Page 45 of Pillowtalk

Aaron

The gravel crunched under his shoes as Aaron made his way across the driveway. There was a spring in his step, no matter how hard he tried to fight it, and he begged that his high spirits wouldn’t show on his face when he stepped inside. Austin wasn’t usually the twenty-questions type of person—which was a godsend in a roommateanda brother—but Aaron wouldn’t put it past him to at least ask about the events of last night. Especially considering the way he’d dumped his dog on Austin before dragging his brother’s date away for the rest of the evening.

He pulled a face at himself, realizing just then how shitty that was for him to do, and he hoped Austin was in a forgiving mood. Or maybe Aaron could avoid the entire thing and sneak in and back out without Austin noticing.

A loud, booming bark reverberated around the porch as soon as his foot hit the first step. So much for stealth.

“Buddy, I can’t open the door when you’re in the way.” Aaron laughed as he tried to push against the front door but was met with wild scratches that pushed right back. After a few tries, he was finally able to get Charlie calm enough to at least cross the threshold.

“Well,” Austin said, sitting up on the worn couch and pausing the TV. “Someone had fun last night.”

Aaron’s lip curled upward. “You too, huh?” he joked, rubbing the top of Charlie’s furry head before skirting around the husky to try to get to his room before any questions were thrown. “I’m jumping in the shower!” he called over his shoulder.

“Wait a minute, man,” Austin said. Aaron flinched and slowly backtracked. He should have known better than to think it would be that easy; he never was good at dodgeball.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he half-sang back at his brother.

Austin laughed and shook his head. “I’m not gonna hook you up to a polygraph. I just want to know if you’re all right.”

A grin pushed its way onto Aaron’s lips. “Yeah,” he said. He was definitely all right. Aside from the initial worry he’d felt that morning when he’d woken up alone, he couldn’t have asked for a more perfect twelve hours. For the first time in alongtime, he didn’t picture his heart as a blackened, rotten mess. Kennedy had pulled it out, painted it a blinding red, and placed it back in his chest in the span of a single night. He could only imagine what she’d do with it in the future.

Austin nodded, his eyes drifting to the remote in his hand as he picked at the broken volume button with his fingernail. “How about her? Is she all right?”

Confusion pulled at Aaron’s brow, and he leaned against the wall and narrowed his eyes. “I think so.”

His brother nodded again, continuing to fiddle with the remote. Aaron let out a breath. For someone who’d been eager to talk, Austin sure was being quiet.

“Just say it,” he said. “I really do gotta hop in the shower.”

Austin chuckled at his lack of patience; Aaron wasn’t normally in a hurry for a lecture, or whatever was about to come his way, but his feet were already anxious to run right back to that B&B and spend the day with Kennedy. He’d be with her still if she hadn’t seemed like she needed a few hours to herself when he left.

“I’m just wondering where your head’s at,” Austin said, setting down the remote. “You tend to, you know, bottle things up till you explode.”

“And you’re worried I’ll explode all over Kennedy?”

“Pretty much.” Austin laughed. “But I worry about what that’ll do to you, too.”

Aaron nodded as he decided he’d better pull up a seat for this conversation. He sank into the easy chair next to the couch and picked at a loose thread on the arm. He felt Austin’s gaze on his hand.

“She knows about Liss,” Aaron said, and his brother raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t tell anyone about that.”

He lifted a shoulder. “I can tell her anything. Don’t know why, it’s just…easy.”

A feeling shot through his gut as he admitted it out loud, and not because he wasn’t aware of how easy it was to talk to Kennedy, but how easy it was to tell Austin about it.

“Well, it’s gotta be different with her,” Austin said, leaning back into the couch. “ ’Cause I know you wouldn’t dare go there if it weren’t.”

“And you don’t think I’m…” Aaron paused, trying to find the right word, or at least the description that he could manage to say outside of his head. There were several things Jared had called him, and he ran through every insult, wincing at the familiar sting. They were all accurate descriptions, some not strong enough, either. But was he that person still?

Austin shook his head, following Aaron’s train of thought without needing to hear the rest of his question. “You’re not as big an ass as you think you are.” He half-smiled. “At least not when it comes to this.” There was a two-second beat before he continued on. “Kennedy’s pretty amazing. If I swung that way, I’d probably be playing the ‘I saw her first’ card with ya.”

Aaron was sure his brother meant to be comforting with that thought, but instead it burrowed under his skin and ate at him—Jaredhad seen her first, loved her first, was with her till his last breath. Aaron would most likely always wonder and worry about how Jared, gone or not, would react if he knew that Aaron had betrayed him not just once, but twice. Only this time it was worse—Aaron had no intention of stopping. He planned on continuing to fall far and fast for the beautiful and interesting woman just across the lake, for as long as she’d allow him to. He imagined a heavy storm coming his way, and not just the one that was brewing in the distant skies.

“Holy shit.” Austin’s amused voice broke through Aaron’s thoughts, his brow furrowed and his eyes incredulous. “Do you…loveher?”

Aaron jolted back. “What?”

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