Page 6 of Aries (PAHL #1)

Aries

His teammates were tired after the game, but Aries was still bursting with energy. Since they were headed home and not to a game, no one really cared about their usual seats or tradition. Aries found himself sitting next to Vin on the plane, which he wasn’t going to complain about.

Aries sat in the window seat, giving Vin the aisle where the tall man could stretch out his legs. Besides, Aries liked being tucked in the corner. Especially with Vin’s big body bracketing him in and making him feel safe. He really didn’t like flying in a plane. Aries had wings! He could fly himself. Stupid metal boxes should not be in the air.

“Are you okay?” Vin asked, placing his hand on Aries’s bouncing knee.

“Yep,” Aries replied, trying to ignore the heat from Vin’s palm sinking into his body. “I just don’t like flying. In a plane. I love to fly myself. Too bad I can’t carry anything with me. I could take myself from city to city.”

Vin chuckled. “I also do not enjoy flying. I do believe that your hockey gear weighs more than you do.”

“Oh!” Aries smacked Vin’s shoulder. “Are you a sky puppy too?”

Very slowly Vin blinked at him. “A sky puppy?”

Aries giggled and slapped his hand over his mouth. The teammates around them were sleeping. He didn’t mean to be loud, but he was super excited. “Bat!” He mumbled under his hand.

With gentle fingers, Vin removed Aries palm from his mouth. “What was that?”

“Can you turn into a bat?” Vin asked excitedly. “I didn’t think about that! How cool would it be if we fly together?”

“I’m a vampire,” Vin told him. “I know that you know that.”

“But—” Aries wiggled in his seat. Vin still had a hold of his hand. “Can’t vampires turn into bats too?”

“No, little one,” Vin said gently. “We don’t shift.”

“Oh!” That was disappointing. It had been a nice thought. Nix always shifted with him. It was lonely to do it alone.

“I’ve never seen a fruit bat,” Vin said. “Natural or shifted. You’ll have to show me sometime.”

“I can do that!” Aries bounced faster.

Vin released his hand, and Aries didn’t like that at all. His brothers had been teasing him since he’d been on his away games for talking about Vin so much, but it was because of the vampire that Aries was finally starting to feel settled. Aries knew that dating a teammate was a mistake. That didn’t take into account how hard it was to have any interest in anyone.

Gem had been the one that had sat Aries down and explained about being demisexual. Aries had thought that his nonsexual attraction to anyone just meant he was weird. That maybe something was broken inside him. It had been a depressing thought. Instead, he’d found that there were other people out there like him. That Aries wasn’t as different as he thought.

Although Aries was more on the extreme side of being demisexual. He seriously felt no attraction unless there was some sort of deep connection. Which was freaking hard! It wasn’t like he had a lot of time to get to know anyone outside of his family and hockey teammates. And most men his age were all about hookups, which made dating apps near impossible for him to use. No one wanted to talk for months or even a year without meeting and having sex.

He rubbed the hand Vin had held against his chest. Aries was confused over the vampire. Sure, since they’d been on the road they’d been spending a lot of time together, but Aries already had big feelings for Vin before that. There was something about the vampire that made Aries want to lean on the older man.

“I have something for you,” Vin told him. “If you want.”

“I want!” Aries immediately agreed. Vin had the best ideas! Aries would have gone insane without Vin’s help over the series of away games.

As Vin reached for his backpack, Aries got comfortable in his seat. At least the plane was built for paranormal athletes, so he had plenty of space. Aries’s feet didn’t even touch the ground, and he could nearly lie sideways in the huge chair.

“Put your tray table down,” Vin ordered.

Aries scrambled to comply as Vin set a bottle of apple juice on the tray followed by a package of Cheez-Its and two small bags of apple slices. Oh! What a perfect snack. He danced in his seat.

Next came the fine-point markers and the adult coloring book that Aries had colored in when they’d been in the hotel before the Pittsburg game. Aries would have totally preferred a more fun coloring book. Superheroes or animals but at least he had something to do while on the flight.

“Thank you!” Aries turned the pages in the book to find the coolest picture.

While Aries searched for the most perfect picture, Vin opened his juice bottle, the crackers, and apple slices.

“The arena didn’t have any fresh apple so all I could find was the packages of slices,” Vin told him.

Aries paused to beam to him. “This is still so awesome! I was totally out of apples.”

“I know,” Vin said with a soft smile. “The farmers market will be back this weekend. We’ll go and grab you some fresh apples.”

Best. Plan. Ever! “Yes!”

He was so happy that Vin was on the same page as him. Aries could always talk Nix into finding the best fruit in the city, but it was harder when Aries didn’t have the best track record with the Las Vegas streets and he was responsible for finding his own fruit. The streets in the city were confusing. There were so many one-way streets and tons of traffic. There hadn’t been one time that Aries hadn’t gotten lost.

Vin sat back in his seat with an air of contentment.

Aries got to work on his picture. He snacked and drank his juice while Vin sat quietly beside him. Each time Aries checked, Vin had a small smile on his face as he relaxed but wasn’t really doing anything.

“Do you want to color?” Aries offered him the red marker.

“Would you like me too?”

“Yes! You can help! You do all the little circles. Those are hard to stay in the lines. I’ll do the squares in…blue!”

“Sounds perfect to me.”

Aries scooted the book closer to the edge of his tray so they could both work. This was even better than coloring alone. He giggled quietly when they got in each other’s way, but Aries didn’t mind that he had to share space. The constant jitters eased, and Aries could enjoy having someone by his side that didn’t need him to do anything. There was no hockey to worry about. Aries didn’t need to figure out what to eat or drink. He didn’t have to worry about breaking something in his overly neat apartment. This…this was nice.

“I ordered us a car from the airport,” Vin said quietly.

And he didn’t even have to worry about how to get home. Aries glanced over at Vin. The vampire was concentrating hard on coloring in the circles that Aries really hadn’t wanted to do but needed done.

How had he lucked out to find such a fierce protector on ice but as gentle as anyone off?

Taking a chance that he wouldn’t be rejected, Aries leaned against Vin’s arm and nuzzled the muscular limb.

Vin stopped coloring but didn’t pull away. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Aries answered softly. “Just happy. Thank you for taking care of me.”

Aries was shocked when Vin turned his head enough to kiss the top of Aries’s head. “Anytime, little one.”

Maybe Aries needed to rethink his stance on dating a teammate. Or dating in general. Did it really matter how he identified or why he was so drawn to Vin? Aries was happy around the protective and grumpy vampire. That seemed like what Aries should really appreciate.

* * * * *

Vin

Aries texted like he did everything else. Excited. Bouncy. All-in. How a text message could be any of those things Vin had no idea. However, he knew that was how Aries texted him back.

Locking his front door, Vin wasn’t surprised when the one across from him opened. “We can go right now?” Aries asked.

They’d gotten home from their away game sessions the previous evening and Vin had taken the opportunity to sleep in. He was getting hungry and had also promised to take Aries to the farmers market to get fruit.

“Lunch first,” Vin told him. “Then we’ll go find your fruit.”

“Yes!” Aries pumped his fist while doing the most adorable butt wiggle ever.

If this young man wasn’t a little in the making then Vin would turn in his Daddy badge. He just knew that Aries would thrive under his control. “Shoes, keys, and let’s go.”

“Okay!” Aries raced off, leaving the front door open.

Vin stepped inside to get his second look at Aries’s apartment. The decor and big, dark furniture still didn’t suit the young man. “Did you decorate your apartment yourself?” he asked.

Aries shook his head where he sat on the floor, putting on his tennis shoes. “No, Mama thought it might be too much for me while I was healing my leg injury, so I hired a decorator.”

That made much more sense and he’d forgotten about the injury that Aries had during preseason.

“How’d you hurt your leg again?” Normally injuries for paranormal weren’t that common. Oh, they still got hurt but healed much faster than a human.

“Well, see,” Aries started.

It was all Vin could do not to roll his eyes. He just knew something ridiculous was coming.

“Nix wanted to go to Hawaii and learn how to surf,” Aries said. “We took a summer vacation to the big island.”

“And you got hurt surfing?”

“No, I fell off a cliff.”

“You fell off a cliff?” Vin demanded.

“Technically, Nix pushed me off the cliff with him when he fell.”

“I…you…” How did this little shifter constantly have him speechless?

“We were okay,” Aries insisted. He peered up from the ground. “We managed to shift into our bats before we got too hurt.”

Vin blinked down at his little one. He needed to remember not to allow Aries and Nix to be alone when anything dangerous could happen. That seemed a recipe for disaster. “Where was Gem?”

Aries bit his lip.

Fuck! Now what? “Aries?”

“He was inside the house we rented, making dinner. And maybe me and Nix were supposed to stay in the backyard because there had been mud slides in the area.”

“Gem was mad at you both,” Vin guessed.

“So mad,” Aries whispered with big eyes. “So very mad.”

Vin offered his hand to help Aries to his feet. “He yelled?”

Aries allowed Vin to pick him up. The boy barely weighed anything. “Loud! And then he called our mama and she yelled too.”

Vin nodded seriously. He’d already figured out that Aries didn’t like yelling. The coaches did it on the ice, from the bench, in the locker room, and Aries always shied away. “I’m glad it wasn’t something more serious.”

“Me too! Food?”

“Yes, food. Where are your keys to lock your apartment?” Vin ushered Aries toward the door, snagging the keys from the hook Aries pointed to before closing and locking the door behind them.

“Are we having chicken and rice? And vegetables?” Aries said the last word with so much disdain that Vin laughed.

“No to chicken and rice. Yes to vegetables,” he replied.

Aries’s shoulders slumped. “It’s not game day!”

“That’s why you get to skip the chicken and rice,” Vin informed him. “Vegetables should be a part of every meal.”

“Where are we going?” He ran forward to push the elevator button. About five times. Vin caught his hand so he couldn’t push it a sixth time.

“I’ll let you decide,” Vin said. He gave Aries’s hand a squeeze then let go.

Aries hummed. “I don’t know. What are you hungry for?”

Did the boy not like to make decisions? That wouldn’t surprise Vin. “Do you like sushi?”

“Ew!” Aries made a face. “Raw fish?”

Okay, sushi was out. “Chinese?”

“You just want me to eat more rice!” Aries claimed.

There was a big difference between the fried rice that he’d been thinking about and the white grain rice that they ate before games. Vin had a sudden stroke of genius. “Pizza?”

The elevator door opened but Aries was stuck looking at him with his mouth open. Was that a yes?

“No pizza?”

“I feel like this is a trick question. Of course I want pizza! I never don’t want pizza. Mama said I couldn’t order it for every meal though.”

“When was the last time you had pizza?” Vin asked, guiding Aries into the elevator.

“The night before we left,” Aries told him.

“Long enough.” Plus, the restaurant that Vin planned on taking Aries to did not serve the type of pizza that his boy was probably used to. Aries had no idea what was in store for him.

“Pizza!” Aries danced around. “Pizza! Yay! It’s a pizza day! Pizza! Pizza!”

Vin hoped that Aries was that excited when he realized that Vin had tricked him. He got Aries downstairs and across the parking garage to Vin’s private parking spot. Vin eyed his motorcycle in the spot next to his SUV. Vegas didn’t get too cold in the winter, so he hoped he’d be able to take the bike out soon. Of course, he also hoped that Aries would be behind him, holding on tight.

Just imagining the boy pressed up tight against his back, arms wrapped around his waist and hanging on for life, gave Vin a thrill.

Hitting the key fob to unlock his vehicle, Vin made sure to get to the passenger door for Aries, who was still singing about pizza. He snorted as he held open the door.

Aries beamed at him. “I think I’m going to get pepperoni. No! Meat lovers! Totally getting meat lovers.”

“I would think you’d be one of those people who ate pineapple on their pizza,” Vin commented.

“I love pineapple on a pizza! Maybe I should get that.” Aries wiggled into the seat.

Leaning over Aries, Vin snapped the seat belt into place.

“Do you like pineapple?”

“Not on my pizza,” Vin informed him.

“Meat lovers!” Aries announced. “We’ll get a meat lovers. Except I don’t know how much you eat? Do you want a whole pie to yourself? I can eat my own, but I probably shouldn’t.”

“We can decide at the restaurant,” Vin told him.

“And no vegetables!” Aries cheered.

“Salad,” Vin countered.

Aries whined. “No one orders a salad at a pizza parlor.”

“We will.” They were going to get salads. Vin chuckled as he closed the door. The boy hadn’t even noticed that Vin had been taking care of him the entire time since they left the apartment. It was natural to care for Aries and his little one seemed very pleased with his efforts.

Vin got them on the road, heading to one of the newest casinos. He knew the manager and had been invited to opening night for their new Italian bistro. Vin had fallen in love with the flavors and fresh ingredients. Since there was a time that he’d had to give up food Vin made sure to enjoy it now. He couldn’t wait to introduce his boy to the place. It wasn’t what Aries would expect but it would be so much better. And healthier.

Eventually the boy would learn that Vin was a very serious and stern Daddy. Vin might allow his little one some treats but the boy would be in great shape for the season. Off season, some things could be negotiated.

First, Vin needed to lock down the relationship he wanted with Aries. That started with this afternoon’s trip. Lunch and then a visit to the farmers market.