Page 21

Aiden

“ A iden, get your ass in here!”

I groaned and rolled out of bed. Why the hell was Nathan at Mom and Dad’s house? All I wanted to do was rest. I still couldn’t wrap my head around how fucking weird it was when we’d dropped off Joe. He hadn’t even said goodbye.

We’d talked about things and I thought we’d settled on continuing to pursue things when we got back home, but maybe this was how we did that. Neither of us wanted Nathan to know about it yet because he’d been pretty adamant about Joe keeping his hands off of me.

“There he is. Glad to see you’re alive.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Nathan.”

It was good to see Chase. It made me feel a bit better about the way my brother stood with his arms crossed over his chest, like he was ready to tear me apart for all the stupid decisions I’d made this last week.

“Still alive. You know, you’d think you’d trust your friends a little more. ”

Nathan threw his hands in the air. “I do trust my friends. But this is you we’re talking about. You’re my little brother, and Joe has a reputation. As much as I love the guy, I don’t want you to be a part of that.”

I sighed as my shoulders slouched in defeat. “You’re right, but don’t worry. He’s a better guy than you give him credit for. We had fun, but he made sure I was responsible about it.”

Nathan’s eyebrow rose. “The words responsible and Joe don’t belong in the same sentence.”

I only shrugged. “Maybe that was the case while you all were still in college. People change.”

Before my brother could say anything else, his boyfriend stopped him by placing a hand on his chest and pushing him back down onto one of the stools at the kitchen counter.

“Did you at least get to do anything cool?” Chase asked. The poor guy had never left the Washington coast until he moved to Seattle to be with my brother, so he lived vicariously through everyone else.

A grin spread across my face as I thought about some things I’d gotten to do over the last week. “We went parasailing one day. Then there was the day we went on a historic tour. That was really neat, but the best part was the rape dolphins.”

I’d chosen the perfect moment to share that detail, as my brother had been sipping at a bottle of water and he spit it out all over the counter. “The rape what now? ”

I clutched at my stomach as I laughed. It was maybe a little twisted to explain it that way, but I’d been dying to since the excursion. After I edited the pictures for Joe—where no one else could see them—I’d share the ones he took of me during that adventure. “Dolphins, Nate. Just dolphins. We got to go swimming with dolphins.”

“That wasn’t a funny joke.”

Chase chuckled. “It was a little funny.”

Nathan glared at him and instead of hanging around for more of their interrogation, I made my way back to my room. My phone sat face down on my nightstand and I couldn’t bring myself to pick it up and check it. There was a very real fear Joe hadn’t reached out yet, and I’d really made a fool of myself by thinking we’d had something special.

As if the universe sensed my hesitation, my phone vibrated, startling me enough to have me jolting across the room to check it.

Joe: I miss you, sweetheart.

My heart melted as I pressed the device to my chest. I wasn’t a damn sucker after all. My fingers flew across the screen as I typed out a response.

Me: Miss is an understatement. Pretty sure my bed feels a mile long. How the fuck am I supposed to sleep like this?

I attached a frowny face emoji before sending it.

There wasn’t an immediate response, but I was relieved to know that he’d sent me something. To know he’d been thinking about me. Tension uncoiled from my neck and shoulders as I sat on the edge of my bed, flipping the phone back and forth in my hand. When it became clear another message wasn’t coming, I set it back down and started unpacking my things.

Everything I pulled from my bag had some sort of wild memory from the last week tied to it. It was weird that the thought kept flashing through my head that I didn’t want to wash anything for fear that it would remove the sentimentality. It was so stupid.

Without another thought, I threw the dirty clothes in the laundry hamper and continued digging through my bag, pulling out the random souvenirs I bought for my family. When my hand hit my camera case, I froze. I wanted nothing more than to pull it out and load everything onto my computer. To relive every moment again. Especially that one on the beach. My dick gave a twitch at the memory, and I groaned as I closed my eyes. However, while my brother was still poking around, it was not the time to entertain the idea of pulling up any of the photos from the trip. It was a recipe for disaster.

A knock on my door snapped me from my thoughts, and I grinned when Chase slipped into my room. The door clicked closed behind him, and when I heard my mother lecturing Nathan in the other room, I knew I had a few minutes to talk to Chase by myself.

“Anything you want to report?” he asked.

My smile grew as I set the camera on my bed.

“It depends on how much you want to hear.”

Chase’s eyes widened in shock. “Shit, man. Really? He didn’t like freak out or anything, did he?”

I laughed at the question. “No. We both sort of agreed that it was a bad idea at first because of Nate, but...” I shrugged, looking at my closed bedroom door. “We were by ourselves for a whole week and what Nathan doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Chase shifted on his feet, gnawing on his bottom lip. “Aiden, I’m happy for you that you were brave enough to take that leap, but you know I can’t keep that secret from your brother if he asks me about it, right?”

All the blood drained from my face. It was a little fucked that I wanted to ask him to keep things from his boyfriend, but it was my personal life. It had nothing to do with Nathan outside of Joe being one of his best friends.

“Chase?”

He held up his hand to stop me. “Don’t worry. It’s not for me to tell, but it’s going to kill me. I know something and can’t say a word. He’ll be pissed when he finds out I knew.”

When I sank back onto my mattress, Chase was at my side, a warm and reassuring hand on my shoulder. “It’s not like I have many people to talk to about this. You’re the only one who has made any sense of what I was feeling. When I explained things to Joe, which was scary as fuck, he knew what I was talking about. He made me feel safe. Just like you make me feel safe, my brother should be that for me as well, but he’s made it clear he disapproves of the person I’ve chosen.”

Chase pulled me into a loose side hug. “It’ll be okay. Just give him some time and build him up to the idea of it slowly. It’s not like he really has a say at the end of the day.”

I nodded and prayed that Chase was correct.