chapter 17 | 6 months

"you are my favorite feeling"

-aesteuticc



Blake POV

The second I put the phone down Aria yells at me "You dressed me in your clothes? Seriously"

"I didn't want to get blood on my sheets"

She flips me off. And then storms to the kitchen.

I follow her "What are you doing?"

"Eating. I haven't eaten something in god knows how many days"

I stop at that. Shit. She's right. Except for when she was in the hospital and the nurse gave her that infusion that had some nutrients Aria's didn't eat real food. She was supposed to get dinner in her room back at the headquarters but when the men infiltrated the building, they killed 3 of our men, they were the ones who were supposed to bring Aria her food. One of those men was Julian, who deserved to die if you ask me. But still that means that Aria didn't eat anything in 2 days.

"Fair enough." I respond while cursing myself for not thinking about this earlier.

She found some fruits, washed them and started cutting them.

I just sat down and admired the view: her dressed in my clothes, in my kitchen, making food. Shit. It's like my fantasies for the past 6 months have become reality.

The truth is I don't exactly know when I started falling for Aria. I remember the day I got assigned to watch her. I just came out of the hospital after I got badly injured in the previous mission, an asshole shot me, he got 4 bullets in return. And Monique decided I need a more relaxing job, so I have time to get back on my feet. I yelled at her for 20 minutes when I heard the news. I wanted to go back on the field and finish my mission because the drug dealer got away. But she wouldn't hear it. She was probably afraid of my parents. What would they say if their precious little son died while chasing drug dealers in the amazonian forest.

So yeah, next thing I know I was on the first flight to Amsterdam to watch Aria Felker because her parents were ex-spies and the MI6 wanted to use her as leverage. We needed information from her parents, well the MI6, I couldn't care less about the information. I didn't really pay attention when Monique presented the mission. Bad move on my part, but hey I was still extremely pissed. I reached Amsterdam.

The MI6 rented an apartment on the same street as Aria's, exactly on the other side of the street one floor higher and I could easily see her windows and even part of her living room if she didn't close her drapes, which is something that Aria didn't do. I got everything set up and started reading through the file one more time. I also looked at her photo. Yeah she looked hot, like any other 21 year old girl, not my type but hot nonetheless.

The file covered the basic information. Her past, family, major. I was in charge of finding her routine, more personal information, basically to get to know her better than she knows herself and all of this without her even seeing me.

The first week went by slowly. I still had to change the bandages from my wound twice a day and couldn't move that much. So I just watchedAria's living room all day. I noted the hours she leaves the house, the hours she comes back home. Her extracurricular activities, from an outsider this might seem extremely disgusting and an invasion of privacy but for me, it was something usual actually we were going easy on her, I didn't have to install microphones in her apartment.

Technically it wasn't just hers. Hers and her friend's Charlotte, I learned later. After the first month I realised she doesn't have a set routine. She just leaves the apartment at 9 o'clock every morning and returns at the most random hours. She didn't have a schedule. Which was a pain in my ass because it meant I had to follow her and this also increased the chances of her seeing me.

But the truth is I've never seen a more disorganised person. Her classes started at random times and sometimes she didn't even return for the night. I assumed there was a boyfriend, she slept over somewhere but she never brought anyone home. Like ever.

That changed in the second month, that's also when I started to follow her. Not everyday, just two days a week. Monday and Friday. And I started to realise how cool this girl actually is. She never came home at normal hours because every day after university she went somewhere else. Volunteer work, to a cafe, at her friends houses, to the park, to the gym, to the club. From the last activity she started to bring home a different boy that left in the morning never to be seen again. And sometimes she went to those boys' houses but she never went to the same guy twice. This sparked my interest.

She wasn't necessarily popular but she seemed to know everyone. Like at all cafes and parks, everywhere she went she met someone she knew. And sometimes along the second month I realised what a good life she has. She doesn't worry about anything, she does what she wants, when she wants, I never got that. I was recruited before even finishing highschool. I never went to college, just undercover for different cases.

I never had a social life, my friends consisted of 50 year old coworkers. Now this is turning into a pity party, but I don't regret this. I didn't have much of a social life so that people like Aria get to live their life. I worked from the shadows making sure that people like her, families and other highschoolers get to live their lives in peace.

So now that I was following Aria everywhere I was kind of living my college experience. I was sitting in cafes all day, strolling in the park, all the time making sure I kept enough distance between me and her because even though I had a lot of flexibility, Monique was clear about one thing. No interacting with Aria. And even though I would never admit this to her Monique was right. If I ever got mixed up with Aria she would be the one suffering.

My assignment is 6 months long. After that I would go back to shooting bad guys and tracking down gang leaders and being with Aria would put her in a lot of danger because if people wanted to get to me they could use her. Like the MI6 plans to use her to get to her parents. The irony.

Moving on, months 3 and 4 went by quickly and I was starting to care about Aria. I guess having to watch someone 24/7 while you're not allowed to fuck anyone else or interact with other people makes you care about that person, or at least that's what I told myself when the last person I was thinking before going to sleep was her. Another one of Moniques stupid rules "You can only think with one head at a time", so no fucking on the job.

By month 5 I realised I wasn't the only one watching her. Other people apparently had the same ideas as ours. And I started to get rid of them. One by one, at Monique's orders. This whole time Aria didn't even see what was happening. She didn't see me and didn't see the others. At one point I got extremely pissed at her because of this. I wanted to go to her and yell just so she would see me. But I guess her not seeing me meant I was extremely good at my job, still it became pretty depressing.

By month six we already started planning the extraction, or as Aria likes to call it, the kidnapping. It was supposed to take place later but Monique gave the order. I didn't question it that much, I was also excited to meet Aria and boy she didn't disappoint.

But back to me falling for her. I guess it happened slowly. At first all the guys she brought home from clubs started bothering me. I blamed it on the fact that they might be other bad guys who could harm her, I later put a name on that feeling: jealousy. And then the daydreaming began. Me and her, sometimes her, sometimes us, sometimes me fucking her, sometimes a normal life we had together.

I blamed all of these on my loneliness and the fact that I was horny all the time but at one point I realised that I couldn't imagine these scenarios with someone else. Another girl. It was always Aria. It will always be Aria. I also realised that all these scenarios would be impossible so I wanted to enjoy this borrowed time I had with her as much as humanly possible.

And her finally being here, I honestly didn't know what to do half of the time. She was everything I pictured and more.

"You know I saw you before right?" Aria pulls me out of my daydreaming.

I raise an eyebrow.

"At first I couldn't quite place it. On the plane I was scared shitless and until now I didn't actually get to look at your face properly but now that I think about it I did see you before. You did say you've been watching me for 6 months so it makes sense"

She said it so normally. Like we were having a conversation about bread.

"Really?" I ask curiously, I can't tell if she's bluffing or not.

"I think, yeah, I mean I remember seeing you once in a caffe, you were sitting in a corner working from your computer. You only caught my attention because you took the last biscuit available. The cashier actually pointed me at you. But you looked way different. Like the hair, and you also had glasses on, and a hat, if I remember correctly. I was also extremely ready to march up to you and demand that biscuit. I was willing to pay you double but Charlotte convinced me that you could be a creep so we just went to another caffe."

I laugh "If you wanna believe it or not that was the first day I actually decided to follow you around. Until then I was just looking at you from my apartment window like the ultimate internet troll"

Now she lets out a small laugh.

Gosh it sounds beautiful. What I wouldn't give to hear it again.

"Well then I guess you weren't that good at your job weren't you."

"I guess not." I respond by giving her another small smile.

A silence settles between us.

"Can I put music on?" Aria asks.

I nod. We both go to the living room and I show her how to operate the Spotify from the TV. While she decides on a song I return to the kitchen and start eating an apple.

"One More Night" by Maroon 5 starts playing through the speaker system. It sounds pretty sweet, before moving here I asked one of my friends to install several speakers in each room. And now it sounded like sound was coming from everywhere.

"Whoa." exclaims Aria when coming back to the kitchen. "Do you have speakers everywhere?"

"Mhm. It's a surround system. The last on the market" I say kind of smugly.

"It must have costed a fortune"

"MI6 paid for everything" I say shrugging my shoulders.

She laughed again. And returned to cutting fruits.

She started humming softly the verses of the song.

Yup this was heaven. I would trade everything in the world to live like this for the rest of my life.



A/N So this was a little bit of Blake's perspective. I wanted y'all to understand him a little better and may I just say that writing him was the cutest thing ever. I love how he falls first. Now let's see how much it takes Aria to return the feelings.