Page 34 of Perfect Storm
“Bishop.” They’d greeted each other with the bare minimum when Nate had showed up with the gaming system. Aidan had a feeling this was going to be more than a bare-minimum convo.
“You ready for camp tomorrow?”
Aidan nodded. “You?”
Nate sighed loudly. Dramatically. “You’re kind of an ass, you know that?”
“What? I asked you the same question,” Aidan defended.
“And looked like you were annoyed the whole time,” Nate pointed out.
He was probably not wrong. Aidan knew he had a bad case of resting bitch face. He was notalwaysso pissed off. “You just always look so serious, so intense,” Riley always complained. “And I know for a fact that you don’t need to be.”
Aidan wasn’t sure Riley was right. But Nate had a point, too. They were teammates. It was a new season. He should at least try to make nice.
“Sorry,” Aidan said. “Ididmean it. You ready for tomorrow?”
Nate looked like he relaxed a bit as he leaned against the counter. “Yeah, I guess so. Is anyone really ready for the first day of camp? Even if you put the work in?”
“Let’s hope you didn’t put in more work than my linemen,” Aidan joked. It wasn’t a very good one but he wastrying. This would be Nate’s second season in Toronto, and yeah, he should be better. He wouldn’t have this, forever. At some point, there wouldn’t be any more preseason camp. No more teammates. And then he’d have to figure out how to have friends, not just the friends he’d always had, like Landry, or people who were forced to like him because they were family, like Riley.
Like Levi.
Except Levi wasn’t family.
He definitively wasnotfamily, despite his love of calling Aidan bro.
But Nate smiled, no matter how stupid the joke was. “Can’t make any promises,” he said seriously. “But I’ll try not to lay you out, first day.”
“Thanks,” Aidan said dryly.
“You’re old, man. Not sure you’d bounce back from a real good hit,” Nate teased lightly.
Aidan forced himself to smile, going along with the friendly nature of the conversation, but there was no question Nate’s comment rankled.
He’d taken good care of himself. He still had a couple more good—or at the very least,decent—years under his belt.
He wasn’t going to get taken out, not yet, no matter how many times he was reminded about mentoring Wes.
“Sure, dude,” Aidan said, clapping him on the back. And now,God, he sounded like Levi.
Which was worse:soundinglike Levi or being forced to listen to him?
Aidan wasn’t sure.
Nate shot him a questioning look but thankfully didn’t call him on it.
“It was nice of you to invite Levi to stay with you,” Nate said.
And okay, maybe he had. Just not in the way that Aidan might’ve expected.
“Well, I’m a nice guy.” Ironically, the same thing he’d said about Nate to Levi.
Nate’s dark brown eyebrow rose even higher. “Oh, yeah? That’s new.”
“Dick,” Aidan retorted, rolling his eyes.
“Hey, I’m just telling it like it is,” Nate said. “You’re a great quarterback and a pretty dang good teammate. But aniceguy? I don’t know.”
