Page 44 of Best Friends, Tennessee

Not good. Really not good.

I almost had time to do a 180 and make my way back into the bar, but I’d locked eyes with Aaron across the patio and I knew he saw me too.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, bumping into a woman’s shoulder accidentally as I tried to turn around.

If there was a contender for the worst possible person I could meet in Bestens, Aaron certainly took that prize. Aaron had justthwackeda foosball shot into his opponent’s side goal, and when he saw me I knew what was about to happen.

“Ori-Ori-Oreo!” he bellowed out.

Clearly Aaron was already many beers deep into the night.

The nickname was one of the tame ones from high school. He used to shout it at me, just like that, from across the hallway near the lockers all of the time.

At first Aaron hadn’t been one of the people who actively treated me like shit back in school—far from it. Aaron had actually started out as a friend. When I used to sit on the bleachers and watch Finn’s football practices, Aaron would come up to me sometimes and chat. He was on the team, too, and whenever he had a break, he’d come over and ask how I was doing and ask if I liked his plays during that game.

I’d tell him that I didn’t understand football, and he’d laugh. For a few weeks at the beginning of junior year it seemed like hemight want to be friends. He started texting me, here and there, and one day I got a random text from him.

You’re kind of cute, Ori,it had said.You should come over. Would you suck my cock?

At the time, my heart had leapt into the fucking sky.

I didn’t think there were any gay guys other than me at Bestens High, and finding out that Aaron Vander might be closetedandinterested in me?

I was so excited I practically ran to his house.

When I got there, it was like a scene from a movie.

Aaron was there. But when he opened the door, a group of his friends were behind him, and they all grinned at me like I was a fucking idiot.

“He actually fucking came over, bro!”one of Aaron’s friends said before all of them fell into laughter.

“Ori, you know I’m notgay,” Aaron said. “Go suck Finn’s cock or something. Bet he’d let you do it.”

His friends laughed even harder at that one. My cheeks were so hot with embarrassment that I knew they could see that all over my face, too.

“Fuck you,” I muttered to him softly, even though what I really wanted to do was sock him in the jaw.

“I know you want to,” Aaron had said. “Fuckin’ came running over with drool on your chin, Adams.”

I turned on my heel and left, hearing his friends chattering in the background as I walked away. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to teleport out of Bestens andneverfucking come back. But I was stuck. Stuck seeing Aaron and his friends in the hall every day after that, trying to push the memory of that day from my mind.

I never told Finn any of what happened.

Apparently, Aaron and the other guys didn’t mention it, either. It was one of the few things I was too embarrassed evento tell Finn, and he went on to play football alongside Aaron until graduation.

Finn wouldneverknow what happened that day, if it were up to me.

Looking into Aaron Vander’s eyes tonight felt like getting a dagger straight to my chest. I’d heard that he moved out of Bestens, but clearly he was back, or visiting town, orsomefucking thing that meant he was here at the Hard Spot playing foosball right in front of me.

I clenched my jaw, watching as his foosball opponent turned around toward me.

My stomach dropped when I saw who it was. Finn’s pretty hazel eyes were looking right back at me, across the table from Aaron.

Nah.

It wasn’t a dagger in my heart. It was a fucking boulder.

“Hey,” Finn said, his expression changing. But Aaron was already walking over, polishing off a bottle of beer as he approached me.

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