Mister West by R.J. Lewis (animal farm read .TXT) 📕

answering. “Having no fear, no constraints, living in the moment, ready for the next thing. I hadn’t tasted bitterness yet. I didn’t know pain.”

We slow to a stop. I lean over the rail, my gaze still trapped on the flowing water.

“What is freedom to you, Aidan?” I ask quietly.

“I’m living it, Ivy,” he answers thoughtfully. “It was a second chance at life, at not being shackled to the past, to my mistakes. Sometimes…it catches up to me, certain things I try to let go, but…I’m looking ahead. You have to keep looking ahead.”

I nod once, swallowing hard. I have to look ahead. I wish it were that easy.

There’s such chill in the air now that we’re standing still. I let out a small shiver. A moment later something warm envelopes me. Aidan’s suit jacket. I look up at him, surprised. He’s not looking at me anymore. He’s looking out across the water with a mercurial expression.

My heart warms at his kind gesture. I slip my arms through the sleeves. The inner fabric feels soft like velvet. I’m literally coated in this man’s scent now. I take a quick whiff of it. His cologne is dangerously good. I can only describe it as Aidan.

“You hungry?” he then asks me, looking down at me.

I nod. “Starving.”

“Let’s find a good place to eat.”

“Okay.”

We turn back and plod along the sidewalk in the direction of Lansdowne Park. He’s silent in thought and I’m dying to know of what. We wait at the corner for the light to turn green when his fingers brush mine. Slight as it is, it sends tingles through me.

“I hope your feeling of freedom isn’t forever lost, Ivy,” he remarks quietly, and then we cross.

Fifteen

Ivy

We’re seated inside a loud bar and grill. It’s packed with people, and they’re counting down to a major UFC match on the big screens. I glance at the time on the wall. It’s just before nine at night. I pull out my phone and have a quick glance at the screen. I have no messages. Good. That means he’s out, too.

We’re sitting at a circular high table on stools beside the large entrance windows. Aidan’s rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt. His tie is loosened, and the hair at the top has been blown in all directions. The rugged look suits him.

The waitress pours us a cup of water and sets two menus down for us. I eye her as she sneaks glances in Aidan’s direction. Her cheeks are rosy, and she looks sort of nervous. It’s really cute. When she leaves, I’m smiling softly at myself. I glance up at Aidan and he’s already looking back at me, a lazy smirk crossing his lips.

“Who do you think is going to win?” I ask him, flicking a glance at the nearest screen.

He doesn’t look. “I don’t give a fuck, Ivy.”

I narrow my eyes at him in thought. “What do you give a fuck about then? And don’t say your company, or your cars.”

“I don’t know anymore.”

I raise a brow. “Anymore? As in, this is a recent development?”

“I think I’m having an identity crisis.”

I smile because I think he’s joking, but he’s not smiling back.

“Care to explain?” I press lightly.

He settles his elbows on the table and glances down at the menu, but he’s not reading it. He’s searching for words. He looks suddenly younger than I’ve ever seen him before. God, he’s a beautiful man.

“Lately I’ve been tempted to run,” he mutters, brows coming together. “I don’t know where. I just want to run away from everything. It’s not like before, when I was a kid, either, because I wanted to run then but that was because my father was a drunk and my mother was dying of cancer. Those were valid reasons. I wanted to run to start a new reality, to bury the past, but now…it’s the same feeling, but it’s not for the same purpose.”

My heart has slowed down. The conversation’s taken a serious turn I didn’t anticipate. My smile is gone, and I’m staring at him and trying to picture him as a kid. My throat feels clogged. I swallow to rid the heaviness there. “I uh…” I clear my throat. “I didn’t know your life was like that, Aidan.”

He looks up at me. His brown eyes are deep and so dark, it’s easy to get lost in them. “Because you didn’t look me up,” he tells me, his expression growing tender. “You really know nothing about me.”

“But how come I feel like I do?” I shake my head slightly, feeling embarrassed. “But I don’t, clearly.”

“You do,” he corrects me. “You know me pretty well by now, Ivy. You don’t need to know my autobiography to know me, you understand? I…don’t bring anyone close.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want anyone to see past the man they think they know.”

“You mean the asshole.”

His lips spread into a soft smile. “Yeah, although I am an asshole. More so back then.”

“When is back then? Like when you were a kid?”

He shakes his head. “I’m pretty sure my assholery was at its peak a couple years ago.”

“What happened to you a couple years ago?”

He shrugs. “I was just angry. I think when you try and bury your upbringing, it catches up to you. It haunts you. After so many years, it gets bigger and bigger. It was a big shadow hanging over me by the time I finally turned to it. I lashed out at everything, at my grandmother, my…brother.”

I feel my heart strings pull. “Is that why you’re not close to him?”

He licks his lips in thought. “He forgave me pretty quickly.”

“Because he loves you.”

“But I never actually apologized.”

I frown, looking down at the table as I work through that. “You don’t have to hear an apology to forgive someone.”

“Maybe.”

He seems bothered. He taps his finger on the table. I’m starting to realize he does this when he’s thinking hard about something. I watch him, taking his face