Page 17 of One is Never Enough

“What the fuck happened?” I ask and push the bruise.

“Fucking Toby,” he growls. “He bit the fuck out of me.”

“Why?” I laugh. It shouldn’t surprise me because Toby can be a feral little fucker.

“Payback.” He doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t feel like I have the right to push. I’ve been in the middle of Jace and Toby before. I know how they can get. “Oliver will be down in a minute,” Jace says when we get to the living room.

He walks into the kitchen, and I sit down on the couch to wait. Oliver walks into the living room minutes later, swamped in one of Jace’s hoodies. My throat goes dry, and for once in my life, I have no fucking clue what to say. Oliver smiles shyly and sits in the chair. “Hi.”

“Hey,” I croak. Jesus Christ.

“Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah.” I run my fingers through my hair and blow out of breath. “I’m so damn sorry, Oli.”

“You hurt me. I thought I was going to lose my sister over the shit that you pulled. If I had stuck around, you would have explained everything, but that doesn’t make up for what you did. You took my innermost secret from that site and took advantage of it. That was my fantasy. I wanted it to be anonymous for a reason. I was ashamed of what I wanted and felt like you threw it back in my face.”

“That wasn’t my intention at all. I just saw your name, and I wanted us to be the ones who did it. I knew we could protect you and take care of you. It turned my stomach to think of anyone else touching you.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me? You knew I felt the same way, so why not come to me?”

“I wish I had a better answer, but I was scared. So much time had passed, I was afraid you’d turn me down.”

“You’ve never been one to back down from a challenge.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t someone I was willing to lose.” Oliver’s mouth forms a little ‘O’. “Payton might have been the one to cover for me, but I learned the most from you. The way you were unafraid to show who you really were while I was buried so deep in the goddamn closet I couldn’t see an inch in front of my face.”

“I was terrified, Aiden. My dad didn’t handle it any better than yours.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t devise a major cover story while telling your dad that you were just curious. I didn’t come out to my dad until college.”

“Does he talk to you?”

“Not really. He checks in, but we haven’t seen each other since the day I left home.”

“I’m sorry.”

I shake my head. “Don’t be. I don’t need someone that toxic in my life. I’m proud of who I am. I’m just not proud of what I did to you.”

Oliver sighs. “I want to forgive you and am willing to do that. But you need to know that I’m with Jace and Toby.”

“I’d expect nothing less. I’m happy for you.”

“But I also refuse to come between you guys.” Oliver twists his hands nervously in Jace’s hoodie. “That night, no matter what happened after, was the best night of my life. And you were a part of that.” My breath catches, and I refuse to breathe until he finishes his thought. “I’ve never felt so good in my life. I knew something was familiar about you the whole time, but I was so lost to it all that I couldn’t figure it out. My brain and body knew I could trust you.”

“What are you saying?”

“I want you to go back to normal with Jace and Toby.”

“Is that it?”

He shakes his head, and his cheeks start to darken. “I want to give you a chance. We just have to go slow.”

“I can go as slow as you need me to, Oli.”

He nods and laughs nervously. “I thought about what it would be like to be with you growing up. I got the chance and didn’t even know it.”

“You’ll get plenty more chances,” I promise. “I won’t mess this up again.”

---