Page 13 of Perfect Storm (Toronto Thunder #1)

Levi nodded. “Anyway, is that what you wanted to know?”

He shouldn’t be so humiliated about his blatant jealousy but it had been obvious. He hadn’t liked the idea that Bishop or Wes or, God forbid, Dawson, somehow between his marriage and his divorce, had hit on Levi.

“Yeah,” Aidan said shortly.

Levi let his hand drop, and straight-up winked at Aidan. “Good chat, bro.”

“Ugh,” Aidan groaned as he followed him back into the living room.

He’d just grabbed another water from the fridge, thinking he’d watch them play a few more rounds before kicking the lot out, when Nate intercepted him. “Flynn.”

“Bishop.” They’d greeted each other with the bare minimum when Nate had showed up with the gaming system. Aidan had a feeling this was going to be more than a bare-minimum convo.

“You ready for camp tomorrow?”

Aidan nodded. “You?”

Nate sighed loudly. Dramatically. “You’re kind of an ass, you know that?”

“What? I asked you the same question,” Aidan defended.

“And looked like you were annoyed the whole time,” Nate pointed out.

He was probably not wrong. Aidan knew he had a bad case of resting bitch face. He was not always so pissed off. “You just always look so serious, so intense,” Riley always complained. “And I know for a fact that you don’t need to be.”

Aidan wasn’t sure Riley was right. But Nate had a point, too. They were teammates. It was a new season. He should at least try to make nice.

“Sorry,” Aidan said. “I did mean it. You ready for tomorrow?”

Nate looked like he relaxed a bit as he leaned against the counter. “Yeah, I guess so. Is anyone really ready for the first day of camp? Even if you put the work in?”

“Let’s hope you didn’t put in more work than my linemen,” Aidan joked.

It wasn’t a very good one but he was trying.

This would be Nate’s second season in Toronto, and yeah, he should be better.

He wouldn’t have this, forever. At some point, there wouldn’t be any more preseason camp.

No more teammates. And then he’d have to figure out how to have friends, not just the friends he’d always had, like Landry, or people who were forced to like him because they were family, like Riley.

Like Levi.

Except Levi wasn’t family.

He definitively was not family, despite his love of calling Aidan bro.

But Nate smiled, no matter how stupid the joke was. “Can’t make any promises,” he said seriously. “But I’ll try not to lay you out, first day.”

“Thanks,” Aidan said dryly.

“You’re old, man. Not sure you’d bounce back from a real good hit,” Nate teased lightly.

Aidan forced himself to smile, going along with the friendly nature of the conversation, but there was no question Nate’s comment rankled.

He’d taken good care of himself. He still had a couple more good—or at the very least, decent—years under his belt.

He wasn’t going to get taken out, not yet, no matter how many times he was reminded about mentoring Wes.

“Sure, dude,” Aidan said, clapping him on the back. And now, God, he sounded like Levi.

Which was worse: sounding like Levi or being forced to listen to him?

Aidan wasn’t sure.

Nate shot him a questioning look but thankfully didn’t call him on it.

“It was nice of you to invite Levi to stay with you,” Nate said.

And okay, maybe he had. Just not in the way that Aidan might’ve expected.

“Well, I’m a nice guy.” Ironically, the same thing he’d said about Nate to Levi.

Nate’s dark brown eyebrow rose even higher. “Oh, yeah? That’s new.”

“Dick,” Aidan retorted, rolling his eyes.

“Hey, I’m just telling it like it is,” Nate said. “You’re a great quarterback and a pretty dang good teammate. But a nice guy? I don’t know.”

That shouldn’t have bothered Aidan. Who aspired to be nice?

What was the saying? Nice guys finish last.

Aidan had no intention of finishing last. In fact, he had every intention of raising the Vince Lombardi trophy again before he called it quits.

“Nice guys finish last. I’m gonna remind you of that at the end of the season,” Aidan said casually. He wasn’t ridiculously superstitious, not like some other guys he knew, or like hockey players, God forbid, but he wasn’t going to make promises now that he couldn’t keep to teammates.

Just to himself.

“Sure,” Nate said, chuckling under his breath. “But you could try the nice-guy act, maybe?”

Aidan sighed. “Believe it or not, I am. Maybe that’s why I invited Banks to live with me.”

“No, you invited Levi to live with you because Landry probably told you it was happening, and you didn’t want to argue with him or with Riley if you said no.”

“It would be a lot easier if you didn’t know them,” Aidan said. Ridiculously, at one point, he’d even lorded it over Riley when Nate had ended up in Toronto.

Nate snorted a laugh. “You mean, easier if I didn’t know enough to call you on your bullshit?”

“Exactly.”

“You’re gonna be okay,” Nate said, clapping him on the shoulder and Aidan wanted to ask him what he was supposed to be recovering from—though of course, he knew exactly what he was recovering from, even if Nate couldn’t—and how Nate knew, somehow better than anyone else, that he was going to be okay.

He wanted to, but he didn’t.

But the thought lingered, anyway.

Instead, he watched the two other games in silence, then as Nate and Wes packed up the gaming equipment, Levi making jokes the whole time about how he was going to start digging through his boxes in storage right away, to make sure he wasn’t gaming system bereft.

Aidan had originally invited Dawson over because he’d wanted-slash-needed a buffer, but to his surprise, it was pretty chill after everyone left, quiet falling over the condo as the sun finished setting, the last of its light shifting across the Toronto skyline, before finally dipping everything in a dusky blue.

Levi retreated wordlessly to his room, and Aidan heard him unpacking.

His meal service dropped off his box for the week. He’d ordered double his normal amount, and after putting them away in the fridge, poked his head into Levi’s room, letting him know.

Levi raised his head, as he sorted through clothes on the bed, three of the dresser drawers open. “Thanks,” he said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, see how you feel about it when you eat their quinoa bowl for the third time in a week,” Aidan joked weakly. “Obviously if you want to make other arrangements after, it’s totally cool.”

Levi nodded. “Thanks, bro.”

After that, Aidan retreated to his own room, shutting the door behind him. They had an early call in the morning for the first day of camp, and he wanted to get a good night’s sleep.

But as he lay in bed, he picked up his phone after a long moment and ordered the same system that Nate had brought over, and any games that looked decent. Aidan hesitated for a second and then added a few more controllers to his cart before checking out.

When he got the confirmation, he took a screenshot and texted it to Levi. Now you don’t have to tackle your storage boxes, just Nate, he added as a caption.

Levi didn’t leave him hanging for long. He texted back almost immediately. brO, you’re the best.

You ever gonna give that up?

What do you think? Levi texted back.

Aidan’s fingers hesitated over his screen. Maybe it would be easier to bring it up now, over the relatively bloodless arena that was texting, even though Levi was technically in the next room over.

He could say it. It would be easy. Bro, he could say, you ever think about when we kissed? Bro, he could also say, I can’t stop thinking about it.

Instead, he should say something like, bro, I can’t stop thinking about it, but I need to.

But Aidan didn’t send anything at all. Chickened the fuck out and left it all unsaid. He could deal with it tomorrow. Tomorrow he’d be more recalibrated.