His rejection made her affectionate grin stretch even wider. “Good!” She hugged him. “AndAiden.” She glanced over her shoulder at Darren and lowered her voice, “Why are you still calling him Darren?”
Aiden expected her to elaborate but she left it at that and just hugged him again. They said their goodbyes, and she sent them off with yet another radiant smile.
The VR environment dissipated around them as they returned to the real world. Disorientation made Aiden a littledizzy, so he didn’t rush to stand. He removed the VR set and just sat there between Darren’s legs, feeling good and then even better when Darren’s arms came around him and held him close.
“I’d forgotten, and, quite honestly, missed how energetic Sara was,” Aiden ventured, her last question whirling in his mind.
“A force of nature, I know. The real Sara was just like that too,” Darren agreed, burying his head in the crook of Aiden’s shoulder.
He kissed the spot he liked to bite and then moved up Aiden’s neck, ghosting his lips along Aiden’s skin and sending shivers down his spine.
“Aiden,” Darren said when he reached Aiden’s tattooed ear, tilting Aiden’s head to the side so they could look at each other.
In Darren’s eyes, Aiden found that vulnerability, that raw and unabashed want, that need to claim and have and never let go.
“Sometimes, I wish you could just forget her. Claudia.” There was pain in his voice, sadness, though not because of his words, but because of that deep, primal desire of his soul. “I… It is not fair of me to ask that, I realize it. What you two had will be a part of you forever. A fond memory that brings you no pain, in time. But still, I can’t help it, that wish in me. It’s… I don’t want to erase her or replace her, that’s not it. I just… I want you to be mine.”
Darren’s words. No,Ren’swords, they were selfish and raw and desperate. A request, a plea, for Aiden to choose him and keep choosing him. To say it, so Ren would know it, so their new life could truly begin here in this new world.
Aiden had loved Claudia, but he was ready to move on, and maybe he had been for a while, before he’d even met Ren. He’d just needed that final push, that reason, that proof that he could allow himself to let her go. She’d betrayed him—whatever thereason—and he needn’t cling onto her memory and the anger anymore. He’d found in Ren what he’d lost and more, because Ren was like him. Broken and alone. He was the only person who could put Aiden back together. If Aiden was chaos, then Ren was order within that chaos, a grounding force, a blazing fire in the middle of a raging ocean of ice. An unequivocal rightness in Aiden’s world full of endless wrongness.
“You are right. I loved her and despite her lies, that will never change,” Aiden said, holding Ren’s heart-wrenching eyes. “But…Ren. She is my past and you are my future. My heart”—he angled his body and splayed his hand across Ren’s chest, finding an erratic heartbeat within it—“I gave it to you on that day at the mansion ruins on Earth and I’ve never looked back.”
The guilt and the feeling of betrayal had been the hardest to overcome. But they no longer tethered Aiden; he’d laid them to rest because he didn’t need them anymore. He was ready for a new beginning, and he was excited to have Ren by his side.
Ren kissed him, a gentle brushing of their lips that left them both smiling. He stood up and took Aiden with him, then kissed him again, tracing his left earlobe. “Can I have this side?” Aiden raised an eyebrow at Ren’s request, but Ren just shrugged. “It’s silly, I know, but…” He rubbed the area behind Aiden’s ear with his thumb and his gaze turned wishful. “But I still want it. A physical part of you, just like she had one.”
Aiden hummed, stroking Ren’s jaw. “It is a little silly, maybe. But… I’d like that too, I think. To claim a part of you that way.”
Ren chuckled and his entire face lit up. “I think I know which part I want to give you,” he mused, stepping away from the desk and giving Aiden a slow once-over.
“Oh, you got me curious now.”
Ren bit on his lip to stifle a laugh and offered his hand. “Follow me and you’ll find out.”
Shaking his head, Aiden placed his palm in Ren’s. “Lead the way.”
Ren took him to the medbay on the bridge level. He produced an inking kit from a cupboard and guided Aiden to the cot.
“I didn’t know you were a tattoo artist,” Aiden tossed, observing with interest as Ren prepared an old-style inking needle.
“I had a phase,” Ren said, amusement lacing his voice.
There was definitely a story there and Aiden’s curiosity demanded he found out about it. “Aphase?” he prompted, giving Ren an expectant sideways glance.
Chuckling, Ren grabbed the needle and tilted Aiden’s head. “Yes, when I was serving. There was this fad at the time about old-school tattoos and I thought I could make a few extra credits,” he said, prickling Aiden’s skin. “Turned out I had a knack for it.”
“Anything else you have a knack for that I am unaware of?”
Ren hummed in thought as he finished the tattoo, then wiped the area with the aftercare gel. “I’m quite decent at cooking, actually. Or was. Bea can vouch for it. I also had a passing interest in mixology.” He stepped back and took out his phone, snapping a photo for Aiden. “Here, I hope you like it.”
Aiden looked at the picture. He’d known from the strokes that it wasn’t a letter, so he wasn’t surprised to find a symbol there. It looked a bit like a Chinese lantern, but he didn’t know how to read it, so he had no idea what it actually meant. It was pretty though, and it made Ren look even more attractive when his eyes locked on it, so he decided he liked it already.
“What does it mean?”
“It’s my name. Ren. A lotus flower,” Ren explained, placing the inking needle back into its box and picking up the piercinggun from the second compartment. Along with it, he produced a thick platinum hoop.
“Don’t tell me you also did piercings?” Aiden shook his head, trying and failing to stop a smile. “And anyway, having all this stuff here… were you planning on this from the start, Ren? Despite my threat that I was going to kill you once we’d dealt with Marcus?”
