Page 8 of Just a Footnote

Oops. Aiden has already shared too much information. “Nothing.”

“No, you can’t just say something like that and then avoid the topic.”

“Yes, I can.”

“No,” Liam says adamantly, his eyes narrowing. “You can’t. Explain.”

Aiden thinks about what he actually meant. He says that sort of thing a lot, but people rarely call him out on it. Actually, no one has ever called him out on it. He sits across from Liam, shivering slightly in the cold from the combination of ice cream and chilly breeze, and wonders why this particular person is calling him out on it now.

The thing is that Liam Walsh shouldn’t continue to surprise him. They’ve been in each other's proximity for years now. They’ve hung out at parties together, chatted casually over beers. Carried Archer and Miles home when they’d gotten too intoxicated at a party one night to handle themselves. But somehow Aiden still doesn’t reallyknowLiam Walsh.

“The foster system isn’t a great place. I’m sure you know the shit we went through since you’re supposedly my brother's best friend. I don’t need to explain to you why I think he deserves to be happy.”

Liam tilts his head, making a few dark waves of his still shower wet hair fall across his forehead. Piercing green eyes stare over at him as if trying to figure him out. Aiden’s stomach does a few somersaults under the unflinching stare.

“Everyone deserves to be happy,” Liam finally says, voice carefully neutral.

Aiden feels like giving it back to Liam so he asks, “What would make you happy? In ten years.”

Liam shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t know. A house with a white picket fence, two and a half kids, a happy wife in the box at my games.”

Aiden snorts. “Sounds about right.”

“Yeah?”

“You literally described the American dream.”

“It’s what every hot-blooded American male wants.”

“Not all of them,” Aiden mutters.

Just as Liam opens his mouth to retort, Archer and Miles barge out of the ice cream shop.

“It’s fucking freezing out here,” Miles points out, shoving his hands into his hoodie pocket.

Aiden sighs loudly, stands up, and tosses his ice cream container into the garbage can behind him. “Let’s get back to the dorms. I still need to study tonight.”

The ride back is quiet. As soon as they pull up his brother and Miles jump out of the car, racing to the door with their bags slung over their shoulders. Aiden watches them for a moment, some odd sensation tugging at his chest, before shaking himself free.

“Thanks for the ride.” Aiden forces a smile onto his face.

Liam taps his fingers against the steering wheel, face scrunched in thought, before giving Aiden an up-nod. The air is somehow even colder when he climbs out of the car. It feels like deja vu again just like the other night after the party. Even more so when he looks back to find Liam watching him, a thoughtful look on his face, and Aiden salutes him as he backs up towards the dorms.

“Liam invitedus to Christmas with him and his father,” Archer tells him one morning in late November.

Aiden pauses with his coffee cup halfway to his mouth. They always spend Christmas alone. Just the two of them. They watch awful action movies (always Die Hard even though Aiden doesn’t think it’s actually a Christmas movie). The past few years they’ve added Miles to the mix, but only because Archer is a miserable asshole without him. And while Aiden is fine with Archer being an asshole he doesn’t like it when it’s directed mostly at him.

“Do you…want to go?” Aiden carefully hedges.

Archer shrugs as he pours an illegal amount of creamer into his coffee. “He invited Miles too. I don’t think it would be weird. If you want to go, it’d be fine.”

Aiden can hear it plain as day in Archer’s voice. The key difference between them has always been that Archer yearns for the idea of a family. After how they’d grown up, Archer wants the stability of a partner, a home, and a group of people around him to support him. Aiden somehow ended up the opposite. The less people around him the better. He doesn’t want to be included in their little makeshift family. But he also wants to love his brother. It’s an impossible situation and he’s had to toe the line the past few years.

Aiden sighs softly. “Okay.”

Archer’s eyebrows lift into his hairline. “Yeah?”

“Yeah but next Christmas is just us…and Miles in New York.”

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