Chapter 25 Aiden
Chapter 25 AIDEN
T he ride to the airport was tense. Aiden knew Becky wanted to scold him, but she respected his request not to mention the “incident” involving Nora. He couldn’t let his frustration get the better of him. Shoving the paparazzi was already going to cause him trouble.
He chose to hide out in a far corner of the VIP lounge while awaiting his flight, sipping a cup of lukewarm tea and pecking on some snacks. His stomach growled, but he couldn’t bring himself to eat more than a few nibbles. What Nora said to him had been so... cruel. So unlike her—or the idea he had of her. What did he really know of Nora? Drinking himself to a blissful alcoholic stupor had never been so tempting.
“Aid,” Becky said as she sat with a heaping plate of snacks, “I’m worried about Consequat . It looks like Troy Atkinson is this close to suing the producers, saying they’re butchering his book. Also, with the fiasco that the filmings were so far—”
Aiden scoffed. “Trust you, Becky, to bring up a cheerful topic to lighten the mood.”
“Life doesn’t stop because you’re having a bad day, honey.” She blinked her brown eyes slowly behind her spectacles. “Fine, whatever, I’ll humor you. What do you want to talk about?”
“Nothing. Let’s enjoy the silence.”
“Your moody self is no fun. I’ll sit over there and pretend I don’t have such gloomy company.” With that, Becky took her enormous pile of free food and sat a few tables away, eating with gusto while scrolling on her phone.
Becky didn’t deserve his sullen behavior, but Aiden was not in the mood for small-talk, big-talk, any talk at all. How long until this flight?
In LA, a few fans waited outside the hotel—the last thing Aiden needed at that moment. How they discovered he was staying there was a mystery. Before Becky could say anything—and by now he knew her speeches by heart—he put on his best smile and stepped out into the sun. He tried not to make too much eye contact. With each autograph given, with each photo taken, Aiden felt more and more detached from his body. Soon, it was over, and Becky whisked him away to his room—next to hers as usual.
“Want to talk now?”
“Tomorrow, Becky. I promise tomorrow I won’t be this sorry tosser.”
She gave him a small smile and a fond pat on the shoulder. “Of course. Don’t forget to eat, please?”
“Yes, nanny.”
Aiden toyed with the idea of running away back to London to leave all this mess behind. But no, he was stuck in Los Angeles for now, and the filming would move to Jordan in a few days. Who knew when they would be finished? Never, if the director, Louis-Alphonse Verdier, had any say in it. Aiden had thought his last director had been challenging to work with... little did he know.
To stop his mind from wandering into unwanted territory, Aiden decided to unpack. He hated living out of a suitcase, even for short periods; it painted his life with an improvised hue he didn’t appreciate much. But what should have been a relaxing menial task soon became an escape valve for his frustration, the poor garments subjected to abuse and mishandling. He hurled an innocent shirt to the back of the wardrobe and huffed, trying to think of something else to do—but was distracted by a red-coated Yeoman Warder beckoning him from the label of a gin bottle in the mini-bar. Yes. In the solitude of his hotel room, a blissful alcoholic stupor was just what he needed. He would have the next day to sleep it off.
“You, sir, you’re the lucky one here,” he said to the bottle. A swig. “You don’t get your heart broken, you don’t get disappointed by life and the people in it.” Another swig, then another, then another. “Granted, you can’t drink the gin you so valiantly guard, but what would be the point? You don’t need it.”
It took two-thirds of the bottle before the red-coated man started speaking to Aiden. “What she did was plain wrong, old chap.” He shook his little head.
“Didn’t I say so?” Aiden said in a thick voice. “She had no right. God, that woman...” As he tried to drink more, gin trailed down his chin, wetting his t-shirt. He wiped it with his left hand, only to notice the bandage Nora had applied the night before—a whole lifetime ago.
“What’s that bandage on your palm? It’s from her, isn’t it? Take it off. You want nothing from her.”
The little man was right. He didn’t want anything from her. It took one pull and the bandage was gone. And he saw something red. Not the little man’s coat. It was... blood. Blood .
Aiden let out a strangled scream as the bottle slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor. The tiles were hard against his knees. Why were his knees on the ground? Why was his head on the ground? Why was Becky screaming? Why...
A splash of cold water jolted him back to consciousness. Aiden remembered his injured hand, and the woman who had saved him. “Nora, I’m so sorry. I opened my wound again. Fix it for me? Please, Nora? I’m so sorry, Nora. My Nora,” he said in a whiny, slurred voice.
“It’s done already, you drunkard. You’re so lucky you didn’t cut yourself with the broken bottle.”
The blonde hair in front of him couldn’t belong to Nora. “You... you’re not Nora. She’s in another world, far away from me.”
“You’re damn right I’m not her. Now get your carcass in bed, before I call security to help me.”
With great effort, Aiden dragged himself to the bed, his head spinning. “Becky?” He reached out for her with his uninjured hand.
“What is it?” she said, grabbing it—though he could tell she didn’t want to.
Aiden pulled her down, so she was sitting beside him. “Please don’t leave. Not you, too.”
If she answered, he didn’t hear, as he surrendered to the comforting embrace of oblivion.