Page 10 of A Totally Platonic Thing
And he gave me that look, the corner of his mouth quirked up but his eyes serious.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, slumping down in the passenger seat and clicking in my seatbelt. “Don’t say anything. Oh, my God, please just don’t, or I’m going to die right here.”
“Drama queen,” Aidan grumbled, but it sounded kind of affectionate? At least, I had to interpret it that way, or I was going toactuallydie of embarrassment. “Don’t puke in the car, okay? Sebastian might forgive you, but I won’t.”
Honestly, I was pretty sure it was the other way around. Sebastian might be my best friend, but he hated things that smelled bad way more than the average person, whereas Aidan had the tolerance for mess of someone who’d spent four years in prison and worked in a busy club. Meaning, nearly endless.
“I won’t puke.” Except that saying it made me kind of want to. I swallowed hard. Oh, yeah. I was being an asshole. “Thanks for the lift.”
Aidan pulled away from the curb and headed toward downtown. “No problem. Lucas texted me. He thought you’d need a ride. We were going to get together later, but he had to cancel because he has so much going on today, so I hung out for a little bit and got coffee.”
I digested that for a second. “I didn’t realize you and Lucas spent so much time together. You know, alone.”
And, like whoa, that had come out soundingsoweird and jealous and borderline bitchy. I blinked behind my sunglasses, my whole body going tense. What the hell was wrong with me?
“Uh, what difference does it make if we’re hanging out solo? You remember telling me you and Lucas were my friends no matter what? Ring any fucking bells? Jesus, Chris.”
That made me feel even more like a little bitch, and I shrank down smaller in my seat—though not because I was scared of Aidan at all. Yeah, he was an ex-con, and that had worried me at first. But that ship had sailed a long time ago, not just after seeing how gently he treated Sebastian but after quite a while of observing him working as a club bouncer and never, ever crossing the line.
But I could see Aidan tense up out of the corner of my eye. God, he was so good at reading body language it was kind of eerie.
“Sorry,” he rumbled, sounding sheepish and a little on edge.
Shit. I never wanted Aidan to feel like that because of me. The guy had been through so damn much already. I turned in my seat to actually look at him, and I took my sunglasses off, even though I was feeling so ashamed and uncomfortable I could’ve gone the rest of my life without making eye contact with anyone. Even though the sunlight through the windshield made me feel like someone was stabbing my frontal lobe.
“Don’t apologize. You’re doing me a favor. You’re allowed to be friends with Lucas. I mean obviously, duh, like, that’s not even anything to do with me. I’m sorry. That was a shitty thing to say.”
The tension drained out of Aidan’s broad shoulders, and he huffed out a breath, glancing over at me before he turned his attention back to the road. “It’s cool. I get jealous of you and Sebastian’s relationship sometimes.” He must’ve caught my face twisting in exaggerated horror, because he started to laugh. “Not like that, I know you two aren’t like that. Just, you know. How fucking close you are. But obviously I’d never try to stop Sebastian from having people in his life who aren’t me. Anyway, I get it, dude. And I get being hungover as fuck and cranky. So no worries.”
Okay, so moving past the momentary implication that Sebastian and I would ever, even for a millisecond, engage in anything romantic or sexual…hegot it? Gotwhat, exactly? Like…I wasn’t dating Lucas. What?
“I’m not jealous of you and Lucas,” I managed faintly.
Aidan’s mouth quirked again. God, that half-smile of his was so annoying sometimes, even if it was incredibly sexy. I wondered if Sebastian ever yelled at him and kissed him at the same time. “Sure, Chris. Really, no worries. Okay, we’re almost there. You need anything else before I drop you off?”
And that was a really, super clear end to that conversation.
But I was me.
“Why do you think I’d be jealous of Lucas? I mean, he’s my roommate. We’re not together. We’re not, like, like you and Sebastian. At all.” Because we weren’t, and that ought to be obvious.
Aidan pulled into the lot behind Aeon, parked a few spaces down from my car, and turned to face me. Silence fell for a moment while he eyed me and chewed on his lip, clearly not sure about any of this.
At last he said, “You watch porn together, dude.”
I could feel my face going hot and red, so hot that it was going to explode. Like a ripe, roasted tomato.
That…that was between us, our private thing, and maybe I’d spilled to Sebastian one time, but how dare he!
“What?” I choked out. “How do you—what do—I can’t believe Sebastian would tell you that!” I screeched, and Aidan reared back a few inches.
“Okay, okay, Christ, no need to puncture my eardrums. And actually, it wasn’t Sebastian, it was you. You mentioned it a long time ago back when we were all still getting to know each other. But you, uh, you got really excited about the subject one night a few weeks ago when we were waiting for Lucas to pick you up from Aeon. You don’t remember that?”
Shit. Shit, shit,shit. I racked my spinning brain, but I came up empty. Horribly empty. Oh, no. God, no. I’d remember that, right? For a second I wondered if Aidan was covering for Sebastian’s loose lips, but no, I did have a vague, horribly embarrassing recollection of telling Aidan myself a long time ago. So…that suggested he was telling me the truth. And besides, why would he make something like that up?
I didn’t remember that conversation at Aeon.
I’d blacked out.
