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Chapter Twenty-Four

Aspen

Nerves have never hit me as hard as they did this morning. When Ridge asked us to give Arlo space, I wanted to say fuck it and storm over to his house, demanding that he listen to me. I know I’m a little confrontational, but I hate leaving things in limbo. I need to sort the issue out straight away, regardless of the result. But this time I decide to trust Ridge. He said if we give Arlo time, we would get our chance to explain. That he deserves space to process his loss, because it is how he is feeling, and he is entitled to those emotions.

For the last few nights, Arlo has logged on and we have played together. It’s in a group of people, and he doesn’t talk to me, but he has my back when those pesky prepubescent dudebros decide to gang up on me. It’s been excruciatingly hard to not beg for his forgiveness, but Ridge assures me it was a good first step.

Ridge spoke with Arlo about me coming back to work and he agreed—that’s why I’m nervous.

I threw up four times before I left the house this morning. Zeland wants me to wait, but it doesn’t matter what day I do this, the result will be the same. When I freak out or my anxiety rears its ugly head, I vomit. It’s why I have a stash of vomit bags handy.

Ridge, Zeland, and I walk into the building together. Ridge stops in front of me and takes my face in his hands. “You’ve got this, just be yourself.”

He presses his lips to mine in front of everyone in the foyer, and I gasp. He never does PDA in front of his employees. Thankfully, I brushed my teeth and used half a bottle of mouthwash before we left, or this kiss would be super awkward.

Zeland wraps his arms around both of us.

“Okay,” Ridge says with a chuckle. “I have a meeting in fifteen minutes. I will see you both for lunch in my office.” He winks and straightens his tie as he walks off.

“Damn, he has a nice ass,” I whisper, and Zeland takes my hand.

“That he does. Now let me take you up to your floor. I promise I won’t say anything to Arlo—he can come to me when he is ready. I’m just happy he’s back.”

We get into the elevator and once we reach the eighth floor, my nerves ramp up to a million. Zeland squeezes my clammy hand as the doors open and steps out with me—then we both freeze. Arlo is standing at the front desk talking to Theo, and both men look our way.

“That is my cue to leave,” Zee blurts. “Have an amazing day. You know where to find me if you need me.”

I nod as he pulls me into his body and wraps his arms around me. The comfort that radiates through me calms my nerves. When he lets me go and steps back into the elevator, he’s looking over my head. He winks as the doors slide closed.

I take a deep breath and turn to face Arlo.

“Morning,” I quip as I rush past them to the double doors, scanning my access card, then quickly scurrying through and down the hall to our office. It smells like him, and I can’t believe how much I have missed the smell of sweet oranges and spice until now. I know liking three men is not normal, but I do, and I had it all until I screwed up. But at the very least, I need my friend back.

When Arlo walks into the room, the tension is thick—I can feel it radiating from him.

“Hi, Aspen,” he says.

“I missed you,” I whisper, not wanting to scare him.

“I know, Ridge told me, but I’m so upset with you.”

In a rush of steps, I close the distance between us, all my logic about not wanting to scare him falling away. “Yell at me, tell me how pissed off you are, anything but silence. I know how badly I fucked up. If I could go back?—”

“You would want to take us back?! ”

I reach up and cup his jaw. “God no, at least not the first time, but I would have told you the truth after that. I’m so, so, so sorry I lied to you and betrayed your trust. Everything just snowballed so fast. You were a different person online, and when you started working here, I wanted to be close to you. Then with the mask stuff... I wanted you to be free, to do things you never thought you could. I just didn’t mean to fall for you in the process.”

“It hurt so bad. I finally had all the things I wanted in life. I trusted you,” he says, his voice low and tight, as if he is trying not to cry. It breaks my heart that I made him feel like this. “As a gamer. As a friend. As a coworker. And then as something more. Something I can’t even put into words because the second I name it, it feels too real, too much.”

My lips part, ready to assure him he can still have those things with me, but he shakes his head, dislodging my hand and halting my reply.

“I fell for you without even realizing it. First through the headset, when you’d tease me during raids and call me out when I didn’t have your back. Then again, when we worked side by side, and I kept wondering why you felt so damn familiar.” He laughs bitterly. “And then the masked version of you... fuck, Aspen. I let that version of you touch me in ways no one ever has. You took almost every first I had without even giving me your name.”

A tear slides down my cheek, and he reaches out to wipe it away.

His own cheeks are flushed with emotion, and his eyes... fuck, those eyes won’t stop flicking to mine like he’s scared I’ll look away.

“I didn’t mean for any of it to happen,” I whisper, but he cuts me off gently.

“No, let me just . . . say this.”

I nod and gently bring my hands back up to cup either side of his jaw, and he exhales shakily.

“Zeland messed me up,” he admits, and his voice cracks just enough to slice me open. “I didn’t expect to like him the way I did. It was the small things at first—his smile, the way he was always at the coffee shop every day, how he’d find a way to touch my elbow or wink at me. I kept telling myself not to read into it, that maybe I was projecting because of how confused I already felt about you. I couldn’t just push myself on you, Aspen. You’re my coworker.”

His eyes search mine, desperate and raw. “But then I was falling for you all. I held back, though. For you. Because I didn’t want to disrespect what you had with him, or disrespect you because I had mixed feelings about the people chasing me, even though I didn’t know who they were.”

My heart stutters painfully in my chest.

“And then to find out it was you both behind the masks... it didn’t just hurt, Aspen. It broke something in me. Both of you knew who I was. You saw me falling, and you let me. You let me give myself to people who were already inside my world, already close to me. It was like being gutted from the inside out. ”

I can barely breathe through the ache exploding in my chest. “Arlo...”

His voice softens, but the pain in it doesn’t wane. “I just wish someone had told me before I gave so much of myself away. Because I didn’t know how much of me was tied to you. To both of you.”

I lean in and gently rest my forehead against his. “You still have all of you,” I whisper. “And we’re the ones bleeding now. We never stopped wanting you—we just didn’t know how deep we were in until we were drowning.”

His breaths are uneven, his face held between my hands harrowed, like he might shatter if I let him go. His words echo through me, raw but honest, and something cracks open in my chest. I don’t know how to fix the hurt I caused, but I want to try. These emotions are new, and the pain of hurting someone is exactly what I was trying to avoid feeling.

My thumbs brush along the curve of his cheekbones and I tilt his face down just enough for our eyes to meet.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

His eyes flick to my mouth, then back to my eyes, and that’s all it takes.

I lean in, giving him a second to pull away, but he doesn’t. He leans down to meet me, and when our lips finally connect, it’s not rushed. I kiss him slowly, every apology whispered on my tongue and captured by his. I can feel him holding back, afraid to hand over anything to me—and I can’t blame him. But if he gives me this chance, I will prove he can trust me .

I kiss him deeper, and when his hands find my waist and he relaxes, I realize this isn’t just a kiss, this is him saying he might just be willing to forgive me.

I pull back first, and he takes a step back. “Do you think you could ever forgive me? Let me show you how sorry I am. I promise I will make it up to you. No more lies, no more secrets. I will be an open book.”

“What do you even like about me, when you have Ridge and Zeland?”

His insecurities are eating at him. “I like you because you are sexy in a nerdy way, you are smart, funny, and you show your emotions on your face so openly. I love how you love your mom, and how close you are to her. You don’t shy away from that or telling people she is your best friend. I love how you think of other people before yourself, but I also hate it as well, because you are worth putting first. I know I’m not easy to be around—I’m chaotic, and I do things before I think them through. Worse, I’m scared to put my heart in other people’s hands. I’m afraid people will leave me like my mom did and not look back. I know I deserved for you to walk away. It broke me, but it also made me realize just how important you are in my life. I need you, Arlo. In any way you will have me. If that means just being your coworker, I get it. Or if you just want to be friends. But please don’t walk out of my life for good.”

“I forgive you, Aspen. Hearing your voice was enough to know I would forgive you. But if you hurt me again, I don’t know if I can come back from that.”

Wrapping my arms around his waist, I pull his body tightly into mine. “I missed your smell. If it wasn’t weird, I would climb inside your shirt and smell you all day.”

I lift his shirt and place my cheek against his heart. The steady beat grounds me more than I expected. When he laughs, it rumbles through his chest, and I close my eyes to savor it for a few seconds. I feel the smile stretch across my face; I have found my safe space, and you would have to pry it from my cold, dead hands before I let him go again.