Eight Weeks (Unfrozen Four Book 2)

“and once we start there ain’t no stopping”—Can I Kiss You? by Dahl

As fate would have it, my aunt was busy at work and couldn’t help me take all of my belongings over to the St. Trewery dorms, which means I needed someone else to drive me. I couldn’t possibly take a couple of suitcases on the bus, and I barely even had enough money to pay for said bus. Which meant calling an Uber is not an option at all.

My mother is going to send me some more money within the next couple of days. We both forgot how expensive everything is over here, though, Germany isn’t that much less expensive. But to be fair, I didn’t think I would have to pay for housing at my aunt’s, she’s my aunt after all. I just bet Hugo had his say in that decision.

Anyway, since my aunt can’t drive me, I asked Lily if she knew someone that would willingly help me. I’m not going to lie, when she said she knew just the right person she could persuade into helping me, I was thinking she meant her boyfriend. From what I have witnessed the past couple of weeks, I have the feeling that he can’t say no to her.

Imagine my surprise when instead of Colin a certain blonde guy with the most magical green eyes stands in front of me as I open the door to my aunt’s house.

“Glad to see you too, Icicle,” he says, clearly taking my stunned expression as a triumph of some sorts. “Didn’t I just help you move in here? Leaving me already?”

“Shut up, Nix.” I open the door wider for him, granting him access to the house even when all I want to do is slam the door right into his handsome face. “You know very well why I have to leave this house.”

“Germany, did your friend get here now?” As if on cue, my reason to leave makes himself noticeable. “Is it a she?”

I freeze. Every single inch of my body becomes stiffer as it has ever been. This man is the definition of the word “disgusting”. If I knew I would get away with murdering him, he would have been dead a long time ago. Unfortunately in this case, murder is considered a crime and I would not get away with it. Even if it was for the greater good.

“Don’t be disrespectful, Germany. Answer me!” From the thud that’s coming from the living room, I’d say he just threw his precious remote control across the room, like he does so very often when things don’t go his way.

Seconds later, I can hear footsteps coming from behind of me. I turn around just in time to see that slobby grey-haired man approaching Aaron and me.

He looks even more disgusting when he isn’t sitting in his armchair. The stains of old food on his shirt, not bothering to wear any pants because the only times he gets up from his armchair is when he uses the bathroom, gets a new beer, or goes upstairs to sleep. The beard that probably hasn’t been cared for in years, and the sickening dirty fingernails… it all comes into view when he actually stands in front of me.

“Not a cute girl-friend after all,” he says, his voice filled with disgust as he takes in Aaron’s figure. “Pretty faces don’t get far in life. I had one and look at me now.” His arms open as he turns around once, showing himself off.

My stomach turns, not only from having to look at this man, but from the smell of him.

Hugo smells like he hasn’t showered in weeks, and from the looks of it, he probably hasn’t. The smell of sweat with a mixture of beer, rotten food and whatever the hell one would define his breath as, it causes instant nausea.

My stomach is hurting from the smell of him, my eyes stinging.

It pains me so much, I willingly move to Aaron’s side, and lean my head against his body so I could smell him instead. And boy does he smell nice, even when a mere 6.5 foot away that smelly something stands, staring at my breasts.

Aaron must have noticed where Hugo’s eyes linger because when Hugo’s hand reaches out—even though he couldn’t reach me from that far away—Aaron instantly tugs me further into his side, turns me so most of my front would be covered by his body while his arm around me does the rest to cover up my breasts. Well, his hand does most of the covering.

I’m not even wearing anything tight to show off my body and my breast isn’t big at all, I’m not sure what he is seeing. I wouldn’t dare showing any skin here with Hugo around. God knows what would happen if he saw just that tiny bit too much of it.

“Hey, hey, now. No need to be so uptight,” Hugo says, dropping his hand.

My mind is trying to find words to say, trying to come up with anything that would shut him up, but for once I’ve got nothing.

Back in Germany, having good comebacks and a big mouth was what got you through school if you didn’t want to be at the receiving end of arrogant wannabe Ariana Grandes. I know how to make myself heard, how not to let words too close to my heart, and yet with every word Hugo utters, all I manage to come up with is a repetitive mantra of “Do not puke.”

“Where’s your room, love?” Aaron’s hand grazes the side of my breast, but he quickly moves it a tad further away from my body.

The short touch sends an awful lot of strange tingles through my entire body, waking up every single muscle. I’m well aware that he didn’t mean to touch me, I even appreciate the fact that he respects me enough not to do so even though everything would be so much better than have Hugo continue to stare at me like he is seconds away from jumping me. But I do have to admit, I wouldn’t mind Aaron touching me a little longer.

I point toward the stairs, telling Aaron to make his way up there. Thankfully he does without me having to say a word. Only when we made it inside of my room does Aaron let go off me and takes a step back. I almost laugh at the sudden loss of his warmth, but I’m not crazy enough to actually let it slip out to get questions thrown at my head.

“Thank you,” I say, not only talking about him helping me take my suitcases over to the dorms but also for what he did with Hugo. Not that he did much or said anything specific to scare my not-really-uncle off, but he helped nonetheless.

Aaron leans back against the closed door, crossing his arms over his chest, smirking at me while his eyes flicker back and forth from my chest to my eyes. “You know, if you don’t want your pedophilic uncle to stare at your boobs, maybe you should wear a shirt that isn’t see-through.”

“See-through?!” I run over to the wall-length mirror in this room, looking at myself only to find out that my shirt is, in fact, see-through. Not entirely but enough since the white fabric is still damp from my earlier escapade. That’s what I get for wearing a white shirt when I have to wash off a stain from my aunt’s bedsheets.

I barely had the time to change before Aaron rang the doorbell and I forgot about white fabric actually turning see-through when it gets wet.

“Turn around!” I whisper-yell, looking at Aaron through the mirror. The smirk on his face doesn’t fade, especially not when his eyes fall back down to my chest. “Nix!”

He doesn’t turn around. Instead, Aaron finds it to be a great idea to walk up to me, coming to a stop when his front is so close to my back, I can almost feel the heat from his body on mine.

I’m pretty sure my heart just sank into the floor, trying it’s best to hide from the only guy I know has enough power over me to break it into a million pieces with just a couple of words.

He frightens me. Having him this close to me, feeling his breath on my skin, his heat warming me and his eyes on mine has my blood run cold, freezing every inch of my body to the point where I can no longer move. And yet all I want to do is run away from him.

It doesn’t even make sense. Aaron this close to me makes as much sense as a butterfly in a beehive. It’s not supposed to be that way.

He grabs my shirt in his hand, pulling on it only to make it cling to my front even more than it already does. The wet shirt pressed against my body lets my skin show even more than before, granting him a much better view on my breasts than just outlines and shadows.

My nipples peak at the cold of the shirt, and even if I didn’t feel it, I can see it in the mirror. And if I can see it, so can Aaron, but he doesn’t comment on it.

“You’re wearing it again,” he says in such a low tone, I have to doublecheck if it’s really Aaron here in the room with me. It is.

His free hand finds to my neck, his finger hooking into the silver chain as he pulls it from underneath the shirt.

“Aaron…”

He lets go of the necklace, letting the Lego piece dangle between my boobs, his eyes following.

From what it looks like, Aaron is the calmest I’ve ever seen him. Yet the heat in his eyes says anything but.

“Did you ever think we had a chance?” he asks, meeting my eyes.

I shake my head. “We were kids.” Our gazes stay locked, though I wish they wouldn’t. “Whatever we had at that age, it was ephemeral, Aaron.”

His lips flatten, eyes closing like he doesn’t want to hear me say this. I’m not even sure I want to hear myself say this.

“You weren’t supposed to be gone for so long, Sofia.”

He’s right. I’ve been told it’d only be four years. Four years and I’d be back in New City, back with my friends and family. But our plans changed after the incident.

Aaron lets go of my shirt but is quick to tilt my head into my neck while he looks down at me. “Why did you stay away?”

My eyebrows dip into a sad frown. Hearing the pain, the betrayal in his voice tugs on my heart with all the guilt in the world. It’s like stepping on a bug and then wondering if the family of said bug will miss it, but ten times as bad.

He turns me around in just a second, pressing my back into the mirror while his arms hold me hostage. I’m pretty sure I could get out of his cage if I wanted to, but I don’t.

“Why didn’t you reach out, Sofia? Why didn’t you tell me it’d take longer for you to come back?”

“I didn’t think you’d care.”

Aaron takes a deep breath, his eyes shut as his head turns to the side for a moment. “I did care. More than you could ever imagine.”

I want to reach my hands up, cup his face and apologize for my decisions, but I don’t regret staying in Germany. The only thing I truly regret is never having tried to find my favorite twins. I knew where they lived. I had their addresses. Even if I couldn’t find them online, I could’ve sent letters and explained everything. I know they would have understood.

But I didn’t.

His eyes are back on mine when he asks, “Can I kiss you?”

My breath gets stuck in my lungs, my brain officially playing tricks on me. Aaron Phoenix Marsh did not just ask me if he could kiss me. This is all just a bad dream, isn’t it?

It can’t be real. That would be one of the cruelest fucking things life is throwing my way.

Aaron and I can’t ever be together. We live in two whole different countries, different continents, an ocean apart. I will go back to Germany in a few months whereas he will start his career as a pro hockey player here.

I’m sure he has a spot on a team already or has at least gotten an offer. If his best friend’s father is coaching an NHL team, I’d assume it’s safe to say he has a good chance of going pro after graduation.

Life is all about having the right connections, is it not?

With him on the road for games and me stuck in Germany, there is no space for a relationship of any kind.

“Why?”

Aaron brings a hand to my face, stroking his thumb over my cheek. “Because I need to know.”

“Need to know what?”

“If it’s there.” Both of his hands now hold my face in them, his eyes burning holes into mine. “I need to know if it’s still there. The chance of an ‘us.’”

“Aaron…”

“Please.”

Whatever theory he wants to test with a kiss, he won’t get very far. I can give him answers to all of them, probably.

If he wants to know whether or not my insides would explode when his lips lay on mine, the answer is yes. I’ll even add that, no matter how shitty the kiss would be, it would be the best kiss of my life simply because this is Aaron kissing me. I didn’t hold on to the thought of him and I for nothing, and I wouldn’t let it go any time soon. I know I have to, but as of now, I am not strong enough to do so.

If he wants to know whether or not I could picture a life with him, the answer would be yes, because I can. I always have.

There are differences though. Dreams and reality, they don’t always align. Ours don’t.

If he wants to know whether or not we end up together, the answer is no. We won’t because our lives are too different.

We both want different things in life. Whereas he wants to become successful and chase his dream to become a pro hockey player, I want to stay as far away from here as possible. I want to write books and create new worlds to escape my reality because reality sucks. And it sucks that I can’t write my own life in the way I want it to play out. If I could, I would’ve written myself to be with Aaron a long time ago.

He dreams big, has huge goals, and does everything to get there, and I write it. I write about people just like him. Single-minded people that chase the high and end up reaching their goals after struggling for a little while. When in reality, I am a coward hiding behind my stories.

“Please, let me kiss you. Just once. Just one taste, Sofia. I need to know.”

Instead of answering Aaron, I move my face closer to his until he gets the hint and gently connects his lips with mine.

My heart begins to beat so rapidly, it might as well be jumping right out of my chest. I try to play it cool, act like the soft lips pressed to mine have no effect on me whatsoever, but the flush creeping up on my cheeks is betraying me more than someone getting the last piece of pizza when I’ve been the one it was promised to.

My chest presses flush to his torso, his hands sliding down my body to hold me by my waist, pulling me further into him. Bolts of electricity shooting right through my body, making the hairs on my arms stand from the intensity of butterflies running wild in my stomach.

My arms loop around his neck, needing him to be even closer although that seems to be almost impossible at this point. We’re already standing as close as it gets.

I knew I shouldn’t be kissing him. I knew it would be wrong, but c’mon, you can’t blame me for doing so anyway. Being kissed by Aaron has been on top of my list for years, and I know this is going to be the first and only time this will ever happen. Of course I would jump at the opportunity, no matter how wrong I know this is.

Our tongues mingle, and I can’t help but crave more of him. His kiss is perfection, the best I’ve had in my entire life. I’m not even just trying to convince myself of it. It’s the truth, and I hate it more than anything.

His forehead leans against mine as soon as our lips part, my eyes still closed to stay in my little bubble, far away from reality, even when he lets out a soft sigh.

Aaron brings one hand to my chest, pressing his palm flat over my heart. “Did you feel that, Sofia?” he asks in a soft tone, seemingly still being in the same bubble as me, afraid to step out of it.

I did feel it. All of it.

I felt the sparks, the butterflies, the warmth when he forced himself in my heart all over again. Yet despite feeling all of this, I shake my head for his own good. “I didn’t feel anything. It was a kiss like any other.” Just that it wasn’t.

As the words settle into his head, Aaron’s forehead leaves mine, his hands on my body following suit. The loss is felt instantly. His heat no longer warming me but instead everything is so cold. The air around us less dense than ever before, freezing.

“You’re breaking my heart, Icicle.”

I’m breaking my own heart.