Текст книги "The Wall of Winnipeg and Me"

Автор книги: Mariana Zapata

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

I made more batter and then poured it into the hot waffle iron, keeping an eye on Aiden as he kept taking in my belongings. “What are you doing with the rest of your furniture?”

“My neighbor upstairs is taking the mattress, dining room table, and the dishes.” She was a single mom with five kids. I’d seen her mattress during the few occasions I’d babysat, and my things were definitely an improvement. The dining room table was also a nice addition to the empty space she had where one would have normally sat, even though there weren’t enough chairs for her and all the kids. “My next-door neighbor is taking the couch, the bed frame, dresser, and coffee table for his daughter.”

“They’re coming to get it today?”

“Yep, but my neighbor upstairs is a single mom, and I want to help her.”

“Did you pay the rest of your lease off already?”

I glanced at him from the other side of the kitchen. “Not yet. I was going to go to the business office before I leave.”

“How much do you owe?”

I might have muttered the amount.

There was a pregnant pause before Aiden asked, “For a month?”

I coughed. “No, that’s two months.”

Was he breathing louder than normal? “Did I really pay you that little?”

Again with a comment about my place. “No.” I fought the urge to scowl. I had other things to spend my money on. I didn’t need to explain myself to him.

Did he roll his eyes? “I brought enough cash.”

Was I supposed to say ‘No, don’t worry about it. I have it?’ or was it okay for me to accept it? Ideally, he was already doing more than enough for me for the next five years when I really didn’t have to do much more than sign some paperwork, and make sure I didn’t fall in love with someone…

Okay, that was guilt sweeping along the lining of my stomach, and I knew what it meant. “Don’t worry about it. I can pay for it.” I didn’t want to take advantage of his kindness, or whatever it could be called.

Aiden just shrugged.

A few minutes later, the waffles were ready and we ate in silence at the table, both of us eating efficiently and quickly. I washed off our dishes and dried them, leaving them on the stack with the others.

“Let’s get the things your neighbors are taking out of here first, then pack up the cars,” Aiden suggested, his fingers dipping into the front of his shirt to pluck at the medallion hanging around his neck. He moved it so that it lay against the back of his neck, the chain it was on tight around the front of his throat. I’d always wondered where he’d got it from—especially since as far as I knew, he wasn’t a religious person—but it was another one of those things he’d never bothered sharing.

“Sounds like a plan,” I said, eyeing the hint of gold one more time. Oh well.

Once on the floor above mine, the single mother opened the door on the second knock, accepting the box of glasses I’d carried up the stairs. “You’re leaving now?” she asked me in Spanish.

“Yes. Do you want to send some of the kids down with me to help carry some things?”

Mrs. Huerta nodded and called her three oldest children to help. The eleven, nine, and eight-year-old hugged my hips and then ran down the stairs ahead of me, already fully aware of what they were keeping. The three of them barged in and headed straight toward the kitchen, slowing down when they spotted the big man transferring boxes from my bedroom into the hallway.

One by one, they each grabbed cups, pots, pans, or utensils and headed back out. I grabbed two chairs from the dining room table and made my way toward the stairs, shooting Aiden a tight smile when our eyes met on the way out. I had just deposited them in my neighbor’s living room when a shadow appeared at the doorway, carrying the other two chairs under his arms effortlessly.

“Dios santo. Es tu novio?” the slightly older woman asked from her spot on the couch.

Boyfriend? I felt my eyes bulge but nodded, maybe a bit robotically. “Si.” What else was I going to call him? I was probably lucky enough that she didn’t have time to watch football, and had no idea who he was.

She glanced in Aiden’s direction once more, balancing her three-year-old on her lap, and gradually nodded, impressed. “He’s handsome,” she said in Spanish. “And those muscles.” Mrs. Huerta added a grin to the end of her comment that had me giving her a timid smile.

“Ya se,” I said in a mutter before darting back out of the apartment and heading downstairs. I knew? Well, it was the truth. I did know he had some guns. And a chest. And that ass. I could have done worse. Maybe he had little desire for social skills and maybe he didn’t really care about anyone but himself, but he could be worse. He could be a psychopath who did bad things to animals, I guess.

I found Aiden in my apartment with the table flipped on its back, unscrewing the top of it from the legs with a pocket multi-tool I wasn’t sure where he’d gotten. He glanced up when he sensed me standing there. “What else are they taking?”

“The mattress.”

He hummed and nodded.

Forty minutes later, I had sweat pouring down my face, but Aiden and I had managed to carry the mattress up the stairs. Weight-wise, he could have carried it up by himself without a huff or a puff, but apparently, it was too big to carry alone, and my puny muscles had struggled. We set the older mattress where my neighbor’s blow-up bed had been the last time I’d come over. I’d offered the bed frame to her but understood why she hadn’t wanted it—two mattresses would barely fit in the tiny one bedroom that was built for maybe two occupants but not six.

Luckily, by the time we were done, my next-door neighbor’s sons were waiting outside my door to help move the rest of the furniture into his place. Aiden and I sat across from each other in the bedroom, taking the bed apart so it could be easier to move. I caught him looking at the multiple night lights I hadn’t gotten a chance to pack away. He didn’t ask about them, and I was pretty grateful.

I noticed both of the neighbor’s sons eyeing Aiden more than a little bit when they peeked into my bedroom, and then I heard one whispering to the other, but none of them said a word to us before carrying out the first of the things in the living room.

I had just taken a pee break when I opened the door, and overheard talking coming from the hallway.

“Sure.” That was Aiden.

I grabbed two of the boxes left in my bedroom, and made my way out to leave them in the living room. Standing in the hallway was Aiden, one forearm against the wall while his left hand was up, scribbling away on something with one of the Sharpies I’d left around the apartment so I could write on boxes. Next to him were my neighbor’s sons, their eyes glued on Aiden.

Yeah, it didn’t take my not-so-genius brain to figure out they knew who he was, and what Aiden was busy doing.

“I appreciate it,” one of them thanked him when he handed over the piece of paper he’d signed.

The big guy nodded, his attention turning toward me. “No problem. We should really finish packing up. We need to get going.”

The guys kind of hesitated. “We could help.”

Aiden shook his head dismissively. “We got it.”

“Thanks though,” I threw out when the rude-ass didn’t.

They nodded and one of them said, “Man, Vanessa, I had no idea you were together. Dad’s gonna lose it. He’s a huge fan.”

I already knew that, and it only made me feel guilty. My neighbor had a Three Hundreds mat outside his door. During the holidays, he hung up a wreath with team ornaments on it. “Yeah….” I just kind of trailed off. I mean, what else was I supposed to say?

Luckily, they quickly thanked Aiden and took off, closing the door behind him.

“All right.” I took a breath. “Let’s get the rest of this done.”

Between the two of us, we carried my television over to Aiden’s Range Rover as my arms trembled with exhaustion. My desktop computer followed. The fact that he could have carried it on his own didn’t escape me at all, but I wasn’t going to complain, so I kept my mouth shut. In the back of my Explorer, we put my bookcase, desk, and chair. The rest of the boxes were split up into both of our vehicles.

Aiden was in his SUV when I closed my apartment door one last time, nostalgia hitting me dead center in the chest. I always thought about moving on with my life and taking the next step toward whatever upcoming goal I had. Like when I left Aiden, a part of me missed him or some weird variation when you’re so used to doing things a certain way for a long time and suddenly you don’t, but I’d known I was going to move on. I was doing something better for myself, and doing this for him, no matter what my conscience said, was a smart step. A weird one, but a smart one.

It was a giant leap for my future, and I was going to hold on to that reminder with both hands.

I dropped off a check for the last two months of my lease, signed a few papers with the office manager, and I was out of there.

It took an hour just to get to Aiden’s house from my apartment thanks to a ten-car pile-up on the highway. Between being a little overwhelmed with moving, especially since I wasn’t feeling exactly stoked to have to move in with another person—that person being my ex-boss of all people—and trying my best to convince myself that I wasn’t going to go to jail if or when officials found out the truth; I was trying not to become paranoid.

I smiled at the security guard when we got to the gated community, and ignored the curious expression on his face when he saw my car loaded up. Aiden backed into the garage, and I parked in the driveway for the first time ever.

When I got out and spotted him toting boxes inside, I grabbed the most I could carry on my own from my Explorer. I followed after him, nervous, anxious, and a little bit scared.

Everything looked familiar, but it felt foreign at the same time. I made myself march on up those stairs I’d climbed a thousand other times and kept on going when all I wanted to do was turn around, and head back to my apartment.

I was moving in with Aiden and Zac, signing some papers that would unite us in paper matrimony, and this would be my reality for the next five years. When I thought about it in bits and pieces… yeah, it didn’t help. It still seemed like a huge, white elephant I couldn’t ignore.

The door to the empty guest room was open as I approached it, and I could hear Aiden inside setting things down. I’d been in there many, many other times in the past to dust or wash the sheets. I was pretty familiar with the layout.

But it wasn’t the same as it had been the last time I’d seen it.

Aiden didn’t have a bunch of crap all over the house. Every room except the gym was pretty sparse and utilitarian. He didn’t have artwork or knickknacks. He hadn’t even bothered painting any of the rooms. There wasn’t a single trophy or jersey hanging around anywhere. The boxes of that kind of stuff were hidden in his closet, something I couldn’t completely understand. If I had the kind of trophies he did, they would be up so everyone could see them.

In his bedroom, he had a bed and two dressers. He didn’t even have a mirror in there, much less a single picture of anything or anyone. The guest bedroom had been even more barren with only a bed and a nightstand in a relatively large-sized room—it was twice the size of the room at my apartment.

But when I walked into the room that would now be mine, I didn’t just find a bed. There was a large matching dresser with a big vanity mirror mounted to it, and a new small-ish bookshelf that also seemed to match the rest of the dark brown, contemporary furniture. It didn’t hit me until much later that it was all the exact same furniture I’d had in my bedroom at my apartment… just nicer and matching.

“Your bookshelf from home would look better in the office,” Aiden casually suggested when I just stopped and stood at the doorway, too busy taking in the new furniture.

I tried to keep my surprise to a minimum, but I wasn’t sure if I succeeded or not, so all I managed to scrape together as a response was a nod. He was right though; my bookshelf would match better in there.

“Your desk can go there.” He vaguely pointed at the empty section of the wall right between the two bedroom windows. “I bought the mattress right before you started working for me. It’s only been slept in… What do you think? Three times? But if you want a new one, order one. You know which card to use.”

I snapped my mouth closed and batted away the surprise that had stolen my words, blinking over at Aiden at the same time I hesitated. He’d done all this? For me? When I’d left working for him, he hadn’t even known where to order his soap. He didn’t even run his own dishwasher. Now there was new furniture?

Who was this man? I shook my head, my forehead scrunching. “No, this is all great. Thank you.”

I didn’t even have to put any effort into remembering how comfortable it had been when I’d had to climb on top of it to strip the sheets or dust the headboard. Not too soft, not too firm. “It’s perfect.” I almost said don’t worry about it, but then again, I was sure he wasn’t worried; he was just trying to be accommodating, and considering I didn’t expect much, it was more than I would have planned on. “This is better than what I’m used to.”

I took another breath and slowly lowered the things I was holding to the floor. “Thanks for helping me move by the way.”

I’m really doing this. I’m moving in. Holy shit.

“I appreciate it,” I wobbled out. I was really doing this. I’m really doing this.

He tipped his head down just slightly then brushed passed me on the way out, back downstairs from the sound of the creaking staircase. There was no way I was going to slack off and make him do the majority of the hauling, even if he was in way better shape than me, and had four times the muscles.

Okay, I wasn’t going to be a lazy shit.

Downstairs, I kept up with the rest of the moving. It took a little more than half an hour for both of us to get the boxes from the vehicles into the bedroom. Then we carried my television up while my arms convulsed from how tired they were, and my fingers turned slippery with sweat. The freaking thing seemed to have gained twenty pounds on the trip from my complex to his house.

It was really heavy, and I had a feeling I was going to pull my lower back. I did manage to smash my fingers into the doorjamb, hissing “Motherfucker” under my breath.

We were heading to grab the next piece of furniture when Aiden said over his shoulder, “You should think about doing some upper-body training.”

I made a face behind him. I might have even stuck my tongue out as I held my poor, mangled fingers with my good hand.

Luckily, moving the bookcase into Aiden’s office was a lot easier, and we didn’t have any problems. My new roommate carried the desk upstairs all on his own, and I hauled the chair. Apparently, either we both needed a break or Aiden recognized the signs of exhaustion that I was sure were all over my face, so we took a break to have lunch.

Then the awkwardness began all over again.

Was I supposed to make lunch or was he? Or were we each going to make ourselves food? I hadn’t gone grocery shopping yet, obviously, but Aiden had never been stingy with his groceries or complained when I had some, but…

“I have two pizzas in the freezer.”

“Pizzas?” Were we in the right house? This was Mr. Whole-Food-Plant-Based-Diet. The most processed he got was quinoa pasta, tofu, and tempeh every so often.

He muttered something under his breath that sounded like “with soy cheese and spinach.”

I bit my cheek and nodded, watching and wondering what the hell had happened to him over the last month and a half. “Okay.”

With that, I turned on the oven like I had a thousand other times in the past. Unlike every other time, The Wall of Winnipeg went to the freezer and pulled out food on his own, getting the pizza stones out from a cabinet in a way that surprised me a little. At least when I was around, he never messed around with any of the kitchen items besides plates and utensils.

I went into the garage to throw the cardboard in with the rest of the recyclables and paused. Container after container of frozen microwavable vegan meals filled the bin.

The tiniest bit of guilt nipped at my stomach as I went back into the kitchen just as Aiden set the pizzas into the oven after a few minutes. I took the same seat I’d taken almost two weeks ago when I’d come by to talk to him about his offer. That strange silence seemed to grow as he took his favorite seat.

“Where’s Zac?” I asked, watching the huge muscles in his forearms ripple as he rotated his wrist in a stretch.

A tendon in his thick neck seemed to pop, and I knew it was in annoyance. “He didn’t come home last night.” Before I could say anything, he added in a voice I recognized as a disapproving one, “He said he’d be here.”

But he wasn’t. Zac going out wasn’t unheard of; he actually went out pretty often. Not coming back home wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence either. I’d talked to him a couple days ago briefly just to make sure he was going to be fine lying to authorities if he was questioned, and that he was okay with me moving in. He’d seemed to be more than okay with both.

“It’s fine,” I said, knowing full well from the way that tendon was straining it genuinely bothered Aiden. “So… what’s the next step with your green card thing?”

Aiden had his attention on his arm. “We should go ahead and get the paperwork over with first.” Paperwork. He was going with paperwork to describe what we were doing. Was I nauseous or did I suddenly get heartburn? “Soon.”

“How soon?” My voice sounded more cryptic than what was really necessary considering I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.

Those thick eyebrows kind of quirked, his jaw slightly twitched. “Before the season. I don’t want to wait until bye week,” he said, referring to the week off the team got during the season.

He still wasn’t answering my question. “Okay…”

“I have an early preseason game next week. Let’s do it then.” I choked and he ignored me, barreling straight through into his explanation. “We can’t file the petition until the paperwork is done. You should change the address on your license as soon as you can, but you need to have mail coming here. ”

What could I say? Let’s wait? What he was saying made sense. He really didn’t have more than a day off after each preseason game, and from what I remembered, most of them were always in the evening. That probably would be the best chance we had of getting it done.

But it still made the part of my personality that liked to plan things in advance and mentally prepare cringe.

Next week. We were ‘doing it’ in a week.

It was that easy. We needed to live in a house together, sign some papers, maybe take some pictures—was that even necessary?– and then… live the next five years of our lives.

I almost expected him to give me spirit fingers and say “Ta-da.”

That simple. It was that simple apparently.

I took in the man who was sitting across from me—the biggest man I had ever seen, the most restrained, who was for all intents and purposes, technically my fiancé—and let nausea and nerves roll around in my belly like puppies.

“My lawyer said it’ll be several months between you filing a petition for me and having my status adjusted until I get a conditional green card. We’re going to need a lot of paperwork; they’re going to ask for your bank statements. You’ll have to go with me once everything is approved to have someone at the Immigration office interview us. Will that work?” he asked, eyeing me warily, like he wasn’t positive how I was going to take his plan.

I swallowed my heart. I’d already read all of that stuff online in the days between when he’d showed up at my place and when I came to his and agreed, so I was mentally prepared. Mostly. “Yeah.” But the smile on my face was pretty damn faint.

What in the hell had I just agreed to?

Chapter Ten

The weekend came way too quickly and way too slowly at the same time. I’d woken up each night sweating profusely. I was going to commit a felony. I was getting married. And of all the people in the world, it was Aiden I was doing this with and for.

It didn’t matter how many times I reminded myself that what we were doing wasn’t real, my body couldn’t be fooled. All these changes—the moving, the living in a different room, sleeping in a different bed—they were all battling my brain for attention at all hours of the day, giving me a case of insomnia.

The only thing that eventually managed to lull me to sleep was the knowledge that I knew exactly what I was doing, what I was getting out of the hoax of a lifetime. Debt freedom and a house. I reminded myself of that repeatedly.

And we were going to Vegas to get it over with.

“It will make more sense if we do it there. We’ve gone twice together already,” he’d explained to me after I’d agreed with him that speeding into it was fine. “If we did it here, we’d have to go to the courthouse to apply for a marriage license and get a Justice of the Peace to perform a ceremony.”

He was right. We’d gone to Vegas twice. Once for a signing and the other time for a commercial he shot. Plus, I completely understood where he was going with doing it in Dallas. Someone would recognize him the instant he got out of the car at the courthouse. I could already picture a crowd if we tried to get our marr– the word gave me indigestion. License. There’d be a crowd if we went to get our license.

Actually, I think it was the word ‘our’ that gave my insides gas.

“Everyone goes to Las Vegas to elope,” the big guy had added as if I didn’t know.

Obviously, I did.

“There’s no waiting to apply for a marriage license,” he had ended with as he’d polished off a sandwich.

Another truth.

How can you argue practicality? There wasn’t a point in having any of my few loved ones there, and honestly, I really wouldn’t have wanted them to be in attendance. This wasn’t some everlasting marriage built on love. I’m pretty sure I had told Diana more than once that I was going to have a beach destination wedding if the time ever came.

If the time came, that had been my plan. Maybe someday in the distant future, it’d be a possibility.

For now, for this, Las Vegas would work.

With his credit card in hand, the morning after I moved in, I reserved two first-class plane tickets, because explaining to Aiden that flying economy was cheaper was a pointless argument I’d tried once and failed at miserably. I also scored a two-bedroom suite at the hotel we’d stayed at in the past. We’d fly in Sunday evening and leave Monday afternoon. In and out, we would sign some papers, maybe take a picture, and then head back.

On the day before we were supposed to leave, I was at the grocery store when I spotted the customer in front of me wearing a wedding band, and it hit me.

Was Aiden going to need a ring? Was I going to need one?

He’d never said anything about engagement rings or wedding rings, and I wasn’t sure if that was something we’d need to pull off the believability factor. Would they check that out at the interview? Would they care? I remembered Diana’s cousin Felipa had worn a wedding ring way before things got serious between her and her husband. But I’d also met couples before who didn’t bother with rings.

So…

I looked online to see if there was anything about whether agents checked that kind of thing or not, and I knew The Proposal wasn’t a good example of how immigration issues actually worked. What was I supposed to do?

Chances were, he wouldn’t wear it. But….

Get one anyway, my brain said. I could worry about one for myself when the time came, but it would be months until then.

I’d learned to trust my instincts, so that evening when he was running drills after hours by himself at the Three Hundreds’ training facility, I fought the nagging feeling in my belly and snagged his College National Football Championship ring from the drawer where he kept it. Holding onto it for dear life, I headed to a small jeweler I’d visited in the past to get my favorite pair of earrings fixed when I’d messed them up.

The jeweler had a lot of rings to choose from, but not much in sizes large enough to fit Aiden’s fingers. Luckily, he said he could get something resized for me in record time, and I chose a basic fourteen-karat white gold band. It was nothing remotely fancy or even eighteen karat, but… no one likes a picky bitch, and I was paying for it out of my own pocket, so he better not complain.

I was buying my soon-to-be fake husband a wedding ring that he may or may not wear.

After all, we had to make it believable. So even if he didn’t wear it, at least he’d have it, I figured.

It only made me not want to get it more.

“Are you ready?” Aiden called up the stairs.

I was never going to be ready. Ever.

I’d been up since four in the morning, waking up to find my heart pounding, and a hundred million thoughts going through my head one after the other. We were leaving. We were going to Vegas to sign paperwork that would legally make me able to change my name to Graves if I wanted to.

That was another thing we hadn’t talked about, but I didn’t see a point in bringing it up. Plenty of women didn’t change their names when they got married nowadays, right? If he didn’t ask me to, I sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up. That just seemed like a nightmare waiting to happen at the social security office.

“Vanessa,” he hollered. “We need to go.”

With a nervous sigh that bordered on a growl, I got off the edge of the bed, where I’d been sitting for the last fifteen minutes while I waited for the nausea and the nerves to go somewhere else, and grabbed my duffel bag. We were only staying one night, but I didn’t know what to pack or what to wear to… do it… so I brought a casual dress I’d worn ten times before, dressy jeans and a blouse, and two T-shirts to be on the safe side, along with one of my favorite pairs of heels. Underwear, socks, a toothbrush, travel toothpaste, a hairbrush, and deodorant rounded out my bag. I was wearing my tennis shoes on the way. For one day, it was definitely more than I really needed, but I hated not being prepared, so I’d live with what I’d packed.

Packed to go get married.

It was just as big of a deal as I was trying not to make it out to be.

“Vanessa,” Aiden bellowed, not impatiently, more just so I could hear him. “Come on.”

“I’m coming. Hold your horses!” I yelled back from the top of the stairs, before hightailing it over to Zac’s room real quick. Knocking on the door, I pressed my ear against it. “Zac Attack, we’re leaving!”

The door opened a few seconds later. His dark blond head peeked out, a big smile already plastered to his face. He had been teasing me nearly nonstop since he’d gotten home right after I moved in, apologizing for not making it home in time and not needing to hint that he’d stayed over at a woman’s house. The first chance I had with him alone, I’d asked him again if he was really fine with what was going on. His response: “Why wouldn’t I be, darlin’? You’re the one marryin’ him, not me, and I like havin’ you around.”

And that was that.

With them being away from the house so much, it wasn’t like we’d been inconveniencing each other or anything.

“Gimme a hug then, bride-to-be,” Zac said, already holding his arms wide.

“Ugh.” I scowled even as I leaned into his embrace.

“Vanessa!”

“Your future hubby is waitin’,” Zac said before I reached up and pinched his lips together.

“We’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Vanessa!”

I sighed and took a step back. “Wish me luck.”

Zac waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, an ornery smile taking over his tan face. “I sure will, Mrs. Graves.”

He was so full of shit, but I knew if I didn’t get downstairs, Aiden would probably come up here and drag me down—he hated being late—so I let Zac’s comment go and ran down the stairs. At the bottom, Aiden’s expression was his typical exasperated one. He was dressed in jeans and a black V-neck that stretched across the wide width of his muscular chest. His favorite hoodie dangled from his fingertips.

He gave me a look as I jogged down the steps, nerves making my knees weak. Aiden didn’t wait for me to make it down before he was on his way to the garage. I hauled ass through the kitchen, closed the garage door behind me, and carried my bag to his SUV.

“You got everything?” he asked with a curt look once we were both buckled in as he turned his head to back out of the driveway.

I ran my fingers over the small lump in the front pocket of my jeans and felt the flutter of nerves remind me they hadn’t gone anywhere. I took in his face quickly; the stern line of his mouth, the hard jut of his chin, and the constant tension creasing his eyebrows. Reality flowed over me. I was marrying this guy.

Oh, brother.

“Yep,” I squeaked.

The trip to the airport went well with the sports talk show on the radio keeping us company; luckily, they were only discussing professional baseball. Aiden parked his car in one of the covered lots. From there, we took a shuttle to the terminal. I eyed him a few times on the way over, my hands getting sweatier by the second. Just as the mini-bus rolled up to the drop-off, Aiden slipped his hoodie on despite the ninety-something degree weather in Dallas, and pulled the zipper all the way up to his throat.

When the bus stopped, he was the first to get up, reaching for his backpack with one hand and my duffel in the other. If he wanted to carry my bag, I wasn’t about to insist.

I let him lead us toward the check in. In no time, we had our boarding passes, and Aiden signed autographs for the four airline employees working behind the counter before the trek toward security. It was impossible not to notice the people around us stealing glances and gawking at him. It wasn’t like he didn’t stand out in a hoodie, even if it was only to women checking him out. While he wasn’t the tallest man in the world, the sheer size of him was eye-catching. Even in a double extra-large hoodie, the size of his shoulders and the outlines of his biceps were unmistakable.

Together, we walked up to the first TSA agent who looked at both of our licenses, went a bit pink-faced for a moment, and then waved us forward. Gentleman that he was, Aiden let me get in line first. Making sure his attention was elsewhere when we got to the part of security where our carry-on luggage was checked, I put the white gold band on one of the trays with my cell phone and snuck it back into my pocket the instant I finished passing through the detector.