The Wall of Winnipeg and Me - Mariana Zapata Page 0,147

to call me The Blind Giraffe.” Where’s The Blind Giraffe at? Bitches. “I was all legs and glasses—ooh look. They’re about to play.”

From the first time I jumped to my feet to cheer on my brother, I could tell Aiden wasn’t prepared for what kind of fan I was. At least, what kind of fan I was for my little brother. By the beginning of the second half, he had started leaning away from me, fussing and whispering, “You’re scaring me,” after I got to my feet and started yelling at the ref for a shitty call made against Oscar, my little brother.

But it was the way he made his eyes go wide during halftime and pretend to shrink even further away from me that made me laugh.

“Who are you?” he deadpanned, which made me snicker.

“What? I was the same way at your game yesterday.”

Those black eyelashes hung low over his eyes. “Zac’s seen you?”

I nodded.

Aiden blinked. “I think I want my jersey back.”

I blinked back. “Tough shit, sunshine. It’s mine now.”

The corners of his mouth had barely started to pull up when someone yelled, “The Three Hundreds suck! You suck, Toronto!”

What in the hell?

Just as I started to glance around to see what idiot was yelling, Aiden’s index finger touched my chin. I stopped. “Don’t bother.”

“Why?” I tried turning my head, but apparently his finger had Hulk-like strength because it didn’t go anywhere.

“Because I don’t care what he thinks,” he said in a tone so serious I quit trying to look elsewhere and focused in on that handsome, grave face.

“But it’s rude.” His hand moved from my chin around to the back of my head, that big palm cupping my neck. His thumb to the tip of his middle finger seemed to stretch nearly all the way around my throat.

“Do you think I suck?” he asked me, seriously, in a voice low enough for only me to hear.

I snorted, about to open my mouth and say something really smart-ass, but his thumb dug deep, the pressure making me groan out a hoarse noise of holy shit, do it again. But somehow I managed to say, “No,” instead.

“Then why would I care what someone else thinks?” he murmured, steady and confident.

I didn’t lower my face as I told him the truth. “I can’t help it. I didn’t like people talking about you when I worked for you, and I like it even less now.”

Those dark brown eyes bore into mine. “Even when you used to flip me off?”

“Just because you’ve made me mad doesn’t mean I ever stopped caring about you, dummy,” I whispered in a frown, totally conscious of the guys sitting behind us. “I would have done just about anything for you back then, even when you got on my nerves. I might have just waited until the last minute to push you out of oncoming traffic, but I’d still push you out of the way.”

I tipped my head in the direction of where the idiot had yelled from a minute ago. “Now it’s definitely going to bother me that you’re just minding your own business, living your life, and someone you don’t know is yelling that kind of stuff. That guy doesn’t know you. Who is he to talk shit to you?”

Damn it, just thinking about it had me craning my neck to try and turn around, but the hand on my neck kept me in place. All that intense Aiden-focus burned through the flesh of my skin, through the calcium of my bones, and straight into the very root of me. His nostrils flared at the same time as his thumb did that circle-massage thing that made my leg go numb.

“The only people in the world who can hurt you are those you let have that ability, Van. You said it—that guy doesn’t know me. In my entire life, I’ve only cared what four people thought about me. I’m not worried about that nobody back there, understand me?” His hand moved, one finger slipping behind my ear to rub around the shell where it met my head. Dry and callused, it was probably the most intimate thing anyone had ever done to me.

Words—breathing—life seemed to catch in my throat as I took in those incredibly long lashes framing such potent eyes. The line of his shoulders was imposing and endless. His face was so severe and thoughtful, it plucked at my heart, but somehow, somehow I got myself to nod, the world in my throat. “I