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“Where’s Patrick?”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to close the door, but he was coming in. He’d been running, if the sweat dripping off him was any indication.
“Babe, what’s going on?”
“I have no idea, but they need us together.”
Patrick kissed me, then took my hand to lead us into the family room. Adam and the guys had drifted out to join us.
“Can we sit down?” Aidan asked, looking nervous.
My hackles went up because Aidan Hayes-Monroe did not get nervous.
“Sure.”
When everyone was seated, he turned to Patrick and me.
“One of the things I do as your agent is keep an eye on social media. I got a Google alert about a photo.”
I looked at Patrick, who looked unaffected.
“Okay. What about it?”
Aidan looked from me to Patrick. “It was of the two of you. In Canada.”
I looked at Patrick, who was still relaxed. “Okay. What was it? Can you show it to me?”
“Yes,” he sighed as he pulled his phone from his pocket. “I tried to get it taken down, but the girl who’d taken the photo had already posted it all over every social media known to man.”
I took the phone and looked at it. Patrick was still oddly calm as we looked at a picture of the two of us leaning toward one another over a table in the little Italian restaurant where we’d eaten dinner.
“They identified both of you. And I couldn’t stop it. It wasn’t like last time–”
Patrick smiled at me. “Do you remember? The disappearing photo that brought us here.”
I nodded and bit my lip.
He turned to Aidan and handed it back to him. “It’s cool, man. We knew we were taking a chance, but it’s okay. It won’t be around long.”
Aidan looked at me, then at Jesse, then back to Patrick. “You know what this looks like.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It looks like my biggest nightmare before I figured out what the real nightmare would be. I appreciate the concern, but it’s fine. We’re fine.”
Patrick took my hand. “Right, babe?”
The smile on my face almost hurt. “Yeah, we’re more than fine.”
Aidan sighed and visibly relaxed. “I was really worried. And when I couldn’t–”
Patrick held up his hand. “Maybe our photo will do for someone else what Alex and Christian did for us.”
“You saw it? I had it taken down.”
I laughed. “We saw it for five seconds before it disappeared.”
“And it gave this closeted athlete hope for a better life, Aidan. That little picture on Twitter, when it was still Twitter, eventually brought us to Portland. I just pray our photo will help another couple know it’s okay to love whoever you want.”
Aidan rubbed his forehead, then laughed. “Holy fuck. That photo broke them up for a while, but that’s another story.”
