Page 13 of Perfect Storm
Aidan still didn’t want to lie. Didn’t want to tell the truth either.
But maybe . . .maybe it would be better to just spit it out and get it over with.
“You know how last week I was at that charity golf thing in Vegas?”
Riley nodded.
Aidan had picked his words carefully with Levi last night. But now he didn’t even think; he just talked. “I’ve been struggling with this Mo thing, for awhile. You know that.” Riley knew, but probably thought it was just Aidan’s frustration that the friendship was more long-distance than it had been. That he no longer had Mo to throw to on the field. “Anyway, I thought I should say something. I’d been thinking about it for awhile. What exactly I should say. That it was . . .that it was more than just friendship for me. I decided finally, what the hell. And so I told him. We talked.”
“You told him you’re in love with him, then?” Riley asked archly.
Aidan froze.
“How did—”
“Bro,” Riley stressed. “You were not very subtle about it.”
“Oh.”
Riley pushed off from the driver’s seat and flopped down next to Aidan. “It’s cool, you know? That you love him.”
Aidan scrubbed a hand across his face. He probably should’ve shaved this morning. But he hadn’t wanted to accidentally cut his jugular, not as hungover as he’d been.
“It’s not very cool,” Aidan said.
Riley didn’t say anything, just looked sympathetic. Unlike Mo’s sympathy, it didn’t make Aidan want to fling himself in front of the nearest moving vehicle, so that was something.
“You don’t look surprised in the least.”
Riley shrugged. “I didn’t think he liked you like that. But you likedhimlike that.”
Aidan tried not to tense. “It was that obvious?”
“Maybe not to everyone, but to me? Yeah. Football’s the most important thing in the world to you, Aidan, and you held out in camp for a new contract, and your only fucking requirement was thatheget one too. For you, that’s kind of crazy.”
He’d known it was. Even as he’d done it, even as his agent had repeatedly insisted he was acting insane, he’d felt so desperate and unhinged, he’d stuck to his guns. Until finally, the only person who could’ve talked him off the ledge had done it. Mo had sat him down and gently told him he was going to Vegas. That it was over.
Aidan hadn’t understood then why that had felt like the end of the universe.
Now he knew, but that didn’t make it any easier to swallow today than it had then.
“Didn’t work,” Aidan said, and suddenly he was dangerously close to crying. He hadn’t cried before, three years ago, when he’d wanted to. And not since he’d gotten back from Vegas, because part of him had worried that if he started, he just wouldn’t stop. And he wasn’t that guy. He’d never been that guy.
“No, but you tried. You were brave, putting yourself out there like that. There’s something actually kind of beautiful about that, to be honest. Balls-to-the-wall crazy Flynn behavior.”
Aidan choked out a laugh. “How can it be beautiful if he doesn’t feel like—like I do?”
“Love is always a gift,” Riley said softly, “even if it’s not returned. I think you’ll see that eventually.”
Aidan made a scoffing noise. This feeling, agift? He wanted to return it, receipt be damned. Dropkick it back into the maw of the universe.
“And,” Riley added even more gently, and this time it was him, wrapping an arm around Aidan’s bare shoulders, “I do think he loves you, just not like that. Someday, you’ll feel differently, and you’ll love him again the way he loves you. It’ll be good again.”
Aidan almost said that was similar to what Levi had said.
But he didn’t want Riley to know about Levi. That he knew, or what else had happened with Levi last night.
Because again, whatever Riley knew,Landryknew.
