Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BAIRD
My ringing phone was a blessing and a curse. I swore under my breath and yanked it out of my pocket. “It’s Ainsley.”
“Answer it,” Maia said. “I’ll get changed.”
I nodded, my eyes following Maia out of the room as I put the phone to my ear. “Ains, what’s up?”
I’d been on the verge of blurting the truth to Maia about my feelings, to tell her that everything I’d said to her arsehole ex was true.
It was too early. Too soon. We’d only just gotten over our argument at the shoot. I still had a lot of foundation to lay before she was truly ready to hear that I was in love with her.
“Eh, I’m calling about the campaign going live,” Ainsley replied. “It went viral. Mum’s freaking out a wee bit. I don’t think any of us were expecting it to take off in such a big way. Even the media is talking about it.”
Aye, I’d talked with my agent on the way to Maia’s because interview requests were coming in.
I told her to turn them down because My and I had already agreed we only wanted to do the campaign and not make a huge deal about it.
We’d laid down that law with Pennington’s too, when they’d tried to sneak obligatory yeses to media requests into the contract.
“Aye, I know.” Day one and it already had two million views.
“I hate to be a superficial cow, but it’s because you’re hot. Together, I mean. You two look right together, wee bro.”
“I’m at Maia’s right now,” I said so she’d know I couldn’t respond directly.
“Ah, okay. Tell Maia I’m asking for her and that she looked beautiful in the video. And good luck cracking that hard head of hers because if she doesn’t realize she’s into you after that fucking kiss, you’re going to need a nutcracker the size of a Range Rover.”
I grinned smugly because after watching the video, I properly got a look at how dazed and flushed Maia was after our kiss. She was into it. “Aye.”
“Okay, I know you cannae talk, so I’ll let you go. Call me.”
“Will do.”
We hung up just as Maia wandered back into the living room in a pair of leggings and an oversized T-shirt tied at the waist. Her hair was up in a messy bun and she’d popped her glasses on.
I wondered what it was that made a person the most beautiful human you’d ever seen. Like, I’d met a lot of attractive women, but none of them made my fucking chest ache like this.
“What?” She cocked her head quizzically.
“Nothing, babe. Just making sure you’re all right after that scene with the ex.”
Maia moved into the kitchen to grab us beers out of the fridge.
She handed me one, and I sat down beside her.
“You know, I think it was a good thing. I told you on Monday that I started to recognize upsetting things about my relationship with Will. Him coming here just drove it home … he isn’t the one.
Marrying him would have been a huge mistake because everything you said to him about how he saw himself in the relationship was true.
He thought he was better than me and that I was lucky to have him. ”
“Imagine calling me an ill-educated Neanderthal when he thinks that.”
Maia scowled. “He’s wrong.”
“I mean, I’m not exactly educated.”
“You don’t have to have a college degree to be smart or educated, Baird.
You’ve seen more of the world than Will has.
You’ve met people from all walks of life doing what you do.
You know how to treat people because you had a mother who taught you well.
The only thing Will’s mum taught him was how to look down on people.
Thankfully, he missed his dad’s lessons on how to be a lecherous perv. ”
I went from enjoying her kind words to readying myself to punch an old man in the face. “Please do not tell me your ex’s dad came on to you.”
Maia shook her head. “Not, like, overtly. But I’d catch him staring at my breasts all the time. When we talked one on one, he’d stare at my mouth. Once he helped me out of the car and he ‘accidentally’ groped my arse.”
“That’s coming on to you, My.” I seethed, taking an aggressive swig of beer. Some men were fucking animals. And that was an insult to animals.
“Hey.” Maia soothed a hand over my shoulder. “Good news is, I never have to see him again. Better news”—she turned into me—“I’m completely over Will.”
My heart jumped. “For real?”
“For real.” She smiled. “I just … our relationship was so surface level. It never would have lasted. He didn’t make me feel safe to be myself, but I’m to blame for staying with someone like that too.
Now I feel like this massive weight is off my shoulders.
Like … I’m free of something. It feels great. ”
“I’m glad, babe.”
“I’m also starving, so let’s order food.”
Triumph made me restless, like I needed to burn off the excess. Part one in this plot was to make sure Maia was over the ex. Part two was to make Maia fall in love with me. I was ecstatic part one was completed so much quicker than anticipated.
However, Maia wanted to chill, so I had to contain the restlessness.
Not long later, I’d kicked off my boots and switched to water because I’d ridden my motorcycle over.
We were watching a crime show on Netflix and trying to make a dent in our huge order of Chinese food—I’d have to work it off in the gym tomorrow.
Like always, it was comfortable and easy hanging out with Maia.
But I wanted to show her that I was the one and that she could really talk to me. That our relationship was not surface level.
“Kath, my agent, she called today about media interviews. A big morning show wants to interview us. I shut her down.”
Maia paused the TV show, turning to give me her full attention.
She was curled up on the end of the sofa, her knees to her chest. Her toenails were painted pink and she wore a gold toe ring on her right foot, second toe.
It was sexy as fuck. She drew her arms around her knees, almost protectively. I shifted on the couch to face her.
“Wow. That’s a lot. So quickly. Just one video.”
“Aye, I know.”
“How do you feel about it?”
I decided to be honest. “On the one hand, I’m used to it. I’ve had clips from games go viral. And this one girl put together a montage of me without my shirt on that went viral.”
Maia’s lips trembled with laughter. “Of course it did.”
I grinned. “I can’t help that I’m a sexy beast, awright.”
“No, you cannot.”
“Anyway,” I said, attempting to get serious again, “I’ve experienced that. But this feels different. I’m not worried for me, but I’m worried for you. I don’t want any of this messing with your head.”
“I’ve already decided to come off socials while we’re doing this.”
“That’s probably a good idea.” I studied her thoughtfully. “Is there anything else bothering you about it?”
Maia pursed her lips. “I’m terrified we’ll get caught in the lie and both suffer the consequences of that. I feel guilty for lying.”
“No one can prove this is a lie, Maia. No one is going to find out. And we feel guilty because we’re not arseholes.” Anyway, hopefully soon, it would not be a lie.
She gave me a grateful smile and then sighed. “I guess the only other thing I’m worried about is it affecting my family. That’s it, really. Nothing else.”
I wondered if she was lying to herself or if she just didn’t want to talk to me.
My therapist’s way of getting me to open up was to share something vulnerable about herself.
Borrowing a page from her book, I confessed, “I sometimes wonder if my dad is out there, watching videos of me, watching my games. Or if he deliberately avoids them. Or worse, if he doesn’t even know it’s me. ”
Her eyes widened and then she unlocked the protective cage of her arms and shimmied along the couch to place a comforting hand on my knee. “Bear. I … I know it’s not quite the same, but I get it.”
“It is the same, Maia. We both have a parent who abandoned us.”
Maia’s eyes brightened with tears. “People … they keep trying to tell me that my mum didn’t choose because her addiction is a disease …
and rationally, I know they’re right. But irrationally, it hurts that she didn’t fight her addiction for me.
That she let me go instead. And I feel like a hypocrite for feeling that way because I didn’t fight for her. I left. I chose myself too.”
“You’re allowed to feel like your mum didn’t choose you.
” I threaded our fingers together and squeezed.
“No one can tell you how you feel. You feel like she abandoned you. That’s the end of the sentence.
There are no ‘buts.’ And I choose to disagree with you that you left her.
You were fifteen, Maia. From what you’ve told me, you were a child forced to be a parent, and you decided to find the one parent who would look after you instead. I think what you did was brave.”
Her hold on my hand tightened. “Thank you. And about your dad. I … I think deep down, there’s a part of me that’s scared Mum will see this and she’ll show up. As guilty as I feel about leaving her … I don’t want that, Bear.”
“Not at all?”
She shook her head. “There’s too much damage. The thought of her in my life terrifies me.”
Now I held on tighter. “Then she will never be in your life again. I promise you that. As long as I’m around, she will never get near you.”
Maia gave me a sad smile and then moved closer, dropping her head to my shoulder, cuddling in. “I’m sorry about your dad, Bear. I’m sorry he’s in the back of your mind too.”
“Aye, me too. I don’t ever want to meet him. Genuinely. And so I worry that he’ll make an approach because of this.”
“He won’t get past me,” she whispered, a fierceness in her tone.
I smiled before I pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head. “At least we’ve got each other.”
At that, Maia snuggled in even more, her knees touching mine. I reached for the remote to restart the show, satisfied I’d made a small breakthrough with My tonight.
When she fell asleep, I discovered when Maia was out, she was out.
Not once did she wake up as I lifted and carried her into her bedroom.
I laid her down on the bed and gently extricated the holder from her hair so the silky dark strands spilled freely across her pillow.
Not once while I did this or when I untucked the duvet to cover her up did she wake.
Or when I took her glasses off and set them on her bedside table.
I put her phone on charge and held the camera up to her face to unlock it just so I could make sure her alarm was set.
Maia didn’t even blink.
And she snored quietly.
I stared down at her, wishing like hell I could get in beside her. Wishing like hell it was my right, my place in her life to get in the bed and spoon with her. I fucking loved spooning, but girls tended to take spooning to mean something it wasn’t, so I’d stopped doing it.
With Maia, it would mean something.
I wanted to spoon with Maia MacLeod.
Impatience rode me.
“One day,” I murmured, before I bent down to press a kiss to her forehead.
As I was leaving the flat, filled with that impatience but also hope for the future, my phone buzzed. I pulled it out of my pocket to see it was a text from Callan.
Just giving you a heads-up, mate. Sorry people are pricks.
Attached to his text was a link to a video. I turned the volume down as I exited Maia’s building and strolled over to my bike.
The video was of a fit brunette, telling the world she’d fucked me a few weeks ago and I was clearly cheating scum. She’d posted the clip from the tabloid newspaper that got me in trouble. She was one of the girls in it. I did not remember sleeping with her.
I didn’t remember her, full stop.
Feeling sick, I turned and looked up at Maia’s dark flat.
What kind of shitstorm was this about to unleash on us?
On the possibility of us?