Page 102 of Perfect Storm
“I’m just saying, labels are for other people. Not for you. You know whoyouare.” Levi squeezed his neck now, like he was reminding him. “But also, I thought you might be gray or demi, too.”
“What’s that?”
Levi swallowed hard. He’d been very self-assured during this entire conversation, but now he looked concerned. Like whatever he was about to say might cost him something he wasn’t quite ready to pay.
“Like, to be interested sexually in someone, your emotions have to be engaged first. And you’ve never had a serious relationship, right? Only hookups?”
“I guess. Yeah.” He’d never met anyone he wanted to know better. And sex had always felt like a whole other subject, completely removed.
“Well, maybe that’s part of it too.”
Aidan noticed that Levi had skipped right over the vital part of that explanation: that he’d been sexually attracted to Mo because he’d loved him, and that he enjoyed sex with Levi because he had feelings for him, too.
Well, if Levi didn’t want to talk about it, Aidan was okay not talking about it either. He wasn’t sure he was ready; wasn’t sure he’deverbe ready. Not again. Not the way he’d been, before.
But even as he thought it, he knew that was a lie. Another few weeks or months of having Levi like this, and he’d be more than ready. Fear gone. Ready to jump all in. Because this was so much more than he’d ever gotten with Mo? Or was it something else?
Aidan didn’t know, but he could feel it, growing sure and firm, beneath his breastbone, reminding him it existed every single time he took a breath.
“That’s . . .helpful, actually,” Aidan said.
Levi nodded, gaze serious.
“I’m gonna look that up.”
“Not really very surprising that you might,” Levi said. “And it’s just a guess. A hunch. I could be wrong. Again—labels don’t matter when you’re talking about yourself, about who you are.”
“You’re smart,” Aidan said, because he could see exactly what Levi was saying.
“Shhhh,” Levi said, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “Don’t say it too loud, bro.”
The laugh bubbled up out of Aidan, before he’d even known it was coming. And after, long after, after he’d lost three more games to Levi and actually managed to win one, he realized how much lighter he felt.
Settled, almost.
And he knew it wasn’t the conversation—though that had helped,somuch—it was just Levi.
Chapter 15
WhenLevifinishedfoldinghis laundry, he poked his head into the living room. Aidan had been reviewing tape—obsessively, even, to the point where Levi was a little over it, which was why dealing with the laundry had seemed appealing—but now he was clearly talking to someone. Had he switched toMario Kart? Was he letting someone else beat him?
That was totally unacceptable. The only person allowed to trounce Aidan at video games and then make him feel better about it was Levi.
But when he glanced in the living room on his way to the kitchen, there was still game tape, paused in the middle of a play, on the TV.
As Levi reached into the fridge, he heard the voice again. It was Riley, and, Levi realized as he shuffled items around the shelves, he and Aidan were actually breaking down game tapetogether.
“I see what you’re saying,” Riley said. Levi could practically hear him nodding.
“I’d have handed it off to your running back—I forget who it is now,” Aidan said, and Levi had become familiar enough with his various tones that he could pick out just how careful Aidan was being.
“Yeah,” Riley agreed. “What about on the next one?”
As Aidan hit the play button, Levi gave up the pretense that he was actually looking for something in the fridge, straightening up as he watched the TV over the tops of the barstools.
It was a QB read play—otherwise known as the run-pass option—and Riley had passed to Landry, a nice little slant throw that hadn’t gone far buthadgotten the Condors the eight yards they needed for the first down.
“Honestly,” Aidan said, after he’d watched it twice, “I think that was your best call. They were stacking the line. You got the first down. Is it sexier to get twenty, thirty, forty yards? Hit your speedy receiver with a TD? Sure. Always.”
