Page 129 of Perfect Storm
“Don’t worry, man, I wouldn’t. Lane wouldn’t ever let me forget it.”
“No shit.”
Trevor nudged him with his elbow. “So are you gonna tell me why we’re even discussing kicking Mo Jeffries’ ass? What did he do to you? Did he steal your man? Or did he steal himback? Does that even count, if Mo had him first—”
Levi cut Trevor’s ramblings off. They were too close to the thoughts trapped in his own head and it wasn’t doing him any favors to hear them repeated out loud.
“No,” Levi said. “Things are just . . .complicated.”
“That’s usually code for you can’t admit what you really want.”
Levi normally liked Trevor a lot. He was entertaining, both with and without his stepbrother, Lane. They weren’t called the demon twins for nothing. But right now, Trevor was working his last nerve. “I can admit it,” he ground out.
“Okay, code for you can’t admit it to more than just yourself.”
“Not helpful, Trev,” Levi retorted.
“Actually,” Trevor said blithely, apparently unaware of how frustrated Levi was getting—how frustrated Levi already was, “it’s super helpful. I’m trying to encourage you to talk about your feelings, and to do it with the one person who might be able to fix it.”
“Unless Morris Jeffries falls back into a hole, there’s no fixing it.” And Levi really, really hated that.
Maybe this wasn’t why he’d stuck to hookups before, but now he was beginning to see why that had felt so easy and casual. Because hookups, by definition,were. This whole thing was messy and complicated and made Levi want to bash his head against a wall.
Also made him want to drag Aidan to the locker room, so he’d stop smiling over at Mo that way. Made him want to be the one who drop-kicked Mo back to where he’d come from.
“You should just talk to him,” Trevor tried again.
But Levi was beyond words now, and just growled, chasing Trevor off once and for all.
Levi knew he should feel at least a little bad about that, but he didn’t. He was too messed up in the head. Jealous and hating how nasty it felt.
Because, obviously if it was as easy as justtalkingto Aidan, he’d have already done it.
But every time he got even the beginning of the conversation out of his mouth, tongue thick and body buzzing with nerves, Aidan shut down.
He’d tried twice now. Once, the morning after the game, when Levi was sucking down an enormous cold brew and Aidan was teasing him about his caffeine addiction, and that had seemed like a good time to bring it up, since the mood was already lighthearted. But then it had suddenly gotten quiet and tense, the moment Levi had brought up the game-winning touchdown.
He hadn’t evensaidanything else, but it hadn’t mattered. Aidan had clammed up and that was the end of that.
Then later last night, while they’d been playingMario Kart, he’d slid his hand way up on Aidan’s thigh and he’d frozen.
Not gotten pissed, in that cute way of his, about Levi cheating.
Nope, just gone totally still, like he didn’t want Levi’s hand only a few inches from his dick, even though itclearlydisagreed with Aidan’s assessment of the situation.
Levi had tried to play it off, moving his hand lower, to Aidan’s knee, squeezing there. Had still gone to bed with Aidan later, but neither of them had tried to initiate anything, and Levi had lain there for hours, sleepless, as he tried to imagine all the reasons why their situation had suddenly changed.
Zane blew his whistle and they gathered up for the last set of plays at the end of practice.
“Let’s go,” he clapped. “I wanna see all our two tight end formations. Nate and I chatted about the Condors’ defense yesterday and he thinks they’re not as prepared for those, so we’re gonna be leaning on them heavily this week.”
They had the Condors this week, and since Riley had become their quarterback three years ago, the Thunder had yet to win against them.
Levi knew, from before, that this bothered Aidan.
Sure, he wanted his brother to succeed, but Aidan still had his own competitive drive. Still wanted to win.
Levi wanted to do it for him. To prove that even though Riley was great, Aidan wasalsogreat. The OG Great, so to speak.
