Page 50 of Perfect Storm
“Okay, well, there were a few rough moments, but I’m still here,” Levi said, chuckling under his breath. “And nothing better than a few drinks to medicate the pain away.”
“Alright. I’ll add you to the list. Or um, to Wes’ list.”
Levi nudged him. “I didn’t think youhada list, bro.”
“Is this your way of saying I’m boring?” But he knew he was. That he’d ground down all his hard edges, ages ago. Anything that could compromise him winning had been eliminated.
“Bro, you don’t even drink coffee.” Levi shot him a sad, pathetic look from his brown eyes. “You need to lighten up. Not a lot, just a little.”
Aidan huffed out a breath. Half embarrassed, half annoyed, but entirely interested in lightening up if Levi was involved.
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Aidan retorted. He wasn’t about to tell Levi how attractive that idea sounded, but only ifhewas the one specifically doing the lightening up.
“That right there? That’s it,right there.” Levi leaned right into his space, looking and smelling better than he had any right to, especially after the morning he’d had. “Advisement.”
“What?” Aidan asked, suddenly even more self-conscious.
“Bro. We get it. You went to college.”
“So did you,” Aidan said dryly.
“Well,someof us don’t go around advertising it all the time,” Levi teased, like somehow that was a bad thing.
Aidan had worked like hell for his degree. He’d been in school, going to classes, QB1 for a major NCAA program, and he’d been basically raising Riley on his own, since his parents had been too busy squabbling to bother doing it.
He wasn’t ever going to apologize for getting it done and for actually graduating.
“Am I . . .” Aidan trailed off. He rarely experienced a crisis of confidence, but it was becoming obvious that, at least to Levi, he was a boring, pompous stick-in-the-mud.
No wonder he hadn’t brought up sex since he’d gotten to Toronto. Who would even want to have sex with him? Not Levi. And apparently not Morris either, though Morris’ disinterest was at least because he wasn’t interested in having sex withanyguy.
“Are you?” Levi questioned. He was still grinning, like he was actually enjoying this conversation.
Aidan, on the other hand, wanted to sink through the floor. If this was what losing your confidence felt like, no wonder he’d spent his life avoiding it. “Am I . . .ugh. That awful? A boring, pompous ass?”
Riley had called him an ass on multiple occasions, and even Landry had, once or twice. That had felt earned. He’d overstepped his bounds. Out of love, for sure, but in the end, did it matter how much he cared if the way he showed it was by being an overbearing dickhead?
The answer:no.
Levi, however, looked floored. “What?” he exclaimed.
“I said it,” Aidan mumbled. God, he was embarrassing. If Landry was witnessing this, he’d never let him forget it. Riley, either. And Mo? Well. Aidan rarely thought it was good he’d been traded, but right now? It was humiliating enough that Levi was here. That he’d actuallyaskedLevi.
“I just . . .” Levi looked more than floored now. He looked dismayed. “Aidan, I wasteasingyou. I wasn’t serious. You’re . . .” His voice dropped even more, so low Aidan could barely hear it and they were practically on top of each other. “You’re not boring, and you’re not pompous and you’re definitely, well,mostof the time, not an ass. And when you are? Well, these days it’s kind of hot, if I’m being honest.”
Aidan couldn’t believe it. “But you just—”
Levi groaned under his breath. He’d flushed red, too, which Aidan couldn’t say he’d thought was attractive before, but he was rapidly changing his mind on the subject. “I was an idiot, okay? You just . . .you fluster me. And I like flirting with you. I’m like a snotty-nosed stupid kid, pulling your pigtails.”
“Seriously?”
“The idiot part? Or the flustered part? Or the snotty-nosed part?”
Aidan was barely keeping up. “Um. All of them?”
Levi leaned in even closer. Aidan’s pulse jumped, even as he told himself to keep calm. Or maybe it didn’t even matter. Aidan was flustered. Well, according to Levi, he was too. “Newsflash, Ilikeflirting with you. And I wouldn’t do it if you were boring or pompous.”
Aidan swallowed hard. Maybe right now was when Levi would bring up the sex pact.Next, he’d say, in that matter-of-fact, teasing voice that was hotter than it had any right to be,I wouldn’t have agreed to have sex with you in a year if you wereboring. Or pompous. Or kissed you right there, in your kitchen and enjoyed every second of it.
