Tyler nods, knowingly. “Hopefully, it calms down soon. We like having you at these.” He gives me a grin that looks genuine, though I’m not the best judge of those things. Tyler’s probably the biggest enigma in the group. I can’t get a good read on him. At least not in a meaningful way.
“You’re all great. I’m not really sure I fit in, though.” I wave in the general direction of the group. They’re engaged in a heated discussion about which teams will make the playoffs this year. They’ve tossed around a lot of names. A few I even recognize.
“Because you don’t know about sports?” I nod. “Fuck that. I don’t know what they’re talking about, either. Eventually, they’llwear themselves out on the topic and go back to more sane discussions.”
I’m not so sure about that. Thanks to my family, I’ve gotten good at figuring out when people are winding up for a long debate. For all I know, this will be the rest of the day. I don’t say any of that; instead, I smile at Tyler. It must satisfy him as he turns and heads back to join the group.
Following after him, I retake my seat on one of the lawn chairs, handing a beer over to Aaron. Even sitting next to him, a foot of space between us, I feel more settled. He leans over, turning his head so the others can’t see his mouth. “Thanks. I’ll make this up to you later.”
There’s a hint of something in his voice that makes my cheeks heat. God, I’ve been hoping we’d end up at my place tonight, naked and wound around each other. It’s not a given on days like this, but I’m desperate to keep making progress on my checklist of things I want to do with Aaron.
Secret checklist, of course.
“Yeah?” I whisper back.
“We’ll leave soon,” Aaron promises. I hope he’s serious. This conversation isn’t dying down anytime soon, and watching Tyler snuggle up on Graham’s lap while Nathan and Colt shoot each other lustful looks is tearing me apart. Not because I’m not happy for them—I am—but because I’m dying to touch Aaron in public. Not even something like kissing him, but being allowed to hold his hand or to run my hand along the edge of his face.
I don’t even know how Aaron feels about PDA. I know we can’t because of the whole sleeping together in secret thing, but what about if we weren’t? Would he let me steal kisses between stories? It’s easy to let my mind wander away from whatever the guys are talking about to a vision of that. It can’t go too far because hiding an erection from his friends sounds like a nightmare.
“Oliver?” Aaron looks down at me, and I shake off my daze. “Did you want to head out with me?” He stresses the last syllable, as if I need any help figuring out what he’s been hinting at.
AARON
Oliver is a million miles away on the walk to my car. I stop myself from inquiring several times, wanting to make sure we’re away from my nosey friends. They have a habit of popping up at the least expected times. Something tells me that I’m at least part of Oliver’s problem, and I’d rather hear about it where my friends aren’t privy to our details.
Especially since they don’t know that Oliver and I have been sleeping together.
I hate that term. I’ve been rolling a bunch of options around in my mind for the past week, trying to figure out what to call us. So far, every option has been worse than the last.
Friends-with-benefits? Weird, and sounds like I’m using him for money or something.
That leaves the crass options of things like fuck buddy. I even asked the internet, but it only suggested options likepleasure pal.
Gross. There’s no way I’m calling anyone that—ever—but especially not Oliver. He’s far too sweet and means too much to me to turn our relationship into something like that.
I’m pretty sure that means I have deeper feelings for him, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do about those. We’re not even in an actual relationship, and I’m still screwing it up.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask once we’re safely in my car. Oliver’s leg is bouncing up and down so much I’m surprised the whole car isn’t shaking.
“Not really.”
I don’t have a good answer to that, so I put the car in drive. Maybe once we get closer to his place, Oliver will be ready to open up. Things between us have been… fine. Mostly. We’ve stuck to our usual arrangement, but I’m not so clueless as not to notice the slight shifts in Oliver’s mood. Each week, after I pick my clothes up off his bedroom floor and kiss him goodbye, it’s a full two or three days until his messages return to normal. I still get the ones that mark his training for the day as complete, but they don’t include any of the silliness I’ve come to expect from him. At first, I thought I was imagining things, but the pattern continued.
“Did Tyler say something to you?” I saw them over on the porch, deep in conversation. It was impossible to interrupt without it coming off as weird and clingy, so I left them alone. I know that’s not it, but I’m desperate for the answer to be anything but me.
“No.” He sighs and shifts in his seat. “What exactly are we?”
“Um… what do you want us to be?” It’s an apparent deflection on my part. “Wait, I’m sorry. That was a shitty answer.” I spot a park at the end of the road and pull into the lot. It’ll be much safer if we do this when I’m not driving. “Okay, that’s better.” I pull the emergency brake and take off my seat belt so I can face him. “Now we can have a real conversation.”
Oliver mumbles something that I can’t quite make-out. Given the expression on his face, that’s probably for the best.
“I don’t have a good answer for you, honestly. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. What we are to each other.”
“And?”
I take a deep breath, not sure how this is going to go. “I haven’t come up with anything good.” His face drops, the ghost of a smile that had been there wiped away entirely. I hate that I’m hurting him in this, that I can’t come up with something that’s the least bit useful to say to fix things. “Hey, that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying. It’s not you…”
“It’s me,” Oliver says sarcastically. I have to pause for a second to decipher his face, unsure if he’s finishing my sentence or trying to take on the blame.
