Chapter 20 To Be Seen #2
I stared at him, my pulse still hammering from the scare. “You’ve been watching me?”
“Not watching.” He fell into step beside me as I started walking again, his presence both comforting and unsettling. “Waiting. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” I pulled my jacket tighter. “Because from where I’m standing, it feels pretty stalkerish.”
A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “Fair point.” His eyes flicked over me, unreadable but intense. “You shouldn’t be walking home alone after closing.”
“Well, here we are.” My voice was sharper than intended. “What do you want, Aiden?”
He exhaled through his nose, then looked past me, as if trying to find the right words in the steam rising from a nearby grate. “You need to quit Neon. That place isn’t safe.”
I crossed my arms, the gesture equal parts defense and challenge, and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “So we’re back to this conversation,” I said, letting the words hang between us.
The city’s night-hum droned on around us, but in the circle of broken streetlight and pooling shadows, it felt like the world had gone quiet just to listen in.
The last time we’d had this argument, I’d just accused him of not respecting my choices.
Now, by the set of his jaw and the way his shoulders squared up, I could tell he remembered every word I’d thrown at him.
Aiden’s lips pressed together in a thin line, and he let out a sharp exhale, like he was trying to blow a hole through his own frustration.
“I know what you’re going to say,” he said, voice low and tight. “That you can take care of yourself. That you’ve been doing it for years. But…” He broke off, running a hand through his hair, eyes flicking up to some spot beyond my head, as if he could see the future and didn’t like what it showed.
“Then why bring it up at all?” I asked, softer than before. “You keep telling me to quit like it’s that simple. You know I need the money, and it’s not like jobs are just falling out of the sky.” I felt my irritation cooling, replaced by something almost like shame, for what, I wasn’t sure.
For being seen, maybe, or for needing anyone to worry about me at all.
He looked at me then, really looked, and the intensity in his eyes made my skin prickle.
“It’s not about the job. It’s about him,” he said, the word curdling on his tongue. “Ulysses is bad news, Josie. Everyone knows it, but you keep acting like he’s just another boss.” His fists curled at his sides, veins standing out in sharp relief.
I wanted to laugh, to brush it off, but the memory of Ulysses’ touch was still too fresh, like a bruise that hadn’t had time to fade.
“What do you want me to do? Run away? Again?” I asked and immediately wished I could take it back.
The word again landed heavily between us, a loose thread pulled from a much older wound.
Aiden’s voice was gentler when he spoke next, but the warning in it was unmistakable.
“I want you to be careful. That’s all. Just…watch your back, okay?” He stepped closer, the heat of him clashing with the chill in my bones.
“I can handle myself,” I said, but the words sounded hollow, even to me.
He touched my elbow, barely a graze, but I flinched anyway. The look that crossed his face was equal parts regret and something darker, something that said he’d go to war for me if I asked.
“I know you can,” he said, softer now. “But you don’t have to do it alone.”
The air between us was charged, heavy with all the things we couldn’t say. I wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to let myself lean into his strength, just for a second. But I shook the thought away and started walking again, this time letting him fall into step right beside me.
For half a block, neither of us spoke. Each footstep felt synchronized with the drumbeat of my heart. I listened to the rhythm, trying to convince myself that his concern was just an old habit, nothing more.
But just as I was about to make a bad joke, anything to break the tension, he spoke again. “Look, I’m not trying to boss you around. I just… I worry. That’s all.” The admission seemed to cost him, like he was coughing up rust. “After what happened the other night…”
He stopped, and so did I.
I turned to face him, searching his eyes for the accusation I expected, but found only a wary kind of tenderness. “I wasn’t about to let you walk home alone.” He hesitated. “Not with Ulysses circling like a shark.”
The mention of my boss sent another shiver through me. “He cornered me tonight. In the dressing room.”
Aiden’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of something fierce igniting within them. He stepped closer, the air thickening with his intensity. “What did he do?” The question hung heavy between us, charged with an urgency that made my heart race.
“Nothing. I mean, he tried…” I rubbed at my wrist where Ulysses had gripped it. “I handled it.”
“Josie.” His voice dropped to a low growl, barely contained. “What. Did. He. Do.”
The raw protectiveness in his tone should have annoyed me. Instead, it sent warmth flooding through my chest, a feeling I’d been denying for too long.
“He touched my arm. Made some comment about us being ‘extraordinary together.’ I told him no.”
Aiden’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. “That bastard…”
“I said I handled it.” I put my hand on his chest to halt the growl brewing behind his teeth. “You don’t get to be my white knight. I don’t need saving.”
“I’m not trying to save you,” he said, his voice steady but charged, as his hazel eyes flickered, shifting to a molten gold that seemed to catch the dim light around us. “I’m trying to protect what matters.”
I started walking again, needing the movement to burn off the tension coiling in my muscles. “I don’t need you to fight my battles.”
He caught up easily, his longer stride matching my pace. “Maybe not. But that doesn’t mean you have to fight them alone.”
Something in his voice made me glance sideways at him. “Funny,” I said with a sardonic smile. “Because last I checked, I was just a human complication in your supernatural drama.”
His gaze flickered sideways, catching the orange haze of a passing taxi.
In the fractured rhythm of the city, his silhouette seemed set apart: sculpted by hardship, half-illuminated by street lights, a wolf walking upright in borrowed human skin.
His jaw flexed and relaxed, the tendons in his neck standing out like wires beneath fragile flesh.
I watched the effort it took for him to hold still, to keep from pacing or lunging or doing whatever instincts dictated.
“Why do you care so much?” I finally demanded, the words tumbling out sharper than intended. “We barely know each other.”
The line hung between us, bright and dangerous as a live wire.
For a moment, it looked like he might keep walking, reject the premise, vanish into the next patch of shadow, and be content with watching me from a safe distance. But then he pivoted on his heel, and the city blurred around him, the rest of the block fading into irrelevance.
“Don’t we?” His voice was low, rough, carrying more truth than I wanted to unpack.
He closed the space in a single stride and caught my arm, not like Ulysses, whose touch had been a thing to endure, but like someone steadying a friend at the edge of a precipice. The heat of his hand was shockingly human, grounding me in a way that made my vision swim.
We stood locked that way, two creatures stranded on the sidewalk, neither quite able to let go or advance.
My pulse fluttered at my wrist, just beneath his thumb.
I barely noticed the drizzle starting to fall, soft at first and then heavier, as if the sky itself couldn’t stand the tension and wanted to shroud us from view.
“There’s a difference,” he said quietly, eyes searching mine. “Between people who want something from you, and people who want you.”
I forced a laugh, but it came out brittle. “That’s a hell of a distinction.”
He smiled, not the easy, rehearsed smile of a pick-up artist or a predator, but something cracked open and raw. “Maybe I’m evolving.”
I snorted, unable to help myself. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”
He tilted his head, rain matting his curls to his brow.
“You said we barely know each other.” His grip loosened, but he didn’t let go.
“But I know you hate the taste of gin, and that you always bite your lip when you’re deep in thought.
That you tap two fingers against your thigh when you’re anxious, and you never finish your coffee, even though you order it black and pretend you’re the type who likes bitter things.
I know you memorize every exit, every fire escape, every alternate route home, no matter how many times you’ve walked it already, and that you’d rather punch someone than let them see you cry.
” He stepped closer, voice dropping to a near-whisper.
“And I know you’re terrified of something you can’t name, but you still face the world like it owes you an apology. ”
I felt my mouth part, a retort lined up and then lost. He wasn’t looking for a fight. He wasn’t even looking at me with the hunger I’d come to expect from men who wanted something.
It was worse than that.
He was looking at me like he remembered every detail, like each small thing I thought invisible had been cataloged and cherished behind those haunted wolf eyes.
Aiden shifted his weight, his thumb now tracing absently over my knuckles.
“You think we’re strangers on opposite sides of chaos.
But I see you, Josie. Always have.” He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing, gaze breaking to the glimmering puddles at our feet.
“I just didn’t know if you wanted to be seen. ”
The rain slipped in cold rivulets down his jaw, and still he didn’t let go. The city had faded to a watercolor blur, the sounds of distant traffic and buzzing neon muffled by the hush that comes right before something shatters.
“I’m not stalking you,” he said quietly, as if the words themselves were fragile. “I’m here because I can’t not be.”
I should have pulled away. I should have twisted out of his grasp, thrown up a joke or a wall or whatever leftover armor I had, but instead I just stood there, letting the rain soak through my jacket, letting the intensity of his attention burn through every membrane and nerve.
“You’re not the only one with secrets, Josie,” he said, so softly I almost missed it over the hiss of rain. “But I swear to you, I’m not going to let him hurt you.”
He meant Ulysses, but it felt bigger than that, like maybe the entire universe was a predator and he’d decided to put himself between it and me.
I tried to step back, but his hand was still there, gentle but immovable. “If this is some kind of hero complex,” I said, “you’re wasting your time.”
He shook his head, sending droplets flying. “It’s not that simple. It never is.”
I opened my mouth to argue, to insist that I didn’t need anyone, but the words slipped away like water through my fingers.
Instead, I found myself staring at him, really seeing him for the first time, and something ancient and weary within me began to unravel.
For just a heartbeat, the world around us faded, leaving only the two of us suspended in that moment.
As the rain picked up, drenching the pavement and blurring the edges of the city, I felt the weight of silence settle between us.
His breath mingled with the cool air, and the tension shifted, crackling like electricity.
Aiden stepped closer, his gaze locked onto mine, and I could feel the pulse of his heart echoing in the space that separated us.
Then, without thinking, I leaned in, my lips brushing against his in a tentative kiss, shy and uncertain.
It was a whisper of connection, a question posed in the quiet chaos of the storm.
But as he responded, deepening the kiss with a warmth that ignited a fire in my chest, I melted into him, surrendering to the moment.
The rain soaked through us, cold and real, but I didn’t pull away.
Passion surged through me, sweeping away the remnants of doubt.
We stood there, tangled in each other’s warmth, the city fading into watercolor hues and muffled sounds.
For a heartbeat, it felt like the world had shrunk to just us.
I pulled back slightly, our foreheads resting together, breath mingling in the cool air as we both searched for clarity amid the storm.
“Okay,” I finally whispered, my voice soft and uncertain, still tinged with the thrill of the kiss. “Walk me home. But if you turn out to be a serial killer, I reserve the right to knee you in the balls.”
He grinned, slow and genuine, then released my arm. “That’s fair.”
Together, we started down the slick, glimmering street, two shadows stitched together by fate or accident or something stranger.