lock them in place once I get myself vertical.
I will not pass out because an attractive guy smiled at me, I will not. Even if I really want to and that smile is a dirty magic trick.
I feel my face begin to tell-tale burn, and I can only smile in return. My brain is on vacation, and there are no words drifting through my mind and being shuttled down to my mouth so I can say something clever. I mumble a “hi” and have to pat myself on the back for doing that much.
“I’m glad you waited,” Ayden says, coming to stand close to me, almost at touching distance. I like that, I like that he’s not invading my space when my brain has checked out. “Are you ready?”
I nod, afraid to open my mouth in case something inappropriate comes out, like: Will you marry me? Pretty please with a cherry on top? Can I have your babies?
Ayden clears his throat as he motions me towards the now-closed doors, nodding to the security guy who probably thinks I’m a leech or something. Then again, maybe he doesn’t think that, but he’s just naturally suspicious because it’s sort of in his job description. Ayden opens the door for me and waits for me to go first, and I know like every woman has ever known in the history of the world that he’s checking out my ass in my banging jeans that I know do wonders for my legs.
I grin to myself, trying to hide it when he comes up beside me and starts to ask me where I’d like to go.
I’d go anywhere with you.
I clamp my lips shut just in time from letting that particular thought escape, but I make the suggestion to just do some walking around until we find a place we’d like to eat at. Walking never killed anybody, unless of course, you’re a famous person and fangirls (and fanboys) stalk your every move. I can’t say anything bad about them because they are my people—no one understands fangirls the way other fangirls do—but there’s always that toxic portion of any fandom that wigs most of us out.
Leviathan hasn’t won an Emmy (yet), and that means that you’d only recognize him if you were a die-hard fan, and the entire convention center is filled with die-hard fans from what feels like every fandom in existence. I don’t feel like he’ll be recognized to the point of being mobbed, but it’s still good to be vigilant.
“What’s your favourite thing to eat?” Ayden asks, turning towards me. I forgot how tall he is as I’m only in my sneakers, so I have to crane my neck back a little to keep eye contact. And wow, what a view.
“Sushi, hands down. I can eat the stuff by the bucket load.” When he wrinkles his nose, my stomach starts to sink. How could Chrisander Gage not like sushi when he eats it all the time on the show? It’s one of his character quirks! “Do you…not like it?” Did I somehow answer his question wrong?
“I don’t like the stuff, sorry.” He turns from me, looking ahead on the sidewalk for impending street traffic. I keep looking at his profile while hoping I don’t walk into another person—or even worse, a pole—all while my mouth hangs open, letting a draft in.
“But you eat it on the show!” I sputter, cringing at the volume of my voice.
I can tell I’ve said the wrong thing—it’s in the way his hands twitch their way into fists, and he shoves them into his pockets, and the way his breathing gets heavy like it’s trying to become a sigh.
“I’m not Chrisander Gage, Aria. Nothing will change that.”
Stung, I blurt, “I know that. That guy’s just a character.” Right, like Captain America is just a comic book hero. “I just noticed that it’s his favourite food in the show.” Man, it feels weird talking about Chrisander like he doesn’t exist when I’m literally looking at the person who shares his face and body. It’s enough to give me a headache, but that might also be because I’m starving right now.
“I hate the stuff, actually. I don’t like the texture or the smell. Not any of it.” He wrinkles his nose, and I’ve decided that it’s the second most adorable thing I’ve seen today.
“That’s fine. We can go somewhere you want to go. Just don’t tell me you don’t like pizza. That’s a crime against humanity.” When the corner of his mouth twitches, I swear I could blast off to the moon with the elation that swells up inside me. “Good. We’re on the same page. Let’s get some pizza.” I pull out my phone from my purse, get a GPS location on pizzerias within walking distance, until Ayden’s hand stops me from doing what I want to do. His hand’s huge on my wrist, and I just stare at it, wondering what the heck it’s doing touching me.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I got nervous about you going on social media.” Ayden pulls his hand away from my skin like I’ve burned him.
“Right, sure.” It’s not right, and it’s not sure. My stomach flip-flops, and I’m thinking that maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. But how often does this chance come along? When will this ever happen to me again? Never, that’s when. And I want to see this through. If this dinner is truly awful, then all I have to do is call an Uber and forget this whole thing happened. It’s not like I’ve never had a no date, just never had a no date in California. “Maybe you should look up a pizzeria around here on your phone.” I drop my phone back into my purse, looking back at him expectantly.
Ayden nods, a tight dip of his chin, and he looks down at his phone once it’s out of his pocket with a little too much concentration. “There’s a place fifteen minutes by foot. Do you mind?”
Fifteen minutes is not that long in the grand scheme of things. A quarter of an hour. An almost-episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Fifteen minutes can feel like an eternity in the dentist’s chair, and it can feel like time’s slipping away from you during a final exam.
Fifteen minutes with Ayden Stone and I don’t know how time is going to trip me up.
“Yeah,” I say, trying to quell that nervous feeling in my belly. “No problem at all.”
Ayden points us in the right direction, and I tailor my steps to his, even though it feels like I’m running, until he realizes it and slows down. So maybe food is more like twenty minutes away with a shorter person in tow?
We walk along in silence for the first five minutes (I keep checking my phone, absolutely sure that it vibrated, and some special notification needs my attention). We obey traffic laws, when really back home, the walk and stop signs for pedestrians are more like suggestions anyway.
When I can’t take the silence anymore, I blurt, “Is this weird? Because I’m feeling weird.” Say what you mean and mean what you say, right? Right?!
We walk another few steps before Ayden answers, the silence killing me slowly. “I’m sorry if this is odd for you. We can turn back any time you’d like.”
“That’s not what I meant.” I shake my head, wave my hands around for emphasis. “It’s just that you seem on edge, and it’s kinda making me on edge. I know I’m a stranger, but we’re going to share a meal, and we have to do the standard things that people do when they share a meal together. Which is talk, get to know one another. Right?”
Ayden shakes his head. “I’m not my character, Aria.”
“I know that. You just said that. I do know that.” I look up at him, swinging around to make sure he sees my face and knows that I do know that.
“I’m very different from him, actually.”
More stomach sinking on my part. God, I hope my face isn’t saying everything I feel for me, that would suck. “Okay. That isn’t a problem.” And it’s not, it’s totally not a problem. At all. “I’m sure we can talk about a lot of other things.”
“Isn’t it a problem, though?”
I don’t know what to say to that, so we keep walking on until we get to the restaurant. I feel like I’ve been tricked when I’ve been anything but. Here I am again, being disappointed by my own high, and absurd, expectations. Like we were gonna bond over his character or something and ride off into the sunset.
Yeah, right.
Gotta fix that, Aria. You can’t keep going through life disappointed every time something doesn’t go your way.
We’re seated in a booth in a back corner, kind of just like a repeat of the burger joint earlier today. I’m nervous and scared because I’m totally out of practice when it comes to first dates. It’s been forever since I’ve been on a date, no guy seemed to measure up to get that far, and now, now I’m sitting across from the most attractive guy ever and I’m already more than half-obsessed with him than I actually should be.
Fangirl problem.
Our waitress hands us the menu without much preamble, although I see her glance appreciatively at Ayden with a sweep of her eyes and a sweet smile. Now that would be a meet-cute for the ages. Too bad I beat her to it.
“What’s your favourite kind of pizza?” I ask, hoping to start with easy questions. Again, not so good at the whole first date thing. There’s so much more to a person than the surface, but you gotta start somewhere, and I’m going to start with one of my favourite subjects that isn’t my love for Leviathan—food, specifically, pizza. “Are you team pineapple on or off?”
He smirks, and my heart does some sort of gymnastic tumbling in my chest. “Hate the stuff. You?”
I pretend to look affronted. “It’s salty and sweet heaven when it’s on pizza. What about stuffed crust?”
“Definitely not.”
I nod. “Same. Do you like dogs or cats?”
“Dogs. Cats and I don’t get along. I feel like I’m being interviewed.” One hand moves up to scratch at the back of his neck, and he sort of looks like he wants to hide behind his menu.
I flush, not expecting this at all. “Yeah, well, that’s sort of what happens, no? You just shoot over a bunch of information to each other and hope some of it is interesting enough that you want to learn more from the other person. A first date can be like an interview, I guess.”
I don’t say that there has to be some kind of connection between the two people on said date, the both of them having to figure out on their own if the connection is a friendly one or a romantic one. I know I romantically like a version of Ayden Stone; I just don’t know about the guy himself.
“Yeah, that’s true. But you’re forgetting one thing.” He stares at me with those eyes, and my mind screeches to a halt. “I already find you interesting.”
“What? How? We’ve barely even met,” I sputter, hands coming up to cover my mouth, voice muffled. The blood starts rushing in my veins, and I can hear it pounding in my ears, whooshing, whooshing, whooshing.
Ayden places his menu down in front of him, staring at me like he knows things, reading the very blueprint of my DNA. I try to keep still. “The look of disappointment on your face today after we took a picture together, it made me think. I haven’t had a lot of time to think or try to figure out what made you feel that way. When I first saw you, I thought you were striking.” He looks me over, and I fight to keep myself from squirming. I know it’s a line, but no, no one’s ever called me striking before—like you would a beautiful landscape, the star-strewn sky in the middle of nowhere at night, the way a lightning bolt forks and splits a tree in half—those are striking. “And then you looked at me as if I had ruined all your wishes and dreams. It almost broke my heart. I haven’t felt that way in a long time, like I disappointed someone so badly.”
I frown. “Is that why you were looking for me—found me—earlier?” Is he really just doing this to make himself feel better?
Ayden nods, unruffled, unbothered.
“It was serendipitous that I had a hankering for a burger when I spotted you. Felt like I could make amends for my snotty behavior. That was part of it. The other part of it was seeing an attractive girl and wanting to get to know her better.” He shrugs, like that’s all there is to it, and it doesn’t feel like I can trust it, yet.
Honestly, this just doesn’t feel like it happens in real life when I know for a fact people have met at this very con, have dated and have eventually gotten married, which sounds like a fangirl fairy tale come true.
“Huh. Okay. Uh, yeah, okay.” I nod and clear my throat, coughing into my fist. “Well, I for one am ordering the Hawaiian, so do with that what you will. And also, for the record, I was disappointed in myself for overthinking things and for wanting more.”
Ayden smirks, crossing his arms over his folded menu on the table and keeping his eyes glued to my face. I feel scrutinized, I feel seen. It makes my breath catch in my throat. “Would you take a chance on getting to know me better, too? I can be more than the character I play,” he says, voice threaded through with iron. “If you give me a chance. That’s all I’m asking for, one little chance. One shared meal. Like any normal two people might do. What do you say?”
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