Aiden felt his throat tighten.
Thomas lifted his gaze then, finally noticing Aiden in the doorway. Their eyes met.
The look Thomas gave him–open, radiant, full of a happiness that didn’t ask permission–nearly took Aiden to his knees.
This, Aiden thought.
This is what it was all for.
Jordan hid his hands under the sleeves of his oversized hoodie, hoping nobody noticed how he picked nervously at his nails. The fabric was soft and worn, the cuffs frayed where he’d worried them too many times to count, a familiar comfort he could disappear into.
They were all gathered in the basement of the Mulvaney house, Matty sat glued to his side as everyone talked over each other, cracking jokes, making sexual innuendos and just being the same messy bunch Jordan remembered from Halloween. Laughter ricocheted off the stone walls, loud and unchecked, a constant hum that made it hard to think.
The only difference was that—unlike Halloween—Jordan didn’t have Cree all to himself.
The room was enormous, with one huge wraparound sofa surrounding a sunken space. Soft lighting glowed from hidden fixtures along the walls, throwing warm shadows that made everything feel both intimate and overwhelming at the same time. Arsen, Ever and Shiloh sat cattycorner onthe sofa to Jordan and Matty. Mal and Nico were on the floor, Nico lying on his back with his head in Mal’s lap, clutching a pillow against his stomach like he just needed something to hold onto.
But the one person Jordan wanted to see, wanted to talk to, was so close, but so far away. The space between Cree’s section of sofa and his might as well have been an ocean. An uncrossable one, patrolled by bodies and noise and circumstance. Levi sat beside Cree, occasionally bumping him to get him to participate in a topic, but for the most part, Cree looked just as…not miserable, exactly, just…resigned. His shoulders were slightly hunched, hands clasped loosely in his lap, gaze drifting rather than engaging.
Jordan didn’t know why he’d thought they’d have alone time with a dozen other people there, but some part of him had hoped that a miracle would occur and they could sneak away. That Cree would stand up, say nothing, and just…leave, like it was the most natural thing in the world to take Jordan with him.
But that hadn’t happened.
Instead, they were forced to pretend that they barely knew each other. Pretend that something hadn’t quietly clicked into place between them. Realistically, they didn’t know each other. Jordan wasn’t delusional. They’d spent one night together. They’d had a handful of text conversations. That didn’t mean they knew each other.
Maybe this was just Jordan’s mania.
Maybe it was just his bizarre need to feel some kind of connection. He didn’t know. He only knew that Creewas never far from his thoughts. Like a low hum under everything else, constant and distracting. He just wanted to be with him. Alone. All the time.
And he couldn’t tell anyone.
Matty was crushing him into the side of the sofa, nudging him accidentally every time he gestured emphatically or laughed a little too hard. Jordan shifted automatically, accommodating without thinking, a habit born from years of making himself smaller, not with Matty but with his family. Back in their old life, Jordan had been the one who had always known just how to twist and bend to make himself more palatable to the masses. Matty had been the introvert, the quiet one with a short fuse.
But here? Here Matty just…fit. He knew when to be loud, when to be quiet, when to crack a joke. The only thing he didn’t know was when to stop. Even now, in their exclusive swanky private school, Matty was hit first, ask questions later. And now he had the full weight of the Mulvaney name to back him up.
Matty was…enigmatic to outsiders like the ones in this room. Something new. Someonenew. And then there was the Lake situation. The one that still hadn’t resolved itself. The others had talked openly about how Lake might show up later, how he’d had to work despite the storm. But Matty didn’t know that Lake was Miguel, his Miguel. The one he never stopped talking about. The night he never stopped talking about. The night he’d sworn he’d hated, but yet just couldn’t seem to let go.
Jericho’s boys were fascinated with him. Maybe becausethey wondered what Lake had seen in him or maybe they were genuinely curious about Aiden's brother as a person. They were inundating him with questions. Matty basked in it, limbs loose, grin easy, answering every question like a celebrity on a press junket. He had everyone’s undivided attention.
All but Cree.
Cree simply sat quietly, listening to the chaos. Every once in a while he’d catch Jordan’s eye and just…look at him. Not fleeting. Not accidental. Like he was checking in, reassuring himself that Jordan was still there. Or maybe Jordan was just imagining that and Cree was wondering why he wouldn’t stop staring at him like a stalker.
It was making him crazy. He’d never itched to touch someone, taste someone, smell them. Yes, he knew that was insane, but he wanted to let Cree climb inside him, fill him up from the inside. He now truly understood what the term sexually frustrated meant even without ever having any. The feeling coiled tight and restless in his chest with nowhere to go. Did everyone feel like this when they liked someone? Cree was hardly Jordan’s first crush but he’d never felt this level of addiction to another person. The longer they stayed apart, the more he itched to close the distance.
He closed his eyes, flopping back on the sofa. The cushions swallowed him up, the noise blurring together as he focused on breathing. On not looking. On not wanting so badly it hurt.
“You good, man?” Matty asked, leaning back into his space. His shoulder bumped Jordan’s, casual and familiar, like he didn’t even register the contact.
“Mm,” Jordan said. “Just…tired.”
“You can go to bed if you want. I don’t mind,” Matty promised. There was no judgment in it. Just easy acceptance.
Jordan’s heart squeezed, eyes falling shut. “I’m okay. Just…overwhelmed a little, I guess.”
“We’re a lot,” Nico crowed from the pit. “We annoy the shit out of each other. I can’t imagine how other people see us.”
“Jordan’s not annoyed,” Matty said, like it was nothing. “He just stays quiet because he thinks he’ll annoy you.”
