Fallin' for You: The Echo of Love series

he could ask the little beauty for her name or number, she turned away and ran, effectively getting lost in the sea of people.

The Brother
 Aria shut the door of her locker with a frustrated sigh. It has been 4 days since she had run into that man and she was still thinking about him.
The way he looked, the smooth baritone of his voice, his beautiful green eyes, and the confident aura the man had exhumed had captured her attention and as much as she tried, she couldn’t get him out of her head.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt that kind of attraction to someone. Well, she could, and that was probably the reason why she was so angry at the moment because Aria had apparently learned nothing from her past mistakes.
 Nobody…worthless…waste of space
Old taunts and insults flashed through her mind and she could almost feel the pain that they had inflicted as if it had all happened yesterday and not almost a year and a half ago.
“Ari, are you okay?” she heard someone ask and quickly turned around to see a very worried-looking Nura standing a few feet away from her.
She suddenly realized that she was shivering and slowly lowered herself on the bench next to the lockers.
“Yeah, I’m fine, just didn’t catch too much sleep last night.” she said the first thing that popped into her mind and prayed that Nura wouldn’t press the matter further since she didn’t have the strength to lie.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” she replied while forcing a smile on her face, even though the last thing she wanted at that moment was to smile.
“So, Nate’s back?” she quickly asked in an attempt to change the subject, which proved successful.
“Yes! Finally! I’ve missed him so much.” Nura said, and then proceeded to tell her all about Nate’s trip. Aria barely listened, just kept saying an occasional ‘yes’ or ‘omg’, which was good enough for the brunette who, Aria was sure, could talk any politician into the ground when on a roll.
It was a Friday night, which meant that the club was even more crowded than usual.
Aria had been working there as a bartender for the last year since she didn’t like mixing with the crowd as opposed to Nura who now worked as a waitress and loved it.
The club was quite big. It consisted of two levels; the main floor, which was open for everyone, with two bars and a DJ booth, and the second level, where Aria worked, which was more of a lounge, with soft background music and an assortment of gourmet food and vine for exclusive club members.
She took her position behind the bar and let her mind drift off as she lost herself in work.
It was a busy night, the club was full to the brim and she watched the people mingling; some dancing at the small platform, while others talked and ate.
She saw Amir, a short, cute guy that used to work there and his husband Chad at one of the tables, having a romantic dinner.
They were sitting close to each other, one of Chad’s arms spread over Amir’s chair, his fingers softly caressing the back of his neck.
Amir was smiling shyly at the bigger man, giggling every few seconds as Chad kept whispering into his ear in between soft kisses to his temple.
She averted her eyes after a while, the lovely scene leaving her feeling sad and empty in its wake.
She used to be angry; at Him, at the world and most of all at herself for allowing him to break her, but now, Aria just felt sad.
Because as much as she tried to convince herself that she was fine on her own, she was still a hopeless romantic at heart. She was in desperate need of someone to love her and care for her, and she was afraid that that was never going to happen.
She was brought out her thoughts by the sound of a familiar voice.
“Hi, Aria.” Megan, the owner of the club and one of a handful of people Aria dared to call a friend, said, a goofy smile on her beautiful face.
Megan was a very tall, gorgeous woman, whose presence commanded respect even though she was younger than most of the regulars there, a woman and pretty much the most relaxed person around. And Aria did, she respected her and loved her for everything that Megan had done for her.
They’ve met a little over a year ago when Aria was still living on the streets. It was a cold, winter night, a snowstorm was fast approaching and Aria was sure that she was going to freeze to death before morning.
She was curled up in an alley behind what ended up being Megan’s building, wrapped up in a torn, old blanket that she was ashamed to admit that she had stolen from another homeless guy.
When Megan came out to toss the garbage and saw Aria there, she had approached her to check if she was alright.
Once she saw the state that Aria was in, she had immediately offered her a place to stay for the night.
To this day Aria wasn’t sure what had compelled her to accept since Megan was a complete stranger and she knew better than to trust someone she had just met, but she did, and she will forever thank her lucky stars for making that decision.
By the time the morning had come, she had already poured out her whole life story to the woman and from that day forward Megan had been like an older sister that Aria had never had.
She had given her a job, helped her find a place to live and even paid for a part of her tuition