I nod, trying to be nonchalant, trying to breathe through my internal fangirling. “If you want there to be. I’m willing to see how this plays out.”
Ayden dips his chin and leans towards me, close enough that if I were to mirror him, we’d meet for a kiss in the middle of the table. My heart squeezes in my chest at the thought.
This is real. This is totally real. Real, real, real.
“Never doubt that I want there to be, even if you’re settling for second best.”
I stifle a groan, just stopping myself from rolling my eyes. I smile at him when I look straight at him. “Look, you asked a question and I answered.”
His eyes crinkle on the sides when he smiles. I find my throat getting tight at the thought that maybe one day in the future, I’ll get close enough to plant a soft kiss there. Wow. That day’s gonna be awesome. “I did ask the question, yeah. And now I’ve got to battle…well, myself to win your affection. I’m willing to play that game. I’m bound to win.”
I almost burst out laughing, the butterflies in my stomach taking a roller-coaster drop from hell at the prospect.
God, is this happening?
Is this actually happening?
We ended up walking for hours, and we even watched the sunset from a few blocks down from where we ate and got a good glimpse of the horizon.
It was the best first date I ever had and exceeded even my expectations.
Weird how that happens sometimes.
We walked so much, my feet started smarting and hurting, even though my custom sneakers are the height of comfort, I kept looking down at my feet and wished that I could last a little longer, not wanting to cut the night short before I start hobbling.
And then somewhere, in the beginning of our walk, in the middle of it, at the end, our hands brushed a few (maybe ten?) times, making my heart do acrobatics in my rib cage, thumping hard enough to steal my breath, and Ayden gave me a total of fifteen full-tooth smiles that made me feel like I could soar above the clouds whenever it happened.
I learn more about him, the two of us getting lost in the crowds, and I’m happy I didn’t go full-out in costume or anything, even though there’s people in full cosplay walking about and no one’s paying them any attention. It’s nice, just getting the chance to walk alongside him and talk about anything.
We circle back to Ayden seeking me out before, earlier in the day— was it only today? —how he’s been trying to get over how uncomfortable he is at panels, trying not to project that to the fans, who support the show so ardently. How, if he were able, he’d try to make it the best experience for them, but today didn’t turn out quite the way he expected it, and that he remembered me—me—from the photo op, looking like all my dreams had been crushed.
Which they kinda had, not gonna lie.
We steer clear of talking about the show, and it sucks, since loving Leviathan makes up eighty-five percent of my personality, and I strain to find interesting things to talk about that don’t have to do with the show, or spaceships, or space when we can barely see the stars above us. We don’t talk about if he’s done this before—picked up a fangirl at another con, if I’m just a chump like all the other ones, but there’s a reason why that Pennywise meme exists, beckoning whomever down the sewers to get what they want.
I’m getting what I want with Ayden Stone, time with him, one-on-one even if it’s not the way I expected.
At the end of the evening, it still feels a little like a fairy tale—and there I go again, rocketing up my expectations so no one can ever reach them.
“Thank you for an awesome evening. I had a lot of fun,” I say when we get to my hotel lobby, the floor so bright and polished I can see our combined reflection. I make no moves to indicate that I want him to come up to my room. This is not that kind of party, and I’m not ready for that with a guy I barely know (even if he has Chrisander Gage’s face).
Ayden smiles, lips curving up at the corners. I feel cheated since it’s not one of his toothy ones. Does he feel the shimmery magic of the time we spent together fading away, too? Or did I make all this up? “I had a lovely time as well. I’m hoping I can see you tomorrow.”
There it is. The beginning of the end.
I clear my throat, heart heavy like concrete. It was a dream, getting this opportunity, seeing him like this, getting to talk to him, flirt with him in my own kinda way. And some of us only get to brush our fingertips against a dream, never really able to fully immerse ourselves in it, and I just did. How lucky am I? It still sucks, though, that the night is over, that reality has come back again to bite me in the ass.
“I fly back home tomorrow, then I have to get back to work.” My throat threatens to close up, but it doesn’t matter even if I have to squeak out words from now on. I know I’ll cherish this moment forever and ever.
Ayden nods, plucking his wallet from his back pocket and going through it with enough concentration that I don’t know if he’s even heard me. “Are you still open to meeting in Toronto?” I nod so hard I think my head might pop off my neck. “Here’s an old loyalty card. You got a pen? I’ll give you my number, and you can call me when you feel like it. I might be doing some re-shoots that day, depending on the day of the week, but I’ll have my phone on me and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
Is this happening? For real?
I nod a little too fast, thrusting out a pen I fished from my purse at him, like he’s going to change his mind any second now. I watch him write down his number, then hand the card and pen back to me like it’s something precious. I hold the slip of paper like it might bite me or cause some other kind of harm. I feel like I might have been handed an unpinned grenade and we all have to watch and see if it’s a dummy or not. Swallowing hard, I stow it carefully, gently in my purse, then look back up at him.
“Did I make this too real for you?” he asks, arrowing right down to the truth of it, making me freeze.
I nod, trying to find the right words, trying to explain that I think I’m going to wake up any second now from this fangirl dream. “This doesn’t seem real. At all.” I hike my purse higher onto my shoulder, watch as hotel guests move in and out from the lobby. “I just…I don’t know what’s going to happen back home. I’m different there. I’m more me, if that makes any sense. Here, I can be someone else, and honestly, I didn’t think this would go any further than just meeting you this one time, having a conversation with you.”
“Really?” he asks like he doesn’t believe it, can’t believe me.
I feel my cheeks burn and clear my throat, wanting to give him this, wanting to let him know that he made my day better. “Coming here was a dream come true and going back home has a way of tinging it with super-intense colors and a killer soundtrack. I had fun tonight. Just don’t judge me on the person you’ll meet back home. Because I’m totally going to call you when I get back, and I might even come to the new set and watch for a few minutes and hopefully get a glance of you working. That would be magic. And if you decide that this wasn’t a good idea and you don’t want me to have this”—I vaguely gesture to my purse, where his personal phone number is locked inside—“then I’ll get rid of it. Hell, you even looked queasy giving it to me. I won’t sell it to the highest bidder. Then again, an honest person doesn’t go around telling people they’re honest, so…” I pull a hand through my hair, chew on my lip, fish out the loyalty card and a pen from my purse.
“Forget I said anything. You take my number instead, and you call me when you want to meet up.” I hand him back the golden ticket with both of our numbers on it and back away towards the elevators. “If it’s meant to be, you’ll call me, or we’ll find some way to contact each other, and we’ll see each other again. Destiny has a way of putting two people in front of each when it’s meant to be.”
Ayden watches my backward walk, his face a mixture of bemused amusement and something like acceptance. He stands all loose, relaxed in the now deserted lobby, like he’s not afraid to be seen out and about. I wave goodbye and press the button for the elevator. A hand shoots out to snatch it away from the button before I’m whirled around and I’m about to go postal aiming for the crotch, but Ayden’s three steps away from me, a hand rubbing the back of his neck, keeping his hands to himself.
“That was a bit presumptuous,” he says, pulling in a deep breath. My heart starts to thud against my sternum, counting in threes. “I would like to ask permission for a kiss. May I give you a kiss, Aria?”
I gulp, reeling, because seriously, on all the dates I’ve been on, no one has actually asked me, not once, and I’m completely charmed by it. God, Ayden’s being adorable, and the feeling is like a giant helium balloon inside of me, threatening to float me to the ceiling. This is more than I bargained for.
Isn’t that just the ticket? Life goes steadily by in a haze of routine, work, tasks, whatever, and then when you look around, you realize time’s trickling by, and you haven’t done anything important—whatever that means. And now, now I’m standing in front of my celebrity crush and he’s freaking asking to give me a kiss.
There’s only one (sane) answer: “Yes, please,” I say, licking my lips.
He moves forward carefully, as if to atone for his earlier mistake, giving me all the time in the world to say no, to back away, to sucker punch him in the gut, but I’m not going anywhere. It doesn’t matter that we’re in a public place, that hotel guests could see us, that I could potentially be blocking one of the elevators right now; it doesn’t matter that I’m flying back to Toronto tomorrow—none of that matters.
My heart kicks hard in my chest, and I’m worried, worried how this will feel, if it’s going to ruin an otherwise magical night, or if it’s going to be better than anything I could have ever imagined, anything I could have ever expected, and I’m going to be ruined for all kisses to come.
Then Ayden’s lips are on mine, gently, a soft melding of our mouths that surprises me and has me winding my arms around his neck to pull him closer to me even though my tiptoes are about to leave the ground. His mouth moves on mine with increasing pressure until his tongue licks along the seam of my mouth and we’re tasting each other and it’s even better in reality than what my dreams were made of.
I can’t believe I’m doing this!
I make a sound in my throat, and somehow, I’ve got both hands in his hair, making sure he doesn’t move away because I have to have more of this, of him, and it can’t ever, ever stop.
Ayden pulls back for air, and we’re both panting, looking at each other in a sort of dazed confusion before a lazy smile’s blooming on Ayden’s lips—lips that I was kissing seconds ago.
Holy no!
“Wow,” I whisper, afraid to break the spell.
Sometimes when I have a really good dream, I don’t want to wake up—I stay in bed, eyes closed resolutely shut, trying to force and cajole my brain into continuing the pretty images it supplied me with before I woke up for whatever reason. It usually goes that I start another dream and that really, really good one, the one where I felt like everything was right in the world, gets shoved into a back corner of my brain, gathering dust before it dissipates entirely, gone from my memory banks, other than the vaguest sense of being happy.
This feels a lot like that—like any minute now, I’m going to have to force myself to keep my eyes closed and replay snippets of my dream to get the movie in my head started up again.
But for now, this is better than a dream, and it’s freaking real.
“I just wanted to make sure you know where I stand. I want to see you when you get back home. Please,” Ayden says, palming either side of my face. I’ve always loved it in movies when the guy cradled the cheeks of the person he was kissing, as if that person was precious. It melts my heart, feeling his warm hands on my face as he leans down to plant a soft kiss on my lips.
Famous, beautiful Ayden Stone knows how to say please.
Everything about this is magical, and I never want to wake up.
“You said that you have a flight tomorrow. Have a safe trip, Aria. I’ll call you when I get back.” With another chaste kiss, Ayden Stone (not Chrisander Gage) leaves me behind, a little dazed as I walk backwards into the now open elevator, and I have to really concentrate to remember which floor I’m on before I press the correct button.
I’m sad to be leaving California, but man, I can’t wait to get back home.
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