Page 11 of Perfect Storm
Riley’s expression softened. “Want some more coffee?”
“Yeah, that would be great.”
Riley got up and poured him another full cup and thankfully didn’t say anything else about how weird Aidan probably was this morning. Trust him to notice when he was not just sober, but suffering.
By the time the food was gone and Aidan’s cup was empty, he felt marginally more human again.
“You really okay taking the boat out?” Landry asked, stopping Aidan from rising from the table with a hand on his arm. “If you’re not feeling it, we can go without you—”
“And leave you two lovebirds alone with Levi? I don’t think so.” Aidan snapped back a little meaner than he’d intended. A headache was still teasing at his temples, and there were the hundred knowing looks Levi had sent him during breakfast. And then, worst of all, the empty chasm of his heart after Mo had looked at him, so fucking sympathetic, and turned him down.
Considering all that, it wasn’t really all that surprising how tightly he was wound.
Landry paused. Staring into his eyes. “Aidan,” he said softly. Aidan suddenly worried—abruptly and horribly—maybe he’d recognized Aidan’s sulk after all.
“No, no, sorry. I’m fine. We’ll take the boat.”
Landry let it go, but there was still concern lingering in his eyes as he watched Aidan take the empty plates to the kitchen, piling them up in the sink.
He’d hoped that maybe in the chaos of getting ready to go on the boat he could corner Levi and clarify that he’d been drunk and stupid and desperate last night and it turned out the whole triad was required to agree to insane sex bets with your brother-in-law.
But Riley conscripted Levi to make sandwiches as Riley piled bottles of water and Gatorade and beer into the cooler, and there was no way to get him alone.
Just when Riley finally ducked into the pantry to gather together a few bags of chips—not the best opening in the world, but Aidan was desperate—Landry showed up.
“Hey, let’s get the boat ready to go,” he said.
Aidan stifled his groan of frustration. Maybe once they were on the lake, Riley and Landry would get absorbed in each other again, like they often did, and he could snatch a moment to tell Levi they’d both been drunk and dumb last night.
“Sure,” Aidan said, plastering the same smile on—the one that hadn’t fooled Levi—and followed Landry down to the attached boat dock.
He checked the supplies in the boat while Landry blew up a few inner tubes with the air compressor and tossed them in.
They’d just finished up when Levi and Riley appeared, carting what seemed like half a grocery store between them, their arms overflowing with towels, reusable bags, and the gigantic cooler.
“Did I miss the apocalypse?” Landry joked.
Riley glared, but likefondly. Aidan grimaced.
“No,” Riley said. “We neededsupplies.”
“Apparently,” Landry said, but didn’t hesitate to take the bags from his boyfriend’s arms and help him onto the boat, eventhough Riley was an NFL quarterback and could figure out how to get from a dock to the boat.
Levi and Aidan exchanged a glance about this whole performance. They’d been doing this for years now, since Landry and Riley had started dating. It felt very normal. Routine, in fact. It had always been easy to give their brothers shit about how pathetically gone they were for each other. But there was a new layer to these looks he shared with Levi now.
A knowing that Aidan couldn’t forget.
He wished he’d never touched Levi’s thigh.
He wished he’d never told Mo how he felt.
He wished he’d never fallen for Mo in the first place.
Honestly, a lot of wishes that were never going to fucking come true, so he might as well resign himself.
“Come on,” Aidan said, pulling the brim of his hat down, trying to shade his eyes more. “Let’s go.”
It was his house and his boat, so he always drove, even though Landry made lots of noise about wanting to take a turn. Aidan let himoccasionally, and only when he wanted to take his turn on the wakeboard.
