Dishonoured 🌿 Book 2.5

Indecision

All through dinner, Aidan was distracted and distant. He didn't mean to be, he just kept drifting out of conversations. Between wondering about Milo, why Sam had never talked about him; and the tangible memory of Charlotte's fingers lacing through his own, he had little capacity for socialising. He went through the motions, but frankly, he didn't remember much.

Noah stuck around for a movie, arms crossed tight as he reclined in the armchair. From time to time, he would trace or scratch the waxy scars on his forearms in an absent manner. He caught Aidan staring at one point and shot him a scowl, fist curling tight.

Not long into the movie, Cain paused for a smoke break—now that Aidan knew, Cain made no pretence of hiding his habit. In the silence that followed his absence, they both slipped out their phones. Aidan pulled up his messages with Charlotte to tell her he truly was free and would be by around six. He wanted to give her a little time to unwind after work. In moments, she responded with a GIF of an excited puppy. Aidan laughed before remembering he wasn't alone.

"What?" murmured Noah without looking up.

"Nothing, sorry."

He hummed, and a long pause followed. "So ... did you fix whatever her problem was?"

Aidan glanced over, but his profile was unreadable. "You heard?"

"Duh." He cocked an eyebrow at Aidan.

Aidan sighed; of course he did, damn thin doors. "It was her computer, and no, I have to go back tomorrow to finish. It needs a lot of work."

"Are you two dating yet?"

"What?" Yet?

His unimpressed stare rolled back to Aidan. "Come on, I've seen you two flirt every week since we moved here."

Aidan groaned, cheeks pinkening. Why did he have to be so damn observant all the time?

"No, we're not."

He scoffed. "Well, why the Hell not?"

Aidan gaped, momentarily at a loss for words. "It's complicated."

"Doesn't seem like it," he muttered, returning to his phone.

Flustered, Aidan stared at his unlit phone, grappling at justifications and come-backs without voicing a single one. He sought a subject away from himself.

"Do your scars bother you?"

Noah gave him a long side-eye, fingers tightly fisted in the crook of the opposite arm. His restraint was at its limit as he said, "In what way?"

"Any of them."

"I guess." He shrugged stiffly, staring at the unflattering still on the television. "They are what they are."

He locked his phone and folded his arms again so his hands covered each patch, caching evidence and memories of the life he left behind. As much as they struggled in the beginning to get him through it in one piece, there wasn't any doubt in Aidan's mind that it was, indeed, behind him. He might grief Aidan at any opportunity, but Aidan knew as well as he that he was glad for the creature comforts.

When Cain returned, they had reverted to their natural state, and he went about filling the silence with inane chit-chat as he tended to do when they were like this. To Aidan's surprise, though, Noah joined in the occasional commentary when the film got interesting. As soon as it was over, though, he slipped away for a bath. Cain peered over his shoulder when the tap squeaked on, then to Aidan.

"So, Noah says you were at Charlotte's this afternoon?"

Aidan took a long, slow breath. "Yeah, I was, just to help her with a computer problem."