PART SEVENTY ONE
An hour later and I was standing out in the Vegas morning sun, my ray bans on and my hair running wild down my back as I hadn't been bothered to do much with it. After our shower Aston and I had ordered up a quick breakfast and had somehow managed to get ourselves changed and ready to head back to LA in what felt like record time.
I waited patiently as Aston spoke with the hotel valet, who was calling his rental car up from the car park. We had a long drive ahead of us, and a nagging thought in the back of my mind reminded me that I was due on a plane that night back to Seattle, work the next day. Yuck.
“I don’t wanna go,” I pouted as Aston wandered over to me with his bag.
“Sorry babe,” he sighed, wrapping an arm around my shoulder as we waited. I leant my head back against his body, resting comfortably in his embrace. To be fair, I was hella hungover.
We stood in silence for a few minutes until the car came up the drive. Without saying a word we packed up the car and then climbed in, settling in for the long ride ahead of us.
“You ready for this babe?” asked Aston as he put the car into drive and eased it out onto the road.
“Yeah, hopefully I won’t get motion sick and throw up,” I giggled.
“I mean the conversation we’re about to have,” he said.
“Oh, yeah. I guess,” I shrugged.
“So then…” said Aston cautiously, trying to piece together the right words.
“So…” I replied, laughing at him.
“I don’t know where to start,” he sighed with an embarrassed smile.
“Well how about I start by saying thank you for a great little trip,” I said, placing my hand on his knee and giving it a light squeeze, “It was a great time. You really didn’t need to do all of this.”
“I wanted to,” said Aston simply.
“But still…” I sighed, “It probably cost you a fortune.”
“It wasn’t so bad,” he replied, “But you’re welcome.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes, the desert zipping past as we made our way back towards LA. It would have been nice to have the windows down, but we were going so fast and it was still unbelievably hot.
“You called me your boyfriend last night,” said Aston off-handedly, breaking the silence.
“No I didn’t,” I protested, shocked that I would be the one to let something like that slip. I thought he’d be the first to try those words out. We hadn’t even talked about what this whole thing between us was yet, that was meant to be happening right now!
“You did,” he argued back, “You told the bouncer at one of the clubs that I was James Bond, your boyfriend.”
“No…” I breathed, embarrassed that something so ridiculous would come out of my mouth.
“Oh yes you did,” laughed Aston.
“Gah, why was I such a mess?” I asked, leaning my head back on the seat and staring up at the roof of the car.
“So does that mean you don’t want me to be your boyfriend?” asked Aston awkwardly.
“What?! No, I didn’t say that,” I replied quickly, snapping my head back to look at him.
“So you do?” he asked.
“I…” I started, not sure what to say. It was just so complicated with us. I was living in Seattle for another few weeks, then back to New York. He was in London. There was a massive ocean in the middle of us and I was at a point in my career where I wasn’t ready to pack it up and leave for a boy, and obviously he wasn’t going to do that either. I didn’t even know if something between Aston and I would work… I had to be sure before I made such a monster commitment. “It’s complicated,” I sighed finally.
