Beautifully Complicated (Front Range University #4)

8. Aiden

Chapter eight

Aiden

T he lips on mine are the first physical contact I’ve had with another person since I left Kier’s room, and they’re so rejuvenating they bring tears to my eyes.

I knew I was drowning. Numb. I had been ever since realizing Bennet was in love with Damien, and instead of finding the surface after my night with Kier I kept sinking deeper. Walking away from him… God. He was supposed to be a fantasy. An escape from the shitshow my life had become. I was never supposed to catch feelings.

Nor was he.

And curled next to him in the darkness of his hotel room, his arm protectively draped around me, there was no doubt in my mind we both had.

I could see it in the way his eyes seemed to peer straight into my soul. Feel it in his tender caress. Hear it in his words.

Leanbh

I looked it up. It’s the Irish word for baby. The whole time we were making love—true, that’s not how it started, but what it became—he was calling me baby .

Dream come true, right? No-name college kid snagging the attention of one of his idols, the chance to live happily ever after?

Too bad the whole night was based on a lie.

Kier thinks we were two strangers. If he knew I was an admirer long before I offered to buy him that drink…

I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing the disappointment on his face when he learned the truth. So, I took the coward’s way out. I left like a thief in the night. And I’ve been living in a fog ever since.

I thought I was numb after realizing Bennet was in love with Damien, but in the months since walking away from Kier… I now know I didn’t understand the meaning of the word. Still, numb had become my default setting over a month before that fateful night, so nothing was really different after. It was just… more . More emptiness, more loneliness, more nothingness.

My roommates, which now includes Damien—I saw that one coming a mile away—think I’m just overworked. Busting my ass to juggle classes and work and preparing for what comes after graduation. They don’t know I’m just going through the motions, barely scraping by, because for one night after I thought my heart was broken it was whole, and now it’s shattered.

“Aiden. Leanbh.” Kier mumbles against my lips, tongue probing until they part enough for him to enter. A haunting cry rumbles up my throat as I taste him again, memories of that night morphing with the present to bring me back to life.

Kier? Oh, God. This is real?

I’m afraid to believe. Afraid to want . He still doesn’t know the truth, right? But he’s kissing me like the months apart have been just as devastating for him as they were for me. Like I’m his most treasured possession.

Maybe he’s forgiven me.

Strong fingers tunnel through my hair holding my face to his. “I looked everywhere, Leanbh. Everywhere .” His swollen lips whisper over mine. “I checked with the front desk at the hotel. The pub. You paid with cash, and you were never there when I went back. It’s like you were a ghost. But I knew you were real. I knew it.”

“You looked for me?” I squeak.

“Of course I did.”

Kiss .

“I told you I wouldn’t forget that night.”

Kiss .

“You.”

Kiss .

“I didn’t want it to end after one night.”

Kiss .

“I would’ve told you that morning, but you were gone. Why’d you sneak out?” Kier’s pained expression makes my heart physically ache.

Oh God. I don’t want to lie, but how do I tell him the truth?

“I didn’t want to,” I whisper. “I thought it’d be easier to leave than to have an awkward goodbye. I’m sorry.”

Kier presses his forehead to mine and strokes my cheek with his thumb. “It’s okay, Leanbh.”

Kiss .

“You’re here now. You found me.”

Kiss .

“How did you find me?” He pulls back just enough for me to make out the subtle line between his brows.

He doesn’t know. He hasn’t forgiven me. The pieces of my heart that had stitched back together at the sight of him tear anew.

“I didn’t find you, Kier. Not intentionally.” I sniff, blinking back my gathering tears. “My counselor told me to report to this office.”

“Your counselor?” His sapphire eyes turn cloudy. “You’re a student here?”

“Yes.”

“In the computer science program?”

“Yes.”

“Classes don’t start until next week. If you’re here now… Are you… My TA? My research assistant?”

“Yes. Both.”

“If that’s true then—” Kier blinks so fast his eyes become an icy blur. “You’re obviously familiar with my work, so… You knew who I was in Denver?”

I can’t look at him while I admit to my deceit. All I can do is close my eyes and nod.

Kier’s hands fall away from my face like they’ve been burned.

“What was with all the getting-to-know-you questions if you already knew the answers?”

“I didn’t know the answers,” I say softly.

He takes another step back. “My history is on the jacket of the book I went to Denver to talk about.”

“Your professional history.” I toe the ground. “Where you went to school, your degrees, where you work. Nothing about who you are.”

That seems to give him pause, though a quick glance confirms his expression hasn’t softened. If anything, it’s more critical.

“Why didn’t you ask about my work? I assume you were in Denver for my lecture, and at the bar you had unfettered access to pick my brain. Why didn’t you?”

Finding the courage to meet his eyes, I hope if he hears anything I have to say it’s this. “I thought about it, and as much as I would’ve enjoyed learning directly from you, I wanted to learn about you even more.”

“I—” Kier pinches his eyes shut and rubs the bridge of his nose. “You lied to me.”

“I omitted the full truth.”

“Why?” His face looks as broken as my heart feels. I think that’s why the truth spills out. All of it.

“I just wanted someone to talk to. Things had been messed up with my roommate, so I was avoiding the house, burying myself in my studies, and at that point, I hadn’t had a conversation that didn’t involve computers or AI in close to six weeks. When you sat next to me, my first thought was to bring up the one thing I knew we had in common. But even after hearing you speak and feeling so inspired, I couldn’t bring myself to talk about work anymore. I wanted to make a connection. I wanted to feel seen. You made me feel that, right from the start, and I was afraid if you knew I’d followed your career you might dismiss me as a crazed fan or something.”

The lines around Kier’s eyes seem to fade a bit, and for a second, I think that means his anger has too. Then they’re back.

“You took that decision away from me.”

My gaze falls to the floor. “I know.”

“Jesus, Aiden.” My head snaps up just in time to see Kier look to the ceiling, almost as if he’s pleading for guidance. “You’re a student . I’m a professor.”

“Not my professor.” I sound like a toddler trying to argue semantics. “I’m not in any of your classes. I can’t be if I’m your assistant.”

“Is that any better?” His tortured gaze meets mine. “You work for me now. I’m not… I can’t… I can’t believe I finally found you and… Fuck!”

The outburst is so unexpected I shudder.

“Why you?” Rather than the velvety-smooth cadence I love, his voice has a gravelly quality to it.

“What?”

“Why’d they assign you to me?”

My blush spreads from the base of my neck to the tips of my ears. “I’m top of my class. Studying how to integrate software into hardware to improve the functionality of prosthetics.”

Kier’s eyes are so wide they look more cartoonish than real. And I get it. There’s lots of ways to integrate software and hardware, but to do it in prosthetics… That’s a niche space.

“Small world?” I say lamely.

“How did you pick that field? That’s not something they do at this university.”

“Not yet.” I offer an equally lame smile. “I’ve mostly been working on robots. I found out about prosthetics when I had to do a paper for one of my courses, and I couldn’t think of a better way to make a difference through my education, so I’ve been researching it on my own. After graduation I hoped to find a position with one of the companies specializing in that space.”

Kier’s shoulders seem to droop. “And I’m your best shot at getting into one of those companies.”

I don’t bother trying to offer another opinion because there isn’t one. His name on my resume, or better yet a recommendation from him, would be like a golden ticket. I could go anywhere. We both know it.

And now I know why my counselor was downright giddy when she told me I needed to get over here as fast as possible. She thought she was giving me the key to my future, not grinding the broken pieces of my heart to dust.

Head drooped so low his chin practically hits his chest, Kier fishes his phone from his pocket and hands it to me. “Put your information in here. I need to know how to reach you.”

“I don’t understand. You want my number?”

“You’re my assistant, right?”

“Oh.” There’s no hiding the disappointment in my voice. “Yeah.”

I take the device and punch in my number before handing it back to him. When he still doesn’t look at me, I turn to go, stopping short when I hear him speak.

“Aiden.”

“Yes?” My chest fills with hope.

“What’s your last name?”

Aaand now it drops. “Oh. Uh, Sinclair.”

“I don’t see it in here.” Kier’s thumb scrolls over the screen, searching.

“That’s because I put it under Leanbh . ” I let myself out before I see him react, since I’m not sure I want to know if he finds that amusing, endearing, or heartless.

Please don’t let it be that last one.

I probably should have put more thought into his reaction before filing my name under baby, but in my defense, desperation can make you do crazy things, and I’m feeling pretty fucking desperate.

After getting my heart broken the first time, realizing that heartbreak was more like heartburn given that Bennet was never supposed to be my person, and having it broken again by the guy who I’m pretty sure is… Yeah, I’m one keystroke away from snapping.

True, this heartbreak is my own doing because I acted stupidly, but what makes it even worse is that Kier seems to return my feelings, unlike the unrequited crush I had on Bennet. The one I thought was love until my night with Kier.

In the months since Bennet fell for Damien, since I met Kier, I’ve had a lot of time to think. And in that time, I realized my feelings for Bennet could be attributed to the fact that he made me feel seen, much like Kier did. But with Kier, he didn’t just see me at the surface level, he admired me. All of me, including my adventurousness and my vulnerability. He said as much when he called me sexy and reassured me that he’d never forget that night.

Clearly, I’ve got a few insecurities if I could believe I was in love with Bennet just because he accepted me for who I am. And if I hadn’t met Kier, I might’ve continued to think that’s what love was. Now I know it’s more than that. Now I know it’s not just accepting but admiring my attributes and my flaws and understanding how they shape me, the way Kier did.

And yeah, maybe it’s premature, ill-advised, or even reckless to use that word to refer to Kier, but I won’t cheapen what happened by calling it a crush or even a one-night-stand. It may have been just the one night, yet it was so much more.

And now, because of my actions, it might never be what it could have been. What it should have been.

Miraculously, I cross campus without seeing anyone I know, and am able to slip into my house and up to my room unseen, holding back the tears until I’m safely locked behind my bedroom door.

Kier Caldwell wanted me. Looked for me. And now he probably hates me.

I think I’ve hit a new level of lonely.