Falling, Fallen | ✔️

14

~Ayla's POV~

I sat in front of the house in my car after work, trying to work up the courage to head inside. After the stunt that Soren had pulled this morning, I was unsure what to do with the odd situation between us. It wasn't as if anything had really happened and I knew that, but I couldn't shake the feeling that he was up to something.

After a few minutes of me just sitting in the car I got out and headed inside, trying to be as quiet as possible. I knew Soren was home obviously, since he hadn't had to work today, so he was probably awake but I just wanted to sneak up into my room without him seeing me. I crept down the hallway, knowing that I was trying and yet failing at being quiet because the heels of my boots gently clacked against the floors when I walked.

I walked into the living room area, making an immediate b-line for the stairs as I took a glance at the back of Soren's head, as he was relaxing on the couch. He seemed to be rather immersed on his phone and I noticed there were headphone wires leading up to his ears, so I doubted that he would even notice me being here. I didn't even get halfway up the staircase before Soren had tugged an earphone from his ear, glancing up at me from where he sat. "Trying to sneak by me?" He asked, raising a brow. I just pursed my lips and crossed my arms over my chest, impatiently leaning my weight into my left leg so my hip stuck out a bit more. "No." I huffed, and he must've known I was lying because he just smirked. "Mm, sure." He said, setting his phone down beside him on the couch. "I guess you'd need to actually know how to sneak around quietly to do it in the first place."

Scowling now, I turned around and stomped upstairs, deciding to be dramatic by being extra loud. He just laughed from downstairs, seeming to find it funny how annoyed I was with him. I headed into my room and kicked off my shoes, making sure that I had the door shut before I pulled off my clothes and changed into a big t-shirt. It was big enough on me that it fell to my knees, swallowing my frame.

For a while I just stayed up in my room, though I couldn't deny that I wanted to go downstairs to see what Soren was doing. It was now suspiciously quiet downstairs and I was growing ever the more curious, as it was within my nature to be too curious. I sat down on the edge of my bed and strained my ears to listen to what was happening downstairs, if anything. Again, though, it remained quiet. Eventually I got out of bed and opened the bedroom door, stepping out into the hallway in my socks. I stepped forward and peered over the railing in front of my door, looking down into the living room. I blinked when I caught sight of him, a little bit taken aback.

He was working out in the middle of the living room floor.

Wondering what this man was doing, I crossed my arms over my chest and kept on watching him. This workout he was currently doing looked very hard, but then again I was a weakling. He was doing sit-ups in the middle of the floor, which would have been fine on it's own, but he had apparently decided that he needed to take it a step further because there were large weights in his hands. Every time he sat up, he would lift both the big ass weights up until they touched his chest.

His biceps flexed strongly with the movement, causing me to subconsciously begin to ogle them. I had never before met a man who I was so attracted to that I thought even his fucking arms were hot. Arms! However, Soren had easily proved to me that he was a man of that criteria.

I didn't mean to ogle over him while he was working, but now I just found it hard to stop. His biceps flexed strongly again and I leaned into the railing more, feeling as though I was about to start drooling like a fucking dog. "You're so obvious when you're checking me out, Ayla." Soren suddenly stopped to say, setting the weights down to look up at me. He smirked, staring up at me with his brows raised when I couldn't find it in me to respond. "Cat got your tongue or are you just too busy looking at me to think properly?" He mocked.

My face burned in embarrassment and he grinned wickedly. "Yeah, that's it. Just can't get your mind off me, can you?" He taunted, cocking his head to the side. I just clenched my hands into fists, growing flustered even from up here. "Come down." He demanded. I hesitated and then shook my head. "You're probably all sweaty." I said as an excuse to not go anywhere near him.

Soren gave me a slight glare. "Get your ass down here or I'll get you myself." He snapped, a little more impatient than I had thought. I found myself walking down the hall to the stairs in a split second, frowning to myself at my complacency. I entered the living room and awkwardly stood beside him, my arms crossed over my chest. He looked at me and raised a brow expectantly, patting the spot beside him on the floor. "Sit here." He said, so I reluctantly did so. I'd expected him to smell like sweat, but he didn't, to my surprise. He somehow still smelled good.

"What are we doing?" I asked, peering up at him curiously. He leaned back onto his elbows, unintentionally making his biceps flex again in that deliciously sinful way. "You are going to count how many I can sit ups I can do with these weights. My record is twenty three." He said, grasping the giant weights again. When I looked a little bit closer at them, I saw that they were fifty pound weights and my eyes practically bugged out of my skull. How the hell he managed to lift those while he was also doing sit-ups was beyond me, because I wouldn't have even been able to lift them if I was just standing. I was ridiculously weak.

He began to lift the weights, effortlessly doing sit-ups at the same time, and I struggled to focus on counting instead of his arms. It seemed like less than thirty seconds had passed before he was already at ten, continuing to tirelessly work until his grey t-shirt was beginning to rise up at the bottom of his stomach, exposing his six pack and a rather defined v-line. My cheeks burned and I kept my eyes as far away from his stomach and his arms as I could, knowing he would most certainly notice me checking him out once again. "Twenty," I continued to count, trying to focus so I could distract myself from my attraction to him. I glanced down at his face and managed to catch his eye, my heart skipping a beat when I saw his lips twitch. "Don't you think you're going to possibly injure yourself? What if you pull a muscle?" I asked him, frowning.

Soren just did another sit-up, glancing at me again. "I work out all the time, Ayla. I haven't ever pulled anything." He said, causing me to raise a brow. Yeah, I can tell you work out all the time.

"Just because you haven't pulled something before doesn't mean you can't, or won't eventually." I argued, and he rolled his eyes. He visibly began to strain a little to lift the weights, yet he was still able to do it with more ease than I could ever even dream of doing. "You worry too much. I'll be fine." He assured me, brushing off my worries. "And if I'm not," He grunted with effort as he completed his thirtieth sit-up, eyeing me. "I'll have you to take care of me, as my wife."

I scowled and flicked him on the arm. "Legally I'm your wife, but in no other way are we really married." I snapped, causing him to chuckle, sounding a little breathless. "Yeah, but you're a nice person so you'd take care of me anyways." He said, and I stayed quiet, not bothering to deny it. Yes, he and I had little disagreements sometimes but I knew I would certainly still help him if he ever hurt himself. I didn't hate him by any means, and I certainly didn't dislike him enough to be that mean.

All of the sudden Soren dropped the weights roughly onto the floor as he sat up, his chest heaving. I assumed he was tired of working out because he just leaned back onto his palms, biting his lip as he leaned his head back. Like with everything he did, I found it weirdly attractive. "Tell me, Ayla," He muttered after a few moments, finally looking over at me. His lips twitched when he saw I was already looking at him, so he probably knew I'd been checking him out again, but he didn't mention it, thankfully. "How do you feel about the River Cafe?" He wondered, causing me to furrow my brows at him.

"Uh," I mumbled, confused. "I've never been." I told him, frowning. "Why?" I asked, wondering what had made him ask me about the restaurant all of the sudden. He groaned as he stood up, towering over me as he stretched his long arms over his head and then looked down to meet my gaze. I could've sworn I'd seen his lips twitch slightly, but maybe I imagined it. "We have a reservation to go there for dinner on Saturday. My dad said you and I need to go somewhere together." He murmured, and I blinked up at him. This seemed sudden, but I suppose it made sense. We hadn't really been seen together publicly, so none of the media probably even knew or had really reported about him and I.

I sighed, frowning up at him. "You're paying, if you're making me go."