Fuck, they’re making this hard. “No, he didn’t. Actually, we’ve been dating, or sort of dating, for a while now.”
“When did it start?” Matthias asks, sitting back in the booth.
I lock eyes with Nathan. “You remember the night you saw Colt here with Oliver?” Nathan’s eyes go wide. Yeah, so he remembers. “I hung out at the bar with him for a while and then… well, we went back to his place.”
“Aaron—”
“I know, it wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t mean to; it just happened.”
“Aaron, that was almost a year ago.”
“I know.” If I could, I would crawl under the table right now. “It was supposed to be one night.”
“How’d that work out for you?” Tyler nudges my shoulder.
Fuck. It worked out to be so close to perfect. Well, that might be an overstatement. It worked out. Mostly. “We were just friends for a little while, but then things spiraled from there.” I’m not giving them details.
“How long have you been actually dating?”
I grimace at Nathan’s question. “I don’t know exactly. Three months?”
“Three months. Three months.” Nathan repeats his sentence.
“Why would you hide that from us?” Matthias asks. “You know we like Oliver.”
“I don’t… I was afraid you’d be upset.” I look up into Nathan’s eyes, expecting to see anger. Instead, all I see is compassion.
“Look, if you’d told me right after he went out with Colt, I probably would’ve been mad. But now? I like Oliver. He’s a nice guy, and I think of him as a friend. I want you both to be happy.”
“I love him,” I confess. Saying it out loud to the people I care most about in the world feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I’d be elated if I had Oliver here, too.
“So, then what’s the problem?” Tyler pulls his leg up so he can face me.
“I screwed up. We were supposed to tell you together last weekend, when we were all at Matthias’s.”
“But then the airport fire broke out,” Matthias finishes the thought for me. “Shit, that’s why Oliver was upset.”
“He was upset?” I knew he was, realistically. I talked to him on the phone and could hear his pain in the silences.
“Yeah, when he came back from talking to you. He covered it up well, but then he left early.”
“Shit. That’s when he went home. He’s been staying with his sister this week, so I haven’t been able to see him.” He’s supposed to come back tomorrow. I’m tempted to camp outside his building waiting for him to return. That’s probably bordering on stalking. It definitely isn’t giving him space.
I don’t want him—or me—to have space. If I could, I’d make sure we saw each other every day. With our schedules, it can be hard, but it’s doable if we work at it. Even if the only time we had together was on a short run, it’d still be something.
Then an idea starts to form in my mind. It’s a little rough around the edges, but it’s workable. With help.
“Guys, I need to make it up to him.” They all nod their heads enthusiastically. “I need a bit of help from all of you and your partners to make it work.”
“Whatever you need,” Matthias says. “We’re so happy for you. And Oliver.”
“Good. I’ve got a plan.”
CHAPTER 25
OLIVER
This is nowhere near the stupidest thing I’ve done. Unfortunately, that list is so long and storied that it’s unlikely anything I do at this point will even make the highlights. Maybe I should start a new one for stupid shit I do now that I’m over thirty. It might not be as interesting, but it would be filled with bad choices that I can’t defend with youthful ignorance.
