The zone was just about done and Zaine was rarely apart of it. When I got home earlier, he had left a note saying that he had to take care of something, but in a new town, I didn't know what exactly that was. But considering he was a teenage boy with a fast ass car, I guess he could do whatever he wanted. But honestly, I wanted him here with me. I mean, he tried to win my best friend over, but instead of backing himself up with some boyish excuse he had for trying to perceive Tyler's grandiose gestures, he was gone and left me to spend the night with my family.
Now it was ten o'clock and I was turning in for bed. When I actually fell asleep, just like last night, there were a couple knocks on my door and as I groaned and rolled over as the door cracked open. There were specific words I was expecting him to say at this time and they were "I apologize." So if he wasn't going to say those two words, he wasn't worth me opening my eyes completely.
"Secret for secret?" he asked in a whisper.
"I've discovered that just recently that promise was broken last time because you didn't follow up after my Tyler story," I grumbled and it was true. I was the one sharing so much about me, but he was the one closed off. Even though his file rested in my backpack at the foot of the bed, they meant nothing if they weren't coming from his mouth.
"Les Deux, France," was all he said.
As my eyes opened at the location he said, and realized what he was talking about. He was finally opening up. He was telling me where he was from, days after I had asked him on the jet. When my vision was cleared, it was just enough for me to see him shut the door like he had last night. This time, I got up and followed his pursuit after briefly deciding to take advantage of his want to share. I looked down the hall and banister to see that my parents were downstairs, watching TV, but still continued to Wib's room. I found Zaine pulling off his shirt and sitting down on his bed as if expecting me to come in.
Or maybe he didn't expect me, because if he did, he'd know that my eyes would be struggling to stay away from his sculpted chest and abs.
"And yes I'm a US citizen," he added with a smirk.
"That's not what I was going to ask," I mumbled.
"But you were going to ask just about everything else," he assumed. "My family was there on leave for the military and I was born at the resort they went to before coming back to the states. So I have dual citizenship somehow, but I grew up near Seattle."
"That's cool," I nodded, feeling even more awkward as his presence enabled me to speak. "Well...good night I guess."
"Night," he said and stayed sitting there. Oh right. He doesn't sleep. I turned my shoulders and left closing the door, but then did my "what the hell am I doing" spazz and decided to knock on his door once more. He opened it immediately and our faces were close as I looked up to him.
"Secret for secret?" I asked, goofy. He sort of half grinned, but contained it. "You don't have to try and act like Tyler for me to like you."
"Sorry...I just don't know how to be normal..." he apologized for the wrong reasoning.
"Acting like Tyler isn't going to make you any more normal than you are now," I said within a laugh. "Just be yourself."
"How am I supposed to do that? I can't...take you places, or boost your popularity by being on the varsity football team, or even..." he mumbled something at the end that I couldn't understand.
"What was that?" I asked with a frown. I didn't care about the other stuff, but I wanted to know what else he thought he couldn't offer me.
"Nothing," he lied. I raised an eyebrow and took a step back away from him, which is what neither of us wanted. He hung his head and sighed out of defeat while he turned his back to me and then went to retire to his bed. "I said...that I can't even sleep with you."
"Well, uh, that's—"
"Not like that!" he assured with widened eyes as I entered his room. I smirked at his innocence and chivalry. "I mean, I can't fully be normal if I can't achieve the satisfaction that every man wants when there comes a time when he just lays down with his girl, doing absolutely nothing by laying down and sleeping—not having to worry about anything but the relaxation between them. But I can't do that."
Whoever the hell thought that this guy was as tough as diamonds, clearly never saw him fall for someone. Maybe he had never fallen for anyone. Maybe his powers is what prevented people from trying.
I walked over, crawled past him, and laid down in Wib's bed like I normally did when Wilbur used to sleep there. He looked down at me like I was crazy.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm your girl and you're going to sleep with me," I displayed, patting next to me. Even though he gave me a skeptical look, he still managed to position himself beneath the covers and throw his arm around my shoulders. I rolled into him, hugging his torso and our legs automatically intertwined.
"Aspen—"
"Shh," I hushed as I closed my eyes and my nose started to remember his scent.
"But Aspen—"
I looked up at him.
"What is it, Zaine? I'm trying to sleep," I said playfully. He sighed, hopelessly, and then I sat up. "What?"
"I can't sleep with you," he said.
"Yes you can. If you shut up, maybe we can get to it—" I guess that proved how much I liked him. I was saying those words with absolutely no relations to sex, like any other late-night, teen couple would mean in a derogatory fashion.
"As much as I appreciate this right now, I can't," he said and then got out of the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. Something was...wrong.
"What's wrong?"
"Don't make fun of me, but...I've never done any of this before," he whispered as if I was some professional or as if it was something other than sleeping in the same bed.
"Neither have I," I admitted and he looked over his shoulder at me.
"Then why are you willing to waste the experience on me?" he asked.
"You're worth it," I said and actually meant. He smiled at the compliment, but faced away from me.
"You can sleep in here," he allowed. "But I wasn't raised to sleep with a girl whom wasn't my..."
Mom? Girlfriend? Wife? What. No answer.
"Fine," I allowed, rolling over in Wib's comfortable bed. I got comfortable as he stood up to turn off the light that I hadn't minded, but then he continued to sit on the edge of the bed. After a moment, I rose to my knees and wrapped my arms around his torso and hugged his back. I even kissed his warm shoulder. "Good night."
I rested back down where my back hit the bed once before, but I felt his hand rest on the opposite side of my waist and I looked up in the darkness, to realize he was hovering over me while sitting.
"You're making this really hard for me," he complained, but at the same time his tone suggested it was cute or appreciated.
"Isn't that my job?" I asked in a weak sigh. "Since we're out of danger and all, if you're not keeping your promise to me, I'll keep mine to Maxwell."
He said he would prove he liked me. And I was following the will of the unit and initially Maxwell to loosen Zaine up.
And yet I was okay with all of my efforts beforehand failing, because the only one that seemed to matter was the result hours later when I woke up in the middle of the night and realized that although he refused to touch me, he was passed out, snoring on the bed beside me and he looked as peaceful and serine as someone who needed sleep the past nine years of his life.
That meant that maybe if I hadn't gotten him to achieve his dream of sleeping with "his girl", I had let him know that I wanted to be his girl and my efforts proved that much when I had gotten him to fall asleep. Or maybe I had exhausted him this much with dealing with me.
Either way, I got up from the bed and exited the room to return to mine and sleep until whenever I wanted.
=XXX=
My dreams consisted of every little memory that I had loved growing up with that included me falling for Tyler, but as they got closer and closer to the day and time of the accident and his death, it rolled backwards and Tyler's body was slowly being replaced by Zaine.
Instead of all the playful picking at me to see me mess up during school with our friends, Zaine was the one picking at me, but threatening everyone with his dark eyes that the privilege wouldn't be extended. Instead of the bickering back and forth, Zaine and I were fighting and wrestling as we laughed for not being able to hurt each other. Instead of...driving down the street to pick up Wib and get struck and potentially killed by the other driver, it was Zaine, leaping across my seat to save me and it was Zaine's body waiting over mine at the hospital hours later.
I was reminded with every memory that a relationship with Zaine would be less cute/cliché than with Tyler, but way more passionate. But the dreams made me wonder how much further along we would be if I hadn't hid from everyone the first two years at the Academy.