“God no! If anything, I’m more worried about you two.” He looked between us. “He’s going to eat you alive.”
“Maybe it’s him you should be giving the speech to.”
“I might have to. But you’re all consenting adults. It’s not really any of my business what you do.”
“What does Jonny think?” Bailey asked, sipping his glass of orange juice. The look he shot across the table told me we were thinking the same thing; as nice as it was to have Devon onside, Jonny was the overprotective one.
“Right now Jonny is choosing to live in ignorance. I did tell him back in June I thought something was going on, but he’s convinced it’s only a casual thing. I don’t think he knows it’s still happening.” Devon smiled softly, leaning his forearms on the table with his hands together. “He only wants what’s best for Aiden, always has. I don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t do for him.” He shook his head, as if he had revealed too much. Then he laughed quietly. “Don’t worry about Jonny. If he has a problem, Aiden will let him know where he stands. It might not be pretty, but Aiden’s never liked being told what to do. And he hates Jonny sticking his nose into things.”
“Yeah, I got that impression,” Bailey said. “Pretty sure my brother feels the same about me. But I’m still gonna do it.”
“You wouldn’t do it to Rachel,” I said, pulling a face as I thought about how Bailey’s sister would react to his meddling.
“I might. But only if she was away for work. Otherwise, she’d yell at me.”
“There you go.”
My screen flashed and I immediately glanced down to see three new messages from Aiden. I unlocked the screen and opened the messages, angling my phone slightly so Bailey could see them. One of them was a picture of Aiden’s kitchen with large puddles of water all over the linoleum floor.
Aiden
RIP my kitchen. They’ve drained most of the water and apparently stopped the pipe for now so we’re surveying the damage. It’s a fucking mess. Doesn’t look like any sewage leaked, which is something. It just fucking stinks. And we have no water because they’ve had to shut it all off. Fuck my life
Aiden
Now I get the joy of calling my insurance and explaining this shit to them. And I have to figure out refunds for my orders and all that shit. Bacon said I could use the pub kitchen to make them but I have no fucking ingredients or packaging. This is a fucking nightmare
“Not good?” Devon asked, watching us but making no attempt to read my screen.
I shook my head. “Nope. Kitchen’s a shitshow, they’ve got no water, and I’m pretty sure everything is ruined. Although, it doesn’t look like any sewage leaked, which I suppose is something, but it doesn’t change the fact that the whole thing’s a mess.” I groaned and scrubbed my face as frustration sat heavilyon my shoulders, tightening my muscles and making anger bubble under my skin. I hated that we were stuck here, unable to do anything but sit and wait for updates.
We had no reason to be there. We were nothing more than Aiden’s hookups. But I still wanted to be there with him, doing whatever I could to make his life easier. And I knew Bailey felt the same.
“This is bollocks,” Bailey said with a low growl of frustration.
“It is, but it’ll be okay,” Devon said. “We won’t let Aiden struggle. And if it’s that bad, I’m sure Jonny will suggest he comes to stay for a few days for some emotional support.”
“Really?” I asked.
Devon shrugged. “He might. Especially if I suggest it. I don’t know if Aiden’ll take him up on it, but maybe you two can persuade him.” He stood up and smiled at both of us. “He won’t ask for help or support, but that doesn’t mean you can’t offer it. And considering how worried you two are, I think that’s something you’re going to do.”
It wasn’t a direct accusation of us being more to each other than we let on, more like a casual suggestion that we stop pretending because we weren’t fooling him.
“We’re just… we’re not…” Bailey said, struggling to find the words to voice what the two of us were thinking. “There’s nothing serious going on.”
“If you say so,” Devon said. He clearly wasn’t convinced. He turned away and walked back to his original table, leaving Bailey and me stewing in our seats.
I looked at Bailey as he stabbed a piece of strawberry with his fork, glowering at the table like he was trying to melt a hole in the plastic surface. “He doesn’t believe us.”
“Of course not,” Bailey said.
“But there isn’t anything going on… is there?” We’d fucked a few times, sexted a lot, sent random messages about our days,sent pictures of silly shit we’d seen. And nice things too. Shirtless pics. Dick pics. Voice notes and videos, with everything from bad jokes to Aiden telling us how he wanted to get off.
Then there was last night. The way I’d leant on him when Bailey was crumbling and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to make him listen to me. He’d taken care of us. Checked in throughout the evening to make sure we were doing okay.
He didn’t have to do that. And from what Devon had said, it sounded like a rare and beautiful thing. If Aiden was as closed off as he’d said, then Aiden should have run screaming when I begged for help, told me he was busy and couldn’t help or to find someone else.
But he hadn’t.
