Page 2 of Perfect Storm
He gave Levi an up-and-down look. He really washuge, and all muscle. Landry and Logan were big and broad, but somehowLevi was even bigger. Not many people managed to make Aidan’s six foot three feelsmall, but Levi managed it.
“Luck?” Levi laughed, like this was delightful.
Aidan was not delighted.
Vaguely, he considered getting up from the couch and going to look for Riley and Landry, who he’d left in the kitchen to do the dishes after dinner, but then he remembered that if they were taking half an hour to do the dishes, they were probably not just doing the dishes. Aidan clamped his lips together, trying not to think about his younger brother and his best friend currently defiling a public space.
“Bro, you keep changing the subject.”
“And you keep calling mebro,” Aidan retorted.
Levi just shrugged, clearly feeling zero shame about this. “Listen,dude, it’s always better to have it out than to keep it in.”
Aidan disagreed with this assessment. He’d been keeping shit in his whole life, and he’d turned out just fine. Thirty-four and one of the most acclaimed quarterbacks in the NFL? Yeah, he was doing just fucking fine.
“I’m fine, it’s totally fine,” Aidan said. Maybe if he thought it and said it enough times, it would be true.
He ignored the pulse of pain he felt every time he thought about football. It wasn’t fair that Mo could ruin football for him too.
It had been bad enough when he’d lost him on the field. Then he’d finally fucking manned up, told him how he felt, and how had that gone? Pretty much as bad as it could go.
“Bro, you arenotfine,” Levi said softly, his voice losing that smug charisma for the first time all evening, “I can see it. And maybe Landry can’t, because he’s . . .I don’t know . . .dickmatized for the first time in his life, but I can.”
“Can someone still be dickmatized after three years of getting dick?” Aidan wondered. Then considered scrubbing his brainwith bleach because that was hisbrother’sdick he was referring to.
“If the dick’s that good,” Levi said, waggling his eyebrows.
Aidan regretted a lot of things. He definitely regretted bringing up his brother’s dick to Levi. But there was no question what the top of the list was: telling Riley he’d be spending the next month in Michigan. With only a text announcement that he was arriving, Riley had shown up less than two days later with not only Landry in tow, but Levi as well, with only the explanation that Levi needed a distraction from his contract negotiations with Seattle.
Aidan had intended to lick his wounds in peace, but instead he was going to be heckled and harassed by his best friend’s younger brother.
“Whose dick is that good?” Landry appeared in the doorway from the kitchen, hair mussed and face flushed, making it painfully obvious whose dick was good.
But before Aidan could let him have it for fucking in public spaces, which Riley knewperfectly wellwas off-limits, Levi squawked loudly. “God, dude,no,” he announced, tossing a throw pillow in Landry’s direction with deadly accuracy. “Keep it in your pants,God.”
“Can I second that?” Aidan said.
Landry just rolled his eyes. “We were doing the dishes!”
“Fucking liar,” Levi muttered. “If Lyla was here—”
“She’snothere,” Landry said self-righteously.
“Yeah, well, if she hears about this—”
“She’s not gonna,” Riley said, sauntering in, sounding very sure of himself. “You wanna make s’mores? I got the firepit going outside.”
Aidan did not want to make s’mores. He wanted to sit here and keep drinking the whiskey he’d started with dinner and pretend that he was 1) alone and 2) that Mo hadn’t looked so fuckingsorry when he’d let Aidan down as kindly as anyone had in the history of being let down.
He’d be seeing that bluntly sympathetic look in Mo’s eyes in his sleep. But not in his dreams, more like his nightmares.
“Moving is overrated,” Aidan said. He lifted his glass. “Unless someone wants to move and get me more whiskey.”
Levi shot him a pointed look, but actually stood up and grabbed the bottle and another glass. “If I have to deal with these two,” he said, pouring a few fingers for himself and then heading back to the couch, giving Aidan a generous pour of his own, “I gotta be at least a little drunk.”
“Unfair,” Riley said.
“You two just fucked in the kitchen,” Levi said. “Some of us are mourning the lack of available options out in the middle of backwoods nowhere.”
