Chapter Forty-One: "I've Stalked Her LinkedIn."
"AVEN'S HERE!" Yasmeen yelled from downstairs on a Saturday night in early March.
After an extremely busy day that consisted of work, studying and one of Laurence's many ideas, I came home with barely any time to spare for the event Aven had told me about a few weeks ago. His thesis supervisor, Dr. Hayden, had invited him and a few other students to social science-based awards banquet and extended an additional invite to him to fill up their table for the evening.
I didn't have a clue what was going to go on at the event. I only knew I had to look good once he had told me that the dress code was formal.
"I'm not done!" I exclaimed, trying not to rush through my makeup in the bathroom. Sure, the event wasn't for me, but I wasn't going to show up looking at my worst.
"Hurry up," Mariam shouted from the hallway.
"Don't hurry me!" I shouted back. I heard her laugh.
"Stop yelling!" Larine sing-songed, peeking into the bathroom. "Oh, shit, Aven's going to drop to his knees when he sees you."
"Thank you and thank you for the wonderful image," I said light-heartedly.
"Anytime." Larine bounced away as I put a makeup brush down and inspected my face and then my body. My drawstring dress was a maroon red, complimented with dark heels and a necklace Mariam had lent me. My latest hairstyle, butterfly locs, made their way far down my back and was held back by a hairband.
I looked good, I decided, swivelling to see at all angles. I fought the need to tell myself in the mirror out loud, forgot the fight and did just that before dragging myself down the stairs.
When I walked into the living room, I found my boyfriend sitting next to Yasmeen. Before I even had a chance to process the outfit he had put together, my focus was strictly on the show on the screen. The episode that they were watching. Without me.
My lips parted, "Without me?"
All the feelings of betrayal were minimized at the sight of Aven when he twisted around. He was so hot, that I could gaze at him forever. The light dress shirt fitted well on his defined arms accompanied by black dress pants. His clean-shaven face appeared dumbfounded at the sight of me as we both took each other in once he stood.
I didn't bother suppressing the smug feeling that rose within me as he blinked, remembering what the conversation was about. "You've watched hundreds of episodes without me."
"You're an addition whenever you're here," He trailed my steps until I reached the back of the couch. "I'm the one who's watched it with Yas from the start and now you're going to steal her?"
"Yeah," He might as well have said 'duh'. "Yas is cool."
"Um, hello?" Yasmeen raised a hand to gather our attention. "Not that I don't like you both but we're only rewatching the last episode that you've already seen, Jay. And you look beautiful."
"Oh," I made a face. "Thank you. Now I feel bad about being dramatic. To be fair, you did watch a few episodes without me. Traitor." I muttered, squeezing her arm.
She waved me off, telling me goodbye, accompanied by the chorus of byes from the rest of my roommates from wherever they were as Aven and I left the house. When we were on the porch, I instantly took his calloused hands. "You don't look like you want to go."
"If I didn't promise Dr. Hayden that I would come, trust me, we'd be holed up in your bedroom." He muttered. I believed him. Especially because we didn't spend Spring reading week together. He had been back home and I spent it bouncing back and forth from my parents and my sister's house. While I had a great time at both, I had come back to Jasper Bay earlier in the week just as he did and the two of us made up for the lost time as much as we could before someone interrupted us. It was never enough.
Aven raked me up and down with his gaze before he bent down to lightly kiss me. Lightly and yet I felt like I was in a daze when he said, "You're fucking gorgeous."
"So are you." Shit. That's not what I meant.
He raised his eyebrows. "Gorgeous?"
Slight annoyance overcame me at the teasing in his eyes. At the way he was used to getting me flustered over saying things I didn't mean. "Men can't be gorgeous?"
"I guess if my gorgeous girl says I'm gorgeous then I am gorgeous too," He declared, helping me walk down the stairs towards the car.
"That's way too many gorgeous'," I mumbled when I entered and he beamed, shutting my door.
The night started immediately. I sat in the middle of a banquet hall that was filled with circle tables, blue flowers as the centrepieces and an array of simplistic decorations in a dimly lit room. Various awards were sat on a table up on the stage where various people from the social science department presented and won awards for their research.
Dr. Hayden was a white balding man with a kind smile that always managed to drag his students, particularly Aven into a conversation with whoever passed by. A few other professors were at the table as well but when we arrived, the first person I had noticed at the table hadn't been Dr. Hayden. It was Eden.
I hadn't spotted her since December. We may not have known each other personally, but she recognized me just as I noticed her. She didn't directly talk to me but the smile she gave me said enough. There was definitely no bad blood and I was grateful for how genuine she seemed at the table as conversations progressed with everyone. That meant there was nothing juicy to report back to my nosy sister and her husband. Except maybe a professor clearly and terribly flirting with a Ph.D. student one table over.
In the middle of the awards ceremony, I was handing Aven one of my bread rolls when someone arrived at our table. The person took the empty seat on the other side of Dr. Hayden. "Hi, sorry."
I almost choked on my food. Dr. McCormick, my physics professor from last semester sat three chairs over from me in a navy blue dress. Her brown hair was up in a high bun and light makeup adorned her face.
"Experiment ran late?" Dr. Hayden asked, his blue eyes bright at the sight of her.
"Later than I thought." She mumbled, pressing a kiss to his cheek. My eyebrows rose to my hairline. Aven pinched me on the side to get me to dampen my reactions.
She was talking about experiments at the table. Of course, I was going to get excited. Aven caught my eyes as Dr. Hayden and Dr. McCormick continued speaking but I brushed him aside as I eavesdropped.
"Success?" Dr. Hayden asked.
"The first one, no. The second, yes." Multiple experiments.
Okay, but what was it on? Nanotechnology? An aspect of medical physics involving MRI, Infra-Red, UV—Aven lightly pinched me again. I swatted his hand away as he failed to smother his laugh. Suddenly, Dr. McCormick's eyes landed on me. "Jaiyesimi."
She remembered my name. Remember to breathe. "Hi."
"This is Evangeline McCormick," Dr. Hayden quietly said to everyone at the table as people on stage continued to present their awards. "My wife." Oh.
"Kept the maiden. Helps with publications." She explained before beaming in my direction. At me. Jesus Christ. "It's great to see you. But you're not in social science. Physics, right?"
"Biophysics." I corrected.
"She's here with Aven." Dr. Hayden acknowledged.
"Nice to meet you, Aven," She beamed, shaking Aven's hand. "Heard so much about you. Small world."
She could say that again.
I didn't get to speak to her again until the lights had fully come on and everyone in the room was chatting. Dr. Hayden had pulled Aven and a few other thesis students to meet others when Dr. McCormick dropped herself in Aven's seat. "I almost didn't recognize you without a hat on. Every office hour I saw you, you had a new one."
"Yeah, huge collection." I sound like an idiot. But how else was I supposed to continue the conversation? Don't panic. She's just a person you admire. A lot.
"How did the final go?"
From last semester. "Much better than the midterm," I admitted. Almost 40% better.
"Did you manage to get the mark you worked for?"
"I did," I told her but I was more curious about what she had said a moment ago. "Um, you mentioned you were late because of an experiment?"
"Lab work. Grad students and I are currently obtaining results and stayed too late."
"What is your work on?" As she explained how her grad students partnered up with the engineering students in her specific field of research, astrophysics. We spoke for a long while as people passed by our table. I asked more questions than I ever imagined asking her outside of how to obtain an answer in the textbook and the theory behind it. She answered each one, giving me all the detail I needed while encouraging me to continue asking more.
She stared at me for a split second, observing me, "You really enjoy physics."
"I do," I admitted without shame. "Since high school. It's only gotten more interesting to me."
"And you want a career in it?"
"Yes," I said.
She was quiet for a moment, observing the multiple bodies coming and going by us before focusing on me once again, "What are you doing this summer?"
"I'm not sure yet but I've applied to Dalhousie laboratory research in hopes to get a position in their physics department but it's at random and I'm not certain if I'll get in," I hesitated with my next words. Confront and conquer, no? "Working in your lab sounds like a dream with what you're focused on. But you probably already have research and lab positions filled."
Her eyes flickered around my face and I waited with anticipation. "At the moment, yes. Typically, it's fourth year and grad students in my lab year-round or during the summer."'
Oh.
"But I can make an exception for an incoming third-year bold enough to insinuate what she wants in the field. And one who has promise."
The word promise caused a wide grin on my face that returned with a small one of her own. She reached into her purse, taking out a pen and a paper and handing me the paper filled with her contact information.
"Really?" I had to ask.
"If you choose to accept." She said when her husband appeared next to her and Aven was nearby, his sight darting from me to Dr. McCormick and then back to me.
"Evangeline." Dr. Hayden murmured, tilting his head to a group of people at a distance.
She took his hand, glancing at me. "Contact me at that email if you consider, okay?"
"O-Okay." I said, gaping after her as she and her husband moved to the other side of the room.
Aven placed his hands on my shoulders as if to hold me steady. As I was about to explode. I was about to explode. "Did you see that? Did you hear what she said?"
He grinned as I peered up at him. "I saw."
He smoothed a hand over my locs, as I tried to find the words to thank him for bringing me. Tried to tell him how much I liked her as a person. To tell him this was all luck. That this was because he told me to constantly go to her office hours to the point where she knew who I was but the first thing that came out of my mouth was: "I've stalked her LinkedIn before, did I tell you that?"
"No. Then again you wouldn't be you if you didn't," He laughed, looking at me with such pride in his eyes. "You deserve this."
I sat there in silence for a moment, staring at her email in my hand. Aven didn't stop smiling, tilting my head up with his fingers to gain my attention, "You want to go? Celebratory ice cream?"
"Aven," I scolded, grabbing my clutch and my phone and walking past him towards the door. "It's minus 17 outside."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Later that night, Aven and I sat in the car in front of the Jasper Bay water tower. Tonight it was lit up with its normal blue lights. We were leaning back in our seats, our hands hovering over the console as Giveon filled our ears.
My index finger trailed along his palm when he broke the silence after taking a sip from my bubble tea that we opted for instead of ice cream, "You happy?" He suddenly asked me, intertwining our digits together.
"Yeah, I am," I confessed. I felt a lot better for my path, for my future at this moment than I ever had. Even if I didn't have a clue what I would be doing, I knew what field I wanted myself to be in for the long run.
"So, this summer," He mumbled and I took a deep breath. No more being in the same city as him. He hadn't heard back from the school in BC yet but he was likely going to be on the other side of the country. "If you choose to work with Dr. McCormick—"
"I'd be in Jasper Bay more than Port Yonge."
Aven nodded slowly, his eyes on our hands. "I'm going to have to save up to fly to you."
The corners of my lips tugged up and I removed my hand from him, threading my fingers along the coils of his hair. "I'll save up to come to you."
Aven's finger traced along my arm, his gaze fixed on the action. "Three years."
"Might be more," I admitted. Many factors went into this, into us but I wasn't going to stop what we had.
"Three and more years." Of long distance.
"I don't want to be away from you. Ever." I told him.
"You won't," He promised. "Not truly. Not for long." When he looked at me, there was hesitation was in his eyes but I knew he needed to ask the next question for clarity. For reassurance. "I'm okay with being apart because I know it'll be worth it in the end. Will you be okay with that?"
Would I? I almost scoffed. "I don't think you understand," I said, cupping his face in my hand. "You're mine."
That was known but reassurance was nice. Reassurance provided certainty that I liked. There was no confusion with assurance. There was no confusion like we had in the past. I needed clarity and he unknowingly needed it as well because his eyes shone at my declaration."Yeah?"
"Mmhmm." Aven Montaque was mine, there was no doubt about it.
He leaned forward to press a kiss to my forehead, cupping my cheek with one hand before it slid down to my neck, "This is going to hurt."
"It is," I agreed. I hated being away from him for a week. For a month of pain where I attempted to get over him. He had me since I first saw him. I wasn't going to let him go. "But I'm okay with it if I have you forever."
Aven pulled himself further over the console, taking my jaw in his hands and kissing me in a way that stole my breath and left me dizzy. He broke away, eyes roaming and searching before he locked them with my own. "God, I love you."
It's crazy how three words could make my heart feel so full. My smile stretched wide. "I know."
I did. I knew it since the day he had looked at me back in January when it was him, a remote, a PowerPoint presentation, his confidence in himself and in us all in one room. He had looked at me, with such intimacy reserved for me, in a way where I didn't have a single doubt in my mind about us. He looked at me as if he would never stop proving his love for me. He never stopped looking at me that way since that day.
He looked at me the same way my dad looked at my mom. The same way Abisola looked at Michael. And the way my grandfather had looked at my grandmother. And vice versa for all. I was beyond lucky to have someone look at me like that.
Aven narrowed his eyes at me. "That's a terrible response."
"It could be worse," I laughed. "I could've said 'thank you' or 'oh' or 'that's ni—"
He smacked a kiss against my lips once again, cutting off my laughter as I melted into him for the hundredth time tonight. "In other words, I love you too."
Our mouths met again. His hands sank into my hair and my own on his shoulders as the gear stick was uncomfortably digging into my stomach. The kiss was soft and gentle in the late-night until it wasn't. Until I paid attention to his lower lip and tugged with my teeth. That's when something shifted. That's when I was almost pulled over the console when my taste of him filled my mouth and his scent took over until the feeling of the gear shift was silenced over the overwhelming feeling of him.
Aven broke the kiss with a heavy breath equal to my own. Every physiological response was activated to calm me down but that wasn't possible with him. "Are we going to make it home?"
His home. My home. Who cared? "Fuck, no." He grinned. "Come here. Kiss me again."
We kissed, devoured and sighed until all my senses were filled with Aven. As it was the first day we kissed, the times it did before we kissed since I fond with him as much as he was fond of me and I loved it. I loved him so much.
"Back," He shakily opened his side of the door. "Back, Jay. Get in the back."
I scrambled to the backseat as he got out of the car. He got a blanket from the trunk and tossed it to me as he got inside. I barely managed to spread it out on the backseat before his lips were on mine again. A condom from somewhere in his wallet and lube that was hidden in my clutch made an appearance when I was straddled on his lap. In faster, rushed movements, my dress was hitched around my waist and his slacks and boxers were pushed down to his ankles in one go.
Car sex was one thing we've done before and the cramped space was something I wasn't a fan of. That didn't stop me from sinking onto his dick half a second after the lube was used and tossed to the side.
"That's it, fuck," He breathed against my neck and I adjusted to the size of him before I started moving. He rocked me against him, on him. His brown eyes darken even further as he gripped my ass with one hand and massaged my clit with the other. The pleasure building up made me moan and whimper whenever he spoke, whenever he praised me.
He leaned back into the seat as far as he could, watching my dress rumpled around my waist, my swollen lips, my heated skin, and the way I rode him. The car was suffocating, filled with heat that opposed the freezing weather outside of the car. The choked-up atmosphere left my head spinning, and made me feel like I had no choice but to take his face in my hands and bring his lips back to where they belonged: against my own.
However, this position combined with the cramped space forced a mental block on me. But it was good. It was too good and it was good for him. But I needed to communicate for us.
"I'm not going to come this way." I panted, but he already knew that. He had me on my back half, lying astride the backseat on the top of the blanket with him between my legs.
When he reentered me, the moan I let out made him close his eyes, going at a slower pace,. "Better?" He rasped.
"Better," I said back, taking what he gave me as the ache between my legs only enhanced as I ran my hands along the hardness and softness of him, inhaling him in my mouth as he groaned and met my moans in equal harmony.
When he whispered, "Shit, you're doing so good, Jay." or when I bit down on my bottom lip harder than I expected and he swiped his tongue across it to soothe the ache, I concluded one thing: This was perfect.
My conclusion was further confirmed when we locked eyes and both burst into laughs. Me with my makeup smudged. Him with his coily hair dismantled because of my fingers and lipstick streaking his mouth and parts of his neck. He matched my grin, not acknowledging the falter at the moment before he kept moving.
But when he slowed his pace again and the humour disappeared from his eyes. "I meant it." He whispered. The 'I love you'.
I locked my fingers with his own, kissing the place his left dimple would dig into his skin. "I meant it too."
In the following moments of music, sighs, and a faster pace of passion with his hand adjacent to where we were connected, he got me there. My vision blurred and I caught wind of the blue lights from the water tower before they faded when I pressed my face into the blanket just when passion erupted.
I soared and convulsed around him for God knows how long. In the hazed background, I could hear, I could feel him follow seconds afterward and the two of us quieted on the come down from the wonderful high.
Aven panted against my shoulder, clumsily pressing a kiss there. The Weeknd was now playing from the aux. "I don't want to get up."
I don't want you to. I didn't want to stop the kisses. The way I felt before, during and in the aftermath. Of being wrapped in his arms. Entangled my legs with his own. The way I got lost in him so easily by his touch, taste, and scent, losing my mind to an endless spill of Aven. The constant of him.
We'd be okay. I knew that but even knowing that deep within me, I couldn't help myself from blurting out the words: "I don't want you to leave."
Blinking back the sudden tears that sprung to my eyes, Aven met my gaze just as I was shaking my head. "I mean I want you to. I want you to get everything you've dreamed of. Everything you deserve. You know what I mean."
"I do," He brushed his lips against my head. "I want the same for you."
He shifted us in the backseat, removing himself from me to dispose of the condom. I didn't question where he put it when he brought me back to him, surrounded in his arms. We lay there in our rumpled clothes, in an atmosphere that slowly started to cool down with music in the background as we caught our breaths. And then he whispered against my cheek, "I don't want to leave you either."