Page 12
Story: Hold Me (Men in Suits #1)
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*NOEL*
H is boyfriend.
He is here with his boyfriend!
“Are you okay?” Aden asks me, amused, when we finally make it to one of the empty high tables.
“I still need to wrap my mind around the fact that you just called me your boyfriend,” I say bluntly. “That came unexpectedly!”
“Really? After I said we are official?”
“That was a surprise, too,” I point out. “I did not expect you to hit me with the second surprise so soon, especially after you said you weren’t going to label us.”
“I said, we don’t need to put a label on us, not that I personally wouldn’t do it,” he points out.
He is right. He was talking about us, not how he individually would handle it.
“Noel, I told you already, if things progress too fast for you, then—”
“No, they’re not!” I interrupt him. “I always cope better when I know where I stand with another person. If I am just an affair, I want to know. If I am a potential boyfriend, I want to know. I am just surprised because I thought you were the guy to let things progress much slower.”
“I am,” he says. “Usually.”
“And what is different now?” I ask him.
“Obviously, the fact that I am dating you,” he points out. “Maybe it’s not smart to introduce you as my boyfriend so early, when we only went on one date, but whatever…“ He shrugs. “It felt right.”
Somehow, his words make me happy. It seems like he just claimed me as his new boyfriend without overthinking it. He felt it and then went for it. For someone who is so obviously an overthinker and a perfectionist, it has to mean something.
“Here you are,” A tall, young woman approaches us. She seems to be around Aden’s age, but it’s hard to tell. She could be a little older or younger.
“Lynn!” Aden smiles. His stance remains relaxed, unlike when other people had approached him throughout the evening. With her, he doesn’t slip into his professional mode. “She is my best friend,” he tells me. “She basically does most of the marketing and HR related stuff.”
“Oh, you told me about her a lot!” I smile at her. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“That’s Noel,” he tells her. “My boyfriend.”
“So that’s your name!” she exclaims while looking at me. “Everyone is already talking about the beautiful guy with Aden Randall.” She eyes Aden curiously. “Very unlike you, by the way. Up until five minutes before the exhibit, I thought you were joking about coming with a plus one.”
“I know,” he says.
To my surprise, Lynn looks happy. “Sometimes it’s worth taking a risk.” She grins. “Man, you must be a true minx,” she tells me. “Aden never introduces anyone to us. You are the first date he’s actually brought to such an event since,“ she pauses, “since ages, literally.”
Her pause alerts me. What did she truly want to say? Since when… or since who? Even I know, however, that there is a right time for such a question, and it’s certainly not now. Instead, I decide to be a good boyfriend and make conversation.
Boyfriend …
Fuck, even thinking of myself as a boyfriend gets me. No one ever treated me like that! I have no idea what to do now. How does a boyfriend act?
Well, there is no time to think about it now because his best friend is here, and ready to strike up a conversation with me.
“How did you two become friends?” I ask. “In college?”
“Not really,” Aden says. “Lynn is a couple of years older than I am and was pretty much already done with her studies when I started.” He pauses. “I guess our friendship just happened.”
He is being evasive. In my job, I have learned to read people’s expressions and tones, and I can tell there is something he is holding back.
Once again, it strikes me that Aden is a very private man and is very closed off.
He might have opened up a little to me during our first date, but he said so himself; he doesn’t like talking about himself or his past a lot.
Well, neither do I. So, I shouldn’t judge.
“What Aden isn’t not saying,”—Lynn grins, fortunately deciding to reveal the ‘secret’—“is that I am his brother’s ex.”
“No way?” I exclaim.
“It’s true,” Aden admits. “My oldest brother, Oliver, was her boyfriend back then, and I met her occasionally.”
“During family meetings,” Lynn adds. “Well, Aden and I often fled to the terrace together. I’d have a cigarette, and he would just like the silence. Then, years later, we realized we pretty much are in a similar field of work.”
I try to take in all she says, and also the things she didn’t say.
Aden must have more than one sibling if he emphasized that it was his oldest brother.
And once more, he is awfully evasive right now.
He lets Lynn talk, but doesn’t add anything, and I don’t feel like Lynn is saying an awful lot either.
“When Oliver and I broke up, Aden and I coincidentally met during a vernissage once. Aden was still painting, back then, but wanted to get into the business. And I was looking for a new challenge as well.”
“To both of our surprise, we work pretty well together,” Aden adds.
“Aden was surprised,” Lynn tells me. “I had the feeling it could work. He is a perfectionist, and I am too, just with more sense.”
Aden frowns at her words. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that I know when to stop harassing everyone around me about the exact details,” she grins. “Admit it, you need me and my people skills!”
“You have people skills?” he asks.
“Well, more than you do!”
I am in awe listening to their talk. Aden has his guard down around her completely.
He must totally trust her. I feel a twinge in my chest. This time, however, not out of jealousy; there is nothing sexual between them, and Aden has been out as gay for ages, but it’s the familiarity between them.
The way he talks to her and answers her teasing.
With me, he is still much more formal. I have no idea how to make him drop his guard around me, and somehow this thought makes me sad while pissing me off at the same time.
Two hours later, Aden has introduced me to more people he is acquainted with, but it doesn’t seem he is close friends with any of them.
“You know a lot of people,” I mutter.
“Comes with the job,” he admits. “But most of it is just loose contacts. Lynn is my only real friend.”
“And your crazy assistant.”
Aden blinks. “I am not sure if I would call him a friend.”
“But he doesn’t annoy you?”
“True.”
“You feel like you can be a bit more yourself with him?”
“Again true.”
When I stay silent, Aden looks at me amused. “Our bar for friends is pretty high,” he says. “Seeing how you have three amazing friendships, I was expecting more.”
“It’s just…“ I groan. “I don’t know the guy. But he seems to be fun and quirky, and genuinely nice. Not that I want you to flirt with him, of course, and maybe you shouldn’t hang out with him too often.” Yeah, now I sound jealous. Either way I look like a complete nutcase.
“I have a hard time letting anyone in,” Aden tells me. “I don’t mind Cedric. He is a good person and a good assistant. But I am very careful about allowing someone to see more of me than I show to the outside.”
“But you befriended Lynn.”
“It’s rather her who befriended me,” he admits.
“And how come you let it happen?” I pause. “Sorry for being so curious. I just want to understand.”
Aden is quiet for a while. “She saw something no one else could see,” he finally says.
I wait for more explanation, after all, Lynn was his brother’s girlfriend.
It’s certainly unusual for the ex-girlfriend of a sibling to suddenly befriend the younger brother.
There has to be a story behind it. But Aden falls silent again.
It seems this is all I will get out of him for tonight.
I gaze around the room, noticing some guests occasionally eyeing me curiously. It only strikes me now that to them, I probably am like an alien. If it’s true what Lynn said, then Aden has never brought anyone along since, whatever happened years ago. Neither she nor Aden clarified it.
“You brought me along to this event and introduced me as your boyfriend,” I finally say. I am not sure if I understand why. We only met twice so far, and I feel like we connected, but I wasn’t sure he felt the same.
“I did. But you heard what Lynn said. It was very unusual for me.”
I can’t help but stare daggers at him out of mere curiosity. “But why me?”
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I just felt like it. Believe me, I don’t understand myself either. Seems like you just ticked a certain box for me I didn’t know existed.”
Well, that’s not bad! He is obviously not sharing an awful lot about himself, rather the opposite, but when he says it like that, it makes me feel less anxious.