The List: One Year, One Adventure ✔️

Chapter 26: Love Isn't Always Easy On The Eyes

Ari

My heart was beating a million miles a minute as he looked at me, while that song played—our song. I loved Dean with everything that I had in my soul, even the bits deep down in the black abyss that were ugly to look at. I loved him with a type of love that deep down wasn't always the easiest thing to lay your eyes on. I couldn't imagine a life where I wasn't in love with Dean Andrews.

I didn't want a life where that was possible. I didn't one where he wasn't the first thing I saw in the morning and the last when I closed my eyes. I knew that our love wasn't always the easiest thing and I was a firm believer that love shouldn't ever be difficult, but that previous thought was because I was naive to true love. 

True love wasn't easy, because it didn't always go your way.

True love was a constant struggle where you fought within the inner pit of your heart, tugging between common sense and being utterly lost in it.

True love saw no boundaries and because of that, it was rapid and consumed you. If love ever became easy, then it wasn't true.

True love was never lazy. It was like a river with choppy white swells that crashed you around as you clutched your raft and smiled, the sheer excitement of it causing the acrobats in your stomach to flip and twirl.

True love was a raging wildfire that could never be put out with the small buckets of water thrown on it.

True love was like a fighter, clenching his fists and dodging around the ring, desperate to overcome the obstacles. It gripped every piece of you threatening to crumble your world around you, until all that was left was the other person. No one else mattered, nothing else mattered.

Every other touch was but an annoyance, every other word was but faint on your ears;m, because the only touch and voice on your soul was the one that griped your heart.

As I checked my reflection in the mirror, I could feel his hands on me, his breath on my neck, and his words when he spoke of our future. Deciding that I couldn't spend another minute without him, I threw open the doors of the restroom and hurried down the hall towards the banquet room.

I felt a grip on my arm which pulled me back into an alcove of the hallway and spun me around. It was a hand that pulled me in close to his firm chest, into his smell.

I looked up into the face of the hands, hoping that I would see his blue eyes and sculpted jawline eager to pick up where we had left off on the dance floor, but when I looked up it was hazel eyes I was staring at. Hazel eyes and a perfectly symmetrical face, and jawline lined with brown stubble. His brown hair was slightly longer on top, but still choppy and he flashed me a wide white toothed smile, which made his laugh lines prominent on his face.

He was dressed in an expensive traditional tuxedo and his aftershave had hints of cinnamon and other spices. I felt his strong hands come up to cup my face, but I was too much in shock to react. Before I knew what was happening he gently pressed his thin pink lips to mine, taking my bottom lip into his mouth and sucking on it.

My brain and heart were screaming for my body to do something, anything, but I was frozen in place with shock. Why was he doing this to me? I know he said he wasn't done fighting, but he always knew my feelings for Dean and this was wrong. I reached up with my hands and pushed him back from my lips, looking up into his eyes, mine beginning to betray me as they welled up with tears. They filled with tears at what had just happened, as a wave of guilt spread over me because what Ace had just done to me, meant that I had inadvertently cheated on Dean. I had cheated on the love of my life.