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rowaelinlovebot · 3 years ago

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Rowaelin Month - Day 1

prompt: I just realised I'm desperately in love with you

extras: childhood friends to lovers, brother's best friend

word count: accidentally 12k

title and vibes taken from me & you together song by the 1975

Aelin is five when Aedion brings home the boy with the silvery blond hair.

They come barging through the front door and into the kitchen where Aelin is colouring her picture at the island. They’re loud enough to startle the crayon out of Aelin’s hand and her Auntie Mera tuts at them from her position at the stove.

“Mum,” her cousin says in the voice Aelin knows he uses when he wants something. “Can Rowan stay for dinner?”

Aelin looks at the boy, Rowan, where he stands next to her cousin. He’s a little bit shorter than her cousin, which means he’s only a little bit taller than her even though he must be eight like Aedion. His hair is shorter than her cousin’s which means he must let his mum cut it, not like her cousin who refuses to sit still long enough for his mother to successfully wield the scissors. Rowan’s football kit is newer than Aedion’s too, the blue is bright where Aedion’s is faded from wear, and his trainers are barely muddy.

“Of course, my love, have you checked with your parents?” her auntie asks. At Rowan’s solemn nod she smiles. “Make sure you boys wash your hands first.”

Aedion darts out of the room faster than Aelin can blink but Rowan steps over to where she’s sat. He bends over and picks her crayon off the floor and hands it to her with slightly muddy, outstretched fingers. She thinks Aedion probably made him carry the football home, he always makes her do that when they play together.

“Is that your name?” he asks, looking at her picture. Aelin follows his gaze to look at her drawing.

In the drawing her mum and dad are waving to her where she stands on the other side of the picture and Aelin resists the urge to cover the picture or slide it away to where he can’t see. Auntie Mera had helped her write goodbye Fireheart next to her parents in black crayon and that’s where Rowan looks.

“My name is Aelin,” she says and Rowan’s green eyes crinkle as he smiles.

“Okay, Fireheart,” is all he says before he leaves the kitchen.

Auntie Mera laughs as she tells Aelin to clean up for dinner too.

By the time Aelin is eight, Aedion and Rowan are as close as brothers. He goes to football practice with Aedion every Saturday, he comes for dinner every Thursday when Aelin knows his mum can’t pick him up after school and he comes to the cinema with them every time her uncle Gavriel takes them.

Aelin likes Rowan fine, but she thinks she’s a little bit jealous of him.

When Aelin came to live with her auntie, uncle and cousin, Aedion had promised to be her best friend. He promised her that he would be her brother and that his mum and dad would be her mum and dad. She doesn’t want his mum and dad to be her mum and dad, she has a mum and dad, they just aren’t here, but she wants Aedion to be her brother.

Except now he has Rowan.

Aedion used to take her out to play in the garden, but now he spends all of his time with Rowan. They’re both taller than her and faster than her, so even when they do let her play she can’t keep up with them. Aedion messes with her hair when she complains and asks them to slow down. We’re not going to play for Terrasen when we grow up if we slow down Aelin, he tells her as if it’s obvious.

Rowan tries to make it better, stepping in between her and her cousin and reassuring her he doesn’t mind going slower or suggesting that she goes in goal but Aelin doesn’t like that either. They kick the ball too hard and it hurts her wrists.

She can hear them out in the garden now. It’s summer so her bedroom window is open while she practices and their voices drift in on the sweet, summer air and she can hear the soft tweeting of birds when the boys aren’t shouting.

Auntie Mera and Uncle Gavriel got her lessons for her eighth birthday along with a beautiful white piano. It’s a bit too big for her at the moment, she has to put a thick cushion on the stool to be at the right height and her fingers ache from stretching after she plays for too long but she loves it.

The tinkling notes of the Yulemas lullaby that she’s trying to learn keep being drowned out by Aedion and Rowan’s shouts from outside. A part of Aelin wishes she was outside with them, laughing and cheering and taunting but she doesn’t want to get mud in her hair. Uncle Gavriel won’t let either of them tackle her anymore but she knows Aedion would still try.

When the sounds of their chatter die down Aelin pushes back from the piano and wanders into the kitchen to find them standing at the fridge, scarfing down raspberries straight from the carton.

Aedion waves the carton at her. “Want some?”

There’s barely a handful left and Aelin steps over to take one out of Aedion’s hand and pops it into her mouth. She’s close to him and Rowan now and she can smell the grass they’ve been rolling around in. Her uncle mowed the lawn the other day and Rowan smells fresh and summery with an undercurrent of the smell she knows is Rowan.

Sometimes Aedion smells like Rowan too when he borrows a shirt or a jumper, but Aelin thinks it smells better just on Rowan.

“Didn’t feel like playing with us today?” Rowan asks her after he’s finished his bottle of juice and taken a seat on one of the stools at the counter. The seat on the left is all but his, they have their usual spaces. Aelin on the right, Rowan on the left and Aedion in the middle, it’s been that way ever since she’s known Rowan.

Aelin opens her mouth to answer but Aedion beats her to it as he slams the fridge shut. “She doesn’t play football with us anymore, she plays her piano.”

Rowan’s head jerks towards her. “That was you playing the piano?”

Aelin nods.

“I didn’t know you played the piano.”

Aelin cracks a smile. “I got lessons for my birthday.”

“It’s really annoying.” Aedion’s comment tears her eyes from Rowan. Aelin frowns until he pokes his tongue out at her. “You play all the time Aelin. I hear the same song over and over and over-”

“I don’t play it that often.”

“You do.”

Now it’s Aelin’s turn to poke her tongue out. “Whatever. You’re just jealous because I’m good at it. You got guitar lessons for your birthday last year and gave up basically straight away.”

Aedion shrugs, unfazed as ever, his mind never-straying from his one, singular focus. “I don’t need the guitar.” He says it like a dirty word. “The guitar is boring and slow, they make you spend weeks just playing one note before they even start teaching you songs. And anyway, I have football.”

Aedion has never once pretended that he’ll be anything other than a professional footballer. Aelin has no idea if he’s good enough but he plays all the time. In school, outside of school, at the weekends, with Rowan, without Rowan.

“Learning to play music isn’t boring,” Aelin scoffs. “You just weren’t good at it.”

“Same thing.” Aedion interjects as if it’s obvious, and to him it probably is.

Aelin feels her face tug into a frown. “It’s fun, I like practicing until I get it right.”

Aedion steps over to where she stands and throws his muddy arm around her shoulder that she immediately shrugs off. His face lights up and she knows she should have just left it. He begins to start his usual routine of pulling her hair or pinching her sides when Rowan’s voice cuts through the space between them.

“I’m sure you’re great, Aelin.”

Aedion is immediately distracted from his previous goal and focused on Rowan. Aelin shoots him a small smile that he returns, a thank you for saving her, and he offers her a little shrug. Any time he seems to say.

Uncle Gavriel built Aedion a tree house the summer after he turned fourteen. It very quickly became Aelin’s favourite place to spend her time, she could sit up there for hours reading or playing or listening to music on her iPod.

Sometimes Aedion brings his laptop up and they watch films together, tucked under some old blankets Auntie Mera found in their loft. Sometimes they sit up there for hours, talking until her skin is pebbled from the cold and Aedion’s stomach is rumbling.

She loves hearing him talk to her about high school, it seems so big and new and exciting and Aedion has made a lot of new friends. He’s still best friends with Rowan though, and half of their nights spent in the tree house are with Rowan too.

He’ll sit tucked under the same blanket on Aedion’s other side and Aelin gets a lot less popcorn when Rowan is there. He and her cousin eat so much now Auntie Mera complains sometimes about how she has to shop for food twice a week. She smiles as she says it and Aelin knows she loves having Rowan round.

Aelin does too.

He doesn’t treat her like the rest of Aedion’s friends. Two new ones she has met recently from the football team at his new school, Ren and Nox, looked at her weirdly when they came round to her house after their practice. She’d been picking at the notes on her new piano when they had come into the kitchen and as per her usual routine when Aedion and Rowan get home she had gone into the kitchen to see them.

Except this time there were two new faces who, while they weren’t unfriendly, didn’t talk to her the way Rowan did. They mumbled a hey when Aedion had introduced her as Aelin. He never specifies to people whether she’s his cousin or sister, because truthfully, she could be both. Aedion feels like he could be both to her, he’s the other side of her coin, and no matter how he chooses to relate to her, he’s her family.

Rowan had stopped his investigation of their fridge to ask her how her piano was going and didn’t laugh when she told him the songs she was learning. Aedion had laughed when she had first played the nursery rhyme for him, but Aelin likes it and the tune is harder to play than Aedion realises.

She likes to play her songs for her family, and her auntie and uncle shower her with applause every time she learns a new song and Aelin shines under their spotlight but she hasn’t played it for Rowan yet, every time he asks to hear her play she gets embarrassed and she’s not sure why. It’s only Rowan, she sees him almost as much as she sees Aedion.

She tugs one of her earphones out when she hears a thud and a muffled curse. She’s tucked away in the back corner of the tree house listening to Aedion’s iPod that she stole while he was out, he listens to angrier music than she does, songs with curse words that her auntie and uncle say aren’t appropriate for her yet.

She sits up when she hears footsteps on the wooden slats of the floor but relaxes when she hears a familiar sigh. As quietly as she can she wraps the headphones around Aedion’s iPod and tucks it into the pocket of her denim shorts, the summer is coming to an end, but the evenings are still warm enough for her to wear her shorts if she remembers a jumper.

She creeps around the corner and spots the back of Rowan’s head as he sits half hanging out of the entrance to the small cabin. Uncle Gavriel would kill him if he saw him hanging out the side of the tree house, Aedion almost fell out last summer and she’s never seen Uncle Gavriel so furious.

Rowan doesn’t turn as she creeps closer, too lost in whatever he’s staring at down in their garden. When she’s only two feet away from him she speaks.

“I am here you know.”

He jerks and lurches enough that her heart flies to her throat but he steadies himself quickly.

“Shit, Aelin. You scared me.”

Rowan looks comical with his wide eyes and a hand pressed to his chest as his breathing attempts to settle. He’s wearing one of his old football shirts, except now it’s stretched a bit tight over his shoulders. Aelin smiles. She knows he didn’t know she was there, it’s why she stayed quiet and picked her moment to scare him. The fact that he said a swear word tells her she really got him. Even though they’re fifteen now he and Aedion aren’t allowed to swear but they do it all the time when the adults aren’t around.

“I know,” she says simply as she takes her seat next to Rowan, swinging her own legs over the entry to the treehouse. Rowan’s feet hang far lower than hers do and his head still sits so much higher.

He’s had a growth spurt recently, he’s probably clear of six feet now which is even taller than Aedion and she knows that annoys her cousin. Aelin has to tilt her head upwards to meet his gaze.

“Aedion’s not here,” she says leadingly as she tilts her head to the side. “I think he’s out with a girl.”

He had asked his parents at dinner last night if his curfew could be extended to eleven and had told Aelin to shut it when she had asked if he was seeing a girl. Aelin had taken that to be a big fat yes.

Rowan huffs out a puff of air from his nose and there’s an amused look on his face as he glances down at his trainers. “I know.”

“Why are you here then?” Aelin can’t help but ask as she swings her legs back and forth, relishing in the cool breeze that brushes past her skin.

“So inviting, little Ashryver,” he says with a shake of his head and Aelin feels her cheeks heat at the nickname. “Being up here, at your house, it’s a good place to think.”

Aelin chews on her lip for a moment. Her auntie and uncle tell her over and over how to be polite and how to watch her boundaries but she’s nosy and she wants to know. “Aedion said your mum and dad are fighting.”

Rowan’s green eyes flick up to hers for a brief moment before they drop back to his shoes.

“They are,” he admits after a beat. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

Aelin takes his admission as permission to push him. “Why then?”

Rowan braces his hands either side of his hips, his long fingers curling around the edge of the wooden floor they both sit on. He opens his mouth but then closes it again.

Aelin isn’t sure what makes her say “I can keep a secret, you know.”

It’s definitely a smile that crosses Rowan’s face at her words, and her cheeks heat at the idea that he might be laughing at her.

“I’m sure you can.”

Aelin doesn’t know what to say to that but Rowan speaks again before she has to decide.

“I don’t know whether I want to play football anymore.” His voice is soft and she almost misses what he says.

“What?” she blurts.

All she has ever known of Rowan is him and Aedion dreaming of playing on the Terrasen national team together, she knows Aedion has visions of the two of them lined up in the green kit and she’s pictured it too. Aedion must be devastated.

Rowan shrugs as he watches where her feet still swing over the edge of the tree house.

“I think I really like hockey.”

It sounds like a guilty confession, but Aelin has been to the rink with him and Aedion and he’s really good at skating.

“Coach says he thinks I have an actual chance of playing hockey at a university.”

“That’s good,” Aelin says, still not sure why he wouldn’t want to play football anymore.

Rowan laughs softly. “I have to commit to hockey if that's what I want. It means practicing at least twice more a week and that wouldn’t leave time for football.”

Aelin gets it now. “Oh,” is all she can manage to say.

“Yeah,” Rowan says but he sounds unsure. They don’t often spend time together just the two of them without Aedion and she doesn’t think she expected it to be awkward, but she’s relieved to realise it isn’t.

“Does Aedion know?” is what she asks eventually.

Rowan shares a guilty half smile with her. So no then. Something in her chest that she tries desperately to ignore is very happy to have found something out from Rowan before Aedion. “I’m not sure how to tell him. He’ll be upset no matter how I tell him.”

Aelin chews her lower lip. She and Aedion are two sides to the same coin, it’s how she knows Rowan’s assessment is correct. Then she shrugs, it’s Rowan and Aedion, it will be fine. She throws out some wisdom she’s heard from grown ups a million times.

“As long as you’re honest with him he can’t be upset.”

She’s not sure how much it helps but Rowan turns to her and watches her for a beat, an intensity in his eyes that has her cheeks warming. Then he knocks his shoulder against hers, the warmth of his skin soaking into hers.

“Thanks, Fireheart,” he says with a small smile. “I’m sure you’re right.”

When she’s fourteen, Aedion and Rowan fall out.

It’s not about the hockey thing. Rowan told Aedion that last year and her brother actually wasn’t that annoyed. He made some comment about thanking the gods because now he wouldn’t have to pretend to suck so Rowan didn’t feel bad and was immediately over it.

This argument isn’t just something they can bury with a few minutes of scrapping in the garden either, there’s yelling and insults, landing lower than she thought either of them would go. There’s the slam of a door as Rowan leaves and later she’s not sure if Aedion’s eyes look a little red after he comes back inside from sitting on the porch with Gavriel.

Her brother falling out with his best friend shouldn’t shift her life the way she feels like it does. Her throat is dry at the thought that she might never see Rowan again and she realises a little too late she probably shouldn’t have seen Rowan as her friend too. If she’d stayed the way she should have, seeing him as her older brother’s friend only, she probably wouldn’t be this upset.

She sees Rowan in the hallway in school the next day and the final piece of her heart breaks when he tells her, “don’t ask, A. It’s between me and him.”

She doesn’t get it, can’t understand what could have possibly got between him and Aedion like this and she feels helpless.

She knows he goes to stay with his dad in Wendlyn for summer, but she hopes he comes back for school in September, hopes he doesn’t realise that living with his dad in Wendlyn is better than being here in Terrasen.

She hopes whatever has come between them isn’t too big for Rowan to come back.

Aelin is fifteen years old when Dorian Havilliard transfers to her school.

He’s tall with glossy dark hair and piercing blue eyes. He’s pretty and he knows it and Aelin kind of respects that.

She finds herself sitting next to him in English, Galathynius and Havilliard being next to each other in the register, and she expects him to be a dick. Except he’s not. He introduces himself the second she sits down, a charming smile slotted onto his pink lips and Aelin is sufficiently charmed.

An invitation to study together one night after school turns into a kiss. A chaste peck on his parents’ couch turns into his fingers tangling in her hair and his tongue ghosting along the seam of her lips and she loses herself in the magic of her first kiss.

It happens a few more times before she dares to bring it up to him. “Do you want to keep doing this?” she asks, “or do you want to just watch this film?”

His laugh is easy, as everything is with Dorian, and says “I was worried you’d never ask.”

He sits back and throws his arm around her shoulder as she hits play. That’s that and at least she has a new friend.

Dorian throws a party when she’s sixteen and she meets his friend from his old school, Chaol. He’s a year older and kind of serious but his brown eyes seem to smoulder in the dim lighting and the hand he places on her waist is broad and warm.

When he kisses her she doesn’t tell him to stop. She likes it, more than she did with Dorian. When his hand slides under the hem of her skirt all that pulses through her is a feeling of wanting and she twists her hands into his closely cropped hair and kisses him harder.

They stumble into a bedroom that might be Dorian’s, she’s not sure, and he peels her clothes off as she tugs his off. Her hands are steady, this might be new but she knows she wants this. He kisses her gently and at the first touch of his hand she tenses, but then he kisses her again, tells her how beautiful she is and she relaxes.

It doesn’t hurt the way she expected it to, Chaol is patient and kind, checking in with her every time he makes a new move, everytime he goes a step further which she appreciates. It’s not perfect, she doesn’t think she comes, but when he kisses her on the forehead after they’re done she thinks she could have done a lot worse.

She doesn’t see Chaol again after that, she didn’t expect nor want to, but the memory is there. She enjoys gossiping with Lysandra and Elide about how it went down far more than the actual experience but she doesn’t regret it.

One day when she’s seventeen, she hurries home from school because she knows Aedion will be back from university. She hasn’t seen him since Yulemass and she’s missed him despite the fact she would never tell him.

She races through the front door, kicking her shoes in the vague direction of their shoe rack and launching her bag at the stairs as she flies through the hallway to the kitchen where she knows he’ll be.

When she arrives in the doorway she slams to a stop in sheer shock at what she sees. Aedion and Rowan sat at the breakfast bar, laughing and joking as if the last three years never happened.

The shock clearly short-circuits her brain because it’s Rowan she launches herself at.

“Rowan,” she cries. “What are you doing here?”

She’s breathless but she can still recognise the broadness of his shoulders beneath her fingertips and can feel the warmth of his arms returning her embrace. She pulls back after a couple of seconds, ready to demand her answer but her words get lost at the sight of him.

Twenty is a good look on Rowan. He’s tanned and glowing, he looks healthy and well-rested. His body has filled out while his face has slimmed down, settling into the sharp edges of a man compared to the soft lines of a boy she last knew.

His green eyes are the same though, sparkling at her with his smile as they always used to do.

“Some dickhead decided not to be a dick anymore,” he flexes his fingers at her waist before letting go and she realises too late she should probably unwrap her arms from his shoulders.

It’s been years, she thinks she’s allowed a full minute of a hug.

She turns to Aedion at his scoff and feels her smile expand at the sight of her brother.

“I always knew he was your favorite,” Aedion says with a slight edge in his voice, but it’s gone when he speaks again. “Whatever,” Aedion continues. “I guess I’ll just get going then, back to uni where I apparently belong.”

“Shut up, you shit,” Aelin laughs and hears Rowan’s laugh echo hers. “I’ll send you back if you’re only here to complain.”

Aedion laughs as he tugs her into a hug. Instead of wrapping and warming her up like Rowan, Aedion musses her hair and tries to kick out her ankles until she’s half-squealing, half gasping for breath through her laughter.

With Rowan calling out scores as she wrestles Aedion in a way that they’re definitely too old for she feels a part of herself lift. This is what she's been missing for a while, and it feels good to have her two boys back together.

Aelin is eighteen when she bumps into Rowan at a university house party.

He’s stood across the room from her talking with a group of people, and he’s not spotted her yet but she noticed him immediately. She saw him the moment she walked into the kitchen, her eyes immediately drawn to the silver of his hair and the pull of his t-shirt across his broad shoulders. He’s laughing along with the group, a red cup in his left hand that she assumes is filled with some half-warm beer.

She’s missed him while he’s been away at university and she didn’t know she’d see him when she agreed to come and visit Elide at Bellhaven University. She had optimistically dreamed of bumping into him and had sent him a text saying guess who’s coming to bellhaven next week :))).

To which he had replied hope it’s Aedion followed by text me if you want to do something but she hadn’t actually thought she’d bump into him.

She focuses on fixing her drink as she watches the dark-haired girl with her hand curled possessively around Rowan’s bicep. She’s a few inches shorter than Aelin and a whole lot shorter than Rowan, the top of her pretty head not even reaching his shoulder. She’s smiling prettily up at him in a white dress and a pretty pink lipstick. Aedion hadn’t said anything about a girlfriend the last time she spoke to him, and he only visited a few weeks ago so if what’s happening there is something it can only be new.

She’s getting ahead of herself.

She finds a bottle of vodka and an unopened bottle of coke and pours them into a glass, careful not to make her drink too strong. She takes a long drink, enjoying the way the sweet liquid fizzes behind her teeth. Lysandra would turn her nose at the sugar but Aelin has always had a sweet tooth.

Rowan still hasn’t spotted her and the girl at his side is hanging onto his every word. She’s not surprised to discover Rowan gets attention from girls at university, he's gorgeous and Aelin has known this for years. What is a surprise is the dark twisting of anger in her stomach, the bitterness in her throat as the girl’s fingertips trail a path up his arm to run along the collar of his t-shirt.

Rowan is her friend.

She should probably be surprised at the possessiveness that strikes through her at the thought, but Rowan has been hers for years now.

Aelin takes another swig of her drink, allowing the warmth of the alcohol to settle into her stomach. She pushes off the counter to make her way over to where Rowan is standing. She’s a few feet away when he spots her and she watches his face as it flickers from surprise to a wide smile, flashes of his sharp canines shining in the coloured light.

He pushes away from the group and moves towards her until he’s stood directly before her, crossing the room with the sleek, powerful steps of the athlete he is. Aelin doesn’t miss the way he shrugs out of the girl’s hold without so much as a thought and a curl of satisfaction settles within her stomach.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, his voice low in her ear as he wraps his broad arms around her in a hug. She’s missed the sound of his voice, even after living in Orynth for the past decade the way his voice wraps around his vowels takes her over the sea to Wendlyn.

Aelin melts into the feeling of him wrapped around her, throwing her own arms around his neck. She’s probably missed this, the feeling of him pressed against her, just as much as she’s missed his voice. The brunette is watching them with a pinched expression and Aelin ignores her, closing her eyes as she buries her face in Rowan’s shoulder. She breathes in the scent of him, there’s something heavenly about the way he smells. Pine trees and cool wind with something sharp and manly mixed in there too.

He draws back too soon, his silver brows still raised in a question.

Aelin only smirks. “I told you I was coming to Bellhaven.”

“I know that, smart arse” he tells her with a pinch of her waist. “What are you doing here?”

Aelin rolls her eyes, she has her connections.

“Elide got an invite through some guy in her seminar.”

She looks to the doorway as if her best friend would suddenly appear. They did agree to meet in the kitchen and Aelin should probably go looking if she doesn’t appear soon. “Who am I to turn down a party?”

Rowan shakes his head and eyes her drink. “Or free drinks?”

“Fuck off.” The smile on her face is nothing if not wicked. “It’s legal, don’t be on me like Aedion, every time I so much as go near alcohol it’s like he thinks I’m still five. I’m surprised he’s never actually slapped a drink out of my hand.”

“I wouldn’t dream of treating you like that,” Rowan swears.

He smiles at her like this is a secret, talking to her about Aedion this way with his hands still warm on her waist.

“I should hope not, he’s worse than Uncle Gavriel.”

Rowan snorts a laugh, more than used to her uncle’s protective nature, before he lets his eyes drop to her feet and then back up the length of her body. His gaze shouldn’t heat her blood the way it does, but he’s never held her for so long, or talked to her so freely. She’s on a high of Rowan without the damper Aedion usually provides. It’s dangerous.

He blinks but Aelin doesn’t miss the way his eyes have darkened. Gods, this is Rowan.

He clears his throat and drops his hands from her waist. “Let me introduce you to everyone.”

Everyone turns out to be a group of four other people. There are two guys from the hockey team who stand way over her head, looking down as Rowan introduces her as Aelin, no mention of her cousin or how he knows her. She’s just Aelin.

The winger, Fenrys, has bronzed skin and his hair falls in perfect blond curls that look impossibly soft. His smiles come easy and his conversation even easier in contrast to the goalie Lorcan. He’s impossibly tall and everything about him is dark. All he offers her at her introduction is a sharp nod which she’d be offended at but it means Rowan leans closer to whisper, his warm breath tickling her ear.

“He’s like that with everyone,” he says. “Took him a week to speak to me after we met and even then it was only to curse me for scoring against him in practice.”

She smirks up at him, allowing herself to lean back into Rowan as he introduces her to the others in the group. It’s two girls, one named Essar who is lovely but for some reason glued to Lorcan’s side. He must be incredible in bed to make up for his personality. The other girl, the one who was glued to Rowan’s side before he noticed Aelin, is Lyria.

She’s nothing but friendly to Aelin, but there’s a tightness to her smile that lets Aelin know she’s unhappy that Aelin is now tucked under Rowan’s arm that she held before. And screw her if Aelin doesn’t lean into that arm, content to let the conversation flow around her as she basks in her first taste of this Rowan.

Rowan is Rowan, she knows him and has known him for far longer than the years she didn’t, but here surrounded by this group of people he feels different. Or maybe that’s his hand that’s stroking her side as he speaks, his fingers grazing the strip of her midriff that’s exposed setting her skin on fire as he talks to his friends. She’s touched him before, she’s known him for what feels like her entire life, but she’s never been touched by him like this before and it’s driving her crazy.

Elide finds them not long later, coming into the kitchen with flushed cheeks and a dotting of sweat along her forehead.

“There are a lot of people in the basement,” is all she says by way of explanation. Lorcan actually laughs, a dark rumbling sound, at that as if it means something to him. Rowan only shrugs at her, just as bewildered at the display.

Elide slides into the conversation naturally, letting Fenrys know her strong opinions on whether beer can be used as a mixer for spirits–it cannot–and the members of the group slide around to make room for the petite girl.

Rowan slides onto a barstool and tugs Aelin in between his legs with a hand on her hip before slinging his arm casually around her shoulders. He’s not normally so physical, but Aelin knows he’s way past tipsy now and assumes that’s why he’s touching her so freely. It’s the notable absence of her cousin that allows Aelin to touch him the same way, leaning back to almost perch on his powerful thigh, the muscle beneath his tight jeans toned from years of skating. She lets her arm wander up across his shoulder to twist through the hairs at the base of his neck.

Elide watches the motion and very clearly arches a brow at Aelin. She shakes her head. Elide will not let that go later, and will likely make the Spanish inquisition look like a casual enquiry, but for now Aelin wants to enjoy it.

“Aelin.” Her name out of Fenrys’ mouth drags her attention back to the conversation.

“Sorry, what?” She says before taking a sip of her drink. It’s warm now, and almost empty, but getting another would mean stepping away from Rowan.

“I asked why I’ve never seen you at a game of ours before.”

Fenrys’ smile is deceptively innocent and out of the corner of her eye she notes Lyria’s stiff posture.

Aelin shrugs. “I’ve never been invited.”

Rowan scoffs but she continues. “I actually go to university in Terrasen, it’s a pretty long trip to get here just for a hockey game.”

“Uh huh,” Fenrys nods, finding some amusement somewhere in Aelin’s explanation.

“University of Orynth?” Essar asks and Aelin smiles at the girl.

“Yeah,” she agrees, enjoying Essar’s friendly question. She knows Rowan’s friends are probably intrigued as to who this random first year is that their friend is now draped all over. “I’m in my first year.”

“It’s lovely there,” Essar smiles. “My sister graduated last year.”

“It is,” Aelin says, easily lost in the thoughts of her university.

She had wanted to stray further afield like Rowan and Aedion had but the music programme at the University of Orynth had been far too distinguished to overlook. She’s happy there now, and she moved out of her auntie and uncle’s house to live the true university experience even if she is in a city she’s known her whole life.

“So, Aelin.” Lyria’s voice is as soft as a petal dropping from a flower, but her words hold a bite she doesn’t expect. “How do you know our Rowan?”

Our Rowan?

She feels as though her brain stalls at the two words smashed together.

Our Rowan?

Her top lip peels back from her teeth into what can only appear as a snarl. “I’ve known Rowan almost my whole life,” she says. “We grew up together.”

“How sweet,” Lyria coos, clasping her hands together. “So you’re like brother and sister?”

Rowan chokes on his beer and Aelin feels her left eyelid twitch.

“No, Gods, no,” Rowan manages once he’s finished choking and Aelin doesn’t know why it feels like relief settling in her stomach. “Her brother is my best friend. You guys know Aedion, he’s visited before.”

The rest of the group nod and the conversation moves onto sports and some other things Aelin doesn’t care about. She’s reeling from the dryness in her mouth at the thought of Rowan as her brother.

She’s never thought of him as brotherly, but he’s been one of her best friends for years. Maybe it’s because she struggled with who Aedion was to her for so long. The blurred line between brother and cousin too murky to even deal with what Rowan was to her.

She banishes the thought, Rowan is Rowan and she doesn’t need to think any more about it.

She enjoys the rest of her night until she decides she hates Fenrys.

“Spin the bottle,” he announces, slamming his now empty beer bottle onto the kitchen counter between them all. “No excuses, no escapes. You kiss who the bottle lands on or you forfeit. I’ll let you in on a secret, the forfeit involves cleaning this house tomorrow morning and bringing me breakfast.”

He pauses dramatically. “And before any of you think the forfeit isn’t so bad, I’d like to let you know this house has three bathrooms and all of them have been puked in at least twice already tonight.”

Aelin winces, she’d rather kiss even Lyria at this point than clean up after that.

“How do you even know that?” she hears Lorcan mutter and muffles her own laughter.

“My turn first,” Fenrys announces as he spins the bottle, ignoring Lorcan.

It whizzes quickly, running through the group of them surrounding the counter before slowing and landing pointing at Elide.

Her friend blushes, a deep, pretty pink and Aelin flashes her a thumbs up as Fenrys takes her face in his hands and plants a smacking kiss against her lips. He pulls back after only a second and winks at Elide who somehow manages to blush even deeper. Aelin grins even harder. Elide has definitely not kissed a boy like Fenrys before.

“Your turn now, Ellie,” Fenrys announces and her best friend steps up confidently to spin the bottle.

Aelin shares a look with Rowan when the spout points towards Lorcan. Rowan only grins, his smile a little soft at the edges under the effects of his beer. She’s never seen Rowan like this before and she thinks she likes it.

The game carries on, somehow managing to get more and more awkward as the spins go on. Lorcan has to kiss Rowan and Rowan has to kiss Essar who has to kiss Lyria and so on.

Aelin holds herself back from crossing her fingers when Lyria spins the bottle. She should have given into the temptation is all she can think when the bottle lands on Rowan. The bottle appears to favour her friend.

Lyria struts around the circle until she stands in front of Rowan and Aelin carefully puts some distance between the two of them, leaning away from his side as Lyria places her hand on his chest. Rowan keeps his hands at his sides, she notes not without satisfaction.

Aelin can’t drag her eyes away as Lyria leans in and pressed her lips to Rowan’s.

It’s weird.

She’s never really seen Rowan with girls before but he’s always been handsome so she assumes he’s not completely unfamiliar. The kiss lasts for a few seconds, but feels like an age. Aelin hears the hoots from Fenrys and her mind dares to suggest that maybe, for Rowan’s friends here, this doesn’t elicit feelings of discomfort. For his friends here this could be something that’s been a long time coming.

Rowan pulls back from Lyria after a few seconds, still clutching his beer in his hand and his hand comes up to brush his lips. Aelin looks away and her gaze falls to Lyria, wearing a pretty little smile that looks a little too smug as she turns past Aelin to make her way back to her spot.

“Alright, big boy,” Fenrys announces, “your turn.”

He places the bottle in front of Rowan who drains his drink and steps forward to the counter. Aelin leans back, focusing on her own drink as Rowan sets the bottle into a quick spin. She can’t watch it spin, this is weird, this is Rowan.

It begins to slow at Fenrys, it clears Lorcan and Essar and Lyria. Aelin forces her own smug smile into her cup. The bottle appears to stop at Elide, but it doesn’t quite slow in time. Aelin blinks at the neck of the bottle.

Her cheeks heat at the realisation she’d been readying herself for. She has to kiss Rowan. Well, Rowan has to kiss her.

Shit. She swallows. What if Rowan would rather clean the entire house tomorrow than kiss her?

She’s not sure she wants to hear that.

“No,” she laughs, turning to Elide.

Elide, who is apparently a traitor.

“You have to,” her friend urges, wide-eyed, “or you’ll forfeit.”

“Kiss her,” Fenrys shouts and she finally turns to Rowan.

She can’t name the look in his eyes as he shrugs at her, his lips curled into an almost shy smile. He’s so close to her, his face only inches away.

“Come here,” he says, curling his hand around the back of her neck. “It’s just a kiss.”

“Just a kiss,” she repeats in a whisper before his lips are on hers.

Aelin didn’t expect kissing Rowan to feel so… nice. His lips are firm against hers and he clearly knows what he’s doing. His lips caress hers, gently at first before gaining confidence as he kisses her more surely. His hand tilts her head up as his lips part her own and she lifts her arms to his shoulders.

His other hand finds her waist and she leans into him as his tongue meets hers. He tastes like his beer and a hint of mint and Rowan and she’s surprised to find she wants more. Her hands twist into his hair, holding him more firmly to her as she dares to taste his lower lip.

Her chest is rising rapidly, each deep breath bringing her closer to Rowan and further into the circle of his arms. The path of his hand down her spine shouldn’t send sparks curling into her core but it does as he holds her even tighter to him than she thought possible.

It’s not that she’s never imagined kissing Rowan before, she’s had weird dreams before where she wakes up and spends a day being awkward around him before confirming he can’t read her mind and doesn’t know she woke up sweaty having dreamed of him and his lips and his hands.

It’s weird she knows this.

She pulls back slightly to draw a breath and becomes acutely aware of the cheers surrounding them. She risks a glance at Rowan and finds him with pink cheeks and a mischievous grin as he presses his lips to her forehead before drawing her into his chest.

Aelin doesn’t know what that was.

She kissed Rowan.

And she didn’t hate it.

Weird.

The next summer, when she’s almost twenty, she, Aedion and Rowan take a road trip.

Rowan and Aedion have graduated from university and they have these final few weeks of summer before they’re off into the big bad world, Rowan to Rifthold where he was drafted to play the minute he got his degree, and Aedion across to the southern continent, to travel and ‘see all the exciting shit’ he needs to before ‘life gets real’.

She’s going to miss them both so much her chest feels as though it physically aches each time she thinks about it. It will be different than when they were in university, she knew they weren’t gone for good and always had the date set for the next time they’d be back. This is different. They’re actually leaving her.

Rowan is driving, one hand braced against the wheel, the other resting casually on the gear stick. She watches as the wind drifting in from the open window tickles the fine, silver hairs scattered down his forearms, trailing up the thick cords of muscle and prominent veins. His long fingers tap rhythmically to the song Aedion has queued from his position in the passenger seat.

The reason they’re taking this trip, their goodbye, is a little bit sad, but sitting here in the back of Aedion’s Jeep, she’s not sure she’s ever felt so content.

Aelin lets herself slumber, lulled away by the vibrations of the road beneath the tyres and she’s awoken by the slowing of the car as Rowan pulls into a parking space outside their motel.

There’s quiet, she knows all three of them are drinking in each and every moment of this, scared to be without it, as they make their way into the room.

There’s a double bed and a sofa bed, as there has been in each of their rooms so far and they’ve been rotating who takes the sofa bed, the other two taking the actual bed with a mattress. It’s Aedion’s turn on the sofa bed tonight.

The night is fading fast, and they have a long day tomorrow, so they settle up quickly. It’s mere minutes before Aedion is snoring softly and she holds in her snort so as not to wake Rowan. It’s taking her longer than usual to fall asleep, the knowledge that Rowan is close enough she can feel his warmth, when soon he’ll be half a continent away.

She rolls onto her side only to find him wide awake and we winces almost guiltily at being caught. She cocks a brow.

“Can’t sleep?” she whispers into the dark even though the answer is obvious.

“No,” he whispers back, his voice gravelly and her toes curl. He has a nice voice, one she’ll miss hearing often. She’ll have to call him all the time. “Feels like everything is a bit too much to sleep,” he continues. “I don’t know how he falls asleep so easily.”

He nods his head to the other side of the room where Aedion sleeps and she snorts, a little too loud they both pause until Aedion’s snoring resumes.

“Nothing could keep him from sleeping,” she says fondly. “Not even the fact that this is one of the last nights we have together.”

She means for it to be a joke but her tone dips at the end, and so does Rowan’s expression.

“We’ll see each other again soon,” Rowan says, a whisper of hope in his tone that Aelin clings to.

She rolls forwards, tucking the duvet beneath her chin, and Rowan resettles as well, tucking himself closer to her on his pillow.

“Definitely,” she agrees. “You two are inseparable, I’d like to see the universe try and keep you two apart. Even after whatever that fight was about years ago you were back together again in no time.”

Rowan again looks guilty and he quietly clears his throat. She loves how comfortable he looks tucked up opposite her, his silver hair smashed into the pillow and one of his green eyes half hidden in the pillow. She’ll miss seeing this in person so often.

“Yeah,” he says. “Did he ever tell you what that was about?”

“No,” she says, trying to sound casual. “I’m assuming I’ll find out in approximately five seconds.”

Rowan laughs softly in the darkness, another sound she’ll miss so intensely. She’s made sure to take as many videos as she can on this trip, capturing as many moments with Rowan as she can before he’s gone.

He buries his face into the pillow and groans. Something in her stomach rolls at the sound but she ignores it. Since their kiss last year she’s ignored that part of her brain (and body) that is now very attracted to Rowan. She knows she needs to get over it, she can’t help but think that she’d probably end up somewhat attracted to any guy she spends this much time with. Rowan’s objectively gorgeous, she’d be blind not to, and it’s not like she’s had many other options recently.

He mutters something into the pillow.

“What?” she hisses, leaning closer to him.

Another moaned word she can’t make out.

She shuffles even closer and rests her face on his pillow. “Tell me.”

He lifts his face and shit they’re close now. His short breaths fan out across her face and his nose skims hers, he’s almost too close for her eyes to focus. But he doesn’t pull back and neither does she.

“You,” he whispers.

“What?”

“You,” he repeats as if that’s going to make any of it make sense.

“Me?”

“Gods, Aelin. Yes, how many times do I need to say it?”

Enough for it to make sense? She’s still not following.

“Why would you fall out over me?”

“Aelin.” His utterance of her name is low, so low her stomach curls again, and he leans closer, his knee brushing her thigh beneath the covers.

“It’s stupid,” he says.

“I’m sure it’s not.”

“It is,” he affirms to her. “Before you judge me, I know it’s dumb.”

“I know you two are idiots, okay? Just spit it out.” Her mind is running away to awful places now.

“There was a game of fuck, marry, kill with some of the lads from school. Vaughan put it to me; you, Nesryn Faliq and Kaltain Rompier.”

“Okay,” she says slowly, still not sure how this led to the great fall-out.

“I said I’d marry you.”

Her breath leaves her in a gust, she watches Rowan’s eyes flutter shut as it does.

“I’m sorry,” he says when she doesn’t speak. “There’s no way to not be a dick in that situation, I shouldn’t have even answered.”

“But why did Aedion fall out with you?”

He shrugs and the movement jostles her even closer to him. Rowan braces a hand at her hip to keep her steady. She swallows. The heat of his hand burns through her thin pyjamas.

“You were fourteen, his little sister, I’d said I would marry you and then wouldn’t take it back.”

“You wouldn’t take it back? Why? Did he ask you to?”

“Yeah,” he laughs, his thumb stroking gently back and forth across her hip. It’s insanely distracting but she wants this story in full. “He was pissed, said he’d rather I killed you than fucked you or married you.”

She’s glad it’s dark so he can’t see the blush his words bring on.

“But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t take it back even then.”

“Why?” Her final question is an almost silent whisper.

“You’re one of my best friends, you know that, Aelin.”

She didn’t and it’s pure ecstasy to hear.

“You’re one of mine too, Rowan.”

For so long she’s seen Aedion and Rowan as a pair she’s ignored all of the times she and Rowan have been a pair. He’s been there throughout her entire life. For as long as she can remember there’s memories of green eyes and the scent of pine and snow. She doesn’t know where she’d be without him.

He speaks again, seemingly spilling over with words to say. “I’ll miss you so much while I’m away.”

Aelin reaches her own hand to gently stroke his shoulder. Her hand slides up until it almost caresses his neck. She thinks no matter what happens next, in all of their years to come, she’ll always have this moment with her best friend.

“I’ll miss you too, I don’t know what I’ll do when you’re gone.”

She doesn’t leave out the word both on purpose, but it’s not there, and she’s only talking to Rowan here, wrapped up in this surprisingly comfy motel bed.

He takes a deep breath, the movement shifting his hand from her hip to her lower back. She’ll miss that too when it’s gone.

It’s almost immediately gone as he lifts the hand to brush a strand of hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear. She thinks she prefers that touch, she can’t be sure.

“You’ll fucking kill it, Fireheart,” he says. “The same way you do with everything.”

Her heart is so fucking full at his words and she smiles a teary smile.

“I’m going to miss you,” she says again.

He uses the hand in her hair to pull her closer, cradling her head against his broad chest. “I know, me too.” He presses the gentlest of kisses to her hair. “But I’ll play games in Terrasen, and you don’t have long left in university, I know Mera and Gavriel would kill you but you could move to Adarlan too after that.”

“You’d want that?” she says, surprised. “You wouldn’t be annoyed if Aedion’s little sister followed you?”

His thumb tilts her chin up so she’s looking into his eyes. “I don’t see you as Aedion’s little sister.”

Speak of the devil, rustling sounds from his side of the room and she and Rowan pause, staying silent. Aedion appears to roll over again and settle into sleep, but this doesn’t feel like a conversation for him. Rowan agrees and pulls back from her. She misses the touch, wants to fall asleep trapped in the circle of his arms so she can remember the way he smells before he’s gone.

“We should sleep,” he says.

“Yeah,” she agrees as she settles back onto her own pillow, ignoring how cold it feels. “See you in the morning.”

“Night,” he whispers and closes his eyes.

Their conversation from the night before plays on repeat in her head all of the next morning as the three of them get breakfast in a small roadside cafe. This is their last full day of driving before they’re done and the guys are off to their real lives while Aelin is back to university.

I don’t see you as Aedion’s little sister.

She knows he probably just meant he sees her as a friend, but his words stick in her mind, as if there’s something more to uncover within them. She mulls them over again as she sits in the back of the car as Rowan fills the car with petrol and Aedion gets snacks.

The morning sun is behind him, the golden rays shining through his silver strands, illuminating him in a way that brightens him, immortalises him, highlights him. It’s a stunning sight to see. The way his eyes crinkle as he banters with Aedion and the way his teeth catch the light as he smiles a wide smile.

She fucking loves that smile.

She doesn’t want to be apart from him. She doesn’t know how she can survive with him living so far away. She’ll be fucking lost without him. Incomplete. She loves everything about that man far too much to let him go.

And holy fucking shit.

She loves Rowan.

Aelin is in love with Rowan.

From the curl of his lips when she’s being a little shit and he’s trying not to laugh, to the way he loves her brother almost as much as she does. From the thrill his touch ignites underneath her skin to the laughter he pulls out of her.

She fucking loves him. Desperately so. She doesn’t know how she hasn’t realised this earlier, before it was too late.

And the love that had bubbled up so fantastically settles like lead in her stomach.

No matter that she’s finally realised the name of how she feels about Rowan, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s leaving. Leaving to follow his dream.

It also doesn’t change the fact that he’s never given her so much of an inkling that he feels the same way.

I don’t see you as Aedion’s little sister.

Wait.

No.

She shakes her head, catching Rowan’s attention and he raises an eyebrow at her through the car window. She loves how he even notices the slightest change in her, silently, and without notification.

She shakes her head as if to say, nothing, don’t worry about it, and she loves how he pauses, scanning her face looking for anything to cause a concern before turning back to her brother, satisfied she seems to be okay.

Aelin loves Rowan and hates how he can’t know.

He’s leaving soon and she can’t risk losing him forever over this.

Aelin is twenty-one, almost twenty-two, and Rowan is fucking famous.

It’s weird as shit that on her graduation day it’s all about Rowan. Hordes of her classmates and their families are all over him, asking for an autograph here and a photograph there. It’s wild, and it takes her twenty minutes after her ceremony finishes to finally get her own photograph with him.

Her auntie takes it with tears in her eyes before yelling at Aedion to get on her other side.

He’s still Rowan to her, no matter that he’s now some crazy-famous hockey player. He’s still Rowan and she’s still desperately and hopelessly in love with him.

He doesn’t know, and she’s not sure how she could ever tell him. She can’t risk losing him.

The last year has been one of her hardest. Harder than the years she went without him before. She thinks she probably loved him then, but just didn’t know, and it’s harder to have him so far out of reach now that she knows how she feels.

They talk on the phone regularly, calling a couple of times a week, and it’s always hard to say goodbye, holding back the words she so desperately wants to say.

Now he’s here in front of her, his hand curled around her waist, so close for the first time in months it's somehow even harder to keep the words held back. She doesn’t know what she’s going to do soon, once she’s in the same city as him, living only streets away from each other again.

She didn’t take the job in Rifthold to follow him, it was truly the best offer she had, but she can’t deny that Rowan is a plus to taking the job. Each message he had sent her, offers of things they could do together once she was there had been a stab to the heart.

All of the suggestions she had been able to picture them doing together, holding hands strolling down the streets together, him kissing her by the river, making love to her in his fantastically big flat, as she’d drown in his silk sheets and adoration.

She’s totally fucked if she’s honest.

If it was just a crush she thinks it would be gone by now, and it wouldn’t have gone further than just imagining a kiss or a fuck. But nope, she dreams of waking up beside him, holding his hand, cheering him on from the stands, wearing his jersey, little green-eyed, blonde-haired children.

Aelin feels fucking crazy with it.

And he has no idea.

He posts the photo of the two of them on Instagram with the caption, I told you you’d fucking kill it.

She stares at it for far longer than she should, and then makes the image her phone background. No one has to know.

Aelin is twenty-three and her life is almost perfect.

The Rifthold Symphony Orchestra is more than she could have ever dreamed, she adores that she gets the opportunity to play music for people and that she can sustain herself and flourish by doing so. She’s proud she made it this far. She couldn’t have done it without the support of her loved ones.

She misses her family, misses seeing them more often than just major holidays, but the blow is sweetened by the amount she gets to see Rowan.

He’s busy, obviously, but whenever he has free time she finds herself on his couch, or him on hers, or across from her in a restaurant or whatever. She spends her time with him.

They see each other more now than they ever did when they were kids, and it doesn’t help her situation. In fact, each time she sees him, each time his green eyes sparkle in her direction, or his gentle laugh sends shivers down her spine she thinks she falls a little more in love with him.

It’s almost painful to hold back now, the words are forever on the tip of her tongue when she’s around him, and even when she’s not. Every time he drops round to her flat with a coffee, every time he takes her for dinner in restaurants that are way out of her price range. Every time he falls asleep on her sofa, tired from practice, she wants to kiss his hair, wants to run a hand along his broad shoulders, wants to curl up in his arms, wants to whisper those three little words.

She wants so desperately for him to whisper them back.

Instead she makes do with the parts of Rowan she has, her best friend, and she knows at this point she’s his. It’s not a competition between her and Aedion, but she does love it.

The only relief she has is that he doesn’t seem to date. She’s not sure why he doesn’t, she knows he has the option to, the number of girls that throw themselves at him is crazy, but for some reason he seems indifferent, tells her he’d rather eat pizza with her, ignoring his nutritionist, than go out with some girl he doesn’t know.

She never pushes him too hard to go, she’s too selfish for that.

Things change when a team in Wendlyn express their interest in signing Rowan.

She’s known she’s loved him for years now and as much as it will break her heart, maybe some space is for the best. She can try her hardest to move on once he leaves, even if she knows her attempts will be futile. No one will ever compare to Rowan Whitethorn.

It’s the closest the two of them have ever been to an argument in the eighteen years she’s known him.

“I can’t understand why you won’t even consider it, Rowan.” Her chest is heaving a little bit and her voice is definitely raised.

“You don’t have to understand, Aelin,” he says, sounding resigned from his place against the kitchen counter. “It’s my decision to make.”

Aelin stops her pacing to face him fully. He’s so fucking gorgeous, all golden skin and toned muscle. It’s highlighted by the soft kitchen lighting and she is so in love with him and so furious at him.

“I don’t want you to hold yourself back, it’s an incredible opportunity,” she says slowly, even though she knows he already knows.

He runs a hand over his face, tired of this conversation.

“I’m not holding myself back, I know how good of an opportunity it is. I know how insane the comp package is, I know I’d get to captain the side over there and still none of that matters. I don’t want to be in Wendlyn.”

His voice is calm, so strong in his decision, and she just can’t understand. She loves how secure in himself he is.

“Why?” she asks, her own voice so quiet. “What is it holding you back? What is so special about Rifthold?”

Rowan is silent for so, so long. So long Aelin doesn’t know what to do with herself, she doesn’t know if he’s even going to answer. Eventually, he pushes himself off the counter and comes around to stand in front of her.

His fists are curled up at his sides, a tension running through his strong body that she’s never seen before. He steadies himself, settling his jaw and stepping forward until he’s so close to her she has to tilt her head back to look him in the eye.

“Aelin,” he says with a groan, curling his hand around the back of her neck. “You want to know why I want to stay in Rifthold?”

Aelin nods almost imperceptibly, afraid if she moves too much or too quickly this scene will vanish. His eyes run across her face, cataloguing every minor detail of her expression. He takes a deep breath and Aelin’s heart stops.

“Stop me if I’m going to do something really stupid.”

Aelin doesn’t know what to say, what to do or how to even breathe.

He’s so close when he pauses, his lips only a whisper away from hers, his nose caressing her cheek. “Aelin,” he whispers.

His utterance of her name brings her back to life and she lifts herself onto her toes to press her lips against his.

This is nothing like their first kiss. That was child's play, a silly game, a whisper where this is a symphony.

His lips are gentle against her own, and she adores the smooth brushes of their lips against each other until she lifts her hands to his shoulders and he drops one of his own to her waist. He pulls her against his firm chest as he kisses her harder, his lips parting hers and she can taste mint and Rowan as his tongue runs along her bottom lip.

He tastes her as if he’s starving, their lips parting and crashing together again with a building rhythm, soundtracked by their hurried breaths and gentle sighs.

Aelin kisses him back in earnest, pours all the words she’s never said into every brush of their lips, every word she’d use to describe him in every flick of her tongue. She tangles her fingers through his thick hair as he groans, the sound travelling from the back of his throat to settle in her core as he sets her blood on fire.

Aelin gasps into the kiss and he takes her bottom lip between his teeth as she does. Fuck, her body reacts, pressing her hips forwards into him as their tongues tangle again. His hands are at her hips and then under her thighs as he lifts her to sit atop his counter.

Her hands are tearing down his back until they reach the hem of his t-shirt and he pulls back, panting, to sling it off somewhere into the corner of his kitchen.

“Fuck,” he groans into her ear and the sound is another shot that quickly travels south. She hooks her heel behind his knee and drags him closer into the v of her thighs. “Aelin, fuck,” he says as he glances down to where he grips her hips as she cradles him close to her, lining them up where she needs him.

“Rowan,” she pants, barely able to speak through the pounding of her heart.

“Aelin, it’s you. Nothing is holding me to Rifthold, everything I am is holding me to you.”

Her eyes flutter shut as his words wash over her. This is more than she could have ever dreamed.

She finally manages to meet his eye, and she can’t help from descending into a peal of laughter.

“We are such idiots,” she says and he looks confused now and so she darts forwards to crush her lips to his. When she pulls back he wears a slightly dazed smile. “I’ve been in love with you for years,” she cries. “So much time wasted.”

“No,” he says, darting back in for another kiss and she can hardly return it through the smile she wears. “No time wasted, not with you.”

She’s beaming, she knows she is.

“Every single day since I was eight years old.” He shakes his head. “I should have known for so much longer than I have that I was in love with you.”

A sob almost slips out of her throat at his words and he catches it, running his thumb across her cheek in a way she can only describe as loving.

He continues. “I kept asking myself why I was so drawn to you, why I was so happy when you were around, why I was so fucking grouchy when you weren’t. Aedion was sick to death of me asking when he was going home at uni because I constantly wanted to see you.”

Aelin laughs before darting back in to kiss him again. “I was always waiting for you to come back home.”

He grins back and the sight is wonderful. “I’d always come home to you, wherever that is.”

He strokes her cheek again. “I love you Aelin, and I’d absolutely love it if you would have me. Here, Wendlyn, I don’t care, I just want to be with you.”

“Hm,” she pretends to think about it for all of a second before he’s nipping below her ear, tugging her forwards with a growl. She’s laughing, she can’t help it, Rowan loves her. She’s on cloud nine.

He’s laughing too, as he pressed her lips to her hair, she’s never felt so warm, so settled, so at home.

“I love you,” she says simply, watching how his smile takes over his handsome face. “Of course I’ll have you, and you’d better have me.”

“It would be my pleasure,” he says as his hands settle around her thighs.

Her pulse settles somewhere lower, and as much as she loves him, if he doesn’t take her to bed right now she’ll kill him.

She’s never been in love like this before, thinks she’s probably loved Rowan for almost her whole life, and as he scoops her up, lifting her off the counter and turning towards his bedroom she knows she’ll never love anyone like this ever again.

She’s deeply, desperately, crazily in love with him and as he whispers his adoration into her skin, as he thrusts into her, as he presses his lips to hers she knows he feels the same way.

This is it, this is them, and there’s no place else she’d rather be.

Rowan is twenty-eight when he gets down on one knee. Aelin is twenty-five when she says yes.

390 notes · View notes