Her Charming Secret (20 page)

“Al, what the hell are you thinking?”

“Oh, right now? I was wondering what we were having for dinner. I’m starving. Got on a flight early, and I—” Aiden cut him off by throwing a huge pillow at his face. He stormed out of the room shouting about morons without manners. Alex, true to his cousin’s words, followed him and, to his surprise, saw him walking into Jo’s room.

What the heck is he doing in her room?
 
Moving forward, he placed his ear on the door to hear something. Aiden was loud enough; he was apologizing and said that Alex shouldn’t have come here. “As if I’ll leave now!” Alex smirked and opened the door, walking in with a huge grin on his face.

Jo smiled and asked him to take a seat, Alex was a good friend, and she didn’t want him to know what Aiden just said. “Alex, how was the flight?” she asked, changing the subject. Aiden got up from the bed and walked towards the window. He sighed as he looked out.

“It was good, Jo. I’m not tired at all.” He smirked. Aiden groaned and glared at Alex. “You missed me too much, Aido? Don’t worry, I’m here now.” When Aiden didn’t reply, he continued, “Well, who wants to have dinner? I’m starving!”

“Me too,” Jo replied. “I really want to eat something now. Aiden? Let’s go?” Without another word, the boys followed her. Alex charmed the hostess and managed to get a table outside near the swimming pool. It wasn’t much, but it was still beautiful. Jo ordered coffee before ordering the main dish. Alex, who was surprised to see this, sat there smirking. The boys ordered coke. And when the drinks arrived, both Alex and Aiden were surprised to see Jo swapping her coffee mug with Aiden’s coke. “Drink that and feel better,” she said, winking at him.

Aiden’s face was red when he saw Alex laughing his head off. Without a word he drank the coffee. “Wow! Looks like she knows how to control your temper, huh?” Alex grinned, raising his eyebrows in a funny manner.

“Be quiet, Alex! I’m still mad at you,” Aiden murmured. There was a light music playing and Jo recognized it and started humming lightly, grinning at Alex, who pouted and turned away.

“You know what’s gonna happen tomorrow?” she asked Alex just as the waitress arrived to take their order. He gave her a big smile and placed the order. He ordered for Aiden as well, as he was lost in his thoughts, drinking his coffee.

“I do, Jo,” he replied as he pulled out his phone and scrolled through something. “Here it is! Aiden booked the Full River High Adventure trip just for you two, but now that I’m here, I’ll be joining you. The package includes a Full River High Adventure rafting trip in a twelve-passenger raft, and what’s this? Two nights of camping? With two breakfasts and one lunch and, oh wait! One dinner? A day at the resort. And if it’s two days, we get a discount.”

“Two days?” Jo raised her eyebrow. “And camping?”

“It will be fun, Jo,” Alex smirked. Dinner was served and they were really enjoying the meal. Alex told Jo about his trip to Paris where Aubrey insisted on going to Disneyland and how they ended up spending almost two days enjoying themselves. They chatted animatedly about their vacations.

“We will get the gear tomorrow,” Aiden spoke for the first time. “We start off with the camping, and then we camp.” Alex raised his eyebrow, pointing out how obvious it was to camp while camping. Ignoring him, Aiden continued, “Next would be the rafting, and I think we’d be back by noon. Not sure how it works.”

“Have you guys done this before?” Jo asked as she sipped her drink. An evil grin formed on Alex’s face; she turned to look at Aiden, who was smirking, too.

“You think we wouldn’t have done this before?” Alex laughed. Aiden joined him and gave him a high five. They told her that they were regulars; they travelled all over the world for extreme sports. She knew that she was in big trouble for agreeing to come here with Aiden. After finishing dinner, they stayed back for drinks. Aiden ordered coffee again. As it was getting late, Jo decided to go back to her room. Without realizing that Alex was still there, Aiden kissed her lightly. She kissed him back and walked away.

“W-O-W!” came a voice behind him. With a huge grin on his face, Alex hugged his cousin and congratulated him. “When did this happen? You are dating! Yay! SUCCESS!”

“Wait, what?” Aiden asked confused.

“Aid! Bro, I introduced you guys. I knew that you loved her. See, I’m always right! Yes!” Alex shouted as he ran back to the room.

“You are right, Player! You make a great cupid.” Aiden smiled. He knew that this wouldn’t have been a secret for long. Smiling, he walked towards his room only to get stopped by Jo, who had a huge grin on her face.

“Gotcha!” She winked and pulled him into her room and closed the door behind him. No one, absolutely no one had a clue what was going to happen behind the door. An adventure had already begun. And in Aiden and Jo’s world, it had reached a whole different level.

- Chapter 18 -

Adventure Abound

Jo’s phone buzzed loudly, waking her up in a shock. She turned the volume down, not wanting to wake Aiden up, but was surprised to see that he wasn’t there. Running her hand through her hair, she answered the phone.

“Hello,” she said, sighing lightly.

“Hello, Jo? Can you hear me?” Abigail yelled. Jo had to move the phone away from her ear a little.

“Calm down, Abby; yeah, I can hear you clearly. Wassup?” she had called Abigail and told her about Aiden, which hadn’t surprised her at all.

“Umm . . . Jo, something bad has happened. Richard called last night and demanded your location, your
exact
location. He visited Jacob’s place, too. And I think Jake might not have informed you of this, but he almost broke Richard’s nose.”

“Whoa! When did this happen? And why the heck didn’t Jake call me?”

“He is kinda pissed off. He was talking to his lawyer on the phone when I visited him. I think Richard is in big trouble. Don’t pick up his call, okay? We didn’t tell him where you are, or that Aiden is with you. If he tries to do something—”

Jo cut her off, “To Aiden?” She sounded nervous as she thought about Richard.

Abigail was anxious, “Try talking to him. Aiden will understand. If he doesn’t, then that’s his loss.” Abby cared deeply for her best friend, and she had already decided to talk to Alex about this. The Player always had a solution.

Jo was deep in thought when she heard a knock on the door and Aiden walked in. “Good morning, Jo,” he said. “Sleep well?”

She raised her hand, gesturing for him to wait for a minute and pointed towards her phone. “Sure, go on,” he replied and sat on the couch, checking his phone.

“That’s okay. I think I’ll have a word with him later,” Jo said. “Right! Take care. Bye, Abby.” She cut the call and walked towards Aiden, who was texting someone. “Morning,” she said and kissed his cheek. Aiden threw his arm over her shoulder and hugged her. She noticed that the text looked weird; it wasn’t normal English.

“What is that cava and bien, Aiden?” she asked curiously. He smiled to himself and shook his head. He had to teach her French soon.

“This, my love, is French. Which you need to learn pretty soon.” He smirked. “‘Ça va’ here literally means
‘it goes’
but here I am using it with ‘
Comment’
, so it becomes ‘
Comment ça va?’
which means ‘How’s it going?’” he said as he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers when he explained the French part. She fought back an urge to laugh at his gesture. “And ‘bien’ . . . well, that’s based on the text, which I can’t explain now.”

“Are you keeping secrets from me?” she asked in mock-anger. He laughed out loud and kissed her brow.

“I would love to tell you, but don’t you think we are running late?” He asked tapping his finger over his wristwatch. Jo noticed that this one was new. She had just seen the ad on TV and now it was on his wrist. “Is something bothering you?” he asked, grinning.

“No, I’ve never seen you wear this one before. It looks new,” Jo replied, smiling timidly. She didn’t want him to think that she was noticing every small move he made, or anything that he didn’t want her to.

“Oh! Yes, this is new. Alex presented it to me last night.” He smiled. “My examination results are out. I gave my exam for an M.Sc. in Astrophysics, and I passed. He was the one who checked my marks out and presented me a watch because I got through. I told him not to, but Alex and Adele love to buy me presents.”

Jo was stunned, her mind was filled with questions now, and one by one she bombarded him with them. “When did you give your master’s? And when did you study for your master’s? You were there in office all the time, how did you manage to study and how come you—”

He cut her off by placing his hand over her mouth. “Gosh! Aren’t you curious?”

She just nodded and he removed his hand, pulling her forward. He smiled at her before pulling her hand in his. He kissed each one of her fingers slowly. Moving forward, he whispered in her ears, making a shiver run down her spine. “Some questions are better left unanswered.”

“I guess you are right,” she replied and pulled his head back down, molding her lips to his. When he pulled away, she groaned lightly.

“Patience, love. I don’t want you to miss breakfast, so why don’t you meet us at the restaurant when you are ready?” He placed a soft kiss on her temple and walked away.

Jo wanted to talk to him about Richard, but she decided to wait, at least for a while. She knew that it would ruin everything. She showered as fast as she could, rushed out and put on her navy blue denim shorts and a black tee before going to meet the Reid boys. They were at the restaurant; Alex was eating pancakes, and Aiden was just drinking coffee. She walked towards them and laughed when Alex poured juice over his pancake and added maple syrup over it.

“Eww! Gross, Alex!” she cried and sat next to Aiden. Alex looked up and the piece of pancake just fell out of his mouth.

“Those shorts should be made illegal, because they may lead to some kind of accident pretty soon,” Alex commented with a smirk on his face. She noticed that they were wearing water shorts and water shoes. Alex wore his killer red t-shirt, which was famous with girls. And Aiden wore a plain dark blue tee and, for the first time, his hair was messy.

“You look pretty,” he whispered to her when she kept staring at him.

“I heard that!” Aiden raised his eyebrow at Alex.

“That’s not how you do it.  Never compliment right away, wait for a while and then—”

Aiden just got up and walked away, and Jo sat there laughing at Alex’s expression; he was so busy explaining that he let Aiden go. He told her about the upcoming rafting trip. Apparently, Aiden cancelled the second day of camping, as he had to be home soon, so they just had one day of camping. Aiden came back with a plate and placed it in front of Jo.

“Eat!” He ordered as he poured some juice for her. He knew that she would skip breakfast, so he got her toast, scrambled eggs and hash browns.

“You are the best boyfriend,” she whispered. Aiden smiled and ordered more coffee for himself.

Alex couldn’t help but chuckle. “Jo, did your best boyfriend ever tell you about his secret life?” He raised his eyebrows in a funny way and made her laugh.

“Of course he did. Nice gift, Player,” she said, looking at Alex as she helped herself to the toast. She turned towards Aiden and asked, “I want to give you a present too. What do you like?”

“This trip is already a present, Jo. I loved every single minute. Thank you,” he said and kissed her cheek. Alex, who started lecturing Aiden about flirting, interrupted them again. He sure was a player!

After breakfast, Aiden kept explaining to Jo about everything that had to do with river rafting. “Balancing the raft is very important,” he said. “We should be tactically placed so that those of similar weight and paddling power are opposite each other. I always get to be in the front with Alex; he is strong and it’s easy to balance. Sometimes a rock will come out of nowhere – trapping us. Rocks can get hung up under the raft. That’s when we locate where the rock has the raft caught. Slowly we should shift the majority of the weight in the raft to the opposite side. So it’s all about balance, Jo. And if you fall, don’t panic. Just try swimming back to the raft if you can.”

“Dude, you should have said
‘I’ll jump after you and save your life if you fall, Jo’
,” Alex interrupted. Jo, who was nervous all this time, burst out laughing. She laughed till her sides hurt; she clutched to Aiden’s t-shirt and tried to control herself. He just pulled her closer and hugged her tightly, smiling to himself. Alex, who was checking out an email Aiden showed him, took the opportunity to use Aiden’s phone and managed to click few pictures. They looked cute hugging each other.

“Bud, phones not allowed,” Alex called as he passed it over to Aiden.

“Oh no! I forgot about the phone; I’ll keep it in our room,” he said and walked away. Alex and Jo stared at each other, confused about whose room Aiden mentioned; Alex looked at her, smirking, and she just shrugged her shoulders.

Aiden walked towards Jo’s room – their room – to keep his phone in his bag. He switched it off and put it in his backpack, which he placed near the bed. He grabbed a water bottle as he walked out. At that moment, a phone started ringing – and it wasn’t his. He looked around the room to find Jo’s phone near the couch. Wondering if it would be all right to just answer and take the message, he clicked answer.

“Josephine, why didn’t you answer your calls?” a guy’s voice demanded from the other side. Aiden was surprised to hear this person speaking so casually. Maybe he was a friend.

Sighing, Aiden replied, “Hey there, Josephine isn’t here. Would you like to leave a message?”

“Who is speaking?” The man demanded, his voice was smooth, but there was a hint of aggression in it.

“My name is Aiden; we are on a holiday, and Jo isn’t in the room at the moment. I could ask her to call you later,” Aiden said politely. Well that guy may be weird but he didn’t lose his manners.

“That would be good. Thank you,” the man replied.

Before he could cut the call, Aiden spoke, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Richard,” the smooth voice flowed from the other side before the call was cut.

Weird guy,
 Aiden thought as he placed Jo’s phone near the bed and walked out.

“So that’s where you have been hiding, Josephine. And with your lover! That’s not innocent at all,” Richard said to himself, smirking as he looked at Jo’s picture. “Now the game begins!”

*  *  *

Aiden walked towards Alex and Jo, who were waiting for the car that would take them to the rapids. Alex handed Jo a bandana and tied his own like a headband. It was his favorite one; he called it The Red-Hot Flame.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Jo asked, looking at her blue bandana; it was cute in a way with light blue flames across the dark blue cloth.

“It’s the adventure spirit, Jo.” Alex grinned. “We Reids wear our bandanas when we do something extreme.” He winked at her. She tied it on and looked at Aiden, who was just smiling at her.

“How does it look?” she asked when he moved forward.

“Looks great!” he said.

Alex smiled to himself when he saw Aiden’s reaction. Aido was madly in love and it was a good thing, because he was letting her in. He wasn’t shutting himself off as usual.

“Where’s yours, Aid?” Jo asked, curious, as she didn’t see him wearing one. He lifted his arm and showed her the wristband he wore; it was actually his blue-and-yellow bandana. “Wow! I like yours!”

“Guys, let’s get going. Don’t wanna miss the ride,” Alex called as he pulled Jo and Aiden along with him.

“Wait, Alex,” Aiden stopped him. “I forgot to tell you something, Jo. A guy named Richard called when I was keeping my phone in the room.”

Jo looked uneasy, and it made him worry if he had said something wrong. “Richard?” she managed to ask.

“Yeah! That’s what he said. He demanded to know why you weren’t answering his calls and asked me to tell you that he wants you to call him. I think you should once we get back.”

Alex noticed every single thing quietly. He knew that she wasn’t comfortable to talk about this Richard person. It was easy to read her expression; she was anxious. She was looking down, and he tapped Aiden’s shoulder lightly to get his attention and placed a finger on his mouth, asking Aiden to stop talking.

“Well, that can be done later. Now it’s time to have fun,” Alex stepped in between them and threw his arm around her shoulder and started walking ahead. Aiden followed them silently. 
Who was the guy he spoke to? Why did Jo react so badly hearing his name? What was going on?

Their ride was here, but Jo was still tense. Aiden grabbed her hand, pulling her close. She hugged him and smiled, assuring him that she was all right. It took them ten minutes to reach the river where they would start rafting. Alex was more than thrilled as he saw how cool everything was. Only three people including Alex and Aiden had rafted before; they were experienced, and everyone else was new to this. The guide gave a brief introduction and explained the safety procedures.

Helmets, paddles and life jackets were distributed to everyone. Aiden helped Jo wear her life jacket and kissed her brow before helping her with the helmet.

“Aren’t you going to wear it?” she asked placing her hands on his waist.

He kissed her nose and replied, “I will!”

Alex and Aiden got to sit in the front, as they knew how to handle the raft if they got stuck somewhere. Jo sat right behind Aiden and he explained how to hold the paddle and how to sit properly. She felt like a three year old, but she was used to it because he was just like Jake, worrying all the time!

The raft drifted slowly, gaining momentum as they neared the first rapid where suddenly it went from just rowing to battling the raging waters. From the gleam of fast-moving clear water to the bubble and fall of rapid action, each was a shot of adrenaline rushing to give them a rush like no other. The danger, ferocity and the sheer wildness just added to the excitement and the experience got better and better the further they moved along the river. It was all about balance and momentum – the correct amount of moving forwards and balancing their weight that was required.