Page 54 of Just a Footnote

“I’m fine,” Aiden lies, voice small. “I swear it. Just an overwhelming day.”

Lying is the only thing that’s ever kept him safe. It’ll keep him safe now too. If he lies enough, maybe he’ll start to believe it too.

Rotten anxiety swells inside him, stealing the breath from his lungs. He tries to stand from the floor, but the room spins, sending dizzying nausea racing through him. Before he can hurl all the alcohol back up, Miles reaches out to steady him. Aiden swings his gaze to Archer, shocked when he finds Archer standing still, staring at him in a way he never has before.

“Just breathe,” Miles orders softly. The bed is soft beneath him as Miles situates him on it, lying beside him but not touching. Just close, like an anchor to reality. “Do you want to feel my heart beating?”

Aiden usually just suffers through his attacks, gets through them by sheer force of will. But Miles' voice is calming, freckles a galaxy on his too kind face. Aiden can’t stop himself from nodding. Fingers wrap around his wrist, gently tugging his hand to rest over Miles' slowly beating heart. The soft thud under his palm grounds him. Miles breathes slowly in and out, staring into Aiden’s eyes, imploring him to copy him. So, Aiden does. His heart rate slows as his breathing returns to normal. He’s not sure how long it takes. Minutes, maybe hours.

The bed dips with the weight of Archer behind him. Somehow, the steady presence of Archer at his back calms him evenmore. Until he’s tired, too ragged from the loss of Liam along with the shock of the anxiety attack on his body. His eyes slip closed, but his hand stays pressed against Miles’ chest. Sleep starts to claim him, tears still gathered behind his eyelids. The sound of the murmur of his brothers’ voices is a sweet lullaby to his addled brain.

Just as sleep finally claims him, he thinks he’s never felt so protected before. So safe. But then his brain reminds him that’s not true. He has once, with Liam. And it’s with that final thought that he falls into a dreamless sleep.

PART TWO

After

2025-2027

8

Time is meaningless after the mess that happened in Texas. Nothing could have ever prepared Aiden for the stark loss of Liam Walsh. Heartbreak is a real cruel bitch.

The minute he had left Texas, he blocked Liam’s number. Childish and immature maybe, but Aiden honestly doesn’t think he could handle any sort of communication with Liam until he’s completely over him. Maybe he can only do that by getting under someone else. Isn’t that the tried and true adage? It has to work somewhat if people say it so much.

Or maybe he’s just that willing to lie to himself these days.

Aiden hadn’t realized how comfortable he’d gotten with Liam at his side. The steadiness of having Liam at his fingertips, at his very beck and call, comes shattering down in a blur of stark reality. Loneliness is not a new emotion for Aiden. He’d spent much of his youth devastatingly lonely. Even while in a room with his mother. The only time he wasn’t truly lonely was when he was with Archer.

And now he realizes, when he was with Liam.

Medical school at NYU starts off without much fanfare.

Much of August is spent apartment hunting in the cityAiden tentatively begins to call home. Aiden would balk at the costs if Archer wasn’t so adamant about this being ahomeand not just a place with four walls. They settle on a pre-war apartment with red brick on the outside but modernized on the inside. It’s clean, slick, and strangely has personality despite all of the updates. The two-bedroom apartment costs more a month than Aiden wants to even think about so he puts it out of his mind.

They decorate their new apartment using Archer’s ostentatious NHL salary. Archer drags him to a furniture store, makes him pick out a couch, new dining chairs, lamps, and it’s such an odd feeling that Aiden has trouble reconciling it with the emotions he’s felt much of his life. For maybe the first time in their lives they have an actual home. Warm beige walls, dark wood floors, a view of the city that would devastate other people.

He should be so fucking happy.

But he’s not.

Because although he tries, forgetting Liam never happens.

A hole in the shape of Liam Walsh has ruined his heart.

Liam haunts his dreams along with a staggering percentage of his waking thoughts. He thinks about Liam when he goes to the movies by himself, watching some shitty action movie that annoyingly reminds him of Liam, because he’s not ready to return to the apartment with a glowering Archer who’s living through his own version of pining. Archer seemingly hadn’t been ready to part from the man he loved either.

Although, he can’t tell Archer that he’s pining over Archer’s own best friend. So he hides it as much as he can. It’s not hard, between medical school, Archer’s games, and Archer spending most of his time on Facetime with Miles. The worst part is when Archer talks on the phone with Liam, which seems to be a weekly thing. A few times Archer tries to invite him to join thecall, but Aiden shakes his head so furiously that Archer seems to get the hint.

Skye checks in on him a lot, seemingly noticing what Archer is either too busy to notice or unwilling to bring up. He spends most of their calls listening to Skye update him about settling in with life in Los Angeles. A strange sort of jealousy settles over him sometimes over the way Skye enjoys her life so openly with Ollie.

One day in late September, Skye pauses mid-update as if waiting for Aiden to notice.

“What?” Aiden asks when the pause lasts too long.

“Are you okay?”

Aiden hums. “I’m great. I’m in medical school and I live in one of the best cities in the world. What is there to not be happy about?”

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