“I—” Thomas started, looking comically offended.
Aiden chuckled, grabbing Thomas’s forearm. “Come on. Let’s go downstairs before you piss off your only friend.”
Thomas gave him a huffy look. “I have other friends.”
“Do you?” Aiden asked, tilting his head.
“Doyou?” Thomas asked, tone mocking.
Aiden really didn’t. He didn’t trust people. He hadn’t really trusted Lola when they’d met but then, somewhere along the way, she’d just sort of snuck in. He didn’t know when it happened. Maybe it was all those nights she spent listening to him drunkenly whine about Thomas. She’d more than proven herself as a friend. Aiden wasn’t sure she would say the same of him, but he hoped so.
“Just Lola. And you only have Calliope. So, be nice.” Aiden bumped their shoulders together, tone teasing as he said, “You just got laid, you should be relaxed.”
“I am relaxed,” Thomas muttered as Aiden opened the door to the war room.
Team A were exactly as Cricket said, hunched over paperwork strewn over the conference table. August was still scanning the papers in the thick manila envelope, and Lucas was running his hands over the papers, reading as much as he was trying to get impressions. Asa and Avi sat on the table, passing papers between them, Mac and Archer sat in chairs segregated from the others, using their phones to look up whatever information was on the notes in front of them, while Jericho and Atticus studied what looked like autopsy photos.
They all looked up from their tasks upon his and Thomas’s entrance. “Took you two long enough,” August said.
“Car trouble,” Aiden muttered.
Asa snorted. “Yeah, those brand new luxury vehicles can be tricky.”
“Where’s Calliope?” Atticus asked, looking behind them like she might be hiding.
“Upstairs drinking with Cricket and Lola,” Aiden answered.
Lucas glanced up sharply. “Cricket’s drinking?”
Aiden frowned. “No, she’s watching them drink.”
“Why do you care if Cricket is drinking? She’s your baby mama not your daughter,” Jericho said.
“Because she’s pregnant,” August said, not looking up from his task. “Alcohol increases the risk of birth defects, developmental delays, low birth weight, miscarriage, and even stillbirth.”
Aiden’s eyes went wide. He glanced at Thomas, who started to smile. God, this man really loved babies. Did that mean he actually wanted babies of his own? Would that be weird? They were both much older than most new parents. Also, their grandkids would be older than their aunts and uncles. That would be bizarre. But the idea of a baby with Thomas’s blue eyes made Aiden a little breathless. Christ, he was so far gone.
“You could have just stopped with she’s pregnant, babe,” Lucas said, still running his hands over pages in the file.
“Congrats,” Mac said before returning to his phone.
“Yeah,mazel tovand all that,” Archer agreed, raising his water bottle in a mock salute.
It would never not be weird to Aiden to see a sober-acting Archer. After years of finding him sleeping in bathtubs and alleyways, it was damn near impossible to believe it was all fake. In the news, they spun it as him sobering up for the love of his life, which to an extent was the truth. He hadn’t sobered up, but he had stopped living a double life. Working at that school provided enough plausible deniability to keep their more unseemly activities at bay.
“You guys are havinganotherbaby?” Avi asked. “Why didn’t we know that?”
August finally looked up, frowning. “Are we supposed to tell you whenever we’re attempting to conceive a child?”
“No but you could tell us when you’ve managed to do it,” Atticus said stiffly. “Don’t you think there are enough kids running around?”
Lucas gave Atticus a superior look. “You don’t get to talk. You have six children.”
“Mine are all old enough to drink,” Atticus said, earning a surprised look from his husband. When Atticus noticed, he said, “What?”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you acknowledge that they’re your kids as much as mine.”
“I mean, technically, they’re neither of yours,” Avi said.
