Page 39 of Just a Footnote

“So agreeable.”

“Just wear my fucking jersey, Aiden.”

Aiden pretends to pout. “Mean.”

Liam laughs loudly. The sound makes a million butterflies take flight in Aiden’s belly. “Please, wear my fucking jersey, Aiden.”

“I’ll wear it because you said please.” Aiden kicks off the wall, stepping as close to Liam as he dares. “I like when you say please.”

“I’ll have to say it more often then.”

“Oh, you’ll be saying it.”

Liam bites his lip, swaying forward a little more. “Yeah?”

“What are you guys talking about?” Miles asks just from behind them. Liam jumps away as if he’s been burned, face flaming, and Aiden bites back a laugh. Miles looks back and forth between them, that annoying furrow between his brows, like he’s trying to work out what he just saw.

“Talking about how you didn’t do shit on the ice today.”

Miles fake laughs. “I had two assists.”

“Did you? It didn’t look like it from where I was sitting.”

“Dickhead,” Miles mumbles before stomping away. A moment later Archer follows, tossing Aiden a mock salute as he chases after Miles.

They walk out of the arena together, shoulders brushing with each step. Aiden pretends the almost touch doesn’t send his heart racing in his chest. His traitorous heart.

“No game tomorrow, then Monday is the final game. What’s the team's plans for tomorrow?”

“Ice time in the morning but that’s it.” Liam shrugs, aiming a look at him as they walk. “Why?”

Aiden smiles at him. A genuine smile. “Wanna hang out?”

Liam bites his lip to hide his own smile. “Yeah, I do.”

Aiden shouldn’t feel like he just won the lottery but he does.

The next afternoon,Aiden makes up some excuse why he can’t join Archer, Miles, Skye, and Ollie for lunch. Skye looks like she doesn’t want to buy it but Aiden is such a good liar that it’s hard for Skye to call him out. He’s not sure what lie Liam came up with to get him out of it. He’s sure it was half baked and not believed by any of their friends.

Liam waits outside the hotel for him looking like a daydream. That blue baseball cap rests over his hair again, an unsure smile on his face, tentative like he doesn’t know what Aiden has planned. Aiden likes that, like’s making Liam feel like that.

“So, where are you taking me?”

“Museum of Fine Arts.”

Liam freezes in the middle of the sidewalk. “What?”

“Come on.” Aiden grabs Liam’s bicep, tugging him along towards the car he’d ordered. He manhandles Liam into the backseat, leaving the middle seat between them, but wishing hehad the courage to touch him even though their driver isn’t paying any attention.

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts is one of the nicest art museums in the country. At least, that’s what Google told him last night when he was trying to find something for them to spend the afternoon together doing. If he couldn’t be fucking Liam immediately then he needed both of them to be distracted, preferably in public. He definitely wouldn’t fuck Liam in a museum so it’d seemed like their best option.

Liam’s face literally glows as they climb the steps up to the museum, confirming to Aiden that he made the right choice for their day out. After paying for their ticket, he tugs Liam along with a soft grip on his wrist. He holds out the map the ticket seller gave him.

“This is your day. Show me what art makes Liam Walsh happy.”

Liam’s eyes soften, his mouth curves up into that gentle, happy smile, and Aiden knows then. Aiden knows this was a mistake. This entire thing has been a mistake. HelikesLiam now. Liam looks down at the map for a few silent moments.

“Level two,” Liam says, nodding towards the stairs.

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