Page 109 of Laws of Love
They’d just finished having an early dinner and were headed to their last stop in the city. She’d informed him that their appointment was at seven-thirty, and he wasn’t sure if she’d considered the game could have gone into overtime or if she’d tried to leave enough time between each stop to be safe.
They pulled up to what looked like a private event space, and his eyes were drawn to the floating tethered hot air balloons. Aiva led him over to the operator and gave her name. They had a few minutes to wait, and she pulled him off to the side.
“I heard you get a magnificent view from here,” she said as they waited.
“It should be pretty out over the mountains,” he responded. “We should take some pictures.”
Soon, they were in the balloon carriage ascending into the air until the tethers prevented them from going further. She was right. The view over the mountains was nice. He watched her take out her phone and take a couple of pictures of the scenery before he took it. Knox wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her back against his chest.
“Take a picture with me.” They took a few before he gave her the phone back and brought his other arm to join the first.
“Do you think we should take Yas in one sometime?”
“I think she’d like that,” he responded.
They stood in peaceful silence after that. Sometime later, Aiva looked at her phone before turning in his arms.
“I want to tell you something.”
Knox looked down at her. The way slivers of the setting sun made her brown eyes pop against her penny-colored skin. She pulled her plump bottom lip between her teeth, and he reached up with his thumb to pull it free.
“You can tell me anything, baby.”
“I love you.”
His heart skipped more beats than he could count, and he felt like someone had released hummingbirds in his stomach. Hearing her say those words was like waking up as a kid on Christmas morning to find you’d gotten everything you’d asked for and more.
“I love you,” he responded, and before she could say anything else, he took her face in his hands, and his lips were on hers.
All he wanted to do was drink her in and pull her close enough for their bodies to mesh together. He didn’t know how long they kissed and was unaware they’d descended until a throat clearing had him reluctantly pulling away.
“What time is our flight?” he asked her as they returned to the car.
“In an hour and a half.”
Good. He couldn’t wait for them to get home. He could continue what they’d started in that balloon, reaffirming his love for her between kisses across her skin.
44
“Hey, son,” his dad greeted Knox as he walked through the front door of his parents’ house.
“Hey, Dad. I brought lunch and thought I would spend a few hours with you and Mom before I pick Yas up from school.”
“Your mother’s in the garden. I’ll get her if you want to set the food up on the table.”
Knox spread the food he’d brought, grabbed drinks from the fridge, and waited for his parents to join him. They came in a couple of minutes later, his mother greeting him and kissing his cheek as she passed to the sink.
Once seated with their food, Knox asked his dad how things were going with his fishing club. It was a group of retired men who got together to fish, talk about fishing, or talk about a fishing spot none of them had seen, which probably didn’t exist, but swore someone they knew saw it. They did more of the latter two than the first.
“I’ve seen a lot of pictures of you and Aiva since the two of you were shown on national television for your birthday last month,” his mother stated when there was a lull in the conversation. “People are wondering and speculating.”
Knox had noticed that, too. Before, when they would go out, and random fans or a few paparazzi would take pictures to sell, there hadn’t been as many. Now that they’d been seen together on a bigger scale, he hadn’t been able to go two days without getting online and seeing pictures from their Disney vacation, cruise, and random dates being shared over again.
After the first couple of weeks of it happening, he’d spoken to Aiva about it. Knox didn’t want her to be uncomfortable or for it to get out of hand for her. He knew it could get overwhelming; he didn’t want that for her. However, she’d told him a couple of people had approached her while waiting for coffee one morning, and it was fine. His girlfriend believed they would approach her with the same type of energy she received them with.
He’d like to believe that, but he knew from experience some people liked to be intrusive for the hell of it.
“Is she dealing with it okay?” his dad asked with concern.
