Chapter 21 Aiden
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
AIDEN
I don’t want to go in there, but I know I have to.
I’m not sure quite what I’m feeling, but it’s sitting like a lead weight in my stomach. As soon as he fell asleep beside me, I slipped out of his apartment. I just can’t do this anymore. No matter what I do this is all going to blow up in my face.
Either Ivan will kill me if I don’t do this. My sister depends on me.
Or . . .
Or Sawyer will eventually grow tired of me.
Days spent in bed with him made me lose sight of what’s important.
I should have looked for it.
So why didn’t I?
Not wanting to delay this any longer, I get out of my car where I parked behind the building next to Noah.
It looks like everyone is here already. I promised to run the register, and that part of me that doesn’t understand this won’t let him down.
Not yet. He’s worked so hard and I’m not going to fuck this up for him.
I’ll fuck it up after.
I would’ve been here earlier—I wanted to text and ask if he needed help.
But I didn’t. What I need is to find that stupid fucking elephant.
What’s so special about it anyway, and why does Sawyer have it?
How did a small-town baker even get wrapped up in this?
What connection can the two even have? Sawyer seems oblivious to any of the bullshit I’m stuck in.
I just need to get my mind right.
One more night.
Then I’ll do what I’m supposed to. When this night is over, I’ll find that fucking statue and then move on with my life. I’ll block him and never see him again.
It’ll be perfect.
I’ll get my life back.
Just . . . perfect.
I knock for a moment, because letting myself in with the key feels weird for some reason. And I wait for someone to let me in. The event starts in about an hour, and I want it to do well. Genuinely. Sawyer didn’t mean to get caught up in this, and I don’t want him to fail.
I want good things for him.
I don’t deserve any of them.
He deserves to be happy. Thriving. I don’t know who he’ll end up with, but it better be someone a million times better than me. It’s what he deserves.
Finally, Jamie opens the door. Eyes glowering. I’ve noticed it’s hard to tell whether he’s angry or if this is just his face. I haven’t figured it out yet. It only seems to turn soft when the curly-haired one with freckles is near him.
He stares at me.
“What?” I ask.
“What, what?”
“Your face.”
His scowl deepens. “Your face.”
“Whatever. I need to work.” I push past him, and I’m instantly impressed with the decorations.
There are balloons everywhere, strapped to chairs in shades of pink, red, and white.
The dessert bar is filled with various truffles.
The red boxes he bought are at one end ready for people to fill.
I wonder how much work he did alone. Especially after taking days off with me.
My back still hurts and itches. I’ve kept an eye on the wounds, and it’s not the first time I’ve dealt with something like this. I keep them clean, though, in the showers at the gym. I just need to be careful of infection. The last thing I can afford is a hospital bill.
The itching sometimes drives me crazy.
Real unfortunate when I’m alone.
I walk in, feeling so anxious. Which is stupid.
It’s not like Sawyer’s been telling them all about us.
Right? I see all his friends wearing matching pink aprons without their shirts on.
Even the pretty Black woman is only wearing a thin tube top covering her chest underneath the apron. Brianna, right?
“Oh, Aiden.” She walks up to me. “Here you go, sweetie. Shirt’s optional.” She winks.
Her face is painted like the morning I found her in bed—red dusts her lids while glittery pink shimmer outlines her cheeks. Her hair is down in loose goddess locs, threaded with pink and red coils and little charms with hearts between the dark brown of her hair. She does look stunning.
“Thank you.” I take the apron, keeping my shirt on and slipping it over my T-shirt.
“Noah!” I hear someone yell, then watch the blond White man storm out of the back. “Brianna.”
She grins maniacally at me. “I’m in trouble,” she giggles before turning to him. “Yes, love?”
“What the fuck is this!?” He holds out his apron . . . or smock.
“What, baby?” She blinks innocently. “What’s wrong?”
“You were my friend first!” She only laughs harder. “You guys are so mean to me.”
“Hey.” She shrugs. “Noah gave me the order and made it accordingly.”
Mark shakes his head. “Shame on you for letting that hell demon turn you against me.”
She giggles, throwing her arms around him. “You know I love you.”
He holds out the full-sized smock that looks like one of the things Katya wears while she paints.
“Real one’s in the back. We just had to laugh. Why don’t you give it to Jamie, he can use it while he paints.”
“You’re a menace.” He kisses her cheek. “Fuck you, Noah.” He flips him off.
Noah reaches into the air, catching something, and then puts it in his pocket. “Love you too, Mark.”
Jamie shakes his head then leans into me. “There’s still time to run.”
“You seem to be one of the few sane people in this place. I don’t even want to know how you got here with him.” Noah and Jamie couldn’t be further alike. There’s opposites, and then there’s whatever the fuck this is.
“Oh! Oh! I’ll tell you!” Noah exclaims. “Me! Me! Me!”
“Fuck,” Jamie whispers.
Noah bounces over, grabbing Jamie and looping his arm around him. “It’s a daring story. Full of adventure, danger, and dildos.”
“Jesus Christ.” Jamie closes his eyes.
Noah lets go of Jamie, pushing me into a chair. “It was a dark and stormy night . . .” he embellishes with his hands waving wildly.
“Literally not raining, but okay,” Mark whispers.
“You see, I became exiled from my childhood home after a daring night with a scoundrel I met at a gay club. We began to have oral relations.”
“Make it stop,” Jamie whispers.
“My father, you see, is what we in my humble village call a homophobic loser dickwaffle.” Jamie’s brows pull together as he watches Noah.
“Alas, I embarked on my journey, bruised and battered, until I dropped onto the doorstep of this kind gentleman with giant muscles, thick chest hair, and a giant maypole.”
“Maypole?” Hunter asks.
“Your dick, Hunter. Please don’t interrupt me.”
“It’s not that thick.” Hunter frowns, rubbing his chest, asking Mark, “Am I that hairy?” Mark just rolls his eyes.
“As I was saying . . .” Noah glares at them. “Without nary a choice in sight, I asked if I could lay my head down a night or two.”
“Why is he talking like that?” Bri whispers.
“He’s been reading this Victorian gothic romance series.” Jamie shakes his head.
“Then, to my surprise, Puck Sire caught feelings for me. Deep, pathetic, sexually aggressive feelings. I can’t even blame him. He’s been in an emotionally and sexually malnourished relationship for years.”
I glance at Mark, but frown when I see Jamie whisper something in Hunter’s ear. His brows scrunch but he smirks, nodding. I watch Jamie walk behind Noah, who’s flailing his arms and embellishing every unhinged word.
“Then I attended a gathering of friends, and alark!
Alas? No, alark sounds right. Who do I see across the room?
Only the most gorgeous man I have ever laid my eyes on.
Sure, did he look like he wanted to kill me?
Of course. But there was danger in the air that night, and I was in the mood to flirt with peril.
“Then Jamie collapsed to the floor. Dropped to his knees. His soul left his body! Love at first sight. Jaw on the floor! Dick—”
“Noah!” Hunter groans.
“Noah.” Jamie says softly.
Noah turns a bit, and Jamie is on one knee. His face falls when he sees his boyfriend. “What are you doing?” he asks, breaking character.
“That’s not quite right, but how about this.
I did not want that party to happen. I certainly didn’t expect to be emotionally assaulted that night.
I wanted to hang out with friends and drink a little, and gain back a bit of who I was before that car accident.
” Jamie opens the tiny box. “What I got instead was you.”
Noah’s hands fly to his mouth.
“It wasn’t love at first sight. I fell in love in stages.
Denial, because I could not believe someone as beautiful and as amazing as you could ever love someone like me.
Then panic, because for the first time in so long I felt like I had something to lose.
I had someone to be better for. Then relief, because for so long I’d been so sad.
So alone. Or I felt alone. What I thought I wanted was silence, but you make everything so loud and terrifying and sometimes a bit crazy. ”
Mark snorts. “Understatement.”
Jamie smiles. “I love the chaos you’ve brought to my life. I don’t want quiet. I want you. Loud, impossible, slightly unhinged. I want game nights with our friends. I want lazy Sunday mornings waking up in your arms. Forever. You and me.”
Bri has her face covered and her shoulders are shaking.
Hunter has his arm looped through Mark’s.
Cam has an arm wrapped around Bo. Then beyond them all, I see him .
. . no shirt and one of those aprons on.
His black hair is a little spiked in the front like he styled it with product. His eyes are on them.
Then they lift to me.
Beautiful.
He gave me the best week of my life.
And I left him.
He’s staring right at me, and I want to go to him. I want to apologize and beg him to forgive me. I don’t know how to do this, though. I can’t make sense of the mess in my chest. Everything since meeting Sawyer has shifted and changed me.
I don’t know how to do this.
Then I look at Jamie on the floor on one knee.
He didn’t know how to do this either.
“Noah,” Jamie says, voice a bit shaky. “Will you marry me?”
It’s so quiet for a moment. The whole bakery is silent. “Holy shit, I’ve never seen Noah speechless,” Mark whispers.
Jamie smiles with a nervous twitch to his lips. “Babe?”
“Yes!” Noah says breathlessly. “Obviously yes!” He attacks Jamie, hugging him so tight Jamie falls backward with Noah in his lap.
It hits something inside me. It feels uncomfortable.
I look back up and Sawyer is staring at me.
Until he shakes his head, looking away at them while his friends congratulate Noah and Jamie.