The Wall of Winnipeg and Me - Mariana Zapata Page 0,187

didn’t walk by, it was because they’re blind and dumb, I told you, Van. You had the best-looking promo stuff out of everyone. I took your bookmarks.”

“You really took my bookmarks?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Two.”

He was killing me. He was slowly killing me. “You sneaky ass.” I smiled even wider and patted the hand he had on me. “I really can’t believe you’re here. In The Motherland.”

“I’m from Winnipeg.”

“I know what city you’re from, dummy. I just thought you would never come to Canada.”

Aiden paused. “I don’t hate it here.”

“But you never want to visit and you don’t want to live here. Isn’t that why you… got me? Because you don’t want to move back here?”

“I don’t want to live here.”

“Because of your parents?” I had the nerve to ask.

His head kind of tilted, that full mouth forming a thoughtful line. “They’ll never be the reason I make a decision ever again, Van. I don’t want to live here anymore. I don’t have anyone here except Leslie.” The fork in his hand jerked. “Everything I care about is in the States.”

I gave him a wary look and nodded as if I understood, but I didn’t. Not really.

The big guy just touched me again and I smiled that time.

“I owe you big time.”

That had him groaning before he dug back into the tofu he had on his lap. “You don’t owe me anything,” he said into the container.

“I do. You have no clue how much this all meant to me.”

Aiden rolled his eyes, even though he was glancing down.

“I’m serious. You have no idea. I can’t thank you enough.”

“I don’t need your thanks.”

“Yeah, you do. I want you to know how much it means to me. My own mom didn’t even show up to my college graduation, and you caught a flight to come sit with me and be bored out of your mind for hours. You have no idea how much you’ve made my day—my month.”

He shook his head and raised his gaze, his long eyelashes sweeping low as he leveled that ring of warm brown on mine. “You haven’t left me when I needed you. Why wouldn’t I do the same for you?”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“My friends are coming to visit after I get back from the All Star Bowl.”

Leaning against the counter two days after we got back from Toronto, I gulped down the rest of the water in my glass and narrowed my eyes in Aiden’s direction. Sitting at the breakfast table, he’d greeted Zac and me when we’d dragged our feet inside following our run a few minutes ago.

I was exhausted, beyond exhausted, and with only three weeks left until the marathon, I was seriously beginning to doubt I’d be able to finish it. I’d been struggling to finish eighteen miles a week ago, so a little over twenty-six? Eighteen miles was more than I ever imagined I could do, so I realized I wasn’t appreciating the long strides I’d taken over the last few months. Needless to say, I was busy worrying about how the hell I was going to tackle eight more miles when Aiden made his comment.

I blinked at him. “What?”

“My friends are coming to visit…” He trailed off as if making sure I was listening. “After the All Star Bowl.”

I was listening, but I didn’t get why he was giving me a strange, expectant look. He’d learned he was voted into the All Star Bowl when we’d flown back to Dallas from Toronto. He was set to leave tomorrow. “Okay…”

“They’re coming to visit us.”

Slowly backing up toward one of the stools at the island, I slid onto it, forcing my sluggish, distracted brain to focus. Us. He’d said us. They were coming to visit—

Oh shit. “Us.”

He nodded solemnly, watching me closely.

Okay. “And they want to stay here?” I asked, even though it was a stupid question that I already knew the answer to. Every time his friends had come by in the past, they had always stayed with him.

Why would this time be any different?

Oh right, because I lived with him and stayed in the room that had always been used as a guest room.

And because we were legally technically married and had agreed to pull this charade off so neither one of us would get in trouble with the law.

Oh hell.

Realistically, it wasn’t the end of the world, and we could figure something out. We could. We would. It wasn’t a big deal. This was bound to happen at one point or another.