Page 10 of Beautifully Complicated

“You’ve seen Fight Club?” I bite back a grin for the umpteenth time since we started talking.

“Um, a totally ripped Brad Pitt? Yes, please.”

“You’re all about the sexy, shirtless men, huh?”

“I mean, they don’t hurt.” He turns a little pink again. “But Fight Club really shocked me when the truth was revealed. I never saw it coming.”

“Yeah, that ending was unexpected.”

“So, you like psychological thrillers and comedies?” Aiden sums up my choices.

“I guess I gravitate towards them, yeah. But I like a good action movie here and there.”

“Have you seen the Matrix?” he asks.

“Who hasn’t? That movie was life changing.”

Aiden sits up taller, intrigued. “How so?”

I don’t want to get into work talk, and how all that code filtering over the screen was the impetus for the career I’ve built trying to merge computers with human functionality. So, I simplify the answer. “The special effects of course, where time seemed to stand still. Movies took on a whole new quality after that.”

Aiden’s toffee eyes regard me so intensely I wonder if he can tell that’s only a partial answer. But if he senses I’ve left anything out, he doesn’t press the issue.

“True.” He nibbles on a plump limp, contemplating, and I have to pinch my leg to force my eyes off them.

“What are some of your favorites?” I ask. “Any era.”

He gets that wistful look on his face again, something I equate to an intelligent mind that’s constantly firing, and once again I have a visceral reaction in places that shouldn’t be awake right now.

“I was hooked on Marvel movies as a kid, and once I was old enough my dad started showing me what he considered the classics. Caddyshack, Airplane, Monty Python and the Holy Grail—that’s my favorite. Shrek.”

“Your dad thinks Shrek is a classic?”

“It was the first animated movie that had adult humor, or so he said. To this day he can’t watch the part about the gingerbread man without laughing so hard he actually cries.”

“I haven’t thought about Shrek in years, but I suddenly have a desire to watch it right now.”

“It’s surprisingly entertaining.” He blinks a few times and ducks his head as though he can’t fathom he just said that.

“So, animated movies? You’re a fan?” I ask him.

Aiden goes to sip his drink only to realize it’s empty, the perfect opportunity for me to say thank you and leave like the responsible man I’m supposed to be. The one who doesn’t chase after men with siblings my age. Yet I can’t bring myself to stand up. Not when every nerve in my body is humming simply from being in his presence.

So, rather than do the sensible thing, I do something reckless. “Can I buy you a drink this time?”

Chapter three

Aiden

Kier Caldwell is staring at my lips. And he’s been doing it all night.

At first, I thought I was imagining things. That maybe I had something on my face he found distracting, so I licked my lips to remove it. But that simple act only seemed to make him lookmore. So, I kept playing with them. And he kept staring.

Just like he is right now, as I lick away the stray flavor of whiskey from the drink he just bought me.

“So,” Kier prompts. “Animated movies are a guilty pleasure of yours?”

Guilty pleasure.Why did he have to phrase it that way? Now I feel like a jerk for pretending not to know who he isandfor wanting to do more than just flirt with him.

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