Chapter 30 Maia
Chapter thirty
Maia
Things were quiet… way too quiet for the chaos I’d endured for the last few months. I checked in on my uncle, and he was doing okay from what he’d told me.
The conversation didn’t last too long. He’d just apologize and hoped I could forgive him. Said he would be going back to rehab soon enough, when he could finally realize how much he lost.
He hadn’t reached out since. Felix was radio silent, and oddly enough, I’d received a few hiring offers and applications in my work email that I used to beg the universe for in the past.
I knew Blaine was behind all of it. But he hadn’t said a word, hadn’t so much as dropped a hint to me that Felix was out of my life for good now. I just had to infer that that was the case.
“You’re seriously not gonna take my offer?” Brielle said into the phone, bringing me out of my thoughts as I took another sip of tea while still being huddled on the couch in the living room.
“You know I’m not looking to date anyone right now,” I murmured.
She scoffed. “I’m not asking you to marry the guy, I just want you to get to know him. He’s a sweetheart. He’s funny, charismatic—”
I rolled my eyes. “By the way you’ve described him, I’m pretty sure he’s a bit crazy too…” I giggled, and she huffed into the phone.
Interestingly enough, Brielle had been doing her best to get me to go on a date with a colleague of her soon-to-be husband, Killian.
Apparently, in her words, not mine, “You’d be perfect for each other.” As if Mr. Porter hadn’t told me that since the day we met. Hearing Brielle say it repeatedly was just the icing on the cake.
“Bri, really, I’m fine,” I said, curling deeper into the couch. “I don’t need a date. I need… I don’t know, maybe a vacation.”
“You could take him with you?” I laughed once more at her excitement as she whined into the phone. “Maia, I’m serious. Blaine is a nice guy… He’d fall head over heels for you.”
He already did.
“I’d have to think about it.”
“Well, you’ll have to think fast because I’m inviting both you and him to cake tasting for the wedding.”
I sighed. “Bri—”
“Nope, don’t ‘Bri’ me,” she cut in, her voice chipper and determined. “Tomorrow afternoon. Killian’s being absolutely useless about the flavors, and I need another opinion that isn’t Delilah’s. Consider it your good deed of the week, maid of honor.”
My head thunked against the back of the couch as I groaned. “This is extortion, you know.”
“This is me helping you,” she countered, smug. “Besides, I saw the way he looked at you the last time we were all together. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
I scoffed. “Pretty sure you had bigger things to worry about that day, Bri. Like almost getting hit by a car?”
I thought back to the day it had happened.
It was total chaos: Bri in the hospital, Killian screaming like a madman, Madam A unleashing a slew of Russian curses—and in the background, Blaine and me keeping a friendly distance apart, my head tucked low in hopes that Killian wouldn’t recognize me.
Luckily, he hadn’t—too much going on for all that—and even more luckily, he hadn’t caught Blaine’s heavy stares, his eyes glued onto me throughout that awful day.
The fact that Brielle, pregnant and in all kinds of distress, had spotted it? I was flabbergasted.
“Okay, maybe my priorities were a bit skewed that day. But trust me, he will be all over you in a heartbeat.”
Heat crept up my neck. If only she knew how right she was. If only she knew that Blaine didn’t just smile at me… he consumed me, ruined me for anyone else, made me forget how to breathe, how to exist without him.
“Fine,” I muttered finally.
“Perfect!” she squealed. “See you tomorrow. Wear something cute!”
The line went dead before I could think to protest any further.
I buried my face in my hands, heart racing. Because tomorrow wasn’t just cake tasting. It was Blaine and me, in public, sitting across from Brielle and Killian, pretending we weren’t already hopelessly, stupidly in too deep. That I was too deep in love with the idiot.
The faint chime of the elevator doors slid open. Heavy footsteps echoed across marble, and the familiar scent of his cologne swept through the room.
Speak of the devil.
Blaine’s jacket was slung carelessly over his shoulder, tie half undone, his gaze finding me instantly like it always did.
My heart tripped over itself as he dropped everything to the ground and sank to his knees before resting his head on my thighs.
I ran my fingers through his hair. “Long day, Romeo?”
“It was hell on earth without you, Sunshine…” he murmured.
“Brielle invited us to cake tasting tomorrow… That should cheer you up.”
“When does cake ever fail to cheer me up?” He leaned up, his arms wrapping around my waist as he buried his face in my torso.
His voice was muffled against my shirt, warm breath seeping through the thin fabric.
“Cake tasting with Lucifer and his bride-to-be?” He sighed.
“Looks like our Brady bunch from hell is circling back around.”
I snorted, scratching lightly at his scalp, and felt the low hum of his groan vibrating against me. “It’ll be fun.”
He tilted his head back, eyes catching mine, all boyish mischief laced with the kind of exhaustion only he carried. “Forgive me, Sunshine, but there is nothing fun about having to sit across from Killian while pretending I don’t want to drag you under the table and make you scream my name.”
“Blaine.” My cheeks heated instantly, but my fingers kept moving through his hair, betraying me.
“What? You think I’m gonna behave?” His grin curved, slow, lazy, like he already knew the answer.
I bit my lip, trying not to smile as my heart did that stupid skip it always did with him. “You could at least try.”
“Brielle’s matchmaking is basically giving me the green light to show the world what belongs to me.”
“Still don’t know how Killian doesn’t remember me… am I that forgettable?” I jokingly said with a sad smile.
He hummed, a wet and warm kiss finding my neck as I leaned back for him.
“Nothing about you is forgettable, my little sugar baby Sunshine.”
He looked back up at me, my hands finding the sides of his face as I bit my lip. “If we’re gonna take our relationship public… we should at least have labels that are moderately appropriate when the time comes,” I murmured
“If I said your label would be my wife, would that work?”
“Marriage takes time, Mr. Porter.”
“Killian did it in less than six months.” He shrugged.
I rolled my eyes as I gave him a flat look. “You are not Killian.”
“Thank Christ for that,” he muttered, kissing the inside of my wrist before flashing that grin that always made me want to hit him and kiss him in the same breath. “But the principle stands, Sunshine. When I want something, I don’t waste time.”
My chest ached, warmth creeping in where fear used to live. “And what exactly is it you want?”
He looked at me for a long moment, really looked at me as he memorized every flaw, every worry in my eyebrows, every fractured piece of me that I desperately wanted him to fix. His hands caressing my waist, holding me still, grounding me in front of him.
“If I said…” His voice dropped, rough and careful all at once. “…I love you, Maia Dalton. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you… Would that work instead? Would that be a good answer for what I want?”
The air caught in my lungs. My lips parted, but nothing came out as tears sprang to my eyes.
For once, Blaine Porter… the king of smug one-liners and shameless arrogance, wasn’t smirking. He wasn’t teasing. He wasn’t joking. He was confessing what he wanted.
And I believed him with all of my heart.
“Yes…” I whispered. “Yes, that would work perfectly.”
“Doesn’t work as well if you don’t love me back, Sunshine.” He pouted.
I ignored him, shaking my head as my trembling hands slid into his hair, needing to anchor myself to something solid before my lips slammed against his, pulling him closer like the air I needed to breathe.
“I love you, Blaine.” I spoke against his lips, and his met mine again before he husked his next words, like he’d been waiting months to say it.
“I love you, Maia.”
If Blaine Porter meant every word he just said… then maybe, for the first time in my life, I wasn’t just surviving.
I wasn’t just living to get by.
I was his.