The Wall of Winnipeg and Me: A Novel

“Oh shit.”

I spotted the black Range Rover in the parking lot the instant the taxi pulled up in front of the complex by the guest entrance. There was no way I could miss it; I’d taken it to get an oil change and a wash a few times in the past. It wasn’t necessarily the nicest car in the lot—a few of my neighbors had Escalades and Mercedes that I wasn’t sure how they afforded—but I recognized Aiden’s license plate number.

Yet it still caught me off guard to see it there.

He hadn’t exactly left my apartment with a smile on his face a few days ago. After I clearly told him I didn’t want to go back to work for him, he’d looked at me like I was speaking a different language, and asked, “Is this a joke?”

There went arrogance for you.

I’d answered the only way I would. “No.”

He had gotten to his feet, turned his attention toward the ceiling for a moment, and left. And that was that.

The last thing I expected was for him to come back. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’d learned that this was a person who once he put his mind to something, nothing deterred him from his goal. This was the person who only heard what he wanted to hear. That didn’t exactly leave me with a warm, fuzzy feeling. I guess a big part of me just wanted and expected to make a clean cut with him, especially after he’d made his lack of loyalty so apparent.

The fact that he’d somehow gotten my address and gone out of his way to come to my apartment when he hadn’t even been able to put in a single effort to ask me how I was doing, frustrated me more than it probably should have. It was too little too late. All I would have wanted from him in the past was at least a little bit of loyalty, if not friendship, and he hadn’t even been able to give me that.

“Everything all right, ma’am?”

“Everything is fine, thanks,” I lied, gripping the handle. “I thought I lost my keys, but I found them. How much do I owe you?”

Paying my fee, I slipped out of the car and hurried through the gate.

I made my way toward my apartment with one hand wrapped around my pepper spray and the other with my keys and wristlet, all too aware that I’d had too much wine to drink to deal with this crap right now.

My visitor was in the same spot on the stairs I’d found him days ago.

Aiden’s gaze almost immediately landed on me, hovering on the hem of the dress I’d worn to dinner as he climbed to his size-thirteen feet. Dressed in workout shorts that reached his knees and a T-shirt, I was pretty sure he’d left practice and come straight over. If my dates were right, the team was halfway through preseason training camp, focused more on the rookies than on veterans like Aiden.

“We need to talk,” he stated immediately, his eyes scraping their way to my chest and catching on the low dip of the cotton sundress right between my breasts.

Huh.

I gave him a side look as I approached my door, ignoring the curious expression he was giving me. It wasn’t like I hadn’t worn dresses around him before, but none of them had been above my knee, and they had all covered The Girls. The one I had on now? Not so much. But it had been my ‘I’m meeting up with a man for the first time in almost two years’ dress on a blind date with someone I’d met on the matchmaking website I’d signed up for a few weeks back. While we’d gotten along pretty well in the messages we’d exchanged, we hadn’t hit it off in person. Paranoid about meeting a stranger that could write down my license plate, I’d taken a cab to the Italian restaurant we were having dinner at.

“Give me a few minutes,” he said in a slightly less confident and aggressive tone, his eyes still dipping to my dress.

The temptation to say ‘Oh, you finally want to talk after two years?’ was on the tip of my tongue, but I held it back and raised my eyebrows at him before sliding the key into the lock.

A muscle in his cheek twitched and he ground out, “Please.”

Hell was about to freeze over. He’d said please?

Before I could think about it much more, voices suddenly came from one of the apartments above mine, damn it. Aiden’s big frame was a little too eye-catching, especially when he happened to be a celebrity in Dallas. Just a few days ago, I’d seen a handful of Three Hundreds jerseys around the complex with GRAVES stitched on the back. The last thing I needed was for someone to see him when I had made sure for years not to let anyone find out he was my boss.

“Come in,” I muttered, waving him in quickly before someone spotted him.

He didn’t need to be told twice. Aiden squeezed his way inside with just enough time for me to close and lock the door just as three men came down the stairs. I walked around him and headed into the kitchen overseeing my living room, frustrated with myself for inviting him in.

“You look different.” His comment had my steps faltering for a moment.

“I’ve worn dresses in front of you before,” I snapped a little more bitterly than I would have liked.

“Not one like that,” came the quick, nearly brash retort that came out aggressively enough for me to frown. “I wasn’t talking about your shirt.”

My shirt?

“You look different.”

I sniffed and circled around the kitchen counter. “My hair is a different color, and I lost weight. That’s all.”

Taking a seat at my small table, Aiden’s gaze brushed over the part of my body he could see, my face, my neck, chest, and bare arms. Good lord, he made me self-conscious. Making another sweep over me with those dark orbs, his thick eyebrows climbed up his forehead as he made an indiscriminate noise, like a “hmm.” Like most things with Aiden, another thought immediately forgotten. The next comment out of his mouth confirmed it. “I want you to come work for me again.”

I couldn’t hold back my groan as I turned to the refrigerator.

“I mean it,” he kept going as if I doubted him.

I took my time opening the fridge, and ducked inside to pull out the water jug in there. I was stubborn. I accepted my flaw honestly. But Aiden? Good grief. He had me beat by a landslide; he took stubborn and hardheaded to a whole new level. He was supposed to have just forgotten my existence after a couple of days.

Keeping my attention down as I closed the fridge door, I took a calming breath in and let it out. I knew him, and the way he was acting really shouldn’t be a surprise. It was like spoiling a kid his entire life and then trying to put your foot down once it was too late. I’d let him get away with too much over the course of the time we’d known each other, and I had to deal with it now. “I meant what I said too. I don’t want to, and I’m not going to.”

Silence ticked by, second on top of second, buoyant and endless with the things I thought we both could have said to each other but didn’t.

The chair Aiden was sitting on creaked with his weight. I didn’t want to look at him. “You don’t get on my nerves,” he noted almost as if I’d cured cancer.

I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t even look at him. You don’t get on my nerves. I had to set the jug on the counter, and grip the sharp edge of the countertop with my free hand. How did he expect me to respond? Did he want me to thank him for such a heartfelt compliment?

I counted. One, two, three, four so that I wouldn’t just blurt something out in frustration. Picking and choosing my words carefully, I lifted my head and pulled a glass out of the cabinet. “Tell your next employee that talking isn’t required,” I said as I poured water into my cup.

“I never told you that,” his rough, low voice responded.

“You didn’t have to.” Actions spoke louder than words after all.

He let out an exasperated noise and followed it up by saying something that stopped me in the middle of putting the water jug back in the fridge. “You’re a good employee.”

One, two, three, four, five.

Of all the things he could have said…

I could have smacked him in the face right then. I really could have. “There are plenty of good employees in the world. You pay well enough for someone to not half-ass their duties.” I set the water into the fridge and closed the door. “I don’t know why you’re here. Why you’re insisting that you want me to come back when I don’t want to be your assistant anymore, Aiden. I can’t make myself any clearer.”

There. I’d said it, and it was painful and relieving at the same time. “Do you remember when I first started working for you? Do you remember how I’d tell you good morning every day and ask how you were doing?”

He didn’t reply.

Perfect. “And do you remember how many times I’ve asked you if there was something wrong, or tried to joke around with you only for you to ignore me?” I licked my lips and paused where I was, one shoulder against the refrigerator, able to see him at the kitchen table. “I don’t think anyone could get on your nerves unless you let them. And anyway, I told you that none of this matters any more anyway. I don’t want to work for you.”

The big guy sat forward in his seat, his nostrils flaring. “It matters because I want you to come back.”

“You didn’t even care that I was there to begin with.” Sudden irritation at what he was trying to do set the nerves of my spine on fire. You will not bang your head against the fridge. You will not bang your head against the fridge. “You don’t even know me—”

“I know you,” he cut me off.

Exasperation like I didn’t know gripped my chest. “You don’t know me. You’ve never tried to know me, so don’t give me that,” I snapped and immediately felt guilty for some stupid reason. “I told you I was quitting, and you didn’t give a shit. I don’t know why you care now, but it doesn’t matter. This work relationship between you and me is done, and that was all we had to begin with. Find someone else, because I’m not going back to work for you. That’s the end of the story.”

Aiden didn’t blink, didn’t inhale or exhale; he didn’t even twitch. His gaze was locked on me like his pupils were all-knowing lasers capable of emotional manipulation. For the longest moment in time, there wasn’t a single sound in my tiny apartment. Then abruptly, in a tone that was completely Aiden, as if he hadn’t just heard a single word that came out of my mouth, he said, “I don’t want someone new. I want you.”

I suddenly wished I could have recorded his comeback so I could sell it on the Internet to the hundreds of girls who filled his inbox every week with offers of dates, blow jobs, companionship, and sex.

But I was too busy getting more and more aggravated by the second to do so.

Where the hell was he getting the nerve to say that to me?

“Maybe—and I just want you to think about it for the future—you should consider what other factors are important in employee retention. You know, like making people feel appreciated, giving them a reason to stay loyal to you. It isn’t just about a paycheck,” I replied as gently as I could, even though I knew damn well he didn’t exactly deserve to get handled with kid gloves. “You’ll find someone. It’s just not going to be me.”

His brown eyes sharpened and left an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. “I’ll pay you more.”

“Listen to me. This isn’t about money, for freaking sake.”

About a thousand different thoughts seemed to go through his head in that instant as one of his cheeks pulled back into what seemed like half a grimace.

I had no idea what he was thinking, and I sighed. How did we get to this point? Six weeks ago, I couldn’t get him to tell me ‘Hello.’ Now, he was at my apartment, sitting at my hand-me-down dining room table, asking me to work for him again after I’d walked out.

It was like an episode of The Twilight Zone.

His chin tipped back in a determined gesture I was too familiar with. “My visa expires next year,” he ground out.

And… I shut my mouth.

A few months ago, I remembered opening his mail, and seeing something about his visa in an official-looking letter. A letter that I thought he might have gotten again right before I quit, when I’d told him he needed to check the things I’d left on his desk.

I didn’t get how a visa could be used as an excuse for being a jerk.

“Okay. Did you already send the paperwork to renew it?” The words had no sooner come out of my mouth than I was asking myself what the hell I was doing. This wasn’t my business. He’d made it not my business.

But I still wasn’t expecting it when he said, “No.”

I didn’t understand. “Why not?” Damn it! What the hell was I doing asking questions? I scolded myself.

“It’s a work visa,” his words were slow, like I was mentally impaired or something.

I still didn’t get what the problem was.

“It’s subjective to me playing for the Three Hundreds.”

I blinked at him, thinking maybe he’d taken one too many hits to the skull in his career. “I don’t get what the problem is.”

Before I could ask him why he was worried about his visa when any team he signed with would help him get a new one, he cleared his throat. “I don’t want to go back to Canada. I like it here.”

This was the same Winnipeg native that had only once gone back to his motherland in all the time we’d worked together. I’d grown up in El Paso, but I didn’t go ‘home’ much either because nothing really felt like home any more. I hadn’t had a place that made me feel safe or loved or warm, or any of the feelings I figured could be associated with what ‘home’ should feel like.

I glanced at the wall to the side of his head, waiting for the next revelation to help make sense of what he was saying. “I’m still not understanding what the issue here is.”

With a deep sigh, he propped his chin on his hand, and he finally explained. “If I’m not on a team, I can’t stay here.”

Why wouldn’t he be playing? Was his foot bothering him? I wanted to ask him but didn’t. “Okay… isn’t there some other kind of visa you can apply for?”

“I don’t want to get another visa.”

I blew out a breath and shut the refrigerator door, my fingers instantly going up to my glasses. “Okay. Go talk to an immigration lawyer. I’m sure one of them can help you get your permanent residency.” I chewed on my cheek for a second before adding, “You have money to get it worked on, and that’s a lot better than most people have it.” Then an idea entered my head, and before I thought twice about suggesting it, or talked myself out of not saying anything because I wasn’t feeling particularly friendly, I blurted it out. “Or just find an American citizen to marry you.”

His gaze had drifted to the ceiling at some point, but in that moment, he shifted it to scrutinize me. Those broad features were even and smooth, and not even remotely close to a scowl.

“Find someone you like, date them for a little bit or something, and then ask them to marry you. You can always get divorced afterward.” I paused and thought about a distant cousin of Diana’s. “There’s also people out there who would do it if you paid them enough, but that’s kind of tricky because I’m pretty sure it’s a felony to try to get your papers fixed by marrying someone for that reason. It’s something to think about.”

I blinked, noticing his expression had gone from scrutinizing to contemplating. Thoughtful. Too thoughtful. This weird sensation crept over my neck. Weird, weird, weird, telling me something was off, telling me I should probably get out of his line of view. I took a step back and eyed him. “What is it?”

Nothing in this world could have prepared me for what came out of his mouth next.

“Marry me.”

“What?” It came out of my mouth as surprised and rude as I imagined it did, I was positive of it.

He was on drugs. He was seriously on fucking drugs.

“Marry me,” he repeated himself, like I hadn’t heard him the first time.

I leaned back against the kitchen counter, torn between being weak from shock and dumbfounded from how ridiculous his statement was, and settled for just staring blankly in the general direction of his granite-like face. “You’re on dope, aren’t you?”

“No.” The usually taut corners of Aiden’s mouth relaxed a fraction of an inch; the tension in his body diminishing just a tiny amount, but it was enough for me to notice. “You can help me get my residency.”

What in the hell was going on with him? Maybe it was brain damage after all. I’d seen some of the guys he went up against, how could he have gotten off scot-free after so many years? “Why would I do that?” I gaped. “Why would I even want to do that?”

That strong jaw seemed to clench.

“I don’t want to work for you, much less marry you to help you get your papers fixed.” An idea rang through my brain, and I almost threw my hands up in joy at the brilliance behind it. “Marry someone who can do all your assistant stuff, too. It makes perfect sense.”

He’d started nodding when I brought up the assistant idea, but the emotion in his eyes was a little disturbing. He looked way too determined, too at peace with whatever crazy crap was going on in his big head. “It’s perfect,” he agreed. “You can do it.”

I choked. As badly as I wanted to say something—to argue with him or just tell him he’d lost his mind—nothing managed to come out of my mouth. I was flabbergasted. Fucking flabbergasted.

Aiden was on crack.

“Are you insane? Did you drop a barbell on your neck bench pressing?”

“You said it; it’s a perfect plan.”

What had I done? “It’s not perfect. It’s nowhere near perfect,” I blabbered. “I don’t work for you anymore, and even if I did, I wouldn’t do it.” Seriously? He was thinking I would? I didn’t know him to be anything but practical, and this was just outrageous.

But he wasn’t listening. I could tell. He had his thinking face on. “Vanessa, you have to do it.”

Did he not understand that we weren’t friends? That he’d treated me in the opposite way you would treat someone you cared about?

“No. I don’t and I’m not.” If I met the right person, I wasn’t opposed to getting married some day in the future. I didn’t think about marriage often, but when I did, I kind of liked the idea of it. Diana’s parents had been a perfect example of a great relationship; of course, I’d want something like that in the future, if it was possible. Realistically, I knew I would be fine on my own too.

And I wasn’t going to scratch kids off my list of things I’d like if I also had the right person in my life. I faintly knew what I wanted in a partner, but more than anything, I knew what I didn’t want.

And Aiden, even on his best days, wasn’t that person. Or anywhere near it. Sure he was good-looking; anyone with eyes could see that. His body alone had women of all ages turning in their seats to get a good look because Aiden breathed virility, and what woman didn’t like a man who looked like he drank testosterone in gallons? He was a big drink of cool water, or so I’d been told. Okay, and he had money, but that wasn’t a hard requisite for a future boyfriend or husband. I could make my own money.

That was it though.

Except for the first three months of my employment, I had never once thought to myself that I had feelings for The Wall of Winnipeg. I was physically attracted to him, sure. But for me, and because of everything I’d seen my mom go through, jumping from one relationship to another my entire life, that wasn’t enough. My last boyfriend hadn’t been the best looking guy on the planet, but he’d been funny and nice, and we liked the same things. We got along. The only reason we’d split up was because he’d been offered a job in Seattle, and I hadn’t been convinced I was head over heels in love with him enough to move across the country, even further away from the few people in my life who mattered to me. I’d done it once already going to school in Tennessee.

Aiden didn’t fit any of the same qualifications my ex had. He wasn’t funny or nice, we didn’t like the same things, and based on the last two weeks of our work relationship, we didn’t get along.

And why the hell was I even thinking about reasons why this was a bad idea? It was a terrible one point blank. One I wasn’t going to go through with. No way, no how.

Aiden, on the other hand, wasn’t paying attention. He didn’t have to say a word for me to know he was ignoring everything coming out of my mouth.

“Aiden, listen to me”—for the second time in your life, I added in my head—“I’m sure Trevor can find you someone. Just ask.”

That comment had him snapping to attention. His thick, dark eyebrows straightened. “I’m not telling Trevor.”

I pushed at my glasses even though they were in place.

“Would you?” he questioned.

Yeah, that had me wincing. I wouldn’t trust Trevor to put something in the mail for me. “What about Rob?”

No response.

Huh. Touché. “Zac?”

Aiden simply shook his head in denial.

“Your friends?”

“I would have told them already if I wanted them to know,” he explained in a careful tone that made too much sense.

With that comment, a few things suddenly made sense. Of course he’d been serious about coming back from his injury. But on top of that, his extra terrible mood at the fear of being deported if he was let go by the organization added to that. Even more so, dealing with his manager and agent, who didn’t seem to be totally onboard with whatever it was Aiden wanted once his contract came to the end, only made matters worse. But there was one thing that didn’t really add up once I thought about it, and it wasn’t the reason why he didn’t want to go back to Canada or why he didn’t want to stay in Dallas.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked hesitantly.

Those brown irises settled on me, lines scorching his broad forehead.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I frowned in return. “You’ve never really told me anything before.” I blinked. “Ever. But now I quit, and you’re suddenly over at my apartment, asking me to come back to work for you when you hadn’t given a single crap that I was quitting, and you want me to marry you to get your papers fixed. You’re telling me things you don’t want to tell anyone else about and… it’s weird, man. I don’t know what the hell you expect me to tell you.”

“I’m telling you because…” He opened his mouth and closed it just as quickly. Opened it once more before closing it again, the muscles in his cheeks moving, as if he didn’t really know why he was doing so. Hell, I didn’t get it. Finally, Aiden shrugged those massive, rounded shoulders and made sure our gazes met. “I like you as much as I like anyone.”

Damn it.

God damn it.

Diana had told me once that I had no backbone. Actually, I’m pretty sure her exact words had been, “You’re a sucker, Van.”

I like you as much as I like anyone shouldn’t have been a compliment. It really shouldn’t have. I wasn’t that dumb. But…

A rough laugh tore its way out of me unexpectedly, and then I was snickering, raising my eyes to the popcorn ceiling.

Coming from someone like Aiden, I guess it was the biggest compliment I could ever get.

I like you as much as I like anyone. My word.

“Why is that funny?” Aiden asked, a frown curving his mouth.

I slapped a hand over my eyes and leaned forward over the kitchen countertop, giggling a little as I rubbed at my brow bone in resignation. “There’s a huge difference between me not irritating the hell out of you and us being friends, Aiden. You’ve made that perfectly clear, don’t you think?”

His blink was innocent, so earnest, I had no idea what to do with it. “I don’t mind you.”

I don’t mind you.

I started cracking up—really cracking up—and I was pretty sure it sounded like I was crying when I was really laughing.

“You’re the most even-tempered woman I’ve ever met.”

Even-tempered. He was killing me.

This was what my life had come to. Taking half-assed compliments from a man who only cared about one thing: himself. A man who I’d tried to make my friend over and over again to no avail.

To give him credit, he waited a bit before saying carefully, way too calmly, and almost gently, “This isn’t funny.”

I had to squat down behind the kitchen cabinets because my stomach was clenching so badly.

“You’re asking me—oh, hell, my stomach hurts—to perform a felony, and your reasoning for having me do so is because you ‘like me as much as you like anyone,’ because you ‘don’t mind me,’ and because I’m ‘even-tempered.’” I held my hands up to do air quotes over the top of the cabinets. “Holy crap. I didn’t think you had a sense of humor, but you do.”

The best defensive player in the NFO didn’t hesitate with the opening I gave him. “You’ll do it then?”

I couldn’t even find it in me to be annoyed by his persistence after that. I was still laughing too much over my greatest attributes as a possible fake wife. “No, but this has been the highlight in my time knowing you. Really. I wish you’d been like this with me from the beginning. Working for you would have been a lot more fun, and I might have even thought about coming back for a little bit longer.”

It still wasn’t enough though. Working for him permanently wasn’t part of the plan, especially not after everything that happened, and everything he was asking of me now. Marry him.

He was out of his damn mind.

The plan after becoming entirely self-employed on my graphic design work was to pay off the terrifying amount of student loans I still had, buy my own house, buy a new car, and the rest… it could all fall into place in its own time. Travel, find someone I liked enough to be in a relationship with, maybe have a kid if I wanted one, and continue my financial independence.

And to make money, I needed to work, so I forced myself to my feet and shrugged at my old boss. “Look, you’ll find someone if you just try a little. You’re attractive, you have money, and you’re a decent guy most of the time.” I made sure to pin him with a look that emphasized the ‘most of the time.’ “If you found someone who you liked, even a little bit, I’m sure you could make it work. I’d give you one of my friends’ phone numbers, but they’d drive you nuts after ten minutes, and I’m not mad enough at you to give you any of my sisters’.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, not knowing what else to say, fully aware that I would more than likely never understand what had led him to this time and moment with me.

And what did he do?

His eyes roamed my face as his forehead wrinkled and he shook his head. “I need your help.”

“No you don’t.” Shrugging again, I offered him a reluctant smile, a gentle one because I was well aware he wasn’t used to having someone tell him no. “You’ll figure everything out on your own. You don’t need me.”