Crossing lines (Noah and Aiden) novel Chapter 181

Chapter 181

Noah

Aiden’s usually sharp and composed gray eyes were bloodshot, clouded with a heavy sorrow that weighed down his whole expression. “I’ve never been good at resisting temptation,” he confessed quietly. “Just like with this whiskey—I shouldn’t have touched it. It’s an expensive bottle I’ve held onto for years, a kind of reminder to myself about restraint and willpower.”

“Then why open it at all?” The question slipped out before I could stop it, sounding weak and foolish in the tense silence between us.

He let out a dry, almost bitter chuckle. “Why not go all the way?” he said, inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly, his head bowing forward as if the very air was a burden pressing down on him. “Maybe it’s better to be drunk when they come to kick me off campus. Maybe then they’ll just think I was a drunk all along instead of…” His voice faltered and trailed off, swallowed by the quiet.

A sudden heat burned inside my chest. “Instead of what?” I pressed, my voice low but urgent.

He shrugged one shoulder in a silent gesture, fingers pressing into his temples as if trying to hold himself together.

I pushed again, finishing the thought for him. “Better to be seen as a washed-up drunk than as a gay coach, right?” The words escaped before I could soften them, sharper and more cutting than I’d intended.

Then he lifted his head, locking eyes with mine, his gaze pleading. “If this all goes public, everything I buried for you will come to light. The mistakes you made back home, the things I hid for your sake—it’ll all be exposed. Unless…” His voice dropped almost to a whisper. “…unless you’re cast as the victim of someone else’s misconduct. Then no one questions you. They’ll back off, even him. Even if he tries to come after me for extortion.”

“Extortion?” I repeated, caught off guard by the word.

He gave a tired shrug. “I did everything I promised I would. I gave you everything I could. But I also took something I had no right to take. I crossed a line I never should have crossed—”