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11
WILL
Istood at the top of the stairs, grinding my molars to keep from acting on the urge to rush down there and introduce myself. What would I even say to the famed Jason Momoa look-alike?Hi, it’s nice to meet you. I’m horrifyingly, painfully, irrevocably in love with the woman you’re talking to, so if you could kindly kick rocks, that’d be great.
My breath caught in my throat. What had I just said? Or rather, what had I just thought? Fixing my face into the most neutral expression I could muster, I gulped, suddenly unable to see through the haze of feelings and desires that I’d never admitted to myself.
I loved Aria.
I loved her with every fiber of my being. I always had. I’d loved her when we were kids, as a playmate and a friend. I’d loved her when we were teens, when I first started thinking of her as more than the little girl next door. And I loved her now, in all of her independent, bossy, stubborn, and downright beautiful glory. As a woman. As a potential partner for life. As someone I could suddenly see a future with as if it had appeared out of nowhere. As if it were actually possible.
I watched her turn back to the other man, totally unnerved by this epiphany. I was more shaken than I cared to admit as they talked, but in a strange way, I was glad for it. I needed a moment to reorient myself before I spoke to her. I kept my face in check so she wouldn’t see the inner turmoil rolling within me.
My thoughts scampered vaguely around. Should I take off and go tell Paul that I loved his sister before I dared put my hands on her again? Or should I tell Aria first, and then tell her I needed to speak with him before we made it official? I flinched away from the second idea, knowing how irritated she would be if I put the brakes on us so I could go get his permission to be with her. But I also couldn’t imagine telling him that I loved her before she heard the words herself. There had to be a middle ground.
As the dude walked away, leaving her standing alone in the center of the reception area, I struggled to steady my erratic pulse. This was it. I needed to tell Aria first, and I’d figure the rest out after. For all I knew, I’d already ruined my shot outside her parents’ house the other night, so talking to Paul would be pointless. If I was going to lose her, I didn’t need to lose him, too.
I lifted my foot to start down the stairs, but Aria turned toward me, and I froze. A shock ran through me when our eyes met, and even from this distance, the connection between us was so real I could taste it. How had I not known that I loved her? It bounced through every cell in my body, nearly as frightening as it was potent.
My eyes never left hers as she walked toward me, and I couldn’t miss the apprehension in their depths. She wondered what I was doing here. But there was hope around the edges of her expression, like she wanted it to be because I was finally ready to be brave. And she was in luck because I was. I hadn’t consciously known it until only moments before, but something inside me must have, because it was like my new bike had carried me over here on autopilot, ready to be honest with the woman I loved.
As she climbed the steps to meet me at the top, she bit her bottom lip. My hand twitched with the urge to trace the curve of her mouth with my thumb. To press my lips there and hold her until the world stopped turning.
“What are you doing here?” she asked in a quiet voice, a pensive shimmer in the shadow of her big brown eyes.
I paused. It was a wedding day, and she had work to do. This whole place was decked out for a major event, and it was all on her shoulders. Could I really say everything I wanted to say to her right now? If I did, I had a feeling it would be a massive monkey wrench in her plans that she didn’t need. Whether she reciprocated my feelings or not.
I inhaled, trying to manage a feeble answer. “I wanted to show you something.”
All thoughts of Jason Momoa were gone from my mind. He didn’t matter in the slightest. If what Aria felt for me for all these years was even a fraction of what I felt for her, it would be enough to render him completely inconsequential. She was mine, and she always had been.
“What?” she asked tentatively.
I jerked my head through the open doors I’d come out of, and Aria tracked the move with her eyes. Sitting under the circular portico out front, visible through the wide lobby, was the shiny black motorcycle I’d driven off the lot and straight over here.
Her eyes were wide when she looked back at me. “You got a motorcycle?”
“Don’t look so surprised,” I said with a chuckle. I tucked my hands in my pockets to keep from reaching for her. “I told you guys I wanted one.”
“Yeah, but I was pretty sure my mom shut it down.”
“Ha. She tried. But you heard me tell her it would make me look cool for the ladies, right? Maybe there was only one lady I had in mind.”
She managed a choked laugh. “Is that so?”
“It is.” I knew it was cheesy, but what else would a man in love say in that moment? Something else cheesy, if not that, I was sure of it. “I’d ask you to go for a ride with me, but I can see you’re a little busy.”
Her mouth popped open slightly when she looked back at the bike. She must have noticed that there wasn’t one helmet resting on the seat, but two. “Even if I weren’t alittlebusy, you know my mother would kill me.”
“Ah, come on. What happens between us is betweenus, right?”
A smile played on her full lips, amusement back in her gaze. “I don’t know, Will, is it?”
“It is.” My words were firm, final. I didn’t plan to confess my love for her while she had a million things to do before the guests arrived, but I could tell her that much. “I’ll come back after the wedding. When will you be done?”
She let out a shaky sigh and checked her watch. “Probably around eight. These clients aren’t the late-night partying crowd.”
“Eight it is,” I said, leaning down to brush a featherlight kiss on her cheek. “I’ll be back.”
