Page 23 of Perfect Storm (Toronto Thunder #1)

Because it drove everyone away, eventually?

Because he’d constructed this vision of himself when he was too young to know any better—when it had felt like the only way he could get through the shit hand he and Riley had been dealt—and he’d only realized later that this version of himself pushed everyone he cared about away?

He was fucking lucky Riley was still willing to have him in his life, after he’d almost epically fucked that relationship up. The fact that they were still close was probably due more to Landry’s loyalty than any forgiveness tour Aidan could perform.

“Why do you think something’s going on with Levi?” Aidan asked, changing the subject. It wasn’t necessarily better, but it was different, and right now that felt better than explaining that sometimes when you fucked up, it was too late to really fix it.

“He flirts with you, pretty much nonstop, and you actually seem to like it. You don’t even brush it off, not like I’ve seen you do to legions of, well, pretty much everyone else over the years.”

It was hard to explain that without telling Dawson everything. And Aidan wasn’t sure he was ready to say Mo’s name out loud, yet. He thought he might be, but what if he wasn’t? What if he broke down in the middle of one of his favorite lunch spots and he could never come here again?

“Levi’s a fun guy. Fun to have around. Is he flirting?”

Dawson rolled his eyes at Aidan’s fake obliviousness. “Dude. You know he’s flirting with you. You even welcome it. And—” Dawson paused now for dramatic effect. “And you even fucking like it.”

“How do you know that?” It was bad enough to be really seen by Levi; he didn’t know if he wanted to be witnessed by Dawson too.

“Because you flirt back.” Dawson tossed it out like his final argument-winning volley. “And I didn’t even know you could flirt.”

“Wow,” Aidan said flatly.

“I’m just saying. You’ve always been above it. But you look at Levi, and it’s like you’re suddenly not.”

For a split second, Aidan wondered what he’d been like with Mo.

If he’d been this obvious. If all their teammates had known, had watched him pathetically panting after his friend for ages and just never said.

Maybe if they had, he’d have realized it sooner.

But as it was, he’d never understood what that feeling was, not until Mo was gone and everything had suddenly been so terrible.

“I . . .” Aidan licked his lips. He still didn’t know how much he should say. But maybe that meant he should tell Dawson everything. The whole goddamn pathetic story. “How long do you have?”

Dawson raised an eyebrow, slumping back in his chair. “I got all day, bro.”

“Uh, so turns out I’m not straight.”

Dawson didn’t look surprised.

“Really? You can’t tell me you knew that. I didn’t know that,” Aidan complained.

“Honestly, who’s straight anymore?” Dawson asked.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“But probably right,” Dawson argued. “Anyway. So you’re what . . .bi?”

“Does a label matter?” If Dawson was going to be slightly dick-ish about Aidan’s coming out, then Aidan could be slightly dick-ish back.

Dawson grinned. “No way. Course it doesn’t. Anyway. So you figured that out. You wanna tell me how it happened?”

“Not really but I have a feeling you’re not gonna let it go if I don’t.”

“It wasn’t Levi, then,” Dawson said thoughtfully.

“Nope. It was . . .well, an ex-teammate. I didn’t even realize how I felt until he left, went to another team—”

“Oh, oh, are we guessing who it is?” Dawson interrupted. “I can totally get this one right.”

Aidan leveled him with the most brutal look in his arsenal. “Really?”

“Totally Morris Jeffries. I can’t even blame you for that one. He’s hot as fuck.”

It was weird, hearing Mo’s name come from Dawson’s mouth.

It didn’t hurt as bad as Aidan had expected.

The gaping hole inside him didn’t feel quite so bottomless these days.

Like it’d finally begun to fill in, and it wasn’t just endless pain but the manageable ache of a bruise when you pressed on it. Still a wound, but a healing one.

“Yeah, well, it didn’t change anything,” Aidan said. He sounded more resigned than bitter these days, and it was hard not to take that as a win.

Dawson’s mouth fell open. “Not really? Really? He turned you down?”

Aidan decided Dawson’s shock was flattering. “Yes.”

“Wow, dude. I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Aidan said. He was, even if he could safely say he wasn’t as sorry as he might’ve been, once. Eventually, he did think he and Mo could be friends again—just friends, this time around, without any unrequited feelings getting in the way.

“Huh. So where does this leave the Levi thing?”

“Funny that.” Aidan sighed. “He figured it out. Or convinced me to tell him. I’m still not sure. There was a lot of whiskey involved.”

“’Course there was,” Dawson said, chuckling.

“And somehow in the middle of that, he uh . . .promised me. Or I promised him?” Aidan paused, hesitating. Saying it out loud made the whole thing sound more ridiculous than he’d anticipated.

“What did you promise him? Don’t leave me hanging, bro,” Dawson complained.

“I wanted . . .I wanted some practical experience with a guy. And he promised me that if I was still single in a year, he’d do it.”

Dawson’s jaw dropped. More than when Aidan had admitted that his feelings for Mo hadn’t been returned.

“You made a sex pact?”

Aidan crinkled his nose. “Would you call it that?” Bro, he could imagine Levi saying, you’d absolutely fucking call it that.

Dawson shot him a look that echoed Levi’s voice in his head. “Uh, yeah, I absolutely fucking would. So you made a sex pact with Levi Banks. Huh. Interesting. I can see that.”

Aidan didn’t immediately demand to know why that was. Or if they were that obvious. He wasn’t sure he could deal with the truth.

“Not for right now. It’s for a year from now,” Aidan stressed.

“You sure he got that memo?” Dawson asked.

There it was. The question that haunted him at night. During the day. Every spare moment when he wasn’t at practice or watching film or breaking down plays, he was wondering when and if Levi would bring it up again.

“The year from now was his idea,” Aidan said.

“Really?”

“He was all about it. Said that . . .uh . . .he didn’t want me thinking about someone else if I ended up in his bed.”

“That’s fair. But . . .dude, I have to ask. Would you?” Dawson paused. “From where I’m sitting, yeah, you’re still getting over Mo, but I look at you two, at the way you flirt back with him, and I wonder.”

“Uh.” Aidan didn’t know how he felt discussing this. Even with Dawson, who he’d known for a long time. The only other people he could imagine doing it with would be Riley and Landry—and they were obviously off-limits in this particular situation.

“You can tell me,” Dawson said persuasively. “Though maybe the one you should be telling is Levi.”

“He just acts like that,” Aidan said uselessly. Maybe it was better he couldn’t talk about this with Riley or Landry, because he was crappy at even identifying his feelings. And talking about them? Nearly impossible.

“Does he?”

“Well, yeah,” Aidan said. “You see him.”

“Maybe with you, sure. Not with anyone else. You see him the other night? He didn’t even try to flirt with that Ramsey guy, who was hot as hell. It’s just you.”

Aidan finally broke down and said the thing out loud that he’d been thinking for over two weeks now. “I just keep expecting him to say it. Like bring it up. Even just refer to it. Like casually. But he doesn’t.”

“Hmmmm. But he did say a year, and you haven’t brought it up, either, I’m assuming.”

Aidan huffed. “No. Of course not. When we agreed—he was still in Seattle. I didn’t expect him to come here. I don’t think he expected to come here.”

“Okay, so he showed up in your vicinity early but . . .I don’t get it. Just say something.” Dawson grinned. “Or are you allergic to making the first move?”

“Hell no. I kissed him in Michigan,” Aidan retorted and then realized a moment after he’d said it that he hadn’t meant to divulge that much info.

“Oh, oh, now we’re getting to the good stuff,” Dawson said, rubbing his hands together.

“It was just . . .it didn’t mean anything.”

Dawson didn’t look convinced. Aidan wasn’t convinced.

“Sure it didn’t, Flynn.”

Aidan sighed. “I invited you to lunch to talk about you,” he said. “Your whole situation. I thought you might want to unload, and instead we’re gossiping like teenage girls about the guy I kissed.”

“Uh, yeah. So much more fun to gossip like teenage girls than to break down my hellhole of a life,” Dawson said. “I’d rather talk about you, ten times out of ten.”

Except Aidan didn’t want to talk about Levi. It made everything a shade too real, and he couldn’t help but worry that Dawson might talk him into doing something drastic he wasn’t ready for.

“Well, that’s all there is to say. We kissed.”

“When?”

Aidan rolled his eyes. “You want me to break the whole thing down?”

“Well, now that you offer it so nicely, yes.” Dawson looked delighted. “Give me a whole timeline. Draw a fucking diagram.”

“It was the morning after we uh . . .agreed to the—”

“Sex pact. The morning after you agreed to the sex pact,” Dawson interrupted. When Aidan glared, he just shrugged. “You were not gonna say it. Call it what it is, at least.”

“Okay, fine. Yes. The morning after the sex pact.”

“And what else?”

“Nothing. My brother and his boyfriend—you remember Landry, I assume—were there. And they didn’t interrupt but it was um . . .close. And after, I wanted to talk to him about it. I was going to talk to him about it.”

“The kiss was so good you were gonna invite him to your bed early.” Aidan glared again. But Dawson was undeterred. “Dude, it’s obvious. It’s written all over your face. You totally were.”

“Maybe,” Aidan said. He’d thought about it, for sure. Hard not to.

“So what happened?”