Page 45 of Winter Ends
Chase sat on the bed next to him and grabbed his hand. “No. I get it. It’s not like I was any better. I hid it for a while myself, not that I was any good at it. You all figured me out too quickly.”
Daniel laughed. “Not hard to figure out when we catch you behind Bennett’s with some dude fucking your face.”
At that point, I’d probably heard too much. Daniel wasn’t mad. He was defending me and something bloomed in my chest. Hope, maybe. That this would be okay and once we left this damn cabin, we wouldn’t just go back to fighting all the fucking time.
By the time I made it back to the living room, Andrew and Brandon had shown up. They’d brought more booze, and I groaned, thinking about the hangover we were all about to endure tomorrow. This whole trip had been about celebrating and the original plan had been to not be sober for most of it. To think I’d spent most of it drunk on arousal more than anything…
“Where were you?” Joe asked. He looked me up and down, suspicious and assessing. Good lord. There wasn’t anything we could get past him. For a guy that seemed like he didn’t give two fucks about the world, he was extremely observant.
“Had to piss,” I lied as I plopped on the couch between Nathan and our ‘birthday boy.’
The look Joe tossed my way said that he wasn’t buying whatever the hell I was selling. Not that I could fucking blame him. I was never any good at hiding the truth. Even when I’d been teasing Daniel all that time, it had been because I liked him so much. I only teased him, trying to get him to like me in return,go figure now that I knew about his history that was the worst call I could have possibly made.
Aiden clambered from the couch and walked into the kitchen. He tossed open the fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer. The poor kid seemed more than a little eager to celebrate.
“Are we all going to sit around, or did we forget why this trip was planned to begin with?”
Nathan stood and approached his brother. He yanked the bottle from his hand before opening it and handing it back to him. “Would you take it easy?”
Aiden laughed, tipped the bottle back, and took a big swallow. He smacked his lips when he pulled the drink away before grinning at his brother. “What’s the fun in taking it easy? Right, Joe?”
Nathan’s eyes widened as he turned to his friend. Joe held up his hands in surrender. “Leave me out of this. I swear to God.”
When Nathan wandered back to the living room mumbling about his friends corrupting his little brother too much, I wanted to laugh. We’d planned this with his blessing. He could have said no.
Chapter 29
Daniel
Iunderstood where Chase was coming from. If anyone had seen the way I’d fallen apart before moving to Seattle, it was him. His friendship meant everything to me, even if we hadn’t always been super close. We’d learned to lean on one another when it mattered the most.
The tiny meow from under the bed had Chase staring at me.
“What the hell was that?”
I cleared my throat, sliding off the edge of the bed and retrieving the kitten from under the bed frame. My hands shook a little, handling the small bundle of fur. While Nacho didn’t scare me as badly since we’d gotten used to each other over the last couple of days, years of trauma were hard to get over.
“Uh, we sort of rescued a cat?”
Chase stared at me as I pressed the little ball of orange fuzz into my chest, rubbing between his ears while he purred contentedly.
“Fucking wild, man. You’ve been around my cat tons of times and you get twitchy whenever she’s in the same room. Here you are, even holding one.”
I laughed and sat back down next to him on the bed. “I get it. And I was pretty freaked out by this little guy at first as well. I don’t know. He was pretty scared, too. Could you imagine being all cold and alone outside like that when you’re this small?”
Chase snorted, shoving my shoulder. “Damn. You’re going all soft on me now. Leave you alone to get dicked down for a couple of days and you turn into mush.”
My eyes rolled. “Jesus. We haven’t been fucking this whole time.”
When I glanced at my friend, his eyebrows shot up to his hairline in disbelief. “You sure about that? You seem all loose and...”
The knock at the door stopped our conversation. Nathan stood there, arms crossed over his chest. “You two going to gossip in here all afternoon? Meanwhile, I’m convinced Joe did something to Aiden.”
There was a thud from the front of the cabin. “Would you knock it off? Joe didn’t do anything!” Within the next few seconds, Aiden was next to his brother, waving a beer bottle around. “For the last time, we’re just friends. We’re here to party. He’s been helping me loosen up, sure, but that’s it.”
Chase nudged me with his shoulder. It was obvious our conversation was over. I set Nacho on the mattress since he’d fallen asleep in my lap. No one else seemed to notice him and I shut the door to the room so no one would bother him when things got out of hand. And things would get out of hand. They always did.
“We can’t order, like, a pizza or something?” Aiden whined as he cradled his fifth beer against his chest. Nathan was on the verge of taking away his ability to have any more. The kid hung out with us often enough, but this was the first time I’d ever seen him get anywhere close to drunk.
