Growing Up and Other Tall Tales

Chapter 94

Despite all the horrible things I have done and will do, I think I ought to have enough karmic points to not house a blistering neck ache when I wake up to the next morning but alas.

I groan and prop myself up on my elbow rubbing the knot trying to lessen the pain. My fingers pause in mid action when my sleep soaked eyes break out of the initial wake-up daze and begins to focus upon the person next to me.

He slept the night over but not before an awkward half hour of explaining everything to Kathy and I'm pretty sure the stink eye she gave mostly had something to do with how she thinks Aiden plots to steal me from her. The alcohol stench and the fact that his hotel room seems to be on the other side of the world made me waggle an angry finger at the couch. I was supposed to go back to my room when he fell asleep so that I knew he wouldn't sneak out just to prove a point but I passed out before him.

And I didn't want to give into the nagging but I wondered if waking up is a mistake: maybe this never happened and he never came to me and I'm delusional, which is a very reasonable alternative.

Aiden shifts next to me and then mumbles into my shoulder and registers the lack of warmth pressed up against him. He blinks his eyes open. And gives me this dopey ass smile.

"Morning," he rasps, his voice gravelly and grating

"Stop," I mumble embarrassed punching him slightly on the shoulder when he stares at me unblinkingly and unmoving and still fucking smiling. His hair is an absolute wreck and his eyes are still adjusting to his surroundings. I look away quickly when they fall on me and his crackling eyes soften.

"Ouch," he murmurs mostly to himself looking at the way I am thumbing the stiff, pained muscles on my neck. He leans forward and places a gentle fluttering kiss there. I flush and hit him in the chest.

"Are you insane?" I hiss when he starts snickering at my reddened face and my panicked darting of eyes to search for anyone

"Relax," he mutters stretching his long legs. Looking at me with half lidded eyes, he holds up his arm expectantly and I sigh when I realize he isn't going to drop it unless I come close.

My head falls into the crook of his neck in a way that my direct line of sight is his jawline. An arm snakes around me and tugs me closer so that my legs are now tossed over his lap. I'm pulled so close to him that when he speaks, his words rumble through me and I am so unaccustomed to how that triggers another surge of prickling in my heart that I don't quite register what he says.

But he looks down at me and he stares with these big happy eyes and I think it's something nice.

We don't say much after that. I stay there, my eyelashes fluttering against the pulse point on his neck and his thumb kissing my knuckles. I'm getting used to the position and so is he. He is feeling around the familiarity of the situation. The small things.

But of-course, we don't get to stay that way for a long time.

Aiden's phone breaks through the silence making him groan into my hair and ripples of frustration radiate off him making me laugh at the way he pouts at the phone. I raise my eyebrows when he looks at me like do I have to and I glare back.

He sneers at me like the sore loser he is and uncoils around me to answer.

"Someone better be dead," he says and then after a while of distinct chatter on the other line, his eyes harden breaking out of that sheen of daze, "Where? Okay, get me Sandy and Duchess. I'll be there in a bit."

He stands up and almost immediately sits right back down clutching his head.

"I forgot about hangover," he groans sheepishly, "And the concussion."