Magical Spice - Part Fourteen
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
Only silence follows my question for a long, long moment.
The handsome, bearded man freezes right where he is, his blue eyes going perfectly round. He’s on his knees in front of the bed I’m sitting on, staring up at me, holding my hands. He doesn’t move at all, but his fingers sharply tighten their grasp on mine, like I just gave him some kind of electric shock.
Eventually he drags in two fast, shallow breaths through his nose, gathering himself together to try to speak.
“What?” His deep voice comes out so breathless and broken up that it’s barely more than a whisper. “What’d you say?”
I’m still staring at him in rapt, wide-eyed fascination, but I manage to get the question out again. “Who are you?”
He draws in another shaky breath, with obvious difficulty.
“You - you don’t know who I…?” He trails off, staring at me with enormous eyes. “Jamie… what’s the last thing you remember?”
I lower my gaze to my hands, trying to think, reaching for the last thing I remember.
But there’s nothing. Just nothing.
I give my head a bewildered shake, lifting my eyes to meet his again, letting him see the total confusion in them.
“I don’t remember anything.”
He just sits there like a rock, motionless. I finally drag my eyes away from him to look around at the bedroom we’re in, struggling to understand.
“What happened to me?” I ask, bringing my gaze back to him. “Where am I, what am I doing here?”
He stares silently at me, his beautiful eyes as huge and round as they go. His dark brows slowly draw up and together. He closes his eyes and turns his face away, going deathly pale - then stops. He gives himself a hard shake, dragging the back of his hand over his eyes.
“No, no no no - you know what? You just need a little time. Yeah, that - that’s all it is!” He drops my hands and gets swiftly to his feet, revealing that he’s both graceful and - wow, okay, really tall. “Everything is alright. You just - you went through something, so you’re all mixed up. You just need a few minutes for your head to clear, and then you’ll remember, and then everything will be fine.”
He stops and swallows, pushing a hand through his hair. It’s a rich, coppery chestnut in color. Glossy and soft-looking, despite the messy state it’s in and the flecks of mud caught in it.
“You just need a minute to remember,” he insists again, anxiously twisting his fingertips together. “No problem, I can give you that. You’re probably dying for a hot shower anyways, right? I’m guessing that’s the first thought that came into your head. Knowing you.”
It actually wasn’t the first thought that came into my head, but a hot shower does sound extremely tempting. The mud crusted all over me feels like it’s been there for a while, and I’m kind of cold.
He seems to know that I was going to accept that offer. He’s turned away to pull some clothes out of a dresser. He presses them into my hands as I stand up, then seems to realize from how I’m looking around that I don’t know where to go.
“Right, yeah, okay,” he says raggedly, quickly turning away again. “I’ll show you where it is.”
He leads me down a hallway to a bathroom. I turn to look at him in surprise when he starts to follow me inside. He checks himself on the threshold, takes a hasty step back.
“Right,” he says again, very quietly. “I’ll - I’ll be right back where we were when you’re done, okay? Take your time. Try to remember, if you can.”
I give him a slow nod, and he leaves, closing the door softly after himself.
I stand by the door, taking a look around at the bathroom. It’s very pretty and cozy, with green glass tiles up one wall. They catch the rainy sunlight streaming in through the window, which is shaded at the top with the leaves of some vine that must be growing up the outside wall.
My wandering eyes land on my own face in the mirror. I come a few steps closer to it and take a long look at myself, trying to make sense of what I see.
The wild state of my hair. The mud and grass plastered all over me. The little bruises and scrapes on my arms. It looks like someone has already tried their best to tend to those. The mud has been cleaned off around the scrapes, and there’s a little bandage over the one on the back of my hand. All in all, though, I don’t seem to be too hurt. Just sore, and bruised up, and at a complete loss for how any of this happened to me.
I start to turn away, but my eyes catch on something about my reflection that makes me look down at my chest curiously. I’m wearing a necklace. A tiny bottle on a length of leather, with an even tinier green shoot inside. I turn it over in my fingers, wondering what kind of plant that is, then carefully take the necklace off.
I set the clean clothes he gave me aside so I can go take a peek out through the window. It looks down from a second story, onto a gentle sprawl of what looks like a kitchen garden. Beyond that, there’s an old, mossy brick wall, and beyond that, the tops of some trees. Peach trees, I know somehow. The sun is slowly coming up beyond their crowns, half-hidden behind puffy rain clouds, turning the sky a fragile shade of eggshell blue.
A large grey cat is snoozing on top of the brick wall, sheltered from the drizzling rain by the fluttering leaves of the tree overhanging it.
I find myself breathing much easier, looking out at this sight.
I lock the door and pull off my clothes. They look like they were dragged through the mud, then thoroughly rained on. I go through the pockets of the jeans I was wearing, looking for any kind of clue about who I am or what’s going on. But there’s nothing in them except for an old M&Ms wrapper, so I drop them into the hamper and head for the shower.
The rush of steaming hot water hits me like a beautiful gift from the heavens. It instantly wakes me all the way up, clearing the last traces of sleepy befuddlement from my mind. The mud and grass melt away from my body and wash out of my hair. The soreness in my muscles slowly begins to ease up.
I let out a sigh of relief, then slick my hair back from my eyes and take a deep breath. I let my thoughts turn inward. I try to reach for my memories, for what happened that led me here.
What were you doing that brought you here? Who are you, who is he? You must know him. There’s no way you don’t. Think, come on, think…
But I hit some kind of barrier in my mind as soon as I try to remember. It’s like trying to think my way through a brick wall. I just can’t.
My heart sinks as I come to the realization that it’s not working. No matter how hard I try.
I emerge from my thoughts to discover that I’ve washed my hair and used some body wash, all without turning to look at what I was using. I took down each bottle on complete autopilot, but it looks like I used everything the right way.
When I step out of the shower a minute or so later, I mechanically take down the towel on the left hook, then use it before I realize what I did. I didn’t have to look for the hamper, either, come to think of it. I just knew where it was.
I stop to look around at the bathroom with baffled eyes. Have I been here before? Maybe the guy who woke me up can tell me.
I thought he’d be waiting for me in the bedroom, so I wander out into the hallway half-dressed, wearing only the boxers and jeans he gave me, preoccupied with turning the clean shirt the right way out.
But he’s waiting almost right outside of the door, nervously nibbling on his thumbnail. He spins around with wide, hopeful eyes as soon as he hears me. I pull the shirt on, settle the necklace over it, and push my damp hair out of my eyes.
He peers searchingly into them, but doesn’t seem to find whatever he was looking for.
A crestfallen expression begins to come over his face. He quickly lowers his gaze to the floor, trying not to let me see it.
He makes me unbearably shy, and I don’t know what to say, but I feel like I should say something.
“Did you want to shower, too?” I ask timidly, gesturing to his mud-crusted self. “I’m sure you’re dying to, just like I was.”
He considers, then lifts his eyes to my face again, some hope coming back into them.
“Yeah, maybe you just need some more time, right? It’s only been a few minutes…” He trails off, his blue eyes growing anxious. “But you won’t go anywhere while I’m in the shower, will you? I know you have no reason to trust me, I know you must be all mixed up and freaked out, but you’re not in any danger here. I’ll try to explain everything when I’m done, if you still don’t remember by then. Just please promise me you won’t leave the house while I’m in there.”
I think about it for a second, then give him a nod of agreement. He lets out a breath of relief, starts to lift one hand towards me, and drops it.
I stare up into his eyes, breathtaken again by the powerful, fiery rush of feeling that leaps up in my heart just the sight of him.
What is that? I think wonderingly. What is it about you?
He stands there flexing and unflexing his fingers, then suddenly puts his head down and swiftly goes past me into the bathroom. The rush of the shower meets my ears through the door a second later, adding to the soft drumming of the rain on the windows.
I stand there hugging myself, gazing around at the little hallway, then wander over to the stairs at the end.
They let me out into a warm, bright little living room. Even in the rainy light, it’s colorful and cozy, all multicolored walls and deep rugs, soft-looking armchairs and couches. There are a lot of plants, nestled close together in pots on the floor, on the windowsills, on shelves, hanging from the ceiling.
It smells nice in here. Like the flowers growing from the plants, but also faintly like herbs and spices, and fresh, rainy, green-scented air.
There’s a blue flannel tossed over the back of the couch. I’m kind of cold, so I take it and pull it on, then drift over to two plants by the window that caught my eye.
Two potted saplings. Both are a little ragged around the edges, but they look like they’re on the mend. Tiny new leaves dot their branches, still tightly, protectively furled up. The branches themselves look like they’re finding new strength, growing sturdier.
I gently trail my fingertips over the leaves, taking deep breaths. Trying my hardest to think, to pull myself together, to remember.
Lost in my thoughts, I don’t hear the rushed footsteps on the stairs until he’s halfway down them. I lift my gaze and my fingertips from the plants, turning to face him.
He stops at the bottom of the stairs. His blue eyes flit from the saplings to my flannel, then to my face.
My eyes widen a little bit as they wander over him, now that he’s showered all the grass and grime off and changed his clothes.
He’s handsome all over. Brutally handsome. So much so that it’s almost hard for me to look at him directly. As if that face wasn’t enough, he’s got an exceptionally graceful, well-proportioned frame, impressive biceps slightly straining his shirt. He’s powerfully and intimidatingly built, but with those infinitely sweet, sensitive, warm blue eyes. Young, but definitely a grown man. Delicate fine lines crinkle the corners of his eyes, which makes him look a little more mature.
He’s scraped up and bruised up, even more than I am, but his bronze skin is beautiful, glowing softly with the lingering heat of the shower. He’s also got a rich, thick stubble beard that makes my fingertips twitch at my sides.
There’s a determinedly calm expression on his face, but I get the impression he’s working hard to keep it that way. His body is drawn tense, and he’s breathing strangely.
I haven’t remembered anything, but I do feel a little calmer. At least like I’m standing on solid ground. I take a deep breath, then fix him with a tentative, friendly smile, nervously folding my arms over my chest.
“Hey,” I try.
“Hey.” He looks like he’s holding his breath. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m…” I shrug my shoulders helplessly, pushing a strand of hair out of my face. “All mixed up, just like you said.”
“That’s totally understandable,” he manages, his eyes urgently searching mine, the same way they were upstairs.
“Also, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I got your name.”
He blinks a few times, swaying slightly on his feet.
“It’s - it’s Aiden,” he stammers, so hoarsely that I barely hear him.
Aiden, I think to myself dreamily, my smitten eyes lingering on his face.
He comes slowly over to me, stops right in front of me, and gazes down into my eyes, drawing another blush to my cheeks. He smells so good, like something woodsy and green and earthy.
“S-so you - you really don’t remember anything?” he rasps softly. “Nothing, you don’t…? You don’t remember me, Jamie?”
He must see the answer in my eyes, because I don’t have to say anything.
Silence falls. Aiden stands there frozen, just looking at me, as if it’s suddenly become impossible for him to speak or move. It feels like a whole minute passes this way before he slowly sinks down to sit on the couch. He puts his elbows on his knees and stares straight ahead, his expression completely blank.
Without warning, big tears slowly well up in his blue eyes, then begin to slide down his cheeks. He doesn’t sob or sniffle or make a single sound. He doesn’t move at all, aside from a slight tremble to his lips. He just sits there silently, motionlessly, letting the tears spill from his shell-shocked, perfectly rounded eyes.
I press my fingers over my mouth, thunderstruck. I don’t know why, but seeing him like this hurts me unspeakably, unendurably, right to my soul. Even though he’s not moving or making a sound, somehow I feel like he’s absolutely crying his heart out. He looks so unbelievably crushed and devastated, so shattered with dismay that it bites right through my heart. My eyes blur with sympathetic tears before I can do anything to stop it.
“Oh, no, Aiden-” I drop to sit beside him on the couch, pressing my trembling fingertips to my cheeks as the tears start spilling down them. “I’m s-so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you upset!”
He finally moves, but only to turn his head to look at me.
“Why are you sorry?” he rasps shakily. “And why are you crying?”
“I don’t know.” I blush a little, hastily dragging the sleeve of the flannel over my cheek. “You just look so s-sad. Can I do something to make you feel better?”
He stares at me, incredulous.
“Shit, Jamie,” he stammers, shaking his head in amazement. “You wake up in this situation and the first thing you’re looking to do is make me feel b…?”
He fades off, then lets out a sudden, pained sob of laughter.
“You’re still you, huh?” he rumbles, his deep voice trembling. “Even when you don’t remember anything. Should’ve known. You still sound the same.”
Something about the look in his eyes when he says this makes me blush deeper, even though I don’t understand what he means. I sound the same?
Aiden slumps back against the couch and drops his head.
“How am I the only one having a meltdown, right now?” he asks raggedly. “You’re the one who just woke up without any memories. You don’t know where you are, who I am. Why are you not freaking out?”
“Yeah, I… keep waiting to. It’s weird that it hasn’t really happened. Maybe it’s because…” I hesitate for a second, then go on slowly, “Okay, I’ll be honest with you-”
He lets out a sudden, watery laugh. “Yeah, I know you will.”
I’m not sure what that means, so I just forge ahead, even though I’m embarrassed to say what I’m about to say.
“I don’t know why, but… as soon as I saw you, I felt like I knew you,” I tell him earnestly, blushing over every word. “Not your name, or who you are. I just - I - recognize you.”
Aiden freezes again, staring hard at me.
I keep the rest to myself. It’s too much to say to someone who’s essentially a stranger to me. But the full truth is that I’m seriously under-exaggerating. I felt much more than simple recognition as soon as I laid eyes on him.
Even now, I’m experiencing the inexplicable symptoms of it. That gentle green scent clinging to him after his shower sends a deep, melting rush through my heart, sparkles of electricity going up through my veins. I have no memories, but it's like he makes my blood think for me, just by looking at me.
The sound of his beautifully deep voice is setting off its own set of instinctive, recurring sensations in me, too. I can’t track any of them to their source, but that doesn’t make them strike me any less powerfully.
I can’t say any of that to Aiden, so instead I add -
“I also have this feeling like… I was in some kind of trouble before, but I’m safe now that I’m here.”
Aiden takes in a sharp, shaky breath, searching my eyes with his.
“Yes!” He sits up more, nodding quickly. “Yes! Do you remember?”
“No,” I clarify hastily, with an apologetic wince. “I’m just saying that’s how I feel. Safe. With you.”
Aiden dropped his gaze as soon as I said no, but now he slowly looks up at me, with a flamy-hot look in his tearful blue eyes that I can’t understand.
“You…” he stammers, brushing away the tears quickly filling up his eyes again. “Then… maybe y-you - maybe you haven’t really forgotten, right? Maybe the Witch didn’t work real memory magic on you… wait, she can’t do that, can she? What if she gave you - the illusion of having forgotten…?”
His blue eyes light up with sudden hope.
“Means it’s all still in there,” he whispers hoarsely, giving my forehead a gentle tap. “Means that maybe I can…”
I’m struggling to keep up. “Um - did you say a witch did this to me?”
Aiden is not listening. He looks too excited, too full of desperate hope. Burningly relieved, almost to tears again.
“Okay, it’s okay.” He surges to his feet, then bends down to wrench me into a quick, hard hug. He ruffles my hair when he lets me go, messing it all up. “It’s gonna be okay, Linden. I’m gonna fix this. I’m gonna take care of whatever’s blocking you from reaching your memories.”
I stand up, too, trying my best not to look as flustered as I am. “How?”
Aiden starts pacing back and forth, breathing lightly and quickly. “I don’t know. There must be some way, though. There has to be. You-”
He stops, having turned to look at me. I’m just standing there watching him, nervously hugging my bandaged hand to my chest, but for some reason the sight of me makes his eyes fill up precariously again.
“There has to be,” he insists again, more shakily.
He looks like a man stranded in the open ocean, who just found a life raft and is now afraid it’s going to crumble apart in his hands. Like he’s silently begging me to agree with him that there’s a way, and that he can do it.
“Okay, yeah,” I rush to answer, trying to fix my hair. I’m worried it might be messed up, because his eyes keep darting to it. “Maybe you could start by telling me what happened? Because seriously, I’ve got no idea.”
Aiden flinches, his long lashes fluttering. A hot, humiliated blush spreads across his cheeks. He drops his head, pushing a hand through his sweet-smelling chestnut hair.
“So, you and I were… we were out in the forest, hunting for an illusion,” he begins reluctantly, carefully keeping his gaze on the floor. “Turns out the illusion we were looking for is a Forest Witch. She seems to specialize in magical memory tampering, which made sense to us in retrospect, considering who made her.”
I blink hard a few times, tilting my head to the side. “You, um - you keep talking about magic like it’s real.”
Aiden slowly lifts his head, and I gasp softly, staring into his glowing blue eyes.
“It is real.” The icy-blue light from his eyes dances softly on his cheekbones as he speaks. “I can do it, too. But I promise I’m not the one who did this to your memory.”
Gazing into his eyes in blank astonishment, I hear myself answer, “No, I didn’t think you did. Or you wouldn’t be so upset that it happened, right?”
Aiden nods earnestly, the magic flickering out in his eyes. “You’re taking the fact that magic exists pretty well. Not freaked out by that at all?”
“No, actually, that… sounds right to me,” I answer slowly. “I’m also sort of relieved if that’s what happened to my memory. That option sounds much nicer than the other two explanations I could think of, which were serious head injury or someone drugged me.”
“Oh,” Aiden says unsteadily. “Yeah, no, you definitely didn’t hit your head. I made sure of that. And thank you for not asking me if I drugged you, because that probably would’ve caused me to have an immediate breakdown, instead of the - delayed one I ended up having.”
I let out a startled little laugh, surprisingly reassured by that. Aiden flashes me a watery smile, but we both grow serious again quickly.
I look at Aiden searchingly, waiting. He winces as he seems to remember that he didn’t get through the whole story.
“So, um… we were camped out in the forest. It was early in the morning, and I went down to a stream near our campsite to rinse my face off. While I was there, I suddenly had this really clear memory of you walking off into the forest on your own, before the sun came up. No memory of you coming back. Couldn’t think why I hadn’t stopped you, because we said we wouldn’t go off too far on our own.”
I get the impression that Aiden doesn’t normally talk this much, at least not all in one go. He’s very soft-spoken, for one thing. For another, he keeps slowing down almost to a stop, and there are lingering silences between his sentences, sometimes between his words. It gives his speech a very unusual rhythm, and for some reason that rhythm stirs a rush of deeply-felt warmth in my heart.
“Anyways, I went rushing off into the woods to find you, in the direction I remembered you going,” he goes on, rubbing his arm unhappily. “But while I was running it dawned on me that you didn’t sound like you were in trouble. I could hear you just fine, and it sounded like you were somewhere behind me, back by our campsite.”
Hear me? I want to ask, but I bite my lip.
“As soon as I realized that, I could see right through the fake memory like it was glass. Realized I’d been tricked, so I came running back towards our camp. And then the Witch just appeared, right in front of me. Guess she knew she had me alone, and cornered. It seemed like she knew what I am, and she was expecting me to - fight her, with my magic? Sure felt like a challenge. But I…”
Aiden pauses again, this time for a long time. Something tells me to wait, so I do, and I’m rewarded when he takes a shuddering breath and goes on -
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened.” He hangs his head, sounding miserable. “I just froze up. I’ve never had to match my magic up against anybody else’s like that before. Felt so sure I was gonna get my ass kicked, definitively prove that I can barely wield my magic, I just - I froze. I was just standing there staring at her, knowing she was about to take me out, and then you came running up the hill behind her. Our friend Kasey was with us, she had seen me run off deeper into the woods. She tried to stop me, but I wasn’t wearing the glasses, I couldn’t see her or hear her, so she’d gone back to camp to get you…”
He stops to drag in a heavy, trembling breath.
“You saw what was going on, saw that the Witch was gearing up to throw some kind of magic at me. I saw you think about it for a second. You gave me this look, like you were trying to tell me everything would be okay. And then you - you started shouting at the Witch, running down the hill, waving your arms. She spun - around and - and - hit y-you in the chest with the magic she was going to use against me. You w-went down pretty hard, and the Witch took off. I ran up the hill, because it was raining, and you were unconscious, starting to f-fall and slide the rest of the w-way down. I caught you, and brought - brought you back here…”
He trails off, his deep voice growing rough.
“This story sure makes me look good, right?” he rasps, looking anywhere but at me. “Especially with you knowing nothing else about me that might balance it out.”
I was going to ask a lot of follow-up questions, but the expression on Aiden’s face as he says that drives every other thought out of my mind. A great, protective blaze of heat sweeps over my heart. I’m struck with the near-overwhelming urge to gather him up into my arms. God, it makes me ache to see him like this.
“No, no, Aiden!” I press my fingers to my cheeks, dangerously close to tears again. “Please don’t blame yourself! I don’t want that! The last thing I want is to see you looking so sad-”
He cuts me off with a sobbing little laugh in his throat, staring at me with an expression on his face too complicated for me to read.
I blush a little, made all warm and fluttery and melty inside by the look in his eyes. “What?”
“You…” He drops his head again, running a shaky hand over his eyes. “Nothing. You just sound exactly like yourself. Like nothing ever happened.”
I guess he would know better than I do, right now.
“It’s not your fault,” I insist again. “It sounds like I made my own choice. I wonder why I did that, though?”
“Because.” Aiden drags in another pained breath. “If the Witch had messed me up, there would’ve been nothing you could have done about it. You don’t have magic. I do, though. You must’ve had faith that I could undo whatever the illusion was going to do to you.”
“Oh.” I think about that, then lift my hopeful eyes to meet his. “And - you can, right? You will? You’ll get my memories back for me?”
Aiden nods earnestly again, sniffling a little.
“Are you kidding?” he asks hoarsely. “Course I will. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do.”
I find myself staring straight up into those two beautiful, infinite pools of dreamy blue, my heart stopped in my throat. He’s gazing down right into my eyes, holding very still, a dark blush slowly coloring up his cheeks.
“How do you and I know each other, Aiden?” I manage to ask him, struggling to control my racing heartbeat. “You didn’t say.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it again, hesitating.
“I’m - we…” He quickly waves a hand at me, blushing nervously. “Don’t worry about that right now, okay? I shouldn’t spend time explaining stuff you’ll remember as soon as you get your memory back, anyways. I just want to get you fixed up. I know it’s a lot to ask, but can you just trust me, for now?”
“Yes,” I hear myself answer, without taking any time at all to think about it.
Aiden blinks hard, clearly taken aback by the swiftness of my response. He gazes anxiously into my eyes, but he must be able to see the sincerity in them, because his powerful shoulders sink with relief.
“Does that make me stupid?” I ask nervously. “I don’t know why I trust you, I just… I just do.”
Aiden sniffles again, quickly swipes his hand under his nose.
“Doesn’t make you stupid,” he answers unsteadily. “Thank you for doing it. Can you also trust me when I say I don’t normally cry this much? Because really, I don’t. It’s just that this is - probably the most stressful thing that’s ever happened to me, s-so-”
“Oh, no, it’s okay!” I give him what I hope is a reassuring smile. “I don’t like seeing you this way, but… honestly, if you had it together right now, and you didn’t seem worried about what happened to me, I’d be way more freaked out.”
A watery smile comes into Aiden’s beautiful eyes.
“Still saying all the right things to make me feel better,” he mumbles, sniffling softly. “How do you do that even when you have no idea what’s going on?”
“I - don’t know.” I’m glad he’s not looking at me, so he can’t see the blush burning across my cheeks. “But you’ll help me remember.”
I sink as much faith and confidence into that sentence as possible, hoping he can hear it, see it written all over my face.
Aiden stares at me, then hangs his head, trying to even out his breaths.
“Okay. Okay, okay.” He closes his eyes, presses his fingers over them for a second. “How do I fix it? What do I do?”
“Can’t you just do some magic? Give me back whatever I…?”
I fade off and tilt my head to the side questioningly as Aiden flinches at the suggestion.
“Any magic I do to fix this is gonna have to be memory magic, and I don’t - especially with you, I’d really rather not risk that. I’ll try it if I absolutely have to, but that’s the last resort. There’s gotta be something else we can try first. Maybe if we just find a way to jog your memory? Help you see through the illusion?”
I cast my mind around for ideas, and come up empty-handed. Something is starting to distract me.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Aiden. “I’m trying to come up with something, but it’s hard to think when I’m this hungry.”
Aiden gives himself a shake, pulling himself out of his thoughts.
“Yeah, you must be starving. I definitely am.” He picks up a snapback that was on the couch and settles it down over his glossy chestnut locks. Pulling the brim down low over his eyes, trying to hide the last of the tears in them from me. “I’m guessing you’re starting to get a headache, too.”
I draw back in surprise, because - he’s right. My head actually is starting to ache. How did Aiden know that? I guess he said he can do magic. Can he read my mind? I hope not, or else he’s definitely aware of how painfully sexy I find him.
“Yeah, you need some caffeine.” He nods knowingly, a flash of affection going through his eyes. “Come on, I’ll make us something to eat while we come up with a plan.”
He starts to turn away, and I gently catch him by his upper arm. I didn’t plan to do that, so I don’t have an explanation for him when he stops and looks down at me, blinking fast in surprise.
Without understanding why, I reach up and take his snapback off of his head. I turn it around and put it on him backwards, so that his soft chestnut hair is swept back and out of his eyes. For some reason everything looks more right to me, this way.
Aiden lets me do it, gazing down at me with a vivid, unreadable expression in his eyes.
“Hey, one more thing,” I add, trying my hardest not to blush beneath that intense blue gaze. “Am I Jamie? That’s what you called me, right?”
Aiden bites his trembling lip, then nods slowly.
“Yeah,” he says, very softly. “You’re Jamie. Still Jamie.”
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