Silence fills the line.

“Where are you? I don’t see you.”

“We stopped at the station. Hold on.” I start running there. “Let’s meet in front of the cash express.”

Holy shit, Aden was coming to Cleveland for me! And what’s more, he’s here now. It was a sign!

When I look around, I see nothing for a moment – then I see everything. The gas station stars light up behind him as he makes his way to me. I grin widely and unable to control myself, I lunge forward for him to catch me.

I grip him to me as his hands bunch the end of my ponytail. I’m also burying my face in his neck and stroking the nape of his man-bun. I missed him so much. I pull away to stare at his gorgeous features. I can’t help the emotion engorging my chest.

“You were coming.” I croak.

“So were you.”

“Always.” I caress his cheek. “Even when you make me mad.”

His face falls as a frown lines his brows.

“McKay, I was never with Brighid.”

With his clear green eyes clouding up as they are in front of me, I can’t deny the truth. I know in my gut he wasn’t with her.

“Okay.”

“I need you to know that.”

“I believe you, Aden.”

He pulls at my arm, so we’re out of the way and presses my body to his as he leans against the glass window.
His eyes search mine.

“Are you ever going to be sure that I love you?”

I’m taken aback. That’s a tough question for me. Should I know that? How can I know that?

“If you tell me that you do.”

“I thought you could tell from my actions.”

“Your actions only tell me you want me – want something from me.”

“Well, I think we’re missing a very important component of our relationship.”

He traces my lip. Fuck. I forgot about the electricity his touches can send coursing through my body.

“I wanted to let you kiss me today, but now I have to punish you for missing my birthday.”

“I’m the one who has to punish you for making me hop on a bus when you had plans to come to New York.”

“I changed my mind twenty minutes before the last bus left.”

Aden smiles.

“I missed you too.”

We go into town and find a cheap motel to stay in. It’s so different being in one with him. I almost forget that I was abandoned in another one last week. His hands on my hips are certainly a good distraction.

“Happy late birthday, Princess.” he mumbles, kissing my neck. “I promise it’ll be a happy one.”

I turn, blinking my question.

“Ready for your surprise?”

“I have one?”

He nods, grinning.

“What is it?”

“What’s the definition of a surprise?” he teases.

“Hopefully it’s nothing like the one last week.”

I pout then giggle as he rolls his eyes, but ultimately laughs. I expected something sweet, but I couldn’t have known what was in store.

Now that I’m here, pressing a chilled cocktail to my sensitized lips, I can’t help but grin. The night has been a wild ride and Acacia is the perfect place to end it.

I sit cross-legged on the bar bench and watch the bartender mix his drinks, mesmerized by the melodic ringing of the salsa music. I then feel deft fingers on my forearms. Turning slowly, I face Aden.

“You took long.”

He grabs my drink.

“You didn’t.”

He throws it back, launches the glass on the counter and lifts my hand.

“Would you like to dance, Princess?”

I step to him, taking in our collective alcoholic breaths. My lips hover over his, both cold – both plump. I did that to him. An hour ago, I had stepped into the virtual reality room Aden had booked while I was asking for a room in the motel and wondered at the setting.

“What’s this?”

The lights went out as Aden came closer, until I could see him in the dim lighting. A moving image appeared before and around me. I looked up to find a projector. Turning away from Aden, I gawked at the reflection.

Stars blinked in and out of view in the wide expanse of space. It was the universe. I was still processing it all when Aden stepped in front of me, tracing his fingers along my waist then holding my hands in his.

“McKay.”

I stared up at him. His green eyes swirled with dark colours and projected stars.

“Yes?”

“Do you know what you mean to me?”

I shook my head, smiling.

I watched in awe as tiny meteors entered the earth’s atmosphere. They shone ferociously around Aden.

“Aden.” I gasped.

He went back to standing behind me without letting go of my waist.

“Wait? I’m a meteoric shower?”

“Just one – my one. Seemingly small and insignificant until you obliterated my defences, and lit up my sky in the most spectacular, and unexpected of ways.”

I couldn’t react. I was so shocked. My eyes filled with tears.

“Princess?” His voice sounded near my ear.

“How are you such an asshole then so perfect all the time?” I finally strangled out.

“Hopefully I’m one more than the other.”

“You love me.” I said matter-of-factly.

“If I’m going to be a comet, I might as well make you into something just as ridiculous, right?”

I shoved my elbow into his side, making him laugh.

“Ass.”

“Yes, I do like the feel of yours against me.”

I couldn’t help joining him in laughter.

“Thanks for not letting me sound crazy alone.”

“I said ridiculous. We can be ridiculous together. As for crazy, you’re on your own for that one…”

I spun to slap his forearm. He grinned, pulling me closer before holding my face between his palms.

“You are so beautiful; inside and out. Of course, I love you. I never stood a chance.”

“No, you didn’t.”

His lips, warm and moist, glided onto mine, and when they touched, electricity flowed through my limbs.

The universe crackled upon contact. The brush of his lips told the story of what was happening between us – it was reverent, delicate yet poignant. His feelings were now being transposed into the physical world via his light-as-a-feather kiss. His lips then floated over mine, before jaggedly grazing them again.

I pulled away and looked at him amidst the projected images as I now view him through the strobe-lights. I smile and shove him onto the dance floor. Aden grips my waist and swings me around.

Luckily, Danatha taught me a thing or two about rhythm, so I’m not tripping on my own feet. I keep up with Aden and we laugh at the whirring intensity of the salsa dance we’re doing amidst the bouncing crowd around us.

The memory of stillness distant, but forever locked in my heart.

“Aden,” I had whispered, fighting to hold on to sanity as the meteor shower behind him intensified.

“It’s okay.”

He touched my lips briefly with his thumb before pulling away like he had in the red room. He knew that thanks to my inexperienced mind, I was drowning too far too fast, and I needed to be rescued from the abyss of feeling through a first love or a first fatal attraction – depending on how one chooses to frame it.

He had probably experienced it before and for that I was grateful. In that moment, I needed to be caught and Aden’s simple words were my unlikely parachute.

“What happens now?” I asked, my eyelids too heavy.

“We live happily ever after.”

I laugh, holding him closer. What exactly did I expect him to say?

“How long do you think that’ll last?”

“Long enough.”

Even then I wanted to ask how he would know, but I didn’t need to. Like now, as he grabs my hand just as I’m growing tired of being twirled around and leads me out to the gorgeous dimly-lit garden of Acacia.

Now, the movement is far-removed, but we might as well still be enveloped in a blanket of sweating bodies. The voices circling the garden echo into the night.

I stare at his shoulder blades. I’ve been itching to hold him there since I saw him preceding those gas station stars. I step to him, lifting my eyes to his before lowering my gaze to where my index finger has rested. I slowly move it from the edge of his shoulder and walk around him, feeling the muscles on route to the opposite junction of his shoulder and neck.

I caress the edge of his cheek with a sole finger. His lids swath down and he gently places his hands on my waist. His panting spurs me on. But once I go on my tiptoes to reach his face, he leans in, closing his eyes.

“Huh-uh. I’m not going to kiss your lips yet. Be patient and enjoy my touch, okay?”

His lids go heavy again, watching my lips as he bites his. Oddly, the effects of his lip-bite make themselves felt below the belt for me. My lips hover over his for a few moments.

The minty freshness of his cologne, reminiscent of lemon-leaf, invites me in, and I lean into his side and nuzzle that section of skin. Its roughness juxtaposes the smooth of the slight bed of hair sitting atop his chest as I run my fingers through it.

“Aden,” I call. After he grunts in response, I answer. “You smell divine.”

His arms loosely wrap themselves around me as I let myself be intoxicated by him. My lips find his in the silver darkness, and I marry them together by moseying straight into his embrace.

I kiss him slowly and sweetly as if time is but a thing, then bunch up some of the hair on his nape in my hand and yank, opening his lips a little more. I scrape his bottom lip with my two front teeth and subsequently suckle at the soft flesh. His responsive groan is a mouth-watering aphrodisiac.

He only lets me go in favour of a bathroom break, leaving me to grin to myself. My mouth should be tired from all the work it did. I spent over ten minutes making out with Aden in the virtual reality room, I’ve been laughing ever since and now I’m kissing him again. But the passion doesn’t subside.

I touch my top lip – tender. But I can’t deny, it feels so good to finally be able to kiss my boyfriend whenever I want. I pull, he pushes in and I can’t imagine that I’d ever want to do anything other than that – it’s perfect. No, perfection doesn’t even begin to encapsulate the pleasure that is kissing Aden Arrington.

But just as the magic of the virtual room was gone when the lights were turned on and the overhead speaker informed us that our time was up, the bliss now evaporates too once Aden returns. He stomps his way over to me and grabs my arm, leading me out.

“Let’s go. We’re leaving, now.”