Chapter Fifty
Aiden
“ F uck. Shit. Ow,” I yell, dropping the pan with a loud clatter on the stove top. Then I hear the smoke detector go off. “Goddammit,” I mumble. I jog around waving a spare baking sheet in the air underneath the alarm until it falls silent. The only sound left is my heavy breathing.
“Uh, everything okay over there, chef?” Bec asks from the living room. I turn around to find her watching me, her arm draped over the back of the couch, which faces a wall of windows with a stunning view of the sun setting behind the mountains. I picked this cabin specifically because of how isolated it is and the view she’s supposed to be facing now. Instead, she’s watching me absolutely destroy dinner with a smirk on her face.
I run my hand through my hair roughly, tugging on the ends knowing I’m fucking up this meal and my dumbass didn’t bring a plan B. We’re a good distance from the closest grocery store, and since we opted for a late dinner so we could fuck over the rail of the balcony as soon as we got here, the store will be closed before we can make it in time to grab more food. Can’t say I regret a thing, though. Watching Bec’s ass in her tight leggings throughout the entire hike this morning had me ready to rip her clothes off the second we were alone, and she was just as eager.
Every time I get a taste of Bec, she leaves me starving for more. Even now, all I want is to abandon my hopelessly shitty attempt at a meal, take her into the bedroom, and stay there for the rest of the night, tasting her instead. But she traveled all night and morning to be here and hike with me. I need to make sure she eats something. I stare down at the smoking pan abandoned on the stove top, not sure if the thing is even edible at this point.
“This might be a little…well done. Give me five minutes and it’ll be ready.” Jesus, what the fuck am I saying?
Knowing there’s nothing I can do in five minutes to fix this, I coat the dish in more sauce, hoping that will cover the burned edges and dry meat, set the pan on the table, and grab the bottle of wine. Hopefully, more wine will distract her from how awful this dinner is about to be.
I take a desperate swig out of my glass. “All done here. Ready when you are,” I say, not making eye contact with Bec.
“Oookay…” she draws out and walks over to join me at the table.
“More wine?” I immediately offer. She nods, so I top off her glass as she sits down across from me.
“So, what’d you make?” she asks.
“It’s, uh, a chicken and pasta dish Eves sent me. She’s always sharing new recipes. Figured this was a good time to give it a go.”
I’m going to kill Evie when I see her. She said this was one of her “easy, go-to, twenty-minute meals.” It took me forty-five minutes to annihilate these ingredients.
“Hmm…” she hums while she pokes and prods the solid mass of slop on the plate in front of her. “Looks…interesting. I’ll have to ask her to send me the recipe too,” she says with a smile, still not taking a bite.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” I say .
God, I look so fucking dumb right now.
Bec lifts a forkful to her mouth, and I stop breathing, knowing this is going to be horrible. Should I let her try this? Not alone, I guess. Fuck it. I take my own massive bite, because if she likes me enough to try this mess of a meal, then I like her enough to go down with her.
And fuck, it’s worse than I thought.
Shutting my eyes and dropping my head down while I muscle through the chewy bite, I hear Bec put down her fork and look up to see her wiping her mouth, humming again softly to herself.
“Yum, wow. That’s…um…well, that’s great. Really, uh, really different,” she says while nodding profusely, before lifting her wine glass to her lips and taking three large gulps.
I narrow my eyes at her.
“Did you just spit that bite into your napkin?”
“Huh? What? Nope, not me. Noooo, sir, you are mistaken,” she sing-songs to me, avoiding eye contact.
Well, damn, she’s cute when she’s trying to protect my feelings.
“Let me see, Bec.”
She snaps her eyes up to look at me. “What? No, that’s…private.”
“Your napkin…is private?”
She stares at me, frozen. Her hand hiding her napkin from me, half-tucked under the edge of her plate. It’s adorable how guilty she looks. As if it’s a greater offense to not eat the shitty food I made for her than for me to feed her shitty food to begin with.
“Yes, okay! I spit it out! Aiden, god I really like you but this is…awful. So awful . I’m so sorry.” And by the end of her apology we’re both laughing.
“Shit, I know. Give me your plate. This belongs in the trash. Don’t even look at it. I’m afraid the one bite we had will make us both sick for the rest of the trip. We’re probably on borrowed time.” I gather our plates and walk to the trash, scraping both clean and putting them in the sink. “If this is it for us, just know, I wanted to buy frozen pizza, but Evie said I was a shitty boyfriend if I didn’t put in more effort.”
She stops laughing, her eyes locking with mine, a shy smile on her face. “Boyfriend, huh?”
Like an idiot, I didn’t think twice about using the word even though we’ve been taking things slow. I’m in no rush to label anything; I want Bec to be ready for that next step, but the word just slipped out, feeling so natural I didn’t even realize what I had said until she questioned it.
“How would you feel if I said that’s what I wanted you to call me?” I ask, trying to get a feel for her reaction.
She stands up and walks over to me, wrapping her arms around me and leaning her head against my chest. Instinctively, I hold her close, breathing in the smell of her shampoo, her hair still damp from the shower we took together before dinner. Having her in my arms like this calms my nerves. It reminds me that even when I stumble over my words and feel like I’m fucking this all up, this is where I want to be. Whenever my arms are around Bec, my mind completely empties of everything but her.
“Before, I would have said that word wasn’t necessary. That we don’t need labels. But I think I’ve been playing it scared. Scared of letting myself have what I want. Scared that I’ll lose it like I always do.” She looks up at me and my arms tighten around her, wanting her closer even though we’re as close as we can be. “I think calling you mine would make me happy, Aiden. But only if you call me yours too.”
I run my fingers along her jaw, tilting her chin and kissing her. Holding onto each other tightly, I feel her body melt into mine, and I know that hearing her say that to me is all I’ve wanted since I met her. Since she first smiled at me. Since she first made me feel like more than my career. More than my past. More than the expectations others hold for me. More than the expectations I hold for myself. She made me feel like I was enough. I don’t ever want to stop trying to do the same for her.
I think I love her.
The thought hits me, and I shove it away, too thrown off by it to deal with it now.
I pull back from our kiss and look at her. We’re both breathing hard, still holding onto each other, and I drop my forehead to hers.
“I’ll tell anyone who will listen that we belong to each other. I’m just sorry you can’t brag about your boyfriend’s cooking skills. As it turns out, they’re nonexistent.”
“Seems like you’re about as good a chef as you are an artist.” She yelps and giggles when I slap her ass. “Have no fear boy toy, I never come unprepared.” She pulls away from my hold, leaving my arms empty, and I feel the urge to pull her back to me.
“Boy friend , you mean.”
“Ah, right. It’ll take some time to get that right. I’ll have to update your contact info on my phone.”
Smart-ass.
She walks into the bedroom and returns with her carry-on bag. She drops it onto the counter with a thud. Before I can question it, she tips the bag upside down and a mountain of snacks and a few drinks fall onto the counter.
A small giggle escapes her, and I realize my jaw is hanging open, taking in the vast array of chips, trail mix, and candy in front of me. I have no clue how it all fit into her bag to begin with.
“Uh, Bec? Did you rob an airport vending machine?”
“Okay, as my boyfriend , you can’t judge me for what you see here. This is how I travel. I’m a mood snacker. I never know what I’m going to want on the plane ride, and their on-plane snack options never cut it. Besides, flights make me nervous and the snacks help. So tonight, our dinner options are this or the lovely meal you made us. What’s it going to be, Price?”
Caught off guard by her reasoning, I pause.
“Wait, you don’t like flying? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I haven’t flown a ton in the past, and this was admittedly the first time I flew anywhere alone.” She shrugs, beginning to pick through the pile to find a snack. “But I wanted to see what you had planned. I wanted to see you.”
“You faced your fears for me, only for me to try to poison you. God, I’m the worst.” I grab her hand and pull her back into my arms.
“If I have to share my mood snacks with anyone, I’m glad it’s you,” she whispers seriously into my ear before her laughter lights up the room around me.