“Then don’t complain.” Caleb smirked. He settled on the armchair opposite the couch and set his elbows on his thighs, crossing his hands loosely in the space between his legs. “Are you feeling okay enough that you can tell me what’s going on?”
“Yeah.” Aaron glanced at the white screen-printed droplets on his shoulder. “The dick helped.”
“A good dicking always does.” Caleb changed positions, stretching his arms over his head and leaning back in his chair. He yawned silently, then craned his neck from side to side before offering Aaron his full attention again. “So, you wanna tell me why you interrupted the very good dicking I was about to give? Because I can find it in my heart to forgive you, but only if I have details.”
For a moment, Aaron was silent. He poked and prodded at his thoughts, trying to get them to behave, then decided that it was worthless. “It’s Gage,” he said in a small voice. “I have reason to believe that he’s been cheating on me.”
Caleb laughed, choked on his saliva, and sputtered. He cupped both hands over his mouth, but not even his temporary tracheal distress was enough to curb his amusement. “F-Fuck, Air, you might as well have come in here and told me that you have reason to believe that Gage is actually a dinosaur.” He wiped a tear from his eye and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I know you’re upset, but that’s so absurd that I have a hard time believing it.” Caleb cleared his throat. “So… what’s going on?”
It didn’t surprise Aaron that Caleb didn’t believe him. Anyone in their group of friends would have laughed him off. Aaron wished he could have laughed it off, too. “We were in bed, and he asked me to get his phone.”
“Okay.” Caleb paused. “Gross, but okay. Continue.”
“I went to get it. He was worried because…” Aaron trailed off. He’d checked Gage’s phone because he was worried that Mal was trying to get in touch with them about Bo, but no one knew about Bo just yet. Gage had wanted to wait until Bo had settled into life at the new house and opened up to Aaron before they told anyone else. Caleb didn’t know. “… because there was a message both of us were waiting on, and when his phone buzzed in my hand, I figured it’d be okay if I looked at the preview to see if it was the message we were waiting for.”
“And I take it that it wasn’t.” Caleb stretched, then yawned silently again. He curled his legs beneath him and lounged in the armchair. “Who was it?”
“It was some… someassholewho was saved in Gage’s phone as KnotMyProblem.”
“Oh.” Caleb didn’t sound impressed.
“Knot with a K,” Aaron clarified.
“Oh.Oh.Oh, fuck.” Caleb planted his elbow on the arm of the chair and rested his chin on it, examining Aaron with great curiosity. Intrigue animated his dark eyes. “You said that he was an asshole. How do you know that for sure?”
Aaron frowned. He plucked at the bottom hem of the dick t-shirt. “It was easy to tell from the way he wrote. The preview message basically said that he knew I was back in town, but…”
“But what?” Caleb leaned forward. “I’m not pissed that you cockblocked me anymore, by the way. This is some interesting shit.”
Aaron glared at him, and Caleb shrugged apologetically.
“That’s where the preview ended.”
With a little hum, Caleb lifted a brow. “But since you called him an asshole, that’s not where you stopped reading, I’m assuming. I want to know what else happened. Give me all the dirt.”
Although they were identical twins, Aaron considered himself very different from his brother. Caleb’s sense of humor and attitude toward life was more reminiscent of their omega father, while Aaron’s practical, hardworking nature was more closely aligned with their alpha father. In moments like this, he saw the divide between them more than ever. Most times, Aaron was glad that Caleb didn’t look at life in the same way he did—it helped to keep him balanced when he was knocked off-course. But right now, Caleb’s dismissive and lighthearted attitude wasn’t appreciated. A huge part of Aaron’s identity had been ripped from him, and Caleb was acting like he’d been through something delectably zany that wasn’t all that big a deal.
“This is serious,” Aaron reminded him. “Caleb, I’m in love with Gage.”
“Love comes and goes,” Caleb said casually. “We’re older and—arguably—at a point in our lives where we might want to think about settling down… but Gage is a baby. If he was anyone else but himself, I’d honestly be shocked if he made his way through college without cheating on you.”
Aaron opened his mouth to protest, but he found himself too stunned to speak. Was Caleb even thinking about the words that came out of his mouth, or was he just letting them happen, intent be damned?
If Caleb knew that he’d crossed a line, he didn’t acknowledge it. He continued with his line of thought. “He was eighteen when he started college, right? Gage is… not my type, but I see the appeal. Conventionally, he’s very attractive. Pretty. A cute little kitten that anyone with a knot would want to pin in bed and fuck silly.” Caleb twisted around so his legs were hanging over the arm of the chair. “And then to add to that, when you left to do your… sciencestuff,” Caleb waved his hand, “he’d just moved out of his parents’ house for the first time. All alone in the city, attractive and vulnerable…”
“Stop.” Aaron was a few seconds away from boiling over. Caleb didn’t know what he was talking about—he didn’t know the sacrifices that Gage had made for their future. And he couldn’t know. Not if Bo was going to stay a secret. “It’s not like that.”
“I’m not saying that itislike that. I laughed in your face when you said you had reason to believe that Gage cheated on you, after all.” Caleb waved him off, nowhere near the level of tension that Aaron was. “But I’m saying that it wouldn’t have surprised me if it happened. Or, I guess, that itdidhappen. Tell me why you thought he cheated? What did that message say?”
The memory of it was every bit as draining as experiencing it for the first time had been. Aaron dropped his head, staring at the hardwood floor between his thighs. He angled his feet inward so that the toes of his shoes met at an angle. “The message said that even though I was back in his life, this KnotMyProblem guy would still marry him if that was what Gage wanted. He offered to keep it secret and be discreet about it, so I would never have to find out.”
“Shit.” It was Caleb’s turn to frown. Some of the humor disappeared from his eyes. “That… that’s really strange. Gage doesn’t seem like the type of guy who’d do that. Are you sure you were reading it right?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Aaron had looked back up at his brother to judge his reaction, but he found himself lowering his gaze again, ashamed of what he’d done, even though it had seemed so necessary in the moment. “When I read the message, I replied, and I fought with the guy Gage had been messaging.”
Caleb rubbed his eyes and issued an exasperated sigh. “Fuck, Aaron.”
“I couldn’t let it go,” Aaron stressed. “All I wanted was to come home and have a life with Gage. I was going to propose. I don’t understand how this could have happened, or why he would have hidden something like this from me. All I want is for us to be happy.”
