He’d come out to try and keep everything as normal as fucking possible. Going back to James’ apartment wasn’t an option, not when the whole team expected them to be at the club. Well, they expected James. Aspen was just an add-on. An add-on that did not want to be there.
He’d allowed Cooper to drag James towards the pool table, their truce fragile but surprisingly intact since Ainsley’s intervention that afternoon. Mainly because Aspen had been giving Coop a wide berth, which had the unfortunate side effect of avoiding James as well.
It meant that as he stood by the bar, startlingly sober (if he got drunk and made yet another error, got too familiar or handsy or anything, and caused trouble for James, he’d never forgive himself), the other guy, a stranger, thought it fine to approach him.
Just because he’d had no alcohol, it didn’t meant Aspen didn’t feel detached. The flat feeling was back. The black hole inside of him. His body didn’t belong to him and so when he answered the guy’s questions with monosyllabic answers, he shouldn’t have been surprised when he got tired and made the move instead. There was a soft noise of acknowledgment when the stranger kissed him, and Aspen let himself be kissed. Maybe it would stop the numbness spreading through him, remind him that this was what he was good for.
But the kiss was all wrong. Lips too chapped, hair too long, too blonde. No freckles. Nothing that felt right.
Aspen stood there for a moment longer until the stranger pulled back, raising an eyebrow.
“No?” he asked.
Slowly, Aspen shook his head. He wasn’t sure he even had it in him to be apologetic.
