I nodded, blowing out a breath. “Anyway,” I muttered. I didn’t like discussing my affinities around Rafe and especially Wyatt, it made me feel inferior. They both understood their affinities so well, and I was like a kid trying to play catch up.
“Whatever it is, you’ll get a handle on it soon.” Wyatt went on, ignoring my discomfort. “I’ve never heard of anything like it. It’s exceptional.”
I blinked.
Then blinked again.
Because there was no wayWyattwas fucking complimenting me.
Wyatt cringed. “Is my complimenting you really that hard to believe?”
“Yes,” I replied, slightly horrified he could read my expression so well.
Wyatt groaned softly. “I’m sorry, Aiden. I wasn’t intentionally hurting you. I mean, itwasmalicious because I was only thinking of myself, but…”
I nodded, because that made sense.
“Skye and I are figuring ourselves out, and…” Wyatt’s cheeks turned pink and I snickered. “What?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” I said lightly. “She’s just told me all about your…figuring things out.” Wyatt’s cheeks turned even pinker, and I full on laughed. “You’re such an ass for making fun of my sex life when you like getting slapped around.”
Wyatt pinched the bridge of his nose. “I deserve that,” he said, his voice a little shaky.
“No, you don’t,” I said. “I won’t make anymore comments as long as you don’t either. I don’t hate you, Wyatt. Skye wants you around, so this has to work.”
“I know,” Wyatt said shakily. “I’ll work on it.”
“Good,” I replied. “She needs us right now. All that bullshit we just learned…it’s going to hit her hard. She can’t deal with us fighting on top of it.”
“Right,” he whispered, his eyes darting around the kitchen.
“Another thing,” I said, and he cringed slightly. “You’re the counselor. We need you to help us navigate this. I’m not about to see your ex-whatever–”
“Speaking of my ex-whatever,” Wyatt said, his tone hardening. “I need you to clear that up with Skye. I was not meeting up with her the way you made it seem.”
I rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly. “I know,” I said carefully. “I thought it’d be funny, but it only ended up hurting her. I’ll fix it.”
Wyatt nodded. “I need to ask you not to bring Carissa up again, either. She and I have been done for a long time, she just won’t let go.That day in the Gulf, she looked up my location and found me. I’d forgotten to turn it off.”
I snorted, then chuckled, then started to laugh. That was so, so stupid. Wyatt’s cheeks turned pink again, and he chuckled nervously, then began to laugh along with me.
After several seconds of laughter, he came into the kitchen, then stared at me while messing with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
“I am sorry, Aiden. I’m a jealous man, and I don’t think that’ll change.”
“I can’t blame you for that,” I replied, because I couldn’t. My allowing Skye to find happiness elsewhere was directly linked to how much I loved her. Jealousy was selfish. I only wanted her to be happy.
“I can find patience for you,” Wyatt went on. “If you can find patience for me, too, I think we can do this. We need to give each other grace.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Okay,Ineed to allow everyone else more grace.”
“Sounds good, Wy. Pack a bag and pick a room, Skye’s going to want you here, now.” I said before stalking into our pantry that was the size of Skye’s bedroom back home. I grimaced at her weird shrimp chips that never seemed to disappear even though she ate them constantly, and I shuffled around, looking for some crackers.
“Aiden,” Wyatt said. I glanced over my shoulder to find him looming in the doorway to the pantry. I raised my eyebrows. “Rafe just told me we need to make ourselves scarce, he’s going to cheer up Skye.”
“Sure,” I said, waving a hand.
“Aiden,” Wyatt said again. I glanced at him again, and he was chewing his lip while shifting from one foot to the other. “Can uh…can we play that video game again? The car one?”
I grinned, then swiped a bag of chips. “Hell yeah, we can.”
