Aiden
The week before a game, I go into training mode. No parties, no fast food, no distractions. Just the gym, work, basketball, and going through game videos. It’s always been that way, until last night.
It was late, I had just finished training, and instead of going home and getting an early night, I went to Leila’s.
Nothing could have kept me away from her, not the voice in my head telling me I needed to focus on the game. Not the routine I had since freshman year to ensure I maintained my winning streak, and that I played the best I could. Absolutely nothing could have stopped me from wanting her, craving her. And as soon as she opened the door and pressed her lips against mine, nothing else mattered.
Rules. They’re meant to be broken, right? At least that’s what I told Leila when we woke up in bed together this morning, her lush thigh wrapped around my waist, her head pressed against my chest. It was one of the best mornings I’ve ever had.
It wasn’t long until I was buried inside her, hearing her sweet, hushed moans as we had slow, hot morning sex. As I said… best morning ever. After it was over though, she got all defensive and panicked, pushing me into the shower, telling me last night shouldn’t have happened.
I know I told her I didn’t want a relationship, and I didn’t, hadn’t even thought of it until she brought up the topic. But now that we’ve spent so much time together, I can’t bear the thought of ending it with her and watching her move on with someone else. It physically pains me to think of some other guy’s lips on her, of his hands on her.
I might have agreed to a casual, no strings attached arrangement before, but that’s not what I want anymore. Not even close to it.
I hear Leila’s voice coming from the kitchen. My brows furrow as I push open her bedroom door only to see her sitting at the kitchen table talking to someone on her laptop. In Spanish.
I lean against the door frame, arms crossed, and listen to her speak. I can’t make out what she’s saying, but my god, it sounds sexy as hell. I’ve never heard her speak her mother tongue before, only some words here and there, mostly curse words, but hearing her speak this beautiful language, with who I assume are her family, has me grinning as I listen to her.
Spanish was my worst subject in school, resulting in not being able to understand a word of what’s coming out of her mouth, until I hear one word that sticks in my brain.
Cumpleaños.
Birthday?
She chuckles at the screen. “Gracias, Papi.” Okay, well I understood that. It’s Leila’s birthday? There’s no way. She would have told me, right?
I hear her blow her family kisses and then close the laptop, dropping her head onto the counter. I approach her, leaning down to kiss her jaw. Her head snaps up, letting out a sigh when she sees me. “I thought you were still in the shower.”
“It’s your birthday?”
Her brows furrow. “How—” She rolls her eyes. “You were eavesdropping?”
“I didn’t mean to,” I tell her. “I love listening to you speak Spanish.”
She smiles, lifting off the chair and wrapping her arms around my neck. I love how touchy she’s become. How things have changed since we first started sleeping together. “Yeah?” she asks, looking up at me with those green eyes. “I could teach you some words.”
“Like what?”
She hums, whispering against my lips. “Bésame.”
So hot. “What does that mean?”
“Kiss me,” she explains.
Gladly. I press my lips to hers, kissing her, getting lost in her sweet taste and scent. It surrounds me. “What else?” I ask her, wanting to hear her speak some more.
“Fóllame.”
She shivers against me when I wrap my arms around her waist. “And what does that mean?” I whisper against her lips.
She licks her plump lips, staring up at me. “Fuck me.” She wastes no time, grabbing the back of my neck and bringing our mouths together, making me forget what I was going to say. She always manages to make my mind hazy, unable to think of anything but her.
Her frown when I pull back amuses me. “Not so fast,” I say, smoothing my hands over her bare hips, feeling her soft skin under my fingertips. “You weren’t going to tell me it was your birthday?”
She lets out a sigh, unwrapping her arms from around me. “Didn’t think it was necessary.”
My brows furrow. “You didn’t think I needed to know that today was your birthday?”
“No.”
Ouch. My stomach drops, feeling the pain from her words. It’s clear that she’s not where I am at all. How am I supposed to tell her I want more when she clearly just wants sex from me? “Why not?”
She sighs, taking a step away from me. My hands twitch, wanting her back. “Because I don’t really care for it.”
“Why?” I ask her, crossing my arms.
Her shoulders lift in a non-committal shrug, playing with the hem of her pajama top. “It was different when I was growing up. My dad would go all out, you know? Plan a huge surprise when I woke up, balloons, a cake, the whole joint. But now… it just seems useless.”
Hearing about her birthday celebrations when she was a kid makes me happy that she had that, that she had love and fun in her life. It might make me a dick but it makes me a little jealous and sad for younger me. Growing up, I didn’t even know when it was my birthday because no one cared. “It’s not useless. It’s the day you were born. Is that why you’re upset?” I ask her, watching her pull her bottom lip between her teeth. “Because you won’t be able to spend your birthday with your family?”
Her nose scrunches. “A little,” she admits. “But I also feel like it’s a huge relief I’m not home for my birthday.”
“Why?”
She sighs, closing her eyes. “Because my mom hates me.”
I shake my head. Who the hell could hate her? “I’m sure that’s not true.”
She glances at me, dropping her eyes to the ground a second later. “It is. She hates my body. Hates that I don’t look like her or my sister,” she says, her voice breaking my goddamn heart. She sounds so small, so sad. Fuck, I just want to hold her and tell her that her mother doesn’t deserve to look at her if she can’t see how beautiful she is. Drop dead fucking gorgeous.
“You’re not serious.” The thought of someone as close to Leila as her mother telling her something like that shatters me. I see how self-conscious she is whenever we sleep together, I can sense how she gets stuck in her head sometimes, how she pulls on her top whenever it lifts, or how she prefers the dark. “Is that why you don’t take your top off?” Her eyes widen when the question comes out of my mouth. “Because of your mother’s comments?”
She shakes her head, her throat bobbing when she swallows. “That’s different. It’s got nothing to do with her.”
“Then why?” I ask her, approaching where she’s standing. “Do you not trust me?” I’ve told this girl more than I’ve ever told anyone, including Grayson. Does it hurt that she doesn’t feel comfortable to return the favor? Yeah, it hurts like a bitch.
“It’s complicated,” she says.
“Then uncomplicate it for me.” She shakes her head which makes me a little annoyed. “I just want to know you, Leila. I’ve told you all about my family, I have nothing to hide from you. I just want you to let me in.”
She drops onto the chair with a sigh, burying her head in her hands. “I had a boyfriend in high school.” I hate him already. “His name was Jake. He was a football player, and just like every other girl, I was interested in him. He was a quarterback, popular, hot as hell.”
I scoff. “Not as hot as me.” She glares at me, or she tries to, her lips giving her away with the small smirk on them. “Continue,” I tell her, leaning against the couch.
“Obviously every girl was into him, and then one day, out of nowhere, he noticed me. He talked to me, flirted with me, and then asked for my number.” I can’t help but think it sounds familiar to how we started. I hate that. I hate the thought of her associating me with him, with whatever he did to make her hide a part of herself.
“He asked me out but told me it had to be in secret because the other guys would give him shit for dating someone that looked like me.” My fists curl up by my sides, wanting to find this asshole and punch him. “I was fine with it. I knew I didn’t look like the other girls. And then we started dating,” she continues, glancing up at me. “He was my first,” she explains. I can see the pain on her face and I’m not sure if I even want to listen to the rest of it. It’s hurting me just knowing she was hurt.
“He told me to keep my top on because it wasn’t necessary to see any of that,” she says, using air quotes. I want to kill him. “I felt horrible, but I agreed. I didn’t like that part of myself… I still don’t.” she mumbles that last part so quietly I almost didn’t hear it. “And then once he finished, he left, saying he had practice.”
“Please tell me that’s it,” I plead her. “Please tell me he didn’t do anything else.”
She turns away from me, dropping her eyes to her lap. “When I went back to school, he had exposed all of our messages,” she tells me. “It turns out he didn’t like me like I had thought, it was a bet between his friends.” She laughs, bitterly. I watch as a tear falls onto her lap and she wipes it away quickly, shaking her head. “He said to me ‘I can’t believe you thought I actually liked you.’ He slept with me as a joke.”
“You’re fucking with me.” My blood pressure rises with every word that comes out of her mouth. “Tell me you’re joking.”
She shakes her head, shattering my heart into pieces. “I was the joke. They were betting on who can get the fat girl to think they like her.” The look on her face kills me. “I lost all of my friends. No one wanted to be around me, except for Rosie. I was so embarrassed.” She looks up at me with glassy eyes, brimming with tears. “So, when I got to college, I decided to flip the switch,” she tells me. “I knew I wasn’t the relationship girl. I knew guys wouldn’t want to be with me.” She wipes her face, squaring her shoulders. “So, I approached guys. I made the first move, and I kept the rules the same. Only one-night stands, always from behind so I wouldn’t look at them, in private and I’d never see them again.”
Yeah, I remember her no repeat rule very clearly. “I got what I wanted, and I didn’t get attached,” she says with a sigh. “It was working until…”
“Until me,” I finish for her.
“Yeah,” she offers with a small smile.
“Do you regret it?” My heart beats with anticipation. “Do you regret us?”
She shakes her head, her smile slipping. “No.”
I lift off the couch, crouching down to where she’s sat and grasp her face in my hands, wiping away the tears with my thumb. “I don’t want you to hide yourself from me,” I tell her, my heart bursting at the seams when she smiles at me. It’s my favorite sight in the world. “You are the most beautiful girl I have ever had the privilege of being with, Leila. There is nothing about you that I don’t like.” She drops her head, but I lift her chin, wanting those green eyes on me. “You hear me? Nothing.” She nods and I lean in, pressing my lips to hers for a quick kiss. “I wish you could see yourself how I see you,” I tell her, staring into her eyes. “You’re so beautiful, sexy as hell,” I punctuate my sentence with a kiss. “And you’ve quickly become my favorite person to be around.”
Her eyes widen and I can tell she’s a little scared by my statement. Maybe I’m moving too fast. Fuck. I clear my throat. “We need to celebrate.”
“What?” she asks, when I pull back, her brows knitted together.
“Your birthday,” I clarify. “You can’t be with your family today, but let me do something for you.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t need to do that. The girls and I already planned a movie night.”
There’s no way I’m going to let her do nothing on her birthday. “You do that every weekend. Let me take you out.”
I can see the panic starting to kick in. “Aiden.”
“Please.” I grab onto her hand, pressing my lips against her knuckles. “Just let me do this for you, Leila.” She frowns, looking down at me. “I never had a birthday,” I tell her. “Never had a cake, no balloons, no presents.” Her shoulders slump, her lips pursed together. “I grew up knowing no one cared about me and that no one even bothered to make that day special. But I’m not going to let that happen to you.” I lift her off the chair, wrapping my arms around her waist. “Let me do this for you.”
Her lips part but instead of saying yes, she sighs. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
She untangles herself from me and breaks my heart by saying, “Because it sounds too much like a date.”
Well, if I wanted to know her feelings on the matter, I do now. I scratch my jaw, staring at this beautiful girl in front of me who acts like going on a date with me would be the end of the world. “Would that be so bad?”
“We have rules,” is the response she gives me.
“No, you have rules.” I take a step closer to her. “I just went along with them.”
Her throat bobs. “You said you didn’t want a relationship.”
“I didn’t,” I tell her with a lift of my shoulder.
“And now you do?”
I exhale, harshly. I just want… her. “I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “All I know is I want more than this, Leila.” Her chest rises and falls rapidly as she struggles to catch her breath, processing what I’ve just told her. I reach for her hand, interlocking it with mine. She’s so soft against me. “I want to hold your hand in public,” I tell her, lifting her chin with my thumb. “I want to kiss you whenever I feel like it instead of having to sneak around and wait until it’s dark to have you.” Her tongue darts out to lick her lips. “I want to sleep over and wake up with you. I want more.”
I wait for what seems like forever, time ticking before she pulls away and turns around completely. “I don’t know.”
I sigh, rubbing the back of my neck. I pushed her too hard. “You don’t need to make any rash decisions right now, Leila. I don’t want to ruin your birthday.” She turns back around, her arms dropping to her sides. “Just let me take you out. Just tonight.” I watch as her shoulders slump but before she can tell me no, I whisper, “Please.” I’m not above begging. I’ll crawl on the ground and beg for that girl if that’s what it takes.
“Okay.”
My heart stops. “Really?”
She nods, biting on her bottom lip. “Just for tonight.” It’s a start.
I erase the distance between us and brush her hair from her face, kissing her cheek. “Get ready,” I whisper. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“Where are you taking me?”
I have no clue, all I know is that she deserves everything. “It’s a surprise,” I tell her instead. “Let me plan everything. All you have to worry about is looking pretty for me.”
A low laugh rumbles out of her and without even thinking I pull her into me, getting lost in her lips, my hands running down her body, pulling at her waist until she moans into my mouth, which wakes my dick up. “Fuck. I should go before I take you back to bed.” And I still need to figure out what I’m going to do for her birthday.
“And I have to get pretty,” she says, grinning at me.
I shake my head, my eyes dropping the length of her body, lingering on every single inch of her. “Job done.” She’s so much more than pretty. She’s gorgeous, beautiful, smart, funny, sexy as hell and can make my day with just a roll of those lime green eyes.
I pick up my hat, place it on my head, and lean in for just one more kiss. Reluctantly, I pull away from her, heading towards the door. I turn back one last time and my chest hurts at the sight of her.
Fuck.
She’s perfect.
“I…” My lips press together to stop other words from escaping. “I’ll see you tonight,” I tell her before walking out of her apartment, the door closing behind me.
I blow out a much-needed breath, running a hand down my face at the words repeating themselves over and over in my head.
I never thought I’d be in love. I’m not a cynic like Grayson once was, I know it exists for some people, but I just never thought I’d ever experience it. Growing up I didn’t know what love looked like, I’d never seen it. Not from my mom or my brothers, it just didn’t exist in my family. I honestly never thought I would tolerate, let alone like someone so much to the point where I’m desperately in love with them.
But the proof is right there, inside apartment 305 that holds a million and one plants all over the place, that holds the woman I love.
Just my luck I fall for someone who doesn’t want a relationship.
