Game Changer (2 page)

"It was really great to meet you."

"You too Emily," he said before following me off the plane. Outside of the terminal, Ethan was waiting for me and I took one fleeting look at Aiden before he walked away and into the unknown. 

"Why did you let him walk away?" Ethan asked me, like I was crazy or something.

"Because I've only known him for a few hours."

"Like that matters. I've had sex with women I've known for less time and you couldn't even ask him for his number." Ethan tasked at me.

"Shut up you horn dog." I punched him playfully in the arm. “Let’s go find our luggage.”

Chapter 2

"So, where they picking us up at?" Ethan asked, grabbing our bags from the carousel. "Just outside of baggage claim, I assume?"

"I don't know Ethan, we'll find them eventually. It's not exactly a very big airport."

Just then, I saw Erica and her fiancé. We didn’t know much about him, other than his name was Kane. I had seen pictures of him before, but those pictures didn’t do him any justice, that’s for sure. He was hot, really hot. You go, Erica.

"Oh My God!!" Erica screamed. I held my tongue and resisted rolling my eyes. Ethan nudged me and we both burst out laughing. 

"Hey Erica." Ethan said, wrapping his arms around her when we got closer. He dwarfed her by nearly a foot. I gave her a hug after him and she immediately went into talking about her wedding plans. 

"So, we already picked out the perfect beach location for the wedding, and then we rented a hall at the hotel for the reception. You need to get your dress fitting done, but we can do that tomorrow with the other girls."

I felt my stomach sinking. "Okay." I grumbled. I looked around us, we were still at the airport. "Why are we just standing around like idiots?" I asked.

Erica rolled her eyes. "First of all, I never look like an idiot. Secondly, a couple of the groomsmen are getting in right about now and we need to wait for them."

"Oh joy." I mumbled. Ethan laughed and tried to put me in a headlock like we were ten years old or something.

"You're such a Debbie downer Emm Emm."

"Ethan, knock it off, now," I demanded. Not that he stopped or anything, so I stomped on his foot, causing him to start hopping around like a fool.

I started laughing hysterically, imagining how we must look to everybody walking by us. That caused Ethan to start laughing too and I was eventually able to push him away from me.

"You're such a dumb ass," I told him, but he didn’t seem to care what I called him. He never did.

I turned around to see where Erica was headed to and froze. There stood three insanely hot guys next to Kane. I wasn’t sure where they had come from but they didn’t seem to be walking away. Were these the groomsmen my sister was talking about? I blushed, and Ethan laughed at my reaction. 

"Well, these are my immature siblings, Emily and Ethan," Erica said to the men.

"Ethan" - "Emily" We both said at the same time. 

Erica rolled her eyes. "Anyways, these are three of Kane's groomsmen; Adam, Kirk, and Ross." 

Ethan and I waved. 

"How many groomsmen are there exactly?" I asked. 

Erica smiled proudly. "Our wedding party has ten people, not including us. I get four bridesmaids plus my maid of honor and he gets four groomsmen plus his best man."

I struggled not to laugh. 

"Isn't that a bit much? I mean ..." I cleared my throat. "Never mind. Sorry."

I didn’t get my sister. Wasn’t the whole point of a beach wedding that it was supposed to be low key? If they were going to go so over the top, why not just have a big formal church wedding back home?

Ethan shot me a look and I shrugged, then whispered "Seriously? Ten people for a beach wedding? Isn't that kind of ridiculous?" He shook his head, letting me know that he agreed with me. 

"Hey Guys!" I heard a familiar voice from behind me. I spun around and saw Aiden getting attacked by Adam, Kirk, Ross and Kane. 

I nudged Ethan. "Did you see that coming?"

He shook his head.

After a moment, Aiden stepped away from his friends and looked at me. "You stalking me?"

“Of course,” I said with a huge smile on my face.

Everybody gave us a weird look, perhaps wondering how we knew each other.

"I sat next to Emily on the plane," he explained before we all began walking toward the bus.

Holy hell, was this really happening? Was I really going to be spending the entire week with the super-hot and way to sexy for his own good, Aiden Swift?

Aiden fell into step beside me.

"Looks like I'm going to get the chance to convince you to go to the beach with me now," he whispered but loud enough for Ethan to hear, because I heard him snicker.

"Yeah, not going to happen."

We stepped onto the bus and I ended up sitting next to Aiden. We kept whispering back and forth to each other. I’m sure it looked like flirting to everybody else, and maybe it was just a little bit, but for the most part we were just getting to know each other.

"You have a Pomeranian?" I asked excitedly.

He nodded. "Yeah, her name is Presley."

"As in Elvis?"

He nodded happily. "Yeah. She's got a little under bite and it reminded me of the Elvis lip."

I laughed and smacked his arm. "That's so mean."

He shrugged. "I thought it was cute."

We pulled up to a hotel that left me breathless. It was a five-star resort that looked like a palace.

"Wow," I heard Aiden say under his breath.

"This is the first time in my life I was thankful to have such a spoiled brat of a sister,” I whispered, so that only he could hear me.

Aiden helped me with my bags once we were off the bus and led me inside to where Erica was standing. She looked like a hostess for the hotel, with a handful of plastic key cards in her hand. She started handing them out. "Aiden, you're rooming with Ethan. Emily, you're across the hall in room 301."

I gave her a weird look. "I get my own room?" 

She winked at me and said, "How about you just go check it out?" I glanced warily at her, but followed Aiden up to my room, who insisted on carrying my bags for me.

I opened my door and screamed at what I found waiting inside for me. It was my best friend, Kira. She was sitting on one of the beds. I tackled her.

"I can't believe you're here. You told me you had classes," I cried.

Kira lived next door to us growing up, but when it came time to go to college she went to the University of Texas at Austin. I hadn’t seen her in over a year.

“I missed you so much,” she said as she enveloped me in a big hug.

"Ethan, get your ass in here!" I yelled. He came around the corner almost immediately. 

"Whoa … Kira!!" He shouted and jumped on top of us.

"Oh my god," we both groaned.

Damn it, did Ethan not realize he wasn't a little boy anymore? His weight was crushing us. After trying to get out from underneath him, I glanced towards the door and noticed Aiden leaning against the frame with his arms crossed and a grin on his face.

I smiled at him. He nodded his head towards the hallway, asking me if I'd follow him. I pushed Ethan off of me and headed out the door.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Want to go and check out the grounds with me?"

"Sure, just let me grab a couple things first."

I went in and put my flip flops back on and grabbed my purse. 

When I got back out to the hallway, Aiden took my hand and we walked towards the stairwell, an unspoken agreement to take the long way. 

"So, what do you think of Erica?" I asked with a nervous grin.

"She's something," he said.

I wasn't sure how to take it. I mean, it could be that he now had this huge crush on her like I figured he would, or he was just humoring me because he knew I liked laughing at her.

"Yeah?"

"Yep."

I looked at him and saw that he was purposely doing this. I huffed.

"Fine. What do you mean by something?" I asked, rolling my eyes.

He grinned triumphantly. "You were wrong earlier about how I would know what you meant when I saw her. I still think you're pretty flawless."

I blushed and ducked my head.

He moved his hand so his fingers intertwined with mine. We ended up standing in front of a huge pool, which over looked the ocean. "My sister is so spoiled," I said randomly. 

"Why do you say that? Plenty of people get married in Cancún."

"Yeah, I know, but we grew up without much money. So I guess now it's just, that nothing is ever good enough for her. I almost feel bad for Kane, not because I think she'll cheat on him or anything like that, but he's always going to end up dealing with her ridiculous demands." I shook my head.

“If you really love someone, you don’t need all this pomp and circumstance. A wedding should just be about you and the man you want to spend the rest of your life with. Why do you need a hundred people watching you exchange your vows?”

I sighed. “Whatever, I’m just being ridiculous. Don’t listen to me.”

He pulled me into him, so that we were standing face to face. “I happen to agree with you. I never understood the concept of big weddings either.”

I was sure he was about to kiss me, but instead he pulled away and we continued our stroll around the hotel gardens before heading back in to get dressed for dinner.

When we got back to our respective rooms, Kira helped me curl my hair into large, long, ringlets. I wasn’t sure what to wear, but we finally decided on a blue sundress with a light brown leather belt that matched my gladiator sandals perfectly.

We opened our door at the same time that Aiden and Ethan opened theirs.

"Hey handsome!" I winked at Aiden, but Ethan faked being bashful and said "aww, thanks." We all laughed.

Ethan held out his arm and escorted Kira downstairs. Aiden and I stood there for a moment, checking each other out, before he held his arm out for me to take.

"You look beautiful."

I blushed and then smiled up at him.

“Thank you.”

He was wearing a light blue button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and dark wash jeans. He looked delicious.

“The color of your shirt makes your eyes look amazing … In a manly way of course," I corrected. 

He grinned. "Of course."

Downstairs, everyone was waiting for us, including my parents who before now, I hadn’t seen yet. They flew out to Cancún the day before my brother and I did.

"You're gorgeous this evening Kitten," Dad said as he kissed my forehead. 

"Thanks Daddy. You're looking rather dapper yourself." I winked at him and then hugged my mom. 

"Who's the arm candy?"

I gave her a confused look and glanced behind me. 

"Oh, Aiden? He sat beside me on the plane and turned out to be one of Kane's groomsmen. We've been talking a lot since then." She gave me a look that said that she knew
all
and I couldn't hide anything from her. 

We all piled onto the bus. Unfortunately, there were a few too many people so Ethan and I didn’t have a spot.

My brother didn’t let that bother him. He picked Kira up and placed her on his lap.

I looked around. "Seriously guys?"

I glanced at Aiden and noticed that he patted his lap.

"Ha, no. I'm way too big for that."

He grabbed my hand and tried to pull me to him but I tugged my hand away, so he stood up and wrapped his arms around my waist, making me fall onto his lap as he sat down.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"

He laughed loudly. "I'm fine honey." He was still chuckling while I just glared at him. 

He laughed again and then kissed my shoulder.

"I know you're not really mad."

"Um, I'm not?"

"Nope. You forget, I've seen you mad before Emily.”

“When?”

“On the plane, when Ethan told me that you liked me."

The memory of that little embarrassing moment irritated me so I shot a glare towards Ethan, who was too busy playing with Kira’s hair to notice. I made a mental note to remember to punch him in the gut later.

For the rest of the trip, Aiden kept one hand on my hip while the other rested on my knee.  I could feel his hot breath on my neck and it was driving me wild. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. My skin rippled pleasurably under his touch.

We were on a bus with my family and all these other people and yet, all I could do was think about Aiden ripping my clothes off. What in the heck is wrong with me?

I tried to focus on something else, anything but Aiden’s gentle touch.

Erica was leaning across the aisle to talk to one of her old sorority sisters while Kane spoke to Adam.

Kirk and Ross were busy chatting up Erica’s other sorority sisters.

The parents and grandparents were all enjoying themselves too. At the restaurant, Erica and Kane led everybody off the bus and we followed in couples. Aiden held onto my arm before I could get tangled up with anybody else. I laughed as he dragged me down the stairs, careful that I didn't fall. 

"Careful super star, not all of us are as good on our feet as you are." I warned him with a wink. 

He leaned down and whispered seductively into my ear "If you think I'm good on my feet, wait until you see me off them."