Chapter Two
Aiden
With the way my head is pounding, silence would be welcomed right now.
Lyndsey and I might not be talking, but the elevator music as we descend from my suite to the hotel restaurant for a group breakfast sounds so loud mixed with the tension.
It’s one of those sounds that, unless your attention is drawn to it, you can ignore, it ticks along almost the same in every elevator: a simple background to conversation for busy people.
When it is the only sound around, that is quite different. No, then it is incredibly loud, it drones on like a soundtrack to our misery. I may be exaggerating but then that might be the effects of the leftover alcohol in my system.
Lyndsey doesn’t seem comfortable in the silence per se but she also isn’t trying to break it.
I think after she called me an array of colourful expletives from inside the suite she has run out of things to call me.
Or she is just taking her time finding more to hurl at me.
It’s not like I planned this. I didn’t sit on the flight here plotting ways to get Lyndsey Stone into my bed.
Did I watch her on the flight? Yes, but that is only because it is near impossible not to watch her.
Her elegant curves highlighted in the form-fitting lounge suit she was wearing, she looked like a dream, of course I was looking.
Drunk me obviously had other ideas that ended with rings on our fingers.
I’ve imagined being married in the future, not seriously, but I’ve pictured it.
Standing at the front of the aisle waiting for the woman I love to walk towards me.
I’ve never put much thought into what that woman would be like.
Now I have a wife and she looks like she stepped out of every one of my wet dreams, even with the scowl that currently mars her face.
I push my brain to remember last night, our wedding, but I draw a blank every time.
I long to see her walking towards me, did she have flowers?
Did she smile up at me so wide her eyes squinted?
I’d like to believe she did, that she was just as caught in the moment, that she was excited to meet me at the end of the aisle no matter what she thinks now.
I think last night we were in love, or an illusion of it.
As I watch her now in the mirrored wall of the elevator I don’t dare break the silence.
Every time I try, her frown deepens between her brows.
If she wants our current indiscretions to be unnoticed she is going to have to put on a better game face than that.
Ellis is an observant woman, I don’t know if it has something to do with being a parent but she can sniff a lie a mile away and, if Lyndsey isn’t careful, we won’t be able to hide it through one meal, never mind long enough to get an annulment.
“You’re going to have to talk to me eventually,” I dare to speak into the canyon between us.
“No the fuck I don’t,” Lyndsey huffs through clenched teeth. I think if I listened closely enough over the music around us, I would be able to hear them grinding together. “Look, this is El and Liam’s weekend and you are gonna keep your pretty mouth shut until it is over okay, cowboy?”
“You think I’m pretty?” I make a bad attempt at lightening the mood.
“Oh shut it! Now isn’t the time for your jokes. Last night was a mistake and we are going to forget this nightmare as soon as possible.” The finality in her words is punctuated by the elevator doors finally sliding open and her breezing through them slipping on a perfect mask as she goes.
It is selfish of me but I’ll admit that I don’t regret what happened.
Waking up with my arms wrapped around Lyndsey felt like a waking dream.
Her skin buttery soft and her curves felt perfect under my callused palms. While I was slipping in and out of dreams, I wasn’t sure which was real and which was still inside my head.
It wouldn’t have been the first time I’ve dreamed of Lyndsey.
I’ve dreamed about her dozens of time since I first met her through Ellis.
Shockingly, they aren’t just sexual either.
Some of them are. Others are just like this morning, waking up, the sun streaming through the windows highlighting the gold in her red hair, the green of her eyes stark against her pale skin and even paler bed sheets.
Lyndsey’s arms and sweet voice wrapped around me as she whispers sweet nothings against me.
I always wake up and try to forget about them.
Try to remember that what Lyndsey and I did was harmless, casual flirting while our friends are the ones in the serious, grown-up relationship.
I try to push away the coffees we drank together and how she made me laugh.
This morning there were no sweet words. And nothing about this feels harmless any more. There was anger and an urgency that my dreams never have. That was when I knew I was awake, feeling her fury bounce off of me instead of her fingers running through my hair.
I want to fix this. It’s what I’m told to do, I’m the oldest brother and I’m the captain.
I haven’t always been straight-cut – hell, I’m still not quite – but if I want to ever begin shaking my old reputation as a wild southern bull, I’m going to have to start by fixing this.
That is if I can think of a place to start.
Getting married in Vegas is not the best start to proving myself a capable leader.
My mind runs through every possibility. I’m sure there is a way to annul this marriage without much fuss, but there is more to us than there would be a normal drunken mishap.
I’m a recognisable face – not to everyone, of course, there are millions of people who have never watched a game of hockey in their life but the truth is I’m known.
It would take one person to hear about this to want to use it against me, against Lyndsey. That is something I couldn’t forgive: if she was caught in the crossfire because a hockey fan in some divorce office told a sports news outlet about what they perceived as an indiscretion.
Fuck, I’m too hungover to think clearly. I must be because the only solution my drunk and selfish brain can think of is to ignore this in the hope it will all just go away. As though that would ever happen. I want to fix this in a way that causes the least amount of pain to both of us.
I’m not selfish, no matter what my thoughts are trying to convince me of now. No. I’ll go to the Spears PR manager, Cassie, as soon as we land tonight. She will help, she will see what I can’t right now but above all she will be discreet. She is always discreet.
By the time we make it to the table Lyndsey has shrouded herself in a cloak of happiness and is not the angry wolf-woman I was stood in a metal box with ten seconds ago.
Nobody notices that we arrive together. Nobody notices we arrive at all because every single one of them looks worse for wear.
Even my enforcer, Jay ‘Edge’ Brink, looks slightly green, a sight I’ve never seen.
He is normally a brooding shadow in a bar or club, hugging the walls so he doesn’t attract the attention of women who might think they stand a chance.
I don’t remember if that was the case for him last night but he must have drunk more than usual if the dark bags under his eyes are anything to go by.
Ellis, bless her heart, looks like a combination of every sleepless night as a parent and every hangover she has suffered rolled into one very grumpy-looking woman.
Her blond hair hangs low over her face. Well, what little face I can see behind the world’s largest sunglasses.
Her fiancé and my old teammate Ruin has his arm strung over her shoulder but he looks seconds away from falling asleep in his porridge.
Finn ‘Rook’ Jonas, on the other hand, might still be drunk.
The rowdiest Spears player sways lightly in his seat, and when Lyndsey darts over to the open seat on Ellis’ left I’m forced to sit beside him.
Rook is a good kid, he is passionate and fun, but in Vegas there is a thin line between fun and dangerous.
A line I apparently toed the wrong side of last night.
“Morning, Cap,” he slurs before pouring us both a coffee from the jug on the table.
There are two already empty. Looks like they were busy trying to clean themselves up before we got here.
There are plates of food, some half eaten and some still completely full, as though whoever ordered them underestimated how much they could handle.
Nobody pays any mind as my head spins, they must assume I look as bad as them because of the drink.
I probably am but the bigger part is still spiralling how to make this right.
I sip the coffee Rook hands me but I don’t indulge in any food, I’m too nauseous to deal with it right now – how Liam is eating so freely I don’t understand. The guy looks like he is on autopilot.
“Ruin’s only said one word since sitting down, eh. Porridge. He looked pretty scary, I’m surprised the waitress wasn’t more worried.” Rook is nodding over at Liam as he speaks, chewing through his own plate of food.
“We’re in Vegas, Rook, it’s the most normal thing in the world to her.” I sip more at my coffee, hiding my grimace behind the ceramic.
“Probably, I think if I had the energy, I could make it up to her, if you know what I mean,” he jokes, his Canadian accent so different from my Texan one. I try to laugh. I really do but it just doesn’t come out.
I had the nerve to warn Lyndsey about her game face, with a poker face as bad as mine seems to be right now I would lose every cent to my name.
I look like a deer caught in the cross hairs of the rifles I saw as a kid.
If my team were even an ounce less drunk I know they would be questioning me.
I thank my lucky stars for tequila. And vodka.
And rum. If the smell of alcohol on their breaths is anything to go by they drank much more than that.
Hell, I must have drunk more than ever before, blacking out is new even to me.
It’s why I’m trying so hard to remember what happened last night, there must be something in the recess of my brain that remembers my own damn wedding.
Even if I could remember where the hell we did it, I wonder if my wedding was officiated by Elvis?
Most of all though, I wish I remembered our vows.
What did drunk me say to her as we slipped those rings on?
Did I joke around? Was I serious for a change?
And most of all, what would my parents think if they could see me now?