here and distracted him. We’d talked. We’d cuddled.
I sighed and gazed down at him as he slept peacefully on my shoulder.
Nothing we’d done had pushed the envelope of what the three of us had agreed on in the future. If I told Aaron everything that had happened today—and I would—I had no doubt he’d be fully okay with everything I’d done to help Kelly through.
So why did I feel so guilty about it?
Twenty-Five
Aaron
“There’s always that French dude at the—”
One of Tom’s stress balls flew past my head, narrowly missing my temple and bouncing into the hallway behind me. “Shut up.”
“Come on, dude.” I picked up the ball and underhand tossed it back to his desk, where he was sitting while I stood in the doorway. “It can’t be any more disastrous than all these other fucktrumpets you keep connecting with.”
He glared at me. “That’s a low bar, don’t you think?”
“Okay, yeah.” I folded my arms loosely and pressed my shoulder into the door frame. “But Max is a nice guy. Will likes him.”
“Will liked Julian too,” Tom muttered.
“To be fair, everyone liked Julian, because Julian was a narcissist who made sure everyone liked him.” I inclined my head. “You weren’t the only one who was duped by that asshole.”
Muttering something I didn’t catch, Tom squeezed and released the stress ball, which could have meant he was using it for its intended purpose or that he was getting ready to pitch it at my skull again.
I sighed. “I’m just saying. Talk to him. With all these losers you keep meeting, you’re due for a win.”
He laughed bitterly. “Uh-huh. Because that’s how this works.” He let the stress ball roll across his desk beside his keyboard, and he watched as it came to a stop between his phone and a cup of pens. Sitting back in his chair, he laced his fingers behind his head and exhaled. “I think I’m just going to give it a rest for a while. I’m so sick of guys like Julian and Greg.” He spat the second name—the guy he’d met last night whose only redeeming feature was being such an asshole from the start, Tom hadn’t had to worry about getting in bed with him or getting involved with him before realizing who he really was.
I took a breath to say something, but Tom’s cell phone buzzed on his desk. He snatched it up and groaned. “Christ. Again?”
I arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t this like the fourth time he’s called just since I’ve been standing here?”
“Yep.” Tom emphatically declined the call and slammed his phone down. Pressing his elbows into the desk, he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Oh my God, why do men suuuck?”
I grimaced sympathetically. Now was not the time to gently remind him that perhaps men weren’t the problem so much as his taste in them. Because God Almighty, for as intelligent as Tom was, he had the worst taste in men. He was convinced it was a curse or bad luck or something, but from the profiles and text exchanges he’d shown me, he just seemed to gravitate toward men who were exactly everything he should avoid.
Take Greg, for example. The incessant calling was frustrating Tom, but it hadn’t really surprised me. The minute they’d started communicating, Tom had gotten into this habit of instantly snatching up his phone and returning texts. It had kind of annoyed me since he wasn’t usually the type to text when we were having lunch or hanging out, but I started getting concerned a few days ago when I’d heard him apologizing profusely to someone on the phone.
“I’m sorry,” he’d been saying as I’d passed by his open office door. “No, I wasn’t blowing you off. I swear, I wasn’t. This meeting ran later than I expected, and I can’t text while I’m meeting with a client. I—no, seriously, I was with a client.”
At least Tom had gotten the message once they’d met face-to-face and Greg’s insistence on being the center of attention had been impossible to avoid.
Now if Greg would get the message…
I stepped into Tom’s office. “Hey, does this guy know who you are? Like that you’re a lawyer and all?”
“Pfft.” Tom made a face. “Are you kidding? He lives like four towns over and doesn’t even know my last name.” He shoved his phone away with a disgusted look. “He knows almost nothing about me except my first name and that I’m into kink. After some of the guys