27. Leo
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Spooning out a generous helping, I fill Aria's bowl with the homemade vegetable soup and set the ladle on the paper towel on the counter. I grab a spoon and slide it through the steaming liquid before walking across her kitchen and into the living room.
Aria's sitting on the couch, not bothering to watch the TV—opting to watch me instead. There's a little hop in my step, the excitement dancing in my veins as I see a smile lifting her lips as I reach her.
"For you," I say softly, handing it to her. I fight the urge to toss the soup onto the floor and pull her to me.
"Thank you," she practically whispers as she shifts on the couch, motioning for me to sit with her as she takes the bowl in her hands. Her eyelids flutter closed and she looks content as she inhales the steam drifting from the soup. "It smells amazing."
I shrug, suddenly feeling nervous under her watchful gaze. "It's nothing. It was my grandmother's recipe."
"Is there anything you can't do?"
"The jury is still out on that," I tell her as she lifts the spoon and blows on the liquid.
Her eyebrows pull together. "Why is that?"
My eyes drop to her mouth as she parts her lips and slides the spoon between them. My cock twitches in my pants as she sucks the liquid from the piece of metal, her throat bobbing as she swallows. Now is not the time, but apparently my dick didn't get the memo.
I do love the way she looks when she's swallowing…
"I haven't made you mine, so that might be something I can't do."
Aria's head snaps up to look at me, her body momentarily turning rigid as the tension hangs heavily in the air between us. She needs to know the truth. I was coming here to talk to her whether she was sick or not—it just so happened to work out that I had an excuse to show up.
"I didn't come here just to make you soup."
She inhales sharply. Her eyes are glued to mine and I don't miss the way they widen the slightest bit. Her pupils grow, like her vision is trying to soak me in. "Okay," she says quietly before pausing to chew on the inside of her cheek. She sets her spoon back in her bowl, not taking her gaze from mine. "I feel really stupid for reading this all wrong," she admits with a quiet, awkward laugh.
My eyebrows pull together. "What did you read wrong?"
A sigh escapes her, followed by a small cough as she turns her head and covers it with the inside of her elbow. "It doesn't even matter." A sad smile lifts the corners of her lips. "Were you planning on finishing the rest of this season together or did you want a clean break now?"
Her question throws me off completely and I can't help myself as I'm the one laughing nervously now. "I'm sorry, I'm failing to understand what you're saying right now."
"You came here to end our skating partnership," she says matter-of-factly, like I should know what she's talking about when we are clearly on two different fucking pages. "The soup was like a consolation prize. Like a 'thanks for playing, try again.'" She pauses and shakes her head . "I'm sorry if I'm the reason this didn't work out. I tried not to let my feelings get involved and obviously, I failed."
My jaw is literally on the ground. She is coming from left field with a claim that she has little to no support for. I don't even know where any of this is coming from, but I plan on getting to the bottom of it… right after I tell her what I really came here for.
"You're right," I tell her, nodding in the most convincing way possible. "You failed miserably." I pause, watching her eyes drop from mine as she directs her gaze to the bowl of soup in her hands. "And so did I."
Aria's eyes snap back to mine again. "What?"
"I'm in love with you, Aria Reed. Addicted and infatuated. Hopelessly and irrevocably in love."
Her lips art, her nostrils flaring with emotion as she blinks twice. I watch her throat bob as she swallows roughly. "Don't you dare say things you don't mean, Leo Wells."
"You are so goddamn difficult, you know that, right?" A soft laugh leaves me as I shake my head at her. "You want more, I tell you I'll give you everything. I tell you I'm in love with you, and you're still questioning me." I pause, reaching for her soup and set it down on the coffee table before taking her face in my hands. "What do you want?"
Aria's eyelids close, her dark lashes resting against her lightly tanned skin. The silence is deafening as it stretches between us. Slowly, her eyes open once more and I count the freckles in her irises. The same ones I've had memorized for years.
"You," she whispers as her tongue darts out to wet her plump lips. "I want you, Leo, and I'm sorry for making you think otherwise yesterday." She pauses, a smile breaking out across her face as tears shimmer in her eyes. "You terrify me."
My thumb catches one of her tears before brushing it away from her perfect face. "Why?"
"Because I know I won't survive a heartbreak from you. I'm teetering on the edge of giving you every piece of me and I know if I do, I'm not sure what will be left of me if you decide you no longer want me."
"You silly, silly girl," I whisper as I bite back my grin. Shaking my head, I chuckle softly. "You don't get it, do you? You're it for me. I promise there will never be a day in my life that I don't want you. Believe me when I tell you, I will never hurt you."
She gives me a playful smile as she reaches up and wraps her hands around my wrists. "My brother threatened you, didn't he?"
"He did," I admit, feeling the butterflies fluttering away in my stomach. "But that doesn't change anything." I pause, pressing my lips to her forehead before I press my forehead against hers. "My heart is yours, Aria. To have, to hold, to throw in the trash. It's yours now and even if you decide you don't want me, I don't want it back."
"What if I told you I wanted to keep it forever?"
Her words warm my soul and I can feel myself falling even harder for her in this moment. When I look at my future, I can't imagine it without Aria anymore. I didn't realize what was happening until it was too late—until she had already situated herself inside my heart.
She took that black hollow organ in my chest and nourished it back to life before making it her home.
"Can I tell you something?"
Pulling my forehead away from hers, I stare down into her molten steel eyes. "Always."
"I'm glad you interrupted my date with Griffin that one night." She pauses for a moment, rolling her lips between her teeth before releasing them. "You gave me everything I needed that night and I don't feel like I properly thanked you for it."
"I can think of a few ways you can thank me," I tell her with a wink as she swats her hand at me. "When you're feeling better." Releasing her face, I reach back for the soup and hand it to her. "Eat this before it gets cold."
"Yes, sir," she says with a nod as she takes it from me. Those two little words send a rush of blood to my cock but I ignore it again. I really need to get myself under control here. I don't know what the hell has become of me. Anytime I'm near her, I'm like a teenage boy again, about to come in my damn pants just from her touching my hand or looking at me a certain way.
"This soup is seriously so good," Aria says as she takes another bite. There's a small droplet of broth on her bottom lip. Lifting my hand, I brush it away with my thumb before popping the digit in my mouth to lick it off. "Aren't you going to eat any?"
I shake my head at her as I settle back on the couch and look at the home improvement show she's watching. "I might later. I just wanted to make sure that you eat something. We need to make sure you stay hydrated. Have you been taking any medicine to help?"
She rolls her eyes at me. "Yes, daddy." Fuck, there's that rush of blood between my legs again. "I've been doing everything I need to do and I think this soup was the last thing I needed to really start feeling better."
"I missed you on the ice today." I pause for a moment, letting those feelings sink back in again, and the feeling of dread fills me. "When you didn't show up, at first I thought maybe something bad happened. Then you texted me and I wasn't sure if you were actually sick. Not that I didn't believe you—but after yesterday, I wasn't sure you were going to want to skate with me again."
Aria leans forward to set her empty bowl of soup on the table. "Well, I already exposed myself with that fear. At first, I thought you came here because you wanted to see me and then I thought it was because you were leaving me."
Kicking off my shoes, I rise to my feet and Aria moves over as I climb onto the couch with her. She pulls the quilt up over my body, our legs tangling together as I lay on my back. She scoots close until her body is plastered to my side with her arm around my torso and her head resting against my rib cage.
"I shouldn't have let you leave yesterday," I say softly as I stroke her soft wavy hair with my hand. "I should have made you stay and listen to me. I should have ran after you when you did leave." A disappointed sigh leaves me. "I should have done something, anything."
Aria trails her hand down to the hem of my shirt and slides her hand underneath the cotton material until her palm is pressed against my bare skin. I revel in her touch, in her warmth. "I never should have left. I let those stupid negative thoughts get the better of me. After they entered my mind, I couldn't see past them and I should have taken a step back and let myself breathe before reacting."
"We both have a lot of should-haves from yesterday," I murmur against her head before pressing a gentle kiss against her hair. "There's nothing we can do to change that now. All we can do is change the way we communicate moving forward." I roll slightly onto my side as I pull her closer to the front of my body and wrap my arms tightly around her. "I need to start thinking before I speak. I know sometimes the way I word things may come off cold and abrasive, so that's something I'm trying to work on."
"And I need to give myself time to think and process before I respond. Sometimes my anxiety takes a hold of me and I react based on emotion rather than thinking things through first.
I run my fingers through her silky locks. "That's the beauty of being human, Ari. We're all constantly a work in progress. We're fluid like water, changing shapes and forms. We're always evolving and growing."
"No one is perfect," she murmurs, and I'm not sure whether she's telling me or telling herself.
Having to be perfect is something Aria struggles with, but she's been doing a lot better considering the stress we've been under. I've already seen the growth within her, just from the minor hiccups we've had while learning to skate together.
"No, they're not," I agree, pressing my lips to her forehead again. "But you're the closest to perfect as someone is going to get."
"That's your infatuation talking." She laughs quietly as she nestles her body against mine.
"No, love," I tell her, my voice dropping lower as I whisper the words against her skin. "That's just my heart."
***
Aria's cold thankfully only lasted a few days, but after the first day, she was feeling better and able to get back to practice. I made sure she took it easy and didn't overdo it. The last thing we needed was for either of us to be exhausted or overworked. That is never a good combination when you're trying to win an extremely important competition.
"Are you okay to get on the plane?" Aria asks me as we stand at the terminal and they've begun boarding passengers. I'm standing by the glass, staring out at the other planes as they land and take off.
I nod, feeling the anxiety washing over me. I absolutely hate flying and I know it's completely irrational. It's not like I know anyone who has been in a plane crash or that I've experienced anything traumatizing like that myself. I blame it on the Final Destination movie I watched when I was a teenager.
"I'll be right here with you," she says softly as she bumps her shoulder against mine. It's the most minimal contact and I revel in the way it feels. Things haven't been weird between us, but trying to balance working together and sleeping together when no one knows the specifics of our relationship has been a little different. No one knows we've been spending every night together for the past two weeks.
There have been many times I've caught myself about to kiss her or pull her into my arms in front of people and I have to stop myself. I don't know what she expects or wants from me in terms of that. Hell, I told her I'm in love with her and didn't even accomplish what I set out for. We don't need a label to define what we are, but I've been finding myself craving one. Almost as if I need that reassurance of having a title for her—something tangible that I can shout from the rooftops to the rest of the world.
I want things to be official between us. I don’t want it to be our little secret.
I want everyone to know that Aria Reed is mine and I'm hers.
"That brings me even less comfort," I tell her as they call our group and she begins to walk toward the line at the gate. I fall in line behind her. "I don't need the plane going down while you're on it too."
Aria looks over her shoulder and gives me a sideways glance. "The plane is not going to go down. We are safe, Leo. I won't let anything happen to you."
I raise an eyebrow at her as I blow air out of my nose. "Have you been hiding that you're a pilot from me too?"
The line shifts and Aria doesn't bother responding to me as we step up to the counter and have to show our boarding passes. I adjust the straps of my backpack on my shoulders and follow behind her as we walk down the loading bridge to board the plane. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out, seeing a message from Austin.
He knew about Aria and I, mainly because he wouldn't leave me alone after I went to her house when she was sick. I told him everything and he has been nothing less than supportive. He even eased my worry when I confessed that Ari didn't tell me she loved me back. He assured me she would in time, and I will give this woman as much time as she needs.
Austin
Stop staring at my sister's ass.
My eyebrows pull together and I glance behind me, catching Austin's gaze as he walks about eight people behind us. "What the hell?"
Austin gives me a huge wave. "There's my favorite guy!"
Aria turns around with the same confused expression on her face. I nod back to where Austin is, grinning like a fool. "Looks like your brother is flying to Vancouver too."
Another hand rises beside Austin's head and I move mine to the side to see who it is. "Hi, Ari! Hi, Leo!"
"Brynn?" Aria questions me as a smile lifts the corners of her lips. "What are they doing here?"
The couple behind us looks unhappy and the man grumbles something under his breath as the woman clears her throat. I turn back to look at the line and see that we're holding everyone up right now.
"I'm not sure what they're doing," I tell Ari as I grab her hand and pull her along with me. "Come on, we're holding up the line and I think these people want to get on the plane." I pause and let her walk past me. "Even if I don't want to."
Aria laughs quietly and shakes her head at me. She leads the way and I follow.
We had forgotten to select seats for this flight until last week. It was a miracle that there were two seats available that were right next to one another. The world championship is being held in Vancouver, so it's not a short flight. You would think I would be used to having to travel like this, but it doesn't get any easier. It does bring me a sense of comfort having Aria with me, but at the same time, it only makes me even more nervous.
It's one thing if the plane were to explode or crash with me on it. I can't have anything happening to Aria too. I know they say you're supposed to put your own oxygen mask on first, but that will never happen. Aria will always get hers on before I even consider touching mine.
We walk down the aisle through first class until we find our seats. Aria was hoping they would have beds, but they're just oversized seats with only two in a row. Thankfully we don't have to share the space with anyone else. Neither of us brought a carry-on, so Aria slides in first and sits down before she tucks her bag under the seat. I do the same with my backpack and try to get comfortable.
Suddenly Austin is there, leaning against the back of the seat in front of me. "Hey, bud," he says with a lopsided grin. "Hey, sis," he lifts his chin at Ari.
Brynn slides up next to him. "Hey, guys!"
"What are you guys doing?" Aria asks her brother and her best friend. Excitement dances in her voice and I love the way it sounds. It's enough to momentarily take my mind off the fact that we're about to be tens of thousands of feet in the air in fifteen minutes.
"I ran into Brynn last night and we decided to take an impromptu trip to Vancouver to watch the two of you compete."
"I didn't even know you were in town," I tell Austin. He never said anything to me or Aria.
He shrugs. “I was only supposed to be here for a day but was able to clear my schedule for the next week.”
“You were able to get off work?” Aria asks Brynn. She manages an art gallery, but doesn’t own it. That has always been a dream of hers.
She nods and smiles sheepishly. “I kind of quit.”
Aria’s eyes widen, Austin laughs, and I tilt my head to the side. "What?"
"Yep. I was tired of working for Jean. You know I wasn't happy there and honestly, it was time."
Aria joins in the laughter and shakes her head at her friend before pinning her gaze on her brother. “Did you encourage this? You’re known for your impulsive behavior.”
Austin holds his hands up innocently. “I had nothing to do with this.” He looks at me and winks. “I may have told her I could get her a job in New York,” he tells me in a hushed voice so his sister doesn’t hear.
Oh, hell no. I will not be keeping his secrets from Aria.
"Austin set up an interview for me with someone he knows in New York who owns a gallery." She pauses and smiles sheepishly. “He is also interested in checking out some of my art too.”
"Okay, but this is amazing!" Aria says excitedly, clearly choosing to ignore the way her brother only has eyes for her best friend. He's never acted on anything, though–they've only ever just been friends. "I know how badly you've wanted to move to the city. This is big. This is something we need to celebrate as soon as we get to Vancouver."
A flight attendant steps behind Brynn and Austin. "Excuse me, but the two of you need to find your seats. We need to prepare for takeoff."
"Oh yes, I am so sorry," Austin says, giving her the sweetest smile. "Buzzkill," he mumbles under his breath as he walks a few rows ahead and finds his seat.
"See you guys in Vancouver," Brynn tells us with a smile and a small wave before she heads to her seat beside Austin.
"So bizarre," I mumble as I look at Aria. "I hope they know our actual competition isn't until later in the week."
Aria shrugs and smiles. "Who knows what they're up to. It will be fun to have them along, though."
"Oh yeah, I'm sure." I laugh, rolling my eyes as the sarcasm drips from my voice. "Your brother who is a fucking menace and your best friend who is right there with him."
"They really do complement one another," she tells me with a wink as the flight attendant's voice comes through the speaker. She begins her speech, going through the different safety reminders in case of an emergency. It brings me back to reality and I buckle my belt and tilt my head back. Closing my eyes, my chest expands as I inhale as much oxygen as possible.
Have I mentioned I hate flying?
I can feel Aria's gaze on me and I slowly turn my head to the side, opening my eyes as I meet her gaze. "What?"
"You know, you can hold my hand," she says with a smirk. "I promise I won't tell anyone."
My mind drifts back to the first time we flew together, when we ended up stuck sitting next to one another. At that point, I was still convincing myself I hated her, while Aria was also doing the same. I impulsively grabbed her hand during takeoff and told her if she told anyone, I'd deny it. Neither of us ever brought it up until this very moment.
Reaching for her, I side my palm against hers and thread our fingers together. I'll never get tired of the way her soft skin feels against mine.
"Tell everyone."