Page 33 of Just a Footnote

No

Why not?

School work

It’s your fault if we lose. You’ve been at all our games lately!

Home games

The typing bubblesappear and reappear for a few minutes. Aiden grins, knowing he’s probably gotten Liam the same way he was able to get Archer.

You’re shrewdly logical. I can’t argue.

Thank you

It wasn’t really a compliment but okay

Shouldn’t you be out partying?

No, we’re already on curfew. The game is in the morning tomorrow. As captain, I have to set an example. WTF would I do partying in Texas anyway?

IDK, a club, you could find some chick to hook up with

I could. Don’t want to though.

Lame

Is that what you’re doing? Hooking up while we’re gone and you have the dorm alone?

Frowning down at the phone,he feels slightly unmoored. He should tell Liam that’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s having a weeklong fuck-a-thon in his empty dorm. But…he doesn’t. He tells himself he doesn’t do it because Liam is about to play a very important round of hockey games. That’s a lie though. He doesn’t tell Liam that because he doesn’t want to lie to him. The realization of that truth hits him like a bag of bricks to the chest. Herubs his hand over his sternum for a few moments, willing an anxiety attack to not come on.

Aiden takes a selfie with the empty dorm room behind him, blank face, and middle finger held up to the camera. His blond curls are a mess from running his hands through it in frustration for the past few hours. He sends the picture to Liam before he can talk himself out of it.

You’re distracting me from writing my research paper. Go to sleep.

The dots disappear, reappear, disappear and repeat for almost five minutes. Aiden finally almost gives up when a picture comes through his phone. A photo of Liam in bed, white fluffy comforter mid-way up his chest, and he looks content, happy, really nice. Aiden hates himself as he saves the photo to his phone.

Goodnight, Aiden.

The team returnsat the end of spring break with a win at regionals under their belts. In only two short weeks they’ll be heading to the Frozen Four in Boston. Archer barges into Aiden’s dorm room, a grin splitting his face, making Aiden feel proud in a way that he doesn’t really mind. The beard on Archer’s face still looks like shit though.

“Frozen Four!”

“You’ve been before,” Aiden reminds him.

“Yes,” Archer says as he tosses himself onto Aiden’s bed. “But not in my senior year. Not when next year I’m going to be the best NHL goalie of all time.”

“When did you get so cocky?” Aiden asks through a laugh.

Archer glowers at him. “You know I don’t care about any of that. I just want to play hockey. Give us a life with all that money. The life we deserve.”

Aiden looks away, back at the laptop on his desk. For two kids that went from nothing, no family, tossed around in the foster system, they’re both doing well. Sometimes it makes him feel a little scared, like he could lose it all at any moment, but he just tries to not think about it all that much.

Archer will go on to play in the NHL, probably end up on the same team as Miles one day. One day they might even have a family together. A few kids. Aiden wants that for him so much he feels a little sick with it sometimes. He doesn’t understand Archer and Miles. Their relationship is not his business to understand though. And he’d have to be stupid to not be able to see how happy and secure Miles makes Archer.

“I got into NYU medical school, after the interview,” Aiden admits quietly, purposefully avoiding Archer’s gaze.

“Of course, you did. You’re a genius.”

---