The Wall of Winnipeg and Me (13 page)

“Yes. Do you want to send some of the kids down with me to help carry some things?”

Mrs. Huerta nodded and called her three oldest children to help. The eleven, nine, and eight-year-old hugged my hips and then ran down the stairs ahead of me, already fully aware of what they were keeping. The three of them barged in and headed straight toward the kitchen, slowing down when they spotted the big man transferring boxes from my bedroom into the hallway.

One by one, they each grabbed cups, pots, pans, or utensils and headed back out. I grabbed two chairs from the dining room table and made my way toward the stairs, shooting Aiden a tight smile when our eyes met on the way out. I had just deposited them in my neighbor’s living room when a shadow appeared at the doorway, carrying the other two chairs under his arms effortlessly.

“
Dios santo. Es tu novio
?” the slightly older woman asked from her spot on the couch.

Boyfriend? I felt my eyes bulge but nodded, maybe a bit robotically. “
Si
.” What else was I going to call him? I was probably lucky enough that she didn’t have time to watch football, and had no idea who he was.

She glanced in Aiden’s direction once more, balancing her three-year-old on her lap, and gradually nodded, impressed. “He’s handsome,” she said in Spanish. “And those muscles.” Mrs. Huerta added a grin to the end of her comment that had me giving her a timid smile.

“
Ya se
,” I said in a mutter before darting back out of the apartment and heading downstairs.
I knew?
Well, it was the truth. I did know he had some guns. And a chest. And that ass. I could have done worse. Maybe he had little desire for social skills and maybe he didn’t really care about anyone but himself, but he could be worse. He could be a psychopath who did bad things to animals, I guess.

I found Aiden in my apartment with the table flipped on its back, unscrewing the top of it from the legs with a pocket multi-tool I wasn’t sure where he’d gotten. He glanced up when he sensed me standing there. “What else are they taking?”

“The mattress.”

He hummed and nodded.

Forty minutes later, I had sweat pouring down my face, but Aiden and I had managed to carry the mattress up the stairs. Weight-wise, he could have carried it up by himself without a huff or a puff, but apparently, it was too big to carry alone, and my puny muscles had struggled. We set the older mattress where my neighbor’s blow-up bed had been the last time I’d come over. I’d offered the bed frame to her but understood why she hadn’t wanted it—two mattresses would barely fit in the tiny one bedroom that was built for
maybe
two occupants but not six.

Luckily, by the time we were done, my next-door neighbor’s sons were waiting outside my door to help move the rest of the furniture into his place. Aiden and I sat across from each other in the bedroom, taking the bed apart so it could be easier to move. I caught him looking at the multiple night lights I hadn’t gotten a chance to pack away. He didn’t ask about them, and I was pretty grateful.

I noticed both of the neighbor’s sons eyeing Aiden more than a little bit when they peeked into my bedroom, and then I heard one whispering to the other, but none of them said a word to us before carrying out the first of the things in the living room.

I had just taken a pee break when I opened the door, and overheard talking coming from the hallway.

“Sure.” That was Aiden.

I grabbed two of the boxes left in my bedroom, and made my way out to leave them in the living room. Standing in the hallway was Aiden, one forearm against the wall while his left hand was up, scribbling away on something with one of the Sharpies I’d left around the apartment so I could write on boxes. Next to him were my neighbor’s sons, their eyes glued on Aiden.

Yeah, it didn’t take my not-so-genius brain to figure out they knew who he was, and what Aiden was busy doing.

“I appreciate it,” one of them thanked him when he handed over the piece of paper he’d signed.

The big guy nodded, his attention turning toward me. “No problem. We should really finish packing up. We need to get going.”

The guys kind of hesitated. “We could help.”

Aiden shook his head dismissively. “We got it.”

“Thanks though,” I threw out when the rude-ass didn’t.

They nodded and one of them said, “Man, Vanessa, I had no idea you were together. Dad’s gonna lose it. He’s a huge fan.”

I already knew that, and it only made me feel guilty. My neighbor had a Three Hundreds mat outside his door. During the holidays, he hung up a wreath with team ornaments on it. “Yeah….” I just kind of trailed off. I mean, what else was I supposed to say?

Luckily, they quickly thanked Aiden and took off, closing the door behind him.

“All right.” I took a breath. “Let’s get the rest of this done.”

Between the two of us, we carried my television over to Aiden’s Range Rover as my arms trembled with exhaustion. My desktop computer followed. The fact that he could have carried it on his own didn’t escape me at all, but I wasn’t going to complain, so I kept my mouth shut. In the back of my Explorer, we put my bookcase, desk, and chair. The rest of the boxes were split up into both of our vehicles.

Aiden was in his SUV when I closed my apartment door one last time, nostalgia hitting me dead center in the chest. I always thought about moving on with my life and taking the next step toward whatever upcoming goal I had. Like when I left Aiden, a part of me missed him or some weird variation when you’re so used to doing things a certain way for a long time and suddenly you don’t, but I’d known I was going to move on. I was doing something better for myself, and doing this for him, no matter what my conscience said, was a smart step. A weird one, but a smart one.

It was a giant leap for my future, and I was going to hold on to that reminder with both hands.

I dropped off a check for the last two months of my lease, signed a few papers with the office manager, and I was out of there.

I
t took
an hour just to get to Aiden’s house from my apartment thanks to a ten-car pile-up on the highway. Between being a little overwhelmed with moving, especially since I wasn’t feeling exactly stoked to have to move in with another person—that person being my ex-boss of all people—and trying my best to convince myself that I wasn’t going to go to jail if or when officials found out the truth; I was trying not to become paranoid.

I smiled at the security guard when we got to the gated community, and ignored the curious expression on his face when he saw my car loaded up. Aiden backed into the garage, and I parked in the driveway for the first time ever.

When I got out and spotted him toting boxes inside, I grabbed the most I could carry on my own from my Explorer. I followed after him, nervous, anxious, and a little bit scared.

Everything looked familiar, but it felt foreign at the same time. I made myself march on up those stairs I’d climbed a thousand other times and kept on going when all I wanted to do was turn around, and head back to my apartment.

I was moving in with Aiden and Zac, signing some papers that would unite us in paper matrimony, and this would be my reality for the next five years. When I thought about it in bits and pieces… yeah, it didn’t help. It still seemed like a huge, white elephant I couldn’t ignore.

The door to the empty guest room was open as I approached it, and I could hear Aiden inside setting things down. I’d been in there many, many other times in the past to dust or wash the sheets. I was pretty familiar with the layout.

But it wasn’t the same as it had been the last time I’d seen it.

Aiden didn’t have a bunch of crap all over the house. Every room except the gym was pretty sparse and utilitarian. He didn’t have artwork or knickknacks. He hadn’t even bothered painting any of the rooms. There wasn’t a single trophy or jersey hanging around anywhere. The boxes of that kind of stuff were hidden in his closet, something I couldn’t completely understand. If I had the kind of trophies he did, they would be up so everyone could see them.

In his bedroom, he had a bed and two dressers. He didn’t even have a mirror in there, much less a single picture of anything or anyone. The guest bedroom had been even more barren with only a bed and a nightstand in a relatively large-sized room—it was twice the size of the room at my apartment.

But when I walked into the room that would now be mine, I didn’t just find a bed. There was a large matching dresser with a big vanity mirror mounted to it, and a new small-ish bookshelf that also seemed to match the rest of the dark brown, contemporary furniture. It didn’t hit me until much later that it was all the exact same furniture I’d had in my bedroom at my apartment… just nicer and matching.

“Your bookshelf from home would look better in the office,” Aiden casually suggested when I just stopped and stood at the doorway, too busy taking in the new furniture.

I tried to keep my surprise to a minimum, but I wasn’t sure if I succeeded or not, so all I managed to scrape together as a response was a nod. He was right though; my bookshelf would match better in there.

“Your desk can go there.” He vaguely pointed at the empty section of the wall right between the two bedroom windows. “I bought the mattress right before you started working for me. It’s only been slept in… What do you think? Three times? But if you want a new one, order one. You know which card to use.”

I snapped my mouth closed and batted away the surprise that had stolen my words, blinking over at Aiden at the same time I hesitated. He’d done all this? For me? When I’d left working for him, he hadn’t even known where to order his soap. He didn’t even run his own dishwasher. Now there was new furniture?

Who was this man? I shook my head, my forehead scrunching. “No, this is all great. Thank you.”

I didn’t even have to put any effort into remembering how comfortable it had been when I’d had to climb on top of it to strip the sheets or dust the headboard. Not too soft, not too firm. “It’s perfect.” I almost said
don’t worry about it,
but then again, I was sure he wasn’t worried; he was just trying to be accommodating, and considering I didn’t expect much, it was more than I would have planned on. “This is better than what I’m used to.”

I took another breath and slowly lowered the things I was holding to the floor. “Thanks for helping me move by the way.”

I’m really doing this
.
I’m moving in.
Holy shit.

“I appreciate it,” I wobbled out. I was really doing this.
I’m really doing this.

He tipped his head down just slightly then brushed passed me on the way out, back downstairs from the sound of the creaking staircase. There was no way I was going to slack off and make him do the majority of the hauling, even if he was in way better shape than me, and had four times the muscles.

Okay, I wasn’t going to be a lazy shit.

Downstairs, I kept up with the rest of the moving. It took a little more than half an hour for both of us to get the boxes from the vehicles into the bedroom. Then we carried my television up while my arms convulsed from how tired they were, and my fingers turned slippery with sweat. The freaking thing seemed to have gained twenty pounds on the trip from my complex to his house.

It was really heavy, and I had a feeling I was going to pull my lower back. I did manage to smash my fingers into the doorjamb, hissing “Motherfucker” under my breath.

We were heading to grab the next piece of furniture when Aiden said over his shoulder, “You should think about doing some upper-body training.”

I made a face behind him. I might have even stuck my tongue out as I held my poor, mangled fingers with my good hand.

Luckily, moving the bookcase into Aiden’s office was a lot easier, and we didn’t have any problems. My new roommate carried the desk upstairs all on his own, and I hauled the chair. Apparently, either we both needed a break or Aiden recognized the signs of exhaustion that I was sure were all over my face, so we took a break to have lunch.

Then the awkwardness began all over again.

Was I supposed to make lunch or was he? Or were we each going to make ourselves food? I hadn’t gone grocery shopping yet, obviously, but Aiden had never been stingy with his groceries or complained when I had some, but…

“I have two pizzas in the freezer.”

“Pizzas?” Were we in the right house? This was Mr. Whole-Food-Plant-Based-Diet. The most processed he got was quinoa pasta, tofu, and tempeh every so often.

He muttered something under his breath that sounded like “with soy cheese and spinach.”

I bit my cheek and nodded, watching and wondering what the hell had happened to him over the last month and a half. “Okay.”

With that, I turned on the oven like I had a thousand other times in the past. Unlike every other time, The Wall of Winnipeg went to the freezer and pulled out food on his own, getting the pizza stones out from a cabinet in a way that surprised me a little. At least when I was around, he never messed around with any of the kitchen items besides plates and utensils.

I went into the garage to throw the cardboard in with the rest of the recyclables and paused. Container after container of frozen microwavable vegan meals filled the bin.

The tiniest bit of guilt nipped at my stomach as I went back into the kitchen just as Aiden set the pizzas into the oven after a few minutes. I took the same seat I’d taken almost two weeks ago when I’d come by to talk to him about his offer. That strange silence seemed to grow as he took his favorite seat.

“Where’s Zac?” I asked, watching the huge muscles in his forearms ripple as he rotated his wrist in a stretch.

A tendon in his thick neck seemed to pop, and I knew it was in annoyance. “He didn’t come home last night.” Before I could say anything, he added in a voice I recognized as a disapproving one, “He said he’d be here.”

But he wasn’t. Zac going out wasn’t unheard of; he actually went out pretty often. Not coming back home wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence either. I’d talked to him a couple days ago briefly just to make sure he was going to be fine lying to authorities if he was questioned, and that he was okay with me moving in. He’d seemed to be more than okay with both.