Page 61 of Perfect Storm
“Totally Morris Jeffries. I can’t even blame you for that one. He’s hot as fuck.”
It was weird, hearing Mo’s name come from Dawson’s mouth. It didn’t hurt as bad as Aidan had expected. The gaping hole inside him didn’t feel quite so bottomless these days. Like it’d finally begun to fill in, and it wasn’t just endless pain but the manageable ache of a bruise when you pressed on it. Still a wound, but a healing one.
“Yeah, well, it didn’t change anything,” Aidan said. He sounded more resigned than bitter these days, and it was hard not to take that as a win.
Dawson’s mouth fell open. “Not really?Really? He turnedyoudown?”
Aidan decided Dawson’s shock was flattering. “Yes.”
“Wow, dude. I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” Aidan said. He was, even if he could safely say he wasn’t as sorry as he might’ve been, once. Eventually, he did think he and Mo could be friends again—justfriends, this time around, without any unrequited feelings getting in the way.
“Huh. So where does this leave the Levi thing?”
“Funny that.” Aidan sighed. “He figured it out. Or convinced me to tell him. I’m still not sure. There was a lot of whiskey involved.”
“’Course there was,” Dawson said, chuckling.
“And somehow in the middle of that, he uh . . .promised me. Or I promised him?” Aidan paused, hesitating. Saying it out loud made the whole thing sound more ridiculous than he’d anticipated.
“What did you promise him? Don’t leave me hanging, bro,” Dawson complained.
“I wanted . . .I wanted some practical experience with a guy. And he promised me that if I was still single in a year, he’d do it.”
Dawson’s jaw dropped. More than when Aidan had admitted that his feelings for Mo hadn’t been returned.
“You made a sex pact?”
Aidan crinkled his nose. “Would you call it that?”Bro,he could imagine Levi saying,you’d absolutely fucking call it that.
Dawson shot him a look that echoed Levi’s voice in his head. “Uh, yeah, I absolutely fucking would. So you made a sex pact with Levi Banks. Huh. Interesting. I can see that.”
Aidan didn’t immediately demand to know why that was. Or if they werethatobvious. He wasn’t sure he could deal with the truth.
“Not forright now. It’s for ayearfrom now,” Aidan stressed.
“You sure he got that memo?” Dawson asked.
There it was. The question that haunted him at night. During the day. Every spare moment when he wasn’t at practice orwatching film or breaking down plays, he was wondering when and if Levi would bring it up again.
“The year from now washisidea,” Aidan said.
“Really?”
“He was all about it. Said that . . .uh . . .he didn’t want me thinking about someone else if I ended up in his bed.”
“That’s fair. But . . .dude, I have to ask.Wouldyou?” Dawson paused. “From where I’m sitting, yeah, you’re still getting over Mo, but I look at you two, at the way you flirtbackwith him, and I wonder.”
“Uh.” Aidan didn’t know how he felt discussing this. Even with Dawson, who he’d known for a long time. The only other people he could imagine doing it with would be Riley and Landry—and they wereobviouslyoff-limits in this particular situation.
“You can tell me,” Dawson said persuasively. “Though maybe the one you should be telling is Levi.”
“He just acts like that,” Aidan said uselessly. Maybe it was better he couldn’t talk about this with Riley or Landry, because he was crappy at even identifying his feelings. And talking about them? Nearly impossible.
“Does he?”
“Well,yeah,” Aidan said. “You see him.”
