AARON
Sitting on the hood of my matte, tan G-Wagen is starting to garner too much attention after a couple of hours.
I’ll admit it’s not the most subtle of vehicles, and if you twist my arm, I’ll even admit it’s a little douchey of a choice, but can you blame me? I don’t make many luxury purchases. My house, a house for my parents, and this ride—my baby, Gertrude—are all I’ve got. Okay, and my Xbox, Playstation, Switch, and some really impressive collections of video games. But that’s it, I swear. Anything else nice that I own came from PR campaigns, gift bags, and the like.
To be honest, Gertrude and I haven’t really spent much time in this neighborhood, and considering she cost more than most of these homes probably did, she’s kinda sticking out like a narc at a rave. Which means people are looking. Then they’re seeingmyugly mug, and not to sound conceited, but I think quite a few of ’em are recognizing me.
For a stealth mission, this is a total fail.
I look down at my Patek Philippe (it was agiftmy PR agent snagged for me, I swear it!), and sigh when I realize it’s past seven PM.
Close to three hours I’ve been sitting here, staring at an empty driveway outside an even emptier home. I didn’t need to knock to know that. The lack of her presence is palpable, even from here.
I’m close to having to admit that she won’t be coming home tonight—if she still considers this place home, and she’s not just shacking up withhimfull-time.
Despite the salty vein running through my thoughts, something tells me she does still come here regularly. It might be the plants on her front stoop that weren’t there last time I was here. Her recent presence is almost tangible—like some trace of her essence has been left behind. When I try to visualize it, I imagine a trail of golden sparkles in the wake of where she’s been, infusing life everywhere she goes. Or, I’m going fucking nuts. It’s a toss-up, really.
I could have just used my key. Or at least checked the Find My app, assuming she hasn’t thought to ax me off there yet. But those both felt like an invasion of her privacy, and I’m here to show some humility, ffs.
The shoot kicked the living shit out of me, mentally, physically, and definitely emotionally. It’s one thing to plummet to new emotional lows for the camera, but it was a bit too real for me with the turmoil I’ve been living in all summer long. I was counting down the seconds to coming back home and getting some actual rest. That’s not an exaggeration. I actually installed a countdown widget to my flight on my phone’s home screen.
The fact that I landed nearly four hours ago and haven’t been home yet, well, that just tells you how much I needed to see the owner of this townhouse.
I told Kayla last night I was gonna need a full day or two of rest before I came out of my coma and could be a real boyfriend again, and lucky for me, she was understanding enough about that.
But when I landed, I couldn’t just go home. Being on the same continent, in the same city as Gem again…it set something inside meitching. This restless energy deep within me that won’t be calmed, won’t be sated until I know I haven’t been eliminated from her life.
That last tête-à-tête I had with Alex beforeMidnight Empirewrapped for the season sparked a new fear in me. I know I made some progress with the IG stories, and thank God she stopped shutting me out on texts, but I need to know we’re okay for real. Plus, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these past few weeks, and I have some ideas about how we might need to grow and evolve.
I don’t think I’ll physically be able to rest until I see her again, talk this out with her, but I might be SOL here.
It’s as I’m close to giving up, my head bowed in exhaustion, and my mind racing with alternate paths to repairing this hole in my gut that just won’t relent when I hear a car turn into the driveway I’ve been guarding.
My eyes eagerly seek out the source of that sound, and some tiny part of me rests easier when I see that it’s her car, not his, that pulls in. I was worried for a while there that if someone did show up, it would be him, or at least the two of them together. But it’s just her, in her trusty Toyota Corolla that’s easily half as old as we are, maybe older. Somehow the sight of my own specced out G-Wagen between my legs and her…modestride in front of me paints a contrast between our lives that I haven’t really been forced to acknowledge before.
She was with me through my rise, my windfalls, living the life with me. It’s weird to think of her life as lacking in that same glitz and glam that mine has taken on the sheen of in recent years, but it’s staring me in the face. Her tiny townhouse, her aged, sensible vehicle, even her clothes scream practical, low maintenance. Far from my designer jeans and two-hundred-dollar tees. (Again, gifts! I swear, by the time you can afford this shit, they just sendit to you for free, hoping you’ll be spotted in it. What am I going to do? Turn it away?)
Rather than ambush her by opening her car door for her and crowding her as she tries to get out—as tempting as that sounds—I hop down off the Mercedes and meander over to the little covered entrance and wait by her door. My travel bag and suitcases wait in the trunk of my car, it’s just me and what I’ve got in my jean pockets. I shove my hands in them to keep from fidgeting while I wait for her to round the corner, and when she does, a wave of that fatigue hits me, hard. My knees nearly give out, and I sway, ripping my hands out of those pockets and steadying myself on the wall behind me before regaining my balance.
She looks…different. Even more different compared to the last time I saw her—that God-awful day I discovered her Tinder profile.
Her hair is down, and short, styled all nice, and kinda blonde? Her sweet little face has more makeup on than I’m used to seeing, but it brings out her features and makes her look even more like a pixie.
The changes don’t stop there. She’s wearing some outfit that makes her look more like a grown ass woman than I’m used to seeing her, but it suits her so well at the same time. That hole in my stomach turns into a knot, tightening my insides at the sight of her after all these weeks apart.
She finally looks up from the ground as she takes the final step onto the stoop with me, and her soft brown eyes meet mine for the first time in more than ninety days. Not that I’ve been counting. If I thought my stomach was in a vice before, it’s just tripled in intensity at the eye contact.
“Hi,” I get out. My throat impedes the sound, making it come out more like a croak or a whisper.
“Hey,” she says with a soft smile.
Something in me snaps, unable to stand the distance between us for another instant. My legs take one large step to eliminate the space separating our bodies, and I can’t keep my hands from reaching out and touching her arms, needing the comfort that she provides.
Her mouth makes this small “o” as she registers our closeness, like we haven’t touched every day of our lives for the last dozen years. In her defense, we’ve never gone this long apart before, so I’ll let it slide. Her nearness is also doing something to my system; calming me, sending a rush of something warm through my veins, a sense of rightness replacing the foreign sensation that’s been plaguing me recently.
There’s still somethingoffbetween us. I don’t just expect things to be right because we haven’t hung out in so long. But right now, I just need my Gem back.
“I know this is awkward,” I tell her honestly, a self-deprecating smile tugging at the corner of my lips. “And I have so much to say to you. But it’s been, like, three months. Can I just have a hug from my best friend right now?”
