The Wall of Winnipeg and Me: A Novel

Flipping my grilled cheese sandwich over, I snickered into the phone. “I’m not going. I don’t think he liked me much anyway, either.”

“I didn’t like Jeremy until our third date and look at us now.” Diana’s argument was probably the worst one she could have chosen.

The five times I’d met him over the last six months was five times too many. I knew for a fact her brother felt the same way about him. We’d hung out with him for Diana’s birthday, and within minutes, we’d shared a ‘he’s a jackass’ glare. Neither of us tried to hide our dislike, and in this instant, nothing actually came out of my mouth, which said more than enough, I figured.

Not surprisingly, she knew what the silence was for and sighed. “He’s really nice to me.”

I highly doubted that. The times we’d gone out, he’d tried to pick a fight with someone… for no reason. He seemed high strung, moody, and way too cocky. Plus, I didn’t like the vibe he gave off, and I’d learned to listen to my gut when it came to people.

I’d told her enough times how I felt, but she continuously brushed it off. “Hey, I don’t have anything nice to say, so I’m not going to say anything,” I told her.

The big sigh that came out of her let me know she didn’t want to talk about Jeremy anymore—well aware it was a lost cause. Nothing would get me to change my mind about him unless he saved my life or something. “I still think you should go on another date. At least you can get a few drinks out of it.”

Why had I even told her my date last night had invited me out again? I knew better. I really did. “I drank about as much wine as my liver could handle last night just to get through two hours. I’m good.”

She made a “meh” noise. “There’s no such thing as too much wine.”

“Is there something I should know about?”

“I don’t know. Is there?”

“I don’t know, Betty Ford. You tell me.”

The person who was almost as much of a sister as she was my friend, barked out that familiar loud laugh that was about as close to home as possible. “Fuck you. I only drink two, maybe three times a week.”

“If that’s your way of trying to convince me you don’t have a drinking problem, it isn’t working.” I laughed.

She blew out a raspberry. “I don’t even know why I talk to you sometimes.”

“Because no one else likes you but me, your brother, and the boys?”

Di made a genuine thoughtful noise. “That’s probably it.”

We both burst out laughing at the same time.

“When are you free?” I asked. I hadn’t seen her since she’d dyed my hair.

“Oh, ah, let me get back to you. I have plans with Jeremy.”

Yeah, I might have rolled my eyes a little. “Well, let me know when you don’t.” I let the Jeremy thing in one ear and out the other.

“I will. I wanted to try a different color on you. Are your roots showing yet?”

I was in the middle of mulling over how she hadn’t asked if she could dye my hair again when three sharp knocks rattled my door. “Hold on one second.” Turning off the stovetop range, I made my way toward the door. It wasn’t either of my neighbors; neither of them knocked hard enough so that the door rattled on the rare occasion they dropped by.

With that thought, I knew exactly who it was before I even made it to the peephole.

“Fart breath, let me call you back later. I, uh, someone’s knocking on my door,” I explained abruptly. I still hadn’t told her, or anyone, about Aiden coming by to ask me to come work for him again, much less tell them that a week ago he’d asked me to marry him so he could become a permanent resident. I had thought about calling Zac, but decided against it.

“Okay. Bye.” I didn’t get a chance to say bye before the dial tone filled the receiver.

“Who is it?” I asked, even though I would have bet twenty bucks I already knew.

“Aiden,” the voice on the other side of the door answered just as I went up on my tippy-toes to peer into the peephole. Sure enough, a tan complexion with chocolate-colored eyes and a familiar, tightly pressed mouth greeted me through the glass.

It wasn’t until I opened the door that I realized he had a hoodie on and over his dark hair. I raised my eyebrows at him as he stood there, resembling his nickname as his shoulders took up the doorframe. He really did look like a damn human wall. “You’re back.” I blinked. “Again.”

While I grudgingly accepted that sometimes I didn’t have a backbone, I was also well aware that once you gave me a reason to stop liking you, it was nearly impossible to win yourself back into my good graces. You could ask Susie. While I could get over Aiden being a grumpy little B, the Trevor thing had gotten him into irreconcilable territory. Basically, he’d made it to The Land of the Forgotten. When it came down to it, he’d hurt me.

He gave me a look I wasn’t sure how to interpret before slipping inside my apartment—without an invitation—his chest brushing against my arm in the process. He was radiating a massive amount of heat, and I didn’t need to look at the clock to know he’d just gotten out of a training session. He also smelled like he’d skipped a shower in the locker room.

I had just closed the door when Aiden stopped in the hallway, hands on his hips, giving me a hard glare that I didn’t understand. “You live with drug dealers.”

Oh.

I shrugged a shoulder at him. “They leave me alone.” Sure, I’d had to tell them “No thanks” about a dozen times, but I didn’t clarify that point.

“You know that they’re drug dealers?”

I shrugged again, deciding right then that this judgmental ass wasn’t going to find out some of the people in the buildings on either side of mine were in a notorious gang that hung blue bandanas out of their pockets. So I went with changing the subject, thinking about my sandwich sitting on the pan waiting for me. “Do you need something?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself, damn it.

Sure enough, Aiden nodded, still standing there in the hallway between the door, and the rest of my place. “You.”

Me.

In another world, with another person, I’d like to think that I would love to hear someone say they needed me. But… this was Aiden. Aiden who thought he “needed” me to marry him; Aiden who had only showed up to my apartment because he needed something from me. In my imagination, I shaped my fingers like a gun, held them up to my forehead and pulled the trigger. In reality, I just stared at him impassively, my eyelids lowering on their own, not amused. “No.”

“Yes.”

Good grief. “No.”

“Yes,” he insisted.

My stomach growled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten anything since having breakfast hours ago. Grumpiness started climbing up my shoulders, edging me on to getting an attitude with this delusional human being. Shoving my glasses up so that they rested on the top of my head, I rubbed at my eyes with a sigh; peeking at him with a blurry eye. “I’m honored, really,” if I was being honest with myself, not really, “but I’m the last person you should be asking.”

His nostrils flared, and he tipped his chin up high, his jawline accentuating. This massive man who faced other big men for a living was glowering at me. At me. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No—”

“Then there isn’t a problem.”

I rubbed at my eyes with the meaty part of my palms some more, and tried to rein in my frustration. Blowing out a breath, I set my glasses back on my nose, and stared at the behemoth in my hallway. Obviously, we were going to have to go there. “Where would you like me to start?”

When all he did was give me that look that made me want to stick my finger in his nose, I figured that expression was going to be the best answer I would get out of him. If he wanted to be a pain in the ass, I could be a pain in the ass too. What did I have to lose? We weren’t friends, and he hadn’t cared about my feelings before, so I shouldn’t feel guilty for being honest with him.

So I started. “Okay.” I rolled my shoulders for battle, eyeing the canvas piece with one of my favorite hardback covers for moral support. It was a heart made out of multicolored stilettos for a book called Heeling Love. I’d been pretty proud of myself for that one. “One, we don’t know each other.”

“We know each other,” Delusional argued.

I wanted to move on to my next claim, but apparently we weren’t going to be able to until he understood each of the more-than-apparent reasons why me helping him fix his immigration status was a terrible idea. “I know you pretty well, but you don’t know a single thing about me besides my first name. Do you even know my last name?”

“Mazur.”

I knew him. I freaking knew him, so I folded my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes. “You looked up my name, didn’t you?”

He was giving me the same face that drove me nuts. It was so damn smug. There was this one popular shot of him during a press conference after a game with a similar glare aimed at a reporter who had asked him a stupid question. Panties all over the U.S. were dropped that day. Yet the only thing that pointed chin, flat mouth, and cool eyes did to me was frustrate the shit out of me. “I don’t see what the problem is.”

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

“I don’t know whether you’re just pretending to be ignorant or if you really are just that hardheaded,” I gritted. “I worked for you for two years, and you didn’t know my last name. You couldn’t even tell me ‘Hi.’ Aiden, this isn’t you asking me to let you borrow twenty bucks or give you a ride to the airport. You don’t know me, and you don’t even like me. And that’s okay, I’m not worried about it, but we can’t ‘get married,’” I busted out the air quotes, “to fix your papers when you don’t like me. You can’t ignore me for years, not give a shit that I’m leaving, treat me like crap, and then expect me to jump to help you when you ask.”

“I told you. I like you as much—”

Oh my word. I was dealing with a brick wall. My eye almost twitched as I fought the urge to not make a pun about his nickname. “As you like anyone. Is that why you let Trevor talk about me? Because you like me?”

His hand went up to rub at the side of his neck, a color that was nearly pink staining his cheeks. “I do—” he started to argue. The pink managed to make its way down to his throat.

Damn it.

I had to count to six, my spine going rigid as I did it. My vocal chords went tight. This was so pointless. “Fine. Fine, Aiden. I don’t even know what the hell that means, but okay; you’ve sure shown me in the last two years. Now you don’t have an assistant and you want to become a resident and you’re here. That seems real genuine, don’t you think? But okay, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you can tolerate me for some strange reason, and you didn’t want me to get all conceited so you didn’t make it noticeable.” That sounded like total bullshit to my ears. “How about, what you’re asking me to do is a felony? I could go to jail and you could get deported? What about that?”

“It’s only illegal if you get caught.”

My mouth dropped open. I was at a total loss for words. Was this a dream? Was this even real life?

“I have a plan,” he concluded in that low, low voice that reminded me of an eighteen-wheeler revving its engine.

Too late, I had a feeling this was a lost cause. “The government takes this stuff seriously, you know. I would be the one going to jail, not you.” Okay, I didn’t know if I would really get jail time or not, but maybe.

“I’ve done my research. I have a plan.”

Here he went with his freaking plan again. “I have a plan too, and part of my plan isn’t to marry someone to help them get their immigration paperwork together. I’m sorry, Aiden. I’m really sorry, but you’re in about the best place you can be to find someone to marry you if that’s what you want. You shouldn’t have to though. Maybe you can pay somebody a lot of money to fast track your paperwork.”

“Getting married is the best way to go about it.” He paused. His big hands visibly clenched at his sides, and I swore he looked even bigger in that moment. “I don’t want another visa.”

My heart reacted a little because it was weak and pathetic, and because I felt like a jerk for telling him no. I hated not helping people who needed it. But this was ridiculous. Here was a man who had never been particularly kind to me or tried to be my friend until I’d quit on him. Now it seemed like he was asking the world of me, and I didn’t feel entitled to give it to him. “I don’t know what to tell you.” I shook my head. “You’re out of your mind. I’m not doing it, and I don’t know where you’re getting the balls to ask me to.”

His gaze locked on mine, irrepressible and unflinching, like I hadn’t just told him no again. His chin tipped up as his lips disappeared for a moment, curling behind his teeth. Teeth that I knew were white and perfect. “You’re that mad at me?”

I aimed my imaginary gun in his direction and pulled the trigger before taking a deep breath to calm myself. “Even if I would have left on good terms, I still wouldn’t go back to work for you, much less help you get your visa or your residency, or whatever it is you want to do.”

His eyes roamed my face slowly, making me extremely aware of the fact that I wasn’t wearing makeup… or a stinking bra. Luckily, I’d only seen Aiden look at something other than my face once, and that had been that night when he’d showed up and I had been in a short dress. Then again, I’d also never seen him glance at a woman’s chest or ass either. He’d told the media a dozen times in the past how he didn’t have time for relationships, and he was right. He didn’t. “I can see it in your face, Vanessa,” he stated, making me temporarily ignore the situation I was in.

The word stupid ricocheted around in my head. “I haven’t been mad at you since I walked out of your house.”

“You’re lying. You’re making that face you do when you’re trying not to show you’re angry,” he explained, even as his gaze stretched over me, making me feel pretty self-conscious.

“I’m not,” I practically grunted out.

His impassive face said what words didn’t. Liar.

I lost it. I was hungry, grumpy, and irritated. That was the absolute truth. From the way a vein in my forehead pulsed, I was still holding a not-so-insignificant amount of residual anger toward him too. “Okay. Fine. Yes, I’m still a little pissed at you. You let Trevor of all people talk about me behind my back.” I blinked. “Trevor.” By that point, my blood didn’t know whether to rush to my face or away from it. “Trevor would sell his own kid for a price. Maybe we’re not friends, but you have to have known I cared about you a lot more than fucking Trevor.”

Just saying his name aloud made me angry, and I had to tell myself to reel it in.

One, two, three, four, five.

I bit the inside of my cheek and blinked at him. “You’ve never said a single freaking ‘sorry’ to me ever. Do you understand how rude that is? You never apologize for anything, anything. After everything I did for you, everything I’ve ever done for you, things that went above being just your employee, and you just… I would never, ever let anyone talk shit about you,” I said, making sure his gaze met mine when I said it so he could understand, or at least see, that I wasn’t just being an asshole to be an asshole.

“On top of that, you were acting like a major prick before I quit,” I accused him, feeling that familiar burn of disappointment scorch my chest. “Why would I want to do anything for you? There’s no loyalty between us. We aren’t friends.” I shrugged. “You might not know anything about me, but I know almost everything there is to know about you, and that means nothing now. I’m done. I respected you. I admired you, and you just… didn’t care. I don’t know how you can expect me to brush all that off as nothing.”

Honestly, I was surprised I’d lost it, and I might have been even more shocked that I wasn’t panting at the end of my spiel.

The vein in my head was pulsing. My hands fisted, and I felt angrier than ever in the past. Yet, when I really focused in on the hoodie-wearing man standing five feet away in the hallway of my apartment, I couldn’t help but pause.

The cords in his neck pulled taut. The hard slashes of his cheekbones seemed more prominent than ever. But it was the emotion in the shape of his mouth that I had never seen before. “You’re right.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t expect him to sort of apologize—a small part of me, did. But…

What?

“I shouldn’t have let him say that.”

“No shit.”

He ignored my comment. “I should have treated you better.”

Was I supposed to disagree?

As if sensing how much his words were failing, Aiden’s shoulders pulled back in resolution. “I’m sorry.”

My hands opened and closed at my sides. I wasn’t sure what to say, even as I tried to steady the angry beat of my heart.

“You were a great assistant,” Aiden added.

I still kept on eyeing him. Of course I had been a good one, but I was also the only assistant he’d ever had so…

With a hand to his neck, his Adam’s apple bobbed. I’d swear those impressive shoulders slumped forward. “You’ve always been loyal to me, and I didn’t appreciate it until you were gone.”

Neither one of us said a word for a few extended moments. Maybe he was waiting for me to rail him again, and maybe I was waiting for him to ask me to do something that I didn’t want to do. Who knew? But it must have been long enough for Aiden to finally clear his throat.

“Vanessa, I’m sorry for everything.”

I could believe he was slightly sorry, but a bigger part of my conscience believed he wouldn’t be apologizing if he didn’t wanted something from me. I couldn’t help but feel skeptical, and I was positive that emotion was written all over my face.

But Aiden wasn’t an idiot or anywhere close to it, and he kept going. “I’ve been angry over other things that have nothing to do with you. I haven’t tried to be nice, that’s true, but I’ve never gone out of my way or wanted to be mean to you either.”

I snorted, the scene at the gym, and at the radio station at the front of my brain.

He must have known exactly what I was thinking about because he shook his head, frustrated or resigned, I didn’t know or care. “I’m sorry I took that out on you. Apologizing doesn’t change anything, but I mean it. I’m sorry.”

Did I want to ask what other things he was angry with? Of course. Of course I did. But I knew if I asked him to elaborate it would seem like a sign he was on the road to maybe, possibly winning me over.

He wasn’t.

So I kept my mouth shut. There was a lot of things I would be willing to forgive, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized he’d let me down when I didn’t have high hopes for him to begin with. Aiden became just another person who didn’t live up to the expectations I had. What kind of crap was that? Plus, the stresses surrounding him being an asshole for a short period of time didn’t explain the rest of the months and years he’d never given me the time of day.

Aiden kept watching me with those coffee-colored eyes, watching, watching, watching. “I’ve been incredibly stressed lately,” he said, his words like bait.

All this stuff I had already known.

He licked his top lip and tilted his head down before letting out a long, low exhale. “Can I use your bathroom?”

I pointed in the direction of my bedroom and nodded. “It’s in there.”

He disappeared through the door between my living room and kitchen a second later, and I took that moment to let out my own shaky breath. My head had started hurting just a little bit at some point, and I knew it was the result of hunger and tension. In the kitchen, I grabbed my now-cold sandwich, and leaned over the sink while I took a few bites out of the grilled cheese.

I wasn’t even halfway done eating when Aiden appeared, leaning against the doorway that led from the kitchen into my bedroom, crossing his arms over his chest. If I wasn’t in such a shitty mood, I would have appreciated the breadth of his shoulders, or how his arms were perfectly proportionate to the rest of his massive size. I didn’t need to look at his thighs to know those things had the width of a redwood tree.

“I’ll pay you,” he said while I was not checking him out.

Ready to tell him one more time that I was fine money-wise, Aiden kept going before I could.

He laid the bomb. “I’ll pay off your student loans and buy you a house.”

I dropped my sandwich in the sink.