The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

And all that manliness, that self-confident swagger and the mentality that ‘good’ was never enough, had just settled its attention on me standing there with a grin that more than likely made me look like a lunatic.

I’d swear on my life, my heart was on the verge of exploding with joy and surprise. I was probably trembling a little bit too in restrained energy and downright shock. Here was this man who valued his time, who hadn’t taken anything close to a vacation or allowed himself to be distracted from his ultimate goal in all the time I’d known him.

Yet he was here.

“Holy mother…” I barely heard the woman at the booth next to mine stutter loudly before I dropped to my hands and knees, crawled under the table, and popped back up on the other side to find those large, size-thirteen feet heading in my direction.

He raised his eyebrows at me, the corners of his mouth pulling up when we finally stood feet apart. “Hi.”

I was going to burst. I was going to freaking burst inside. “I’m about to hug you,” I warned him in what sounded like a gasp, clenching my hands at my sides. “I’m about to hug the shit out of you, and I’m sorry I’m not sorry.”

Those thick eyebrows seemed to climb up his forehead an inch higher, his cheek ticking in this strange way that made him seem a little embarrassed. “Why are you saying that like I should be scared?”

The ‘scared’ was barely out of his mouth when I threw my arms around his neck. Screw a friendly body hug. I went for that thick neck I had a feeling I could dangle off of without making him pull a single one of his thousand muscles. My face went straight to between his pecs, burying itself there, cradling my face like the hardest and best-looking boobs in the universe.

The joy made me shiver. “You came,” I muttered into the soft material of his hoodie. About eighteen different emotions clogged my throat. “I don’t know why you’re here, and why it’s freezing outside and you’re only wearing this jacket instead of a coat like a normal human being, but I’m so happy to see you, you have no idea.”

I had goose bumps, freaking goose bumps as I squeezed my arms around him, burying my face a little deeper into the crevice between his pectorals.

“Stop talking,” Aiden muttered as two big arms swallowed my back whole. And then, he was hugging me. His biceps cradled my ribs as he pulled me into him, up to the tips of my toes. Our fronts seared together.

Tears clouded my eyes, but I closed them and gave Aiden one more squeeze before slowly sinking back to my heels. Gazing up at that handsome, severe face, I had to bite the insides of my lips to keep from grinning like a total lovesick idiot, which was exactly what I was.

In that moment, I don’t think I had ever loved anything half as much as I loved Aiden.

Sliding my hands from his neck over to his shoulders and finally down to those biceps I knew were perfectly sculpted from gawking at them so often, I patted him. Then I grabbed him and tried to shake him.

And then I started grinning all over again. So what if I looked like an airhead who was in love with a man she had married as part of a business relationship? I was, and I’d never been totally good at being anything other than me.

Of all the people I would ever want in my corner for moral support, here was the most unexpected one… and the biggest one. My friend. The keeper of my secrets. My moral support. My paperwork.

Plus, with reflexes like his, if anyone threw something at me, he could deflect it. Not that that would happen since hardly anyone even noticed I was there.

Thinking about having him in my corner didn’t help anything. It just made me want to cry, and now wasn’t the time. Hell, the next decade wasn’t the right time. I had to remember that even as my heart gave a little beat at the acknowledgment Aiden had shown up.

I slid my hands down his biceps to his elbows and finally to his wrists. “Are you going to stay for a little while?” I asked, trying not to build up too much hope. Maybe he had some kind of… something he’d come for besides me.

Turning his wrists, he slid his hands down until we were palm to palm. “I just flew four hours to get here. Who else would I be here for?”

I loved this man.

That was what I thought. What I said though was a completely different thing. “Okay, smart-ass. Let me grab a chair for you then,” I said, taking a step away before blinking at him. He really was standing there in the middle of a convention in his hoodie with a backpack on. He was here. Here.

With a squeak I hadn’t made since I was probably twelve, I threw my arms around Aiden’s arm and hugged him once more for a split second.

“Okay, I’ll be right back,” I said, loosening my hold and taking a step back to find him looking down at me with the strangest expression on his face.

“I’ll get one,” he muttered, tipping his head toward mine. A small smile creased the corners of that ultra-serious mouth. He dropped his chin. “Has anybody thrown anything at you?”

I crossed my eyes. “Not yet.”

Aiden blew out a breath and gave me that look that got on my nerves. “Told you.” He reached forward and tapped my elbow with his fingertips. “I’ll be right back.”

I wasn’t sure where he planned on getting a chair from, but if anyone got what he wanted, it was Aiden. He’d figure it out. With that thought, I crawled back under the table and took my seat again, suddenly feeling way more optimistic—and about eight hundred times happier—than I had minutes ago.