Love is for Show

9 - That Field of Lilacs...

Aiden's POV

You'd think a friend would be there for another conflicted friend in need of some serious advice. Yet, here I am staring down said friend as he absolutely loses it at the head of my bed. His face all red and eyes teary as he continuously buckles in his fit of laughter.

"You're hilarious man, I'll give you that!" He leans forward to playfully slap my knee, completely ignoring the glare being thrown his way.

"I asked you to come for some help, dude, not to be laughed at,"

He nods, finally calming down as he wipes his eyes. "I know I know, but like-" he pauses and shifts into a proper seating position again. "Come on, you can't be serious,"

My brows furrow and he continues: "You're telling me you invited the guy who used to be so in love with you, and probably still is from what I can tell, over to the guys' house that you're... messing around with?"

"Messing around with?" I echo.

"I didn't know how else to phrase it, you guys are way past friends, I'll tell you that much,"

We both roll our eyes at each other, a frequent occurrence in our friendship. "What is that supposed to mean?"

He gives me one of those "Seriously?!" looks, making me look down to hide the sudden flush in my cheeks.

"You gush about them all day everyday, you're telling me you guys just hangout as buddies?"

Not really wanting to respond to that, I try to change the topic to my latest commission piece, which miserably fails. — As expected.

"Nah uh, you're not changing the subject," he groans as he gets up, only to plop right back down on my desk chair to stretch out his legs. "Regardless of your relationship with them, you invited Nathan to their place, knowing there's something going on between the three of you, and thought that wouldn't make him very uncomfortable?"

Great. Now I feel like I'm being scolded.

All hint of humor or laughter is completely gone from his tone as he leans his head forward to stare straight at me. Giving me one of those: "Think about your actions." type of expressions.

"I didn't mean to hurt him,"

He arches his brow and I sigh as I fall back onto my bed. He's right. I don't know what we were thinking. I just got so caught up in seeing him again that the idea of him hanging out with Elias and Kalen outside of work attire seemed like a really exciting thing.

Though with the beautiful glasses of hindsight, I'm now seeing how wrong my thought process really was.

Wait—

"Did you just say he was in love with me earlier?!"

He way too nonchalantly nods his head before turning my laptop on to probably play some random game or something. My eyes widen significantly.

"He was not,"

"He was," he mumbles through his hand. His chin resting in his palm as his entire focus seems to be on the screen, not his panicking friend.

"What are you talking about?"

He sighs again, as if I'm the one bothering him. He's the one not giving me any answers.

"And you probably felt something for him too, but just didn't realize it, or refused to acknowledge it," he shrugs and finally turns to me with an expression not even I can decipher.

"W-what?!" I shoot up from my bed and start pacing.

"Nathan!" I cry out and run up to him when I finally spot him sitting on his porch. "I haven't seen you all day,"