Page 42 of Perfect Storm (Toronto Thunder #1)

“The thing that keeps getting me is that nothing’s really changing,” Aidan said quietly.

“He’s going to be around.”

“Yeah. On the field, sure. Hanging out with us at Vault or whatever bar we find, sure. But nothing else.”

Aidan supposed he should be sad about that. Mad, even. Resigned, surely. But instead, he just sounded matter-of-fact. Like it was just a reality, and he’d accepted it.

“So you’re not like . . .” Levi trailed off. It was unlike Levi to not confront things bluntly; it was one of the things Aidan liked most about him. They had that in common. He’d always know where Levi stood, because he’d never bother to hide it.

“I’m not what?” Aidan could guess, but there was a perverse part of him that wanted Levi to say it out loud.

“Sad or whatever.”

“No,” Aidan said. He could say definitively, no, he was not sad.

Confused. Freaked out. Unsure. All of those things, yes.

What would Mo have to say about this thing with Levi? Was he even going to tell him about this thing with Levi? He’d not told a lot of other teammates. Just Dawson. Wes knew something, too, but not who it was.

“Not sad. That’s uh . . .good,” Levi said.

Normally, before, Mo would have been one of the first people he’d have told. Landry and Riley, too, but the unique circumstances had made telling either of them impossible.

“Yeah,” Aidan said. He wanted to tell Levi things had changed. That he felt different—so fucking different—than he’d felt in July when they’d first talked about this. But chances were Levi would want to know how he felt. Would want him to identify the emotions he was experiencing.

Of course, that was probably only if Levi liked that things had changed.

Maybe he wouldn’t.

That maybe was fucking Aidan up even more.

How would Levi react if Aidan said, well, actually, I might be sad, but it’s not about Mo. I’m kind of fucked up about you.

“You’re normally so quiet, but you’re freaking me out now,” Levi said. He hesitated. That hesitation was fucking Aidan up even more; when did Levi hesitate? “Should I get Landry on the phone? Riley?”

“No. God, no.” That was easy enough. They’d definitely want him to talk about his feelings.

He wanted to say, I don’t want Landry or Riley. I don’t even really want Mo. I just want . . .you.

But the words stuck in his throat. Maybe that was actually okay because Levi was already here, without Aidan even asking him to be.

He tried to relax into the mattress, into Levi’s big warm body. Found it was actually easier than he thought it might be.

“I’m . . .I’m actually good right here,” Aidan said.

“Awesome.” Levi’s uncertainty had morphed into his normal smug delight. Aidan found he could relax even more, hearing it in his voice.

“It’s just gonna be really fucking weird tomorrow.”

“Bad weird?”

Aidan hummed under his breath. “No. Having Mo around can never be bad weird. He’s a solid guy. You’ll see. Just . . .just weird. I keep thinking I wasn’t used to him being gone, but I think I was. I had accepted it. And now I have to go through and un-accept it.”

“You got used to not having him around, so yeah, that makes sense. It’s been three years,” Levi said.

“Doesn’t really feel like three years, but yeah.”

“Can I . . .” That hesitation was back in Levi’s voice. “Can I ask why it took you so long to tell him?”

There was no real truthful answer that made Aidan look good. He could tell Levi he didn’t want to talk about it. Levi would accept that, no question. But Aidan didn’t want to lie, even if it wasn’t exactly flattering.

“I was afraid,” Aidan admitted.

“About liking guys?”

“God, that would be less embarrassing,” Aidan said.

Levi’s arm around him tightened further.

“More like, I was afraid that what would happen would happen. And guess what? It did,” Aidan continued. “And maybe I was right to be afraid. It did suck. But I can’t say it was all bad.”

“Kind of seems like it was from this angle,” Levi pointed out softly.

But then I wouldn’t be here, with you.

“Good things came out of it, though,” Aidan said firmly. He didn’t say what the good things were, but he hoped Levi realized that he was the biggest. The best.

Levi’s hand stroked his back, all the way up to his shoulder. “Glad to hear it, bro.”

“I should probably deal with all that shit on my phone,” Aidan said after a long, surprising peaceful moment. Surprisingly, because his phone was still going off.

“You could just turn it off.”

He could. But if he did, then he wouldn’t be Aidan Flynn, QB1 for the Toronto Thunder, and as much as he liked being the Aidan lying here with Levi, he was that Aidan too.

Couldn’t stop being him.

“Yeah, and I will after.”

He rolled over, catching a glimpse of Levi’s smile as he did.

It was going to be fine. Everything was going to be fine.

Levi thought if he told himself he was fine enough times, that might make it true.

He was not freaking out. He was not freaking out.

Okay. He was freaking out a little. Or a lot.

He’d never imagined that Mo Jeffries might come back to Toronto. Sure, he probably hadn’t fallen miraculously in love with Aidan, back, but the fact he was going to be here, in Aidan’s face every single day, was giving Levi the kind of complex he’d never personally experienced before.

Because this was what jealousy felt like, wasn’t it?

He stood in the middle of the field, getting some of his extra reps at left tackle with the second team offense, and tried very hard not to watch Aidan and Mo standing next to each other, chatting.

Levi had very pointedly not looked up Morris Jeffries when Aidan had told him about his unrequited feelings, but of course he knew of the guy.

He was one of the best wide receivers in the NFL, hands down, even though he was in his late twenties.

He’d lost a bit of speed, maybe, but he’d gotten smarter and craftier.

Any team would want him on their roster, and it didn’t really surprise Levi that the Thunder had decided they needed him back.

Trevor and Lane were great tight ends, but they needed a dynamite receiver to round out the offense, and there was no better choice for that position than Mo.

He stood next to Aidan, dressed in his practice uniform even though nobody really expected him to participate in the walkthrough or play tomorrow. He was laughing at something Aidan said, dark hair glinting in the late afternoon sun, eyes crinkled with amusement.

Yeah.

Levi had always passingly thought he was good looking, which felt like a huge cosmic joke now.

“Hey, you good?”

Levi looked over towards Trevor. “Yeah, dude. I’m fine.”

What was Trevor even doing out here? He didn’t need extra reps. Had he come all the way out to the middle of the field to wonder if Levi was okay?

Shit.

“You’re kind of glaring at our new wideout.”

“No way,” Levi said. Had he been glaring? God, he hoped not. And if he had been, he prayed Aidan hadn’t noticed. He was trying to be chill about Mo showing up in Toronto and glaring at the guy who might be the death of all his secret hopes was not being very chill.

“Yeah way,” Trevor retorted. He was being nice, in that particular Trevor way—pointed but with big brown kind eyes. It was the kind of thing that would put everyone else but his stepbrother, Lane, at ease.

“I . . .” Levi moistened his lips. Wishing that Zane and Ned would finish up with the backup center sometime in this century. He didn’t want to have this conversation with Trevor, even though he liked the guy.

“You’ve got a huge-ass crush on Aidan and now you’re worried Mo being back means you’re going to stop being so buddy-buddy?”

Levi made a face. Considered denying it. “Possibly,” he finally admitted.

“It’s okay, dude, I think everyone’s got a little bit of a crush on the guy. He’s Aidan Flynn, you know?”

“Who’s got a crush on Aidan?”

Oh great. Wes had wandered over now.

“Levi’s sort of down bad, but I was just telling him it’s not all that surprising,” Trevor said, still sounding so kind. So sympathetic.

Levi made a face.

“Seriously?” Wes said. At least he looked surprised.

“Seriously,” Trevor said, nodding eagerly. “He’s been staring over at Aidan and Mo during the whole walkthrough.”

“I couldn’t have done it for the whole walkthrough,” Levi protested, even though this was probably closer to the truth than he felt comfortable admitting to himself.

“If you say so,” Trevor said, and even he sounded doubtful.

When it was obvious even Trevor thought you were full of shit, it was a problem.

“You think he likes you too?” Wes asked casually. A little too studied.

Levi didn’t know what Wes thought he’d realized, but he wasn’t going to play that game. “No idea,” he said brusquely. “It’s not . . .it’s not anything.”

Wes patted him on the shoulder. “My dude, it’s okay if it’s something.”

“I can’t be the only one who thought Aidan fighting so hard for Mo to get his contract with the Thunder meant something?” Trevor said. “So yeah, maybe it’s okay if it’s something.”

The urge to confess the whole truth was on the tip of Levi’s tongue.

He couldn’t tell anyone. That was the problem.

His brothers were his best friends and he couldn’t tell them, because of Landry’s relationship with Riley.

There’d been friends in Seattle, sure, but he wouldn’t call any of those guys for advice or even to unload his frustrations.

They wouldn’t get it.

They only knew the old Levi, who’d enjoyed a solely hookup lifestyle. They’d tell him to get under someone else and it would be fine. Or even worse, they’d suggest he still keep hooking up with Aidan, as long as Aidan was into it.

Aidan still seemed into it. They’d shared handjobs in the shower this morning and Aidan had seemed just as into it then as he had the night before, before the news about Mo had come out.

“Dude,” Wes told Trevor, “how would that make it okay? That would mean Aidan wasn’t into Levi, he was into Mo.”